The Scathing Atheist - 539: Data Over Dogma Edition

Episode Date: June 15, 2023

In this week’s episode, we’ll speak ill of the dead; the Los Angeles Dodgers celebrate "medium tepid pride month" so as not to persecute Christianity; and we’ll talk to the guys from Data Over Dogma, because any time you put something over dogma, you’re on the right track. --- To make a per episode donation at Patreon.com, click here: http://www.patreon.com/ScathingAtheist To buy our book, click here: https://www.amazon.com/Outbreak-Crisis-Religion-Ruined-Pandemic/dp/B08L2HSVS8/ If you see a news story you think we might be interested in, you can send it here: [e-mail] 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: Check out Data Over Dogma here: https://open.spotify.com/show/1KKyNZlSapgVppDT2jrCBl Check Dan out on TikTok here: https://www.tiktok.com/@maklelan?lang=en --- Headlines: Pat Robertson is dead: https://friendlyatheist.substack.com/p/what-we-can-learn-from-the-disgraceful Pope Benedict's heirs do NOT want the inheritance money: https://religionnews.com/2023/06/09/pope-benedict-xvis-cousins-stand-to-inherit-his-money-none-of-them-want-it/ The L.A. Dodgers never should've caved when honoring the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence: https://friendlyatheist.substack.com/p/the-la-dodgers-never-shouldve-caved Ohio landlord demands tenants remove Pride flags: https://www.yahoo.com/news/citing-catholic-faith-fairfield-county-100116495.html Fox News host says environmentalism is stupid because the afterlife is real: https://www.thedailybeast.com/fox-news-rachel-campos-duffy-why-save-earth-when-afterlife-is-real --- This Week in Misogyny: Woman in UK jailed for taking abortion pill too late: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-65886472 Southern Baptist Convention moves to oust churches with female pastors: https://apnews.com/article/southern-baptist-convention-women-pastors-church-appeals-7c2d7f248b2156721616387d77528cb5

Warning, the following podcast contains tears of the kingdom references. We told you they kept coming earlier. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by MySheetsRock, HelloFresh, and by Piat Brand Inflatable Lawyers. Are you facing a 37 count indictment but no real lawyer was within 300 feet of you? Well, try out the next best thing, Piat Brand Inflatable Lawyers. At the very least, they can't be subpoenaed to testify against you. And now, The Skating Atheist.

Hello, my name is Bruce Robinson. I am a third-year law student at Wake Forest University School of Law. And I can tell you, after listening to my business law professor defend Henry Ford's connections to Adolf Hitler for a 30-minute class that we did in fact evolve from filthy monkey people. It's Thursday. It's June 15th. And it's National Megalodon Day. Fuck yeah.

What? Celebrate by asking creationists what happened to the Megalodon and then drink every time they say they died in the flood. I have no illusions. I'm Ethan Wright. And from Ann Arbor, Michigan and Waycross, Georgia, this is The Scathing Atheist. On this week's episode, we'll speak ill of the dead. We'll enjoy it. The Los Angeles Dodgers celebrate medium tepid pride month so as not to persecute Christianity.

And we'll talk to the guys from Data Over Dogma because anytime you put something over dogma, you're on the right track. But first, the diatribe. I have this personal policy where if I'm writing a response to a Facebook argument and I have to say to myself and another thing more than twice, I stop and I ask myself, hey man, is this a diatribe? And in this case, the answer is yes. So first let me summarize the Facebook argument that I was wading into. The question at hand was whether there's such a thing as a harmless, irrational belief. And I feel like you already know which side of this debate I'm going to fall on, but there's a person on the thread that identifies as a deist, and appropriately enough, they're on the side of irrationality. See, by their argument,

a belief doesn't become bad simply by being irrational. The belief has to reliably lead people to harmful behavior before you can actually take issue with it. And of course, implicit in the argument is the idea that being irrational doesn't count as harmful. Now, this assertion gets a bit of pushback from a person who says flatly that all irrational beliefs are harmful. It's a private group, so I don't want to attribute the quote, but I'm going to read a piece of the response to that verbatim, the deist response in part, quote, I really don't think all irrational belief is harmful. The belief that seeing a shooting star brings good luck is absolutely harmless, for example. If you imply that irrational belief always leads to harmful

thoughts or behaviors, that's a slippery slope argument, end quote. So first of all, quick correction on the logical fallacy there. That's not what a slippery slope argument, end quote. So first of all, quick correction on the logical fallacy there. That's not what a slippery slope argument is. A slippery slope argument is A could lead to B and B is bad, therefore A is bad. But if A will lead to B and B is bad, then you're talking about a consequence, not a slippery slope. What's more, slippery slope is an informal logical fallacy, meaning it's not evidence that the person using it is wrong. Appeal to authority is an informal logical fallacy, but also the correct way of thinking most of the time, right? But that's a minor point, certainly not worth its own diatribe.

The larger issue is with the example of a benign irrational belief that this person chose. See, the only reason that one can even make the assertion that believing a shooting star brings good luck isn't bad is because nobody actually believes that. If you spent a few minutes just contemplating a world where that's not just like a fun little superstition that we all play along with, but an actual belief, like a religious belief, it's terrifying. I mean, consider this. Consider what you would have to do if you actually thought that seeing a meteor enter the atmosphere had some material effect on your fortune. I mean, I feel like at the very least, you'd be sleep deprived and have a permanently stiff neck, right? any noticeable amount, you'd be crazy not to move to a dark sky area, drive around to a clear area every evening, and then spend all night staring up into the sky, no? Hell, assuming shit like having a healthy kid and mom recovering from her hip surgery are under the purview of your luck, you'd have a moral obligation to do that. And one way or the other, you'd have a moral obligation

to convince mom and your kid to do it, right? And what of all the various things that you'd be neglecting that actually could improve your situation in life, right? No belief can exist without sacrifice. And what about the false confidence you might have after the Leonids? False beliefs necessarily lead to uninformed actions after all. And even if you could rein in all the potential excesses of such an unjustified belief, what about all the people more inclined to take it too far that you'd be encouraging with your endorsement? But none of that touches on the real problem here, which is that no belief exists in a vacuum. For you to believe that a meteor gives you good luck, you have to believe in luck. Not just in terms of fortunate happenstance,

but like luck is a quantifiable thing that a person can gain more of. So what is luck physically? How do meteoroids get it? How do they pass it to you? Where is it stored? How is it cashed in? Who cashes it in? What other irrational beliefs must we now construct to support this one? And keep in mind that the only real way to avoid building this intricate trustwork of irrationality is to cordon off this area to inquiry, to refuse to allow ourselves to think critically about it at all. And if we do that, of course, we've lost the ability to even assess whether or not the belief has become harmful. And of course, we also have to examine how we got there, right? You weren't born

believing that shooting stars were good luck. That's a piece of information that was given to you along the way. And in this hypothetical, it's one that you accepted. How? What process did you use to examine this assertion before adopting a belief in it? Now, honestly, I don't know what that would be, but the one thing I can say about it with certainty is that it's faulty. You're measuring the veracity of the information around you with a broken gauge. How can we say with any confidence that nothing more harmful is going to find its way in along that same path? Now, of course, we're never called upon to debunk shooting star belief, right? Because that's not a belief that people have.

And debunking that wouldn't be worth a diatribe. But that's not really the irrational belief at the heart of this debate at all, is it? The irrational belief that we're talking about by proxy is deism. And in a sense, that's just another example of an argument disproving itself by existing, right? Sure, deism is amongst the least harmful forms of religious belief, but that's only because it makes no real claims. It defines God down to nothing and then emphatically insists that somehow that nothing exists. But even that non-assertion clearly includes a risk of harm. It could stifle curiosity, right?

It could fool you into thinking a question had been answered when it wasn't and thereby rob you of an opportunity for discovery. It could inspire and support another person on their way to a much less justified belief and at the very least it could leave you feeling the need to defend the concept of having irrational beliefs on facebook joining me for headlines tonight is the wine to my cheese, Heath Enright. Heath, are you ready to fight over who gets to be the cheese again? Daydreaming. Nope, I guess not. What?

So while I make Heath some coffee, we're going to take a break for a word from this week's first sponsor, MySheetsRock. Touch your face. Oh, this is just my new watch. What? It's my new watch. I'm a watch guy now, I think. No, I can see that it's a watch. I said, what?

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slash scathing and enter our code scathing for 10% off and free shipping. That's MySheetsRock.com slash scathing, code scathing. Sounds great. I'm in. All right, so you want me to help you get rid of that giant cookie rack? No, no, I'm all good. I'll just, I'll get it myself.

No problem, I can carry it down and put it in the recycling. I said I'll get it myself. You're going to make a giant cookie? Yes. And? Okay, we're done. We're done. And now, back to the headlines.

In our lead story tonight, history's least pleasant version of the pitch drop experiment finally ended last week when former host of the 700 Club, founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network and upside down light bulb from a house fire,

Pat Robertson, finally succumbed to the icy hand of death. Dust in the wind. Which was nice. Yeah, no, but it was in one final fuck you to the atheist community, though,

the bastard waited to do it until the morning our last episode came out. Unbelievable. And and of course many people think it's inappropriate to celebrate the death of a human being no matter how repugnant they were in life but luckily that motherfucker stopped listening to us a while back so what are you doing we brought cheap conical hats and noisemakers to this motherfucker yes we did just circling back though what are those people celebrating right not the death of a terrible human being when do you use that verb in your life right exactly no more appropriate time now the cause of death isn't listed anywhere and i assume that's because a

coroner's boss somewhere saw finished melting and assumed that that must have been an error but whatever the cause was i owe it a beer because that motherfucker was awful how awful you ask virginia's office of consumer affairs once recommended he be prosecuted for fraud because they found that he was siphoning money off of a charity for rwandan refugees to fly diamond mining equipment around Africa for the African resource extraction company he owned. And he was so evil that a detail that blatantly villainous sort of got lost in the sea

of terrible shit he did for most people. It's like a collage of terrible villains from movies there. I don't know. He got it all in there. It's insane. You know, some terrified family member of his is trying to like quietly sell, you know, crotch laser with table as is fake address or something.

Meeting people in an alleyway. So, yeah. So Marion Gordon Robinson was born on March 22nd of 1762 to Gladys Churchill Robinson and father fucking time. He earned a law degree at Yale because his dad was rich, but he failed the bar because you can't buy passing the bar. Then, when it became clear that his

expensive education had been wasted on somebody too dumb to lawyer, he found Jesus and became a faith healer. He did spend decades trying to underplay his faith healer roots, but in his early career, he was, as The Guardian puts it, in his obituary, quote, almost a caricature of a snake oil salesman, end quote. They wrote that?

Mm-hmm. Fantastic. He would then go on to help pioneer the burgeoning world of televangelism and ultimately become america's second wealthiest pastor amassing a fortune of over a hundred million dollars before his death okay and let's not forget about the real victim here the snake oil industry like the anti-determination league for snake oil guilds should have a word with the guardian right that hell yeah he was of course no stranger to controversy during his 300-year career as a Christian broadcaster. He called feminism a, quote, socialist anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, and become lesbians, end quote.

And socialist is the dumbest part of that. How is that an economic thing to you? You're so dumb. And socialist is the dumbest part of that. How is that an economic thing to you? You're so dumb. When former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had a stroke in 2006, Robertson said it was God's retribution for him giving land back to the Palestinians.

Yikes. When a quarter of a million Haitians died in an earthquake in 2010, he said they had it coming because of a pact their ancestors made with Satan. Satan, sure. When 3,000 Americans died on 9-11, he had Jerry Falwell on his show to pin the blame on, quote, pagans, abortionists, feminists, gays, lesbians, the American Civil Liberties Union, and people for the American way, end quote. Marks and angles. To which Pat just gleefully nodded along.

Sure. A list of his worst utterances could fill hours so suffice to say his is the kind of life that justifies mortality yeah and he looks like an elmer fudd parade balloon got deflated let's just not forget that he looks ridiculous he looked like that he looked and now he's rotting similar like but yeah corpsey like but yeah right right what's the difference of course that's not to say that there's nothing sad about pat roberts's death Now he's rotting. Similar. But yeah. Corpse-y. Yeah, right. What's the difference? Of course, that's not to say that there's nothing sad about Pat Roberts' death, as well as being a rich source of ready material for the entire history of our show. He was the inspiration for what I still believe is Heath's most brilliant nickname to date,

P-Robes. Anal P-Robes. I like Patty Melts, too, because he's really melty. Patty Melts was pretty fucking good too yeah exactly so yeah maybe you're one and you're four so when it comes to pat robertson himself i simply say rest in urine soaked dirt but it is with a heavy heart and a tearful eye that i send pee robes and patty melts across that rainbow bridge and in splitting hairs news executors are trying to distribute the estate of joseph ratzinger aka pope benedict the 16th and nobody wants his money because he was hot garbage now he's called dead

garbage and yeah that was a creative selling point by whomever pointed that out. But it still wasn't enough to convince any family members to receive his filthy money. In addition to the basic morality involved in that decision, the heirs, who all live in Germany, are bound by estate laws that make inheritors responsible for any legal claims against the dead piece of shit you take money from. And some of those claims might just happen oh what a great law right oh i want that i want that but also with prison terms for trump skits sure you don't have the money but uh now you're responsible and a big thanks to scott and deborah for the link skating news at gmail.com um eli will go ziplining with you oh there you go we'll send you his phone number you give him a text so on top of joey rats being pure evil and looking like palpatine giving a ted talk about a timeshare opportunity he's also a post-mortem defendant

in a high-profile case in germany about clerical sexual abuse his role in the giant network of crime that we know of starts in 1980 when he was Archbishop of Munich. That's when a pedophile priest was transferred from Essen to Munich. Ratzinger and the upper management were told about that guy's record, but they kept it a secret from the public and they put the abuser back on the job. And that guy spent the next three decades doing exactly what you might guess. Ratzinger completely denied knowing about any of that until January of last year, when a report on the Munich Archdiocese came out detailing his complicity and explaining that he very clearly lied to investigators. And then two days later, he released a statement that said, almost exact quote,

oh, that pedophile, Hawaiian Gable. That was an oversight during the editing of my original statement to investigators. The second part of that was the exact quote. Wow. Adding quote, but come on, look at me. How did you not know I was evil? I'm literally Palpatine giving you a timeshare pitch. Come on. So the inheritance of a timeshare pitch. Come on. Right. So

the inheritance of a pope, it's normally a simple matter. The pope agrees to be the magical conduit between the god of the universe and a very large pedophile cartel. And in return he gets a nice big salary, gets a castle, gets a little white riding hood costume, and some

mystical items made of Nazi gold. And Benedict was actually in the Hitler youth, literally. So that was extra fun for him. He came full circle. The other part of that deal is that the Pope keeps working until he dies and his estate gets willed to the Holy See. But Benedict resigned early before he died.

The first Pope to do that in 600 years. And he ended up with a will for his personal estate, which includes money from his memoirs about, you know, a little scalawag in Hitler Youth becoming the Supreme Pontiff of the Vatican. It's a great, rags-to-riches story. So the executor of the will recently reached out to the heirs. And so far, even without being told the size of the inheritance they've either completely ignored any communication out of fear or said absolutely not lose this number no hopefully that keeps happening and the plaintiffs in that big case take all his fucking money yeah

no shit incidentally what does it say about a motherfucker when membership in the hitler youth is the least offensive bullet point on your resume right yeah that's just a kid no you're right that is the least offensive thing in your thing great so bottom line vatican city has billions of dollars that's owed to countless victims across the world across time every country should be doing sanctions and lawsuits, a big siege. Whatever you come up with, get creative. Why are we allowing

Vatican City to continue existing? Amen. War criminals. And on that quick reminder, we're going to pause for a word from our second sponsor this week, HelloFresh. Hey, Noah,

do you have a married guy shirt that I could borrow? I'm sorry, a what? Married guy shirt. You know the shirts that all the married guys wear? Nobody's still trying to impress anyone, whatever dream of owning them, but married guys have them. What are you talking about? I was wondering if you had one other than the one you're wearing, a married guy shirt.

This? But I am a grill master. Come on, come on. I need to look married before I go to the grocery store. Just can I get another one? Okay, why? Because I'm in my 40s. If other single guys at the grocery store spot me,

they're going to try to make friends. And that's always awkward and sad. And I hate it. Heath, Heath, if you're trying to avoid awkward trips to the grocery store, why not try HelloFresh? Okay, feels like you could just loan me one of the married guy shirts. But I will take the point. What's HelloFresh? Okay, feels like you could just loan me one of the Married Guy shirts, but I will take the point. What's HelloFresh?

With HelloFresh, you get farm-fresh pre-portioned ingredients and seasonal recipes delivered right to your doorstep. Skip trips to the grocery store and count on HelloFresh to make home cooking easy, fun, and affordable. That's why it's America's number one meal kit. I don't know. Sounds kind of expensive.

Not really. Not only is HelloFresh more convenient than grocery shopping, it's also cheaper. And it's 25% less expensive than takeout. And if you need dinner now, they have these great fast and fresh options that are ready in 15 minutes or less. Okay, I do have a fast-paced and hectic lifestyle. You spent 26 minutes yesterday picking out chips at the gas station. It was hecticly I did that.

Look, I've been a HelloFresh customer for years now, and I love the way they're always coming up with new recipes, keeping things fun and seasonal. And now we can even get snacks and stuff from them, like the s'mores bundles, which says for kids in the ad copy. But I take that as a personal insult. So do I. For whoever wants it. Okay.

Well, I'm sold. How do I sign up? Go to HelloFresh.com slash Scathing16 and use the code scathing16 to get 16 free meals plus free shipping. That's HelloFresh.com slash scathing16 and use the code scathing16. HelloFresh, America's number one meal kit. Okay, so now, but seriously, what's wrong with my t-shirts? Okay, question.

How many shirts do you own that declare you the number one something? I don't see how that's relevant. A man wrote the Bible. A whore is what she wants. If it's a legitimate race. If it's a slut, right? Cooking can be fun. Hey, I'm proud of a man.

This week in Misogyny. Well, damn it if the misogyny isn't just flying at me from every direction this week. So we're going to start our international tour of sexism in the UK this week, where a 44-year-old mother of three was just sentenced to spend over a year in prison for having an abortion. You see, she was between 32 and 34 weeks pregnant, and according to UK laws, abortions are only legal up to 24 weeks. And after 10 weeks, they have to be carried out in a clinic but during COVID lockdowns a lot of restrictions were relaxed so when Carla Foster

found herself moving back in with an estranged partner while pregnant with another dude's kid she got an abortion pill via telemedicine but her bodily autonomy had crossed some arbitrary line so it suddenly belonged to the state and now she's going to jail see apparently when the uk wants to know how to handle abortion law they look to the same place the supreme court looks 1861 abortion was legalized there back in the 60s but only to a point and after that this 160 year old law takes over and means a woman could theoretically be, quoting from the law here, quote, kept in penal servitude for life, end quote. In Foster's case, she's getting a 14 month sentence in prison and another 14 in home confinement for deciding not to bring a child

into a volatile situation during an indefinite period of national lockdown. But I need to wrap things up this week back here in the good old U.S. of A. With a quick nod to Scott for sending us in this story, I have to give you the latest update on the Southern Baptist Convention's war against the slightest modicum of progress. See, the SBC met this week to discuss all the important issues facing their congregations,

like their failure to address charges of sexual abuse cover-up and their declining and rapidly aging membership. I'm just kidding. They spent the whole time complaining about women pastors. See, starting earlier this year, the SBC started booting churches that allowed female pastors. Needless to say, that didn't involve a hell of a lot of booting, but it did include the Saddleback Church, a massive and pretty well-known megachurch. And to be clear, Saddleback's policy, the one deemed too progressive by the SBC, is that it's okay for women to be pastors as long as there is a man in charge of them. That's actually their policy.

But that's too woke, so Saddleback is out. And now they're at a stupid convention about stupidity arguing whether or not the ghost magic counts if there's no penis involved. So yeah, sad to keep losing fights to people that spend their time arguing about shit like this but it's nice to be reminded how publicly they advertise their weaknesses. So on that note, I'll wrap things up

and hand you back over to Noah and Heath. Thank you, Lucinda. Next up in headlines in Drag Bunt News, we have a story about baseball and drag activism. So I did a Drag Bunt thing. That was pretty good, yeah. The baseball component is the Los Angeles Dodgers and the drag activists are the sisters of perpetual indulgence,

a team of activist performers who use drag and religious imagery to raise money for great causes and also make fun of bigotry. Like, for example, the stuff that's built into every major religion in history, definitely Christianity right now. So in recognition of that excellent work, the Dodgers gave their Community Hero Award to the sisters and invited the group to a pregame ceremony scheduled for June 16th. But then the bigots had a meltdown of course all over los angeles and all over the country and the dodgers disinvited the sisters but that was fucking stupid so the dodgers undisinvited the group and now everyone hates the dodgers which is absolutely fair yeah right no look i get how a

business doesn't want to wade into social issues where they don't have to. But once you reach a point where one side is mad at syrup and Mr. Potato Head, you just got to, you have to chuck that instinct to the wind, man.

So just to be clear about the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, they're amazing and they absolutely should be celebrated and given awards. They've spent the last several decades using their performances to raise money for AIDS patients, supporting queer causes with grants, officiating same-sex marriages, and just generally protesting shitty bigots.

Their performances include a public exorcism of Pope John Paul II. Nice. And also a public exorcism of Phyllis Schlafly both pre-mortem that was back in the 80s early on and more recently the sisters did a protest performance in march of this year when they interrupted kirk cameron during a reading of his transphobic hate crime slash children's book at a public library nice and that protest actually got referenced by mike pence when he launched his campaign for president last week who doesn't matter i think he was like it was something some guy named mike pence he's running they made some bigots all mad and huffy that's the point

and they're great it's so weird how a list of being good people and opposing christians isn't two different lists isn't it it's so weird that that's just one long list. It is weird. And a big thanks to Eric, Gage, Debra, and David for sending us links as this story unfolded. So here's the timeline. The Dodgers announced the award and invited the sisters for the ceremony about a month ago. Anna? What are the guys talking about?

It's the newest, the greatest Christian freakout. And of course, that freakout included Bill Donahue of the Catholic League, who called it an unprovoked assault on Catholics. Nope, it's very much provoked. It was provoked. Absolutely. And the head of a group called Catholic Vote called the sisters a literal hate group, and Marco Rubio used the phrase

mocking Christians through diabolical parodies. See, now that's what keeps us down, Heath. Our parodies aren't diabolical, right? We need to get on that shit. By the way, Marco Rubio, he's like a senator or something. I forget. He's a Republican. Doesn't matter.

So, after a few days of Christian freakouts, the Dodgers decided to appease the fucking terrorists and disinvited the sisters. They wrote some bullshit tweet, now deleted, that said they didn't want to distract from Pride Night. Oh, really? Yeah, because a pride group would have distracted from the pride. So from there, the dodgers organization spent the next five days learning why they're idiots from you know reasonable people and they

uncaved sort of though they re-invited the sisters but they also announced the relaunch of their christian faith and family day to help you know ameliorate all the inclusivity. You got to balance that stuff out. Right, yeah, yeah. That second thing was thanks in part to bigot whining from super expert ball throwing guy, but also very much inexpert human being, Clayton Kershaw. He's a piece of shit, we learned. He helped announce the Jesus Day event.

And keep in mind that what this concession says, for both parties, both parties agreed on the idea that the opposite of not being a bigot is being a Christian. Right. They're both saying that. Bottom line, big takeaway here. Fuck the Dodgers because they moved out of Brooklyn. But OK, also for like caving to the horrible bigotry, whatever.

But they moved out of Brooklyn. Fuck you. How long did a New York sports fan hold a grudge? Well, at least a quarter century longer than they have been alive on the goddamn planet, people. There you have it. My dad was born in Brooklyn. He's in the will that I have to yell about this every time I get a chance. Fuck Walter O'Malley.

And in always a prides made news. Christianity once more misinterpreted the First Amendment so thoroughly they thought it gave them freedom over other people's speech this week when a Columbus, Ohio landlord sent a letter to his tenants demanding they remove any messaging in support of Pride Month. Fuck you.

Yes, Catholic landlord and guy who was clearly named by a fantasy author whose seven book into a series they've already checked out of, Link Llewellyn, informed all of the businesses renting space from him in writing that, quote, to willingly allow my company's properties to be used for such a thing would be offensive to God, end quote. All right. Well, here's what needs to happen from now on. God, end quote. All right. Well, here's what needs to happen.

From now on, Link needs to get nothing but the gayest possible rent checks, physical paper, rainbows everywhere, graphic doodles in the margins. Memo says this money had a bunch of gay sex very recently. Yes. Just like everything you can come up with. He probably won't cash them, but you paid. So, yeah. So this letter is just as dripping with douchebaggery as you'd imagine it starts by pointing out that in his religion june isn't recognized as pride month

but rather as sacred heart of jesus month what during which we're called on to quote reflect on and appreciate the love christ has for all human beings without exception and how much he suffered for us because of our sins in rejecting his love, which has pride at its root. End quote. Damn that sentence structure. Yikes. They were so close to like getting the point there. Nope.

Oh no, not really. He then goes on to describe pride month as quote, a sex related observance. And then he says that other people promoting it would be in direct conflict with his religious belief, which though true doesn't fucking matter. Cause it's other, observance and then he says that other people promoting it would be in direct conflict with his religious belief which though true doesn't fucking matter because it's other people unfortunately other people as a concept christians are woefully ill-equipped to understand apparently

that's confusing you know not you what lost me yeah hey link i gotta gotta break something to you bad news about july and august too because you know julius and augustus definitely fucking some dudes and loving it so those are out also wednesday thursday friday saturday all super gay yeah lots of blasphemy on the signage all over your building if there's like open day signs, anything like that. And finally tonight, in saying the loud part out louder news. Given the obsession with the rapture and the apocalypse among evangelicals, we atheists will sometimes refer to Christianity as a doomsday cult. Now, some people might think of themselves as exaggerating when they say that, but I am 100% serious.

Well, so are the lunatics on Fox News, but they think it's a good thing that they're a doomsday cult. During last week's episode of Fox and Friends Sunday, the topic of the environment came up and the all-Christian trio of hosts explained how everyone needs to stop worrying because, approximate quote, we're a doomsday cult. The earth doesn't matter. No, seriously, Heath En approximate quote we're a doomsday cult the earth doesn't matter no seriously heathen right we are a doomsday cult we are saying that proudly ah it's funny because like sometimes people look at how bad the news cycle is and they'll say to us well you know at least that makes your job easier right but like no no it

means it's easier to find relevant stories to talk about. Sure. But our job is to exaggerate. How the fuck are we supposed to do that when their opening bit is earth doesn't matter because Jesus. That's literally what's happening here. So here's a few of the terrifying highlights. The conversation started with a mention of GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who made a pledge to be guided by his faith if he wins the election. None of that matters because he's a not white person in the GOP primary,

and he's polling behind Mike Pence, who doesn't matter. So they mention Ramaswamy's faith and how Republicans talk about religion more than Democrats. And that's when co-host Rachel Campos Duffy made the natural segue to the wonderful benefits of being an apocalypse cult. She said, quote, for them, that's us, that's us liberal atheists, I guess,

for them, where we live right now, this place, Earth is it. So everything's on the line here for them. They think they can perfect this Earth. Those of us who have faith don't believe that. What? I mean, I would love it if for one fucking time, the random musings of a Fox host weren't also perfectly cogent answers to the question. So what makes you people so dangerous? Jesus. Always works. Just flip to a random page of Fox News. Absolutely. So here's the follow-up from co-host, white guy number one, Will Kane.

He said, quote, if you believe your personal political opinions are on par with the highest of the hierarchies, sick, and, you know, equal to faith in religion, then you'll go to some of the links that we've seen. Why? And even worse, their Fox and Friends weekend co-host, Will Kane. Shit, too far, too far.

Even I heard that one. Damn it. Yeah, so good point there, Will Kane. Lesson learned. Us godless liberals take our opinions way too seriously. Instead, we need to relax and have faith in the supreme ghost of the universe who decides whether we

get tortured for eternity in a lake of fire super chill like that is what we need to be all right well since that story basically amounts to a couple of christians saying it's a good thing atheist watchdog media exists back and forth for a minute i suppose our work here is done heath thanks as always jumanji when we come back, we'll have buy one, get one free deal on white guys named Dan. Given the number of competing voices with contradictory claims about what the Bible means or even says, it's easy to lose track of the fact that it actually does mean stuff, right? Like when the original authors wrote it, they were actually trying to convey very specific

things, but those things are often obscured by theology, archaic language, mistranslations, scribes with ulterior motives, and deliberate misinformation to name a few. So much so that it's hard for a lay person to refute any specific claim about the book's meaning, which is why I was so excited to learn that longtime friend of the show, Dan Beecher, was teaming up with TikTok's favorite biblical scholar, Dan McClellan, for a new podcast called Data Over Dogma to tackle this very problem, and they were kind enough to join us tonight to talk about it. Dan, Dan, welcome back to slash to the show. Thank you so much for having us. Thank you so much for having us. Thank you so much. I appreciate your time and the invitation. Yeah, you bet. So, okay. So first

things first, obviously you guys are both named Dan. Yeah. I can't do Dan one and Dan two. I can't rank you guys. So how are we going to do this? Who's taller? Is there a big Dan, little Dan, or what are we going to do? Well, I go by McClellan, a phonetic spelling of my last name. And ever since high school, people have called me Mac. So if you want to call me Mac, that would be fine. All right. Awesome. Awesome. And that's good because I don't think I can call Dan anything else at this point. I've known him for 10 years. You could call me Uncle Dan. Some people...

Oh, there you go. There you go. Uncle Dan and Mac. I like it. This is getting real personable. So Uncle Dan, tell me, how did you guys hook up? How did this happen? Well, it's funny. I went on TikTok because some very young friends told me that I should, and I was very skeptical of it. But instantly, unlike the experience of several of Republican legislators and whatnot, I didn't find only young girls dancing and skimp, you know, skimpily dressed dancing. I actually found a lot of really substantive, awesome content. And one of the things that popped up on my, on my feed a bunch was this guy who I was pretty sure was an atheist, but he was doing this really cool biblical scholarship stuff.

But I couldn't tell where his stance was. And when I found out that he was a Mormon living in the same city that I was living in, I was fascinated. And so I literally reached out to him. This was before he had half a million followers. And I was like, we have to get to know each other because you're too interesting for me not to know, you know, being in the same city as me. And foolishly, he agreed to go to lunch with me. And, you know, we've been friends ever since. That was a couple of years ago, a year and a half. I don't know. I've got no sense of

time. But we stayed friends and I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, for him to post something that I wouldn't like or for me to post something that he wouldn't like. And then we could both write each other off because we come from such different camps. he being a believer and me being a, you know, filthy atheist. And it ended up never happening. We both, you know, this has become a paragon

of inter-belief meeting of the minds. Yeah, well, I will say, I was super excited when I learned that there was going to be a long-form version

of some of the stuff that I'd seen on TikTok. But for those people who aren't familiar with Mac's existing work, so, and Mac, I'll let you take this one. Give me the elevator pitch. What is data over dogma all about? Well, when I started getting on TikTok, primarily it was about confronting misinformation and data over dogma became kind of a bit of a motto for my channel because I was there to try to cut through a lot of the dogmatism and the identity politics and the retreating to these battle lines that get drawn up in public discourse.

And I positioned myself to be a little bit more of a referee, somebody calling balls and strikes and providing the data irrespective of whose side it may or may not serve or whose interests may or not be centered by the data. And so data over dogma is about confronting misinformation. It is about putting the data at the front, whether it serves my interests, whether it goes directly against my interests, that's going to be front and center. And then it's also an opportunity to try to democratize access to the academic study of the Bible and religion, kind of break down the walls of the ivory tower. Because so much of the misinformation that is out there is out there and is in widespread circulation because it is what is freely accessible online. And that's stuff that is in the public domain, which means it's usually stuff that's a century or two old. And so it's wildly outdated stuff. We still got people making arguments based on Fraser's The Golden Bough from the 19th century.

of people don't know where to find up-to-date accurate scholarship. They don't know where to find the stuff that has been vetted by the academy. And so, part of what we're trying to do as well is help expose people to up-to-date scholarly perspectives on the Bible and what it is and is not doing and quote-unquote saying. And yeah, along the way, we try to have a little bit of fun as well. And we'll find a way, we need to find a way to incorporate more responding to claims that are out there on the podcast. I do a lot of that on TikTok, but I would like to find a way to get that into the podcast format as well. Okay. So now maybe this is just my personal bias or the people that I've surrounded myself with. But generally speaking, the people I know who are most into the Bible, not a lot of overlap

with the people I know who are most into going, huh, turns out I was wrong about this. I'll change my opinion. So who is this show for exactly? Who's the intended audience for the podcast? I think the intended audience is whoever is interested in the data. And yeah, it's going to skew a little bit more toward the skeptical side, just because these are folks who are going to be a little more open to the data. And that includes the data that might complicate their assumptions. And there are going to be people on the other side who are going to be interested in it as well. And there are going to be people on the other side who are going to be interested in it as well. And there are going to be plenty of people in the middle. So it's, I think it's for whoever

is interested in understanding this and that's people who are on all sides of these questions. I get comments all the time from people who are, who occupy every corner of the spectrum of belief. every corner of the spectrum of belief. Absolutely. I mean, we're here talking to you. And so obviously, I think, as an atheist, I think that this show has great appeal to non-religious people who are nevertheless interested in what is undeniably one of the most, if not the most, influential books that we have. most, if not the most influential books that we have. But we also have plenty of very devout believers who are nevertheless, who want their belief to be grounded in something more real

than just their own interpretation of what they read. Because I'll tell you something, one of the reasons I wanted to do this podcast was because when i would go and read that book i had no idea what the fuck was happening most of the time yeah it was absolutely baffling to me and i would constantly you know i did stuff i used to do a show called the how-to heretic and i would do it large you know i would just present large swaths of bible stories. You do that. You do the same thing on your show, on this show. And I, when I would do all of this research, trying to figure out what I'm even reading, because it's not remotely clear just in and of itself. All right. So, so you actually bring me to the, to the next question that I, that I wanted to ask.

When I first started the show, it became obvious that I was going to need to know more about the Bible. We had people, you know, obviously a lot of our listeners are ex-believers and wanted to know our opinion on this or that passage. We do a lot of jokes about it. So, I read the thing. I got me a Bible. I read it cover to cover. And then I thought, well, that didn't help much. So, Mac, I'll ask you, like, why is the Bible so damn confusing? There are a lot of reasons. Probably the most conspicuous one is that we're talking about a large collection of conflicting and often contradicting texts that come from 2,000 to 3,000-ish years ago. And so, not only are they written in another language, they're written in another time period, they're written in another culture,

And so not only are they written in another language, they're written in another time period, they're written in another culture, they're written for reasons that we don't and sometimes can't possibly understand to audiences that are not around anymore and that we don't really know or understand very well. And so it is in many ways a kind of choose your own adventure. You're going to construct the meaning of the text in ways that are going to make the text interesting or useful for you, for many people. So, particularly for people who approach the Bible devotionally as an inspired text, they are going to believe most of the time that this text has something to say to me in my specific circumstances. And for that to happen, they've got to negotiate with the text because a lot of these stories have absolutely no relevance to the 21st century. And so in order to have the text be meaningful to us, we need to negotiate with it. And because text does not have inherent meaning, all reading is negotiating to one degree or another.

It's really about trying to construct the meaning in our heads in a way that we think most closely approximates what the authors were trying to achieve with their text. And that's easy for someone you grew up with or for someone who speaks the same language and the same dialect and has the same accent as you and has seen the same movies as you. But if you go to the UK, there are going to be misunderstandings. There are going to be things you have to think about a little harder before you get what they're trying to say. I tell a story from time to time about my first weekend in Oxford when I stumbled across a KFC and I was like, sweet, and went in

and asked if they had biscuits. And they were like, why would we have biscuits? And I was like, sweet. And went in and asked if they had biscuits. And they were like, why would we have biscuits? And I was like, oh, that's right. Biscuit means cookie here. And I was like, okay, so what I'm looking for is, uh, it's brown. And yeah, I was like, it's flaky. It's, and I had absolutely no clue how to describe this thing that I had always indexed with this word biscuit. And people are like, oh, you should have said scone. And I was like, I don't think of a scone. That's not a scone to me. And so I had to go eat at Burger King, which luckily is right across the street on Corn Market Street, but it's right next to the Saxon Tower, which is, if you're ever in Oxford,

you got to check out the Saxon Tower. But because my experiences with the language were so wildly different from the experiences of this young man behind the counter, and we both spoke the same language natively. And lived at the same time, yeah. And lived at the same time. So now if we're going back to a language

that nobody speaks natively, I mean, the modern Hebrew is related, but it is a distinct language. We go back to biblical Hebrew or Koine Greek, the Greek used in the New Testament. This is wildly, wildly different from the languages as we know them. And so we have to construct a lot more carefully the meaning from that. And scholars are very, very careful about this. They do their best to understand the literary context, the historical context, the rhetorical context. When was this written? What was going on? What were they trying to achieve? And those become like the scaffolding to constructing a more careful understanding of what the author was trying to get at. Many people though, read the Bible and they just want to know what's in it

for me. How is this going to be meaningful or useful to me? Which means it's just going to be their subconscious, their intuitive cognition constructing that meaning. And then because it's an authoritative text, it is used in the structuring of power and values and in boundary maintenance and things like that, which means that's going to play a role in guiding those intuitions about what it's going to mean. But, you know, the believers are not the only ones who do that. At the same time, you have non-believers or folks who are antagonistic towards believers who are going to approach the Bible because they want to use it as a weapon against another group. Not all of those are going to do that, but I don't know

what kind of people. I've never heard of that happening. That's not, that can't be right. I'm being a hundred percent honest when I think it happens less frequently, but it still happens quite a bit. It does. And people who follow my channel, sometimes I get angry messages from people who are like, I thought you were, you've changed, man. I thought you were this way or that way or the other way. And I was like, I used to say in intros I do for my channel, at some point, I am going to infuriate all of you because I am not here to be on anybody's team. I am here to try to call balls and strikes. And, you know, there are a lot of folks who think they understand the origins of Easter or of Christmas or what these texts say, Numbers 5 and the Sotah.

I think that's one, Dan, that you and I disagree about. We don't. Here's the thing. We don't disagree about it anymore because I actually trust your authority on this. I had to take the L on that one because I, you know, you have a much richer understanding of it than I do. Well, I will say my favorite moments, both on your TikTok channel and on your podcast, are the moments that challenge my assumptions or what I thought. So apropos of what you were just saying, in your experience, what is the most common misunderstanding that you find atheists have about the Bible? I think it's kind of a trope. It's rhetoric that I see used a

lot that always frustrates me. But the idea that it is Bronze Age or Iron Age goat herders or whatever, it's their writings. Almost none of it was written in the Bronze Age, if any at all was written in the Bronze Age. A little bit was written in the Iron Age, but the majority of it was written by priests, by the intellectual leaders of Israel and Judah in the middle to the end of the first millennium BCE, at least when we're talking about the Hebrew Bible. And then the New Testament was largely written by educated people later. New Testament was largely written by educated people later. So, you know, that's not overturning the criticism of the Bible as outdated and unscientific, but it is a misrepresentation that I think is a foundation for a lot of assumptions about the Bible that I see made by people who are antagonistic toward believers that I would like to be able to correct. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, no, I'm sure I've used exactly that phrasing in the past,

but yeah, obviously I've meant it in sort of a hyperbolic way, but yeah, I see how that really does kind of color your understanding of it. And Uncle Dan, obviously you've spent a lot of time around atheists, and you've learned a lot more about the Bible because of your relationship with Mac here. So do you have an answer to that question as well as a common misunderstanding that you find atheists making about the Bible? Here's the thing. I will say that it's funny because we did another interview on a show with a guy who may not be quite as friendly to atheists as you are, but he asked a similar question. And the answer that i wish i had given was that i think a lot

of atheists actually understand the bible much better than a lot of the equivalent religious person i think that that's just because atheists tend to be curious in a different way if they if they have any interest in the bible they tend to have a different sort of mode of interest. And yet, we all, like I said, I would read the thing and just do my best in understanding it. And as Dan says, it's not like the scholarship, unless you're reading intense scholarship books, which a lot of people do. I've got some reading on my shelf that I'm planning on digging into. But it's not my go-to reading.

It's not what I'm most interested in. So all I have is this surface-level thing of like, I guess Samson reached into a lion and pulled honey out. I don't know if that means something. But that's what the book says. So, okay.

And that's it. Like, that's all I've got. And so, having more than that is a boon. It's very appreciated. I would quickly add that according to Pew Research, atheists tend to know more about the Bible than most other Christians. And one of the reasons that researchers think that is because a lot of atheists have found their way out of Christianity because they started reading the Bible intently. And it was precisely their critical research on the Bible and the history of Christianity and things like that that lead them out.

So, atheists tend to have a history of more critical reading of the Bible. So, now the obvious flip side of that question, what's the most common biblical misunderstanding that you see from Christians? Oh, the most common, the one that, oh, so many Christians have is the idea that the text is univocal. And that's a word that I have used quite a bit on my channel, which it's a $2 word that means it speaks with one voice. In other words, it has a unified, consistent message, perspective, voice. It can't disagree with itself. And that's the foundation of so much Christian hermeneutics. And that is presupposed in almost any argument I've ever been in with a conservative Christian about the Bible.

That one text cannot disagree with another. And that is just wildly, wildly incorrect. You can't get three chapters into Genesis without disproving that. But yeah, you're right. That remains the general thought. That's interesting. Yeah, without even getting into inspiration or inerrancy i would just go straight to univocality because i and once you break that down i think the bible becomes so much more interesting but it undermines so many dogmas yeah it is a far more interesting

book from this perspective than it ever was from a devotional perspective. It is, it's richer. It's more like, you know, I'm not going to go as far as a lot of people and say it's grand literature, but it's fascinating. But only when you're willing to encounter it as in this way of saying like, it's not, I'm going to encounter this

not as every inch of it has to mean something inspired by deity, but rather this is exposing ancient culture. This is exposing ancient thought and belief systems. It's exposing, you know, beefs between different cultures. And, and it's, when you get it to that place,

it becomes really, really interesting. And hopefully that's what our show is about. Yeah, that's where I find your show is absolutely at its best. When we're looking at, you know, competing philosophies that are obviously existing side by side in the Bible, whether those be competing, you know,

within various factions within the religion or competing as in like, you know from from different eras where like one scribe is like well obviously they didn't mean that i mean there's just or whatever really interesting stuff i and and i if it hasn't come across yet in the interview let me just state explicitly to the listener that i highly recommend this show i listened to a couple episodes in preparation for the interview then i listened to like three more because I couldn't stop doing it. And of course, I'm going to be finishing the backlog in the next couple of days. I just have one last question while we still have you here. Mac, I believe you are the first Christian that we've ever had on our podcast in 540 episodes.

Can I now tell people that some of my best friends are Christian? Let me just step in here, Mac, and just point out, I've known Noah for a long time. He doesn't have that many friends. Yeah, right. No, you're a high percentage wise. So, yeah. I start from the baseline of treating everybody as a friend. So absolutely. Until you give me a reason to think otherwise. Awesome. Well, best of luck to you guys with the new show.

I'm absolutely devouring it. I'm sure our listeners are going to love it too. If you're listening along, you want to check out the show. Again, it's Data Over Dogma. You're going to find it wherever you get your podcasts. Or just check the show notes for this episode for a handy dandy link. Dan, Mac, thank you again so much for your time. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Thanks so much for having us. Before we reel the line back in this week, I want to thank everybody who sends stories to scathingnews at gmail.com, whether or not we use them. And yes, Ghost Wolf, we read all of the submissions. Anyway, that's all the blast we've got for you tonight. We'll be back in 10,022 minutes with more.

If you can't wait to look up for a brand new episode of our sister show The Skeptocrat, debuting at 7 a.m. Eastern on Monday, an even newer episode of our sister show's Hot Friend Godawful Movies, debuting at 7 a.m. Eastern on Tuesday, and an even newer episode of our half-sister, so citation needed, debuting at noon Eastern on Wednesday. Obviously, I can't cue the music until I thank Keith Enright for going old school with me this week.

I want to thank Lucinda Lusions for sharing her adventures with me. I also want to thank Eli Bosnick, who will be back next week and Mrs. U2. I also need to thank the Dans once more and remind you to check the show notes for a link to Data Over Dogma. It's truly fascinating stuff there. I also want to thank Bruce for providing this week's Farnsworth quote. And isn't it just like a law student to cite evidence to back up his filthy monkey claim? Well done, dude. But most of all, of course, I want to thank this week's cutest former babies, Adrian, David, the Patreon Saint of Podcasts, Joanne, Logan, Logan is my favorite,

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who are hotter than Pat Robertson's appropriate post-mortem accommodations. And Ryan, Hamster, Christy, Scott, Maz, Charlie, and Zappel, who are so sexy the serpent in the garden that Eden regrets ever turning human beings onto this whole clothes thing. To get out of this jackpot of 21 high rollers, cash in some chips on our behalf this week by giving us money.

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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 all the music we used in this episode, which was used with permission. If you have questions, comments, or death threats, you'll find all the content and more on the contact page at SkateAndGavius.com. fucking polar vortex and bomb cyclone enter the like you know just average dude lexicon within a year of each other and they're like, I don't think anything's wrong.

Yeah, it's stuff that like you would make up when you were seven and be like, I attacked you with bomb cyclone. But now it's like a real thing. Yes. The preceding podcast was a production of Puzzle and a Thunderstorm LLC.

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