The Scathing Atheist - 543: Ain't Got the Spoons Edition

Episode Date: July 13, 2023

In this week’s episode, The New York Times gets literal with FIT to prints definition, a federal court ruling brings back sincerely held Plessy v Ferguson, and David Icke will explain the importance of getting off his lawn. --- 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 2am Brainz here: https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/WANw4RD7vwb --- Headlines: NYTimes sucks Uri Geller’s dick: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/08/business/uri-geller-magic-deep-fakes.html Ron DeSantis defends his bizarre anti-LGBTQ+ ad that made him a universal laughingstock: https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2023/07/ron-desantis-defends-his-bizarre-anti-lgbtq-ad-that-made-him-a-universal-laughingstock/ Court rules making Amish people use a septic tank violates their religious freedom: https://apnews.com/article/minnesota-court-amish-environment-septic-tanks-6c091f043d8825ecbad0657e7daa0b56 Methodists lose 1/5th of all their churches in LGBTQ acceptance-driven schism: https://apnews.com/article/united-methodist-churches-exit-lgbtq-clergy-marriage-fc83fd20ad003c6ecaac5ae60ddd5afd Michigan prisons ordered to allow faith group that believes in race separation: https://apnews.com/article/christian-identity-faith-whites-michigan-prisons-15c2cc42ebde63e0d514f25ea86ca574 Michigan school may close health center over “satanic” mural: https://friendlyatheist.substack.com/p/michigan-school-district-will-get

Warning, the following podcast has been rated R for strong language, partial nudity, and mild drug use. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by HelloFresh and by the new online service for people whose life problems call less for therapy and more for cheese, CheddarHelp. CheddarHelp, because Heath needs a backup plan in case podcasting ever goes tits up. And now, The Scathing Atheist. And now, the Scathing Atheist. This is Dinah Delilah. As a podcaster of bullshit, I assure you that we did, in fact, evolve from filthy monkey people. It's Thursday.

It's July 13th. And it's Barbershop Music Appreciation Day. Hello. Hello. I hate you guys. I knew you would do that. I hate you guys. I knew you would do that. I'm no illusions. I'm Eli Bosnick. Ethan Wright. And from lying betrayal New Jersey.

Ann Arbor, Michigan and Waycross, Georgia. This is the Scathing Atheist. On this week's episode, the New York Times gets literal with fit to Prince definition. A federal court ruling brings back sincerely held Plessy v. Ferguson. And David Eichel explained the importance of getting off his lawn. But first, the diatribe.

Over on Godawful Movies, we've been reviewing Mormon movies this month, and there's a moment in one of them that's been stuck in my head ever since I saw it a couple weeks ago. The movie was called Witnesses, and it's a historical drama portraying the apologist version of Mormon history through the eyes of the famed Three Witnesses. So, quick bit of history that you probably already know here. Mormonism was founded when Joseph Smith claimed that an angel gave him a set of golden plates with a new and improved Bible on it, and that's what he translated to create the Book of Mormon. And famously, the angel forbade

anyone but him from actually looking at the golden plates. So, you know, it was like eight-year-old Noah's ability to fly in that way. Of course, to counteract the obvious criticism that that sounds like the kind of lie an eight-year-old would tell, when you crack open the Book of Mormon, one of the first things that you see is an account of the three witnesses, fathers of the original church who actually got to see the plates before the translation was over. Now, what the book does its best to underemphasize

is that none of these three witnesses even claimed to have seen the plates physically. They saw them spiritually. Instead of Joseph just pulling back the cover and showing them the physical plates that he claimed to already have, he took them out in the forest and he prayed that God would show them the plates in a holy vision. So anyway, so in the movie, we reach this point, right? The point of quintessential bullshit. Our various characters go out into the woods. They get on their knees.

They do the least interesting thing four men in the woods can do on their knees, which is pray, right? We have this moment of dramatic tension where the filmmaker tries to do the will they, won't they thing, but, you know, with God. And they see their holy vision. won't they thing, but with God. And they see their holy vision. An angel appears before them bathed in a white, brilliant glow, proffering a golden Bible that sparkles in the blinding light. But we don't see that. We see them see that. And that's the point that I've been meandering towards this whole time. What we see is the characters looking odd, moved almost to tears, and then being bathed in a punishingly bright light. And sure, part of that is because of some ill-defined sense of sacrilege, right? And sure, some of it is the fact that Mormon movies have a

four-figure budget, but at least some of it, and possibly most of it, is because there's literally no way to actually show us this part of the story without us reflecting on how stupid it is. I'd submit that if you gave an infinite budget to the most talented filmmaker in the history of the medium, they could not give you back a scene of an angel from heaven holding out a golden Bible going, eh, without making it look silly. I mean, set aside the historically accurate eyeball monster angel here. Just picture the actual thing that Joseph Smith and his con artist buddies had in mind when they agreed to this lie in the first place. You put that on screen and even the most devout Mormon is going to look at it. And rather than feeling reverence, they're going to go, you know, this whole story kind of

seems silly. And this is actually something we see quite a bit on God awful movies. It could almost be a square on our bingo card. Movie avoids showing you thing religion actually says because it would look silly as hell. I mean, modern Christian movies are mostly written in ways that, you know, God appears only as an inaudible hum in the background who, you know, fixes plane reservations or coffee machines with really auspicious timing or shit like that. But when they try to do stuff out of the Bible or bring their based on a true story, miracle shit to life, they often have to hide the dumbest parts behind a curtain. We don't usually see the scorpion horse locusts in the Rapture movie, right? Like imagine you're making a story.

You're making the Samson and Delilah movie, right? You get to the part where Samson's supposed to have to kill a thousand men with a donkey jaw. Don't get me wrong. I don't doubt that a good filmmaker could make an awesome scene of that. I loved that first action sequence in RRR, but it didn't strike me as historically accurate. There would be no way to watch that happen without going, okay, well, at least this part of the Bible's bullshit. to watch that happen without going, okay, well, at least this part of the Bible's bullshit. But what a filmmaker would do instead, right, is they'd have two guys sitting at a bar talking about that crazy massacre yesterday where Samson killed a thousand men with a donkey

jaw. Or maybe you'd see the Philistine army rushing towards him and you'd see him grab the donkey jaw and he'd rush towards them and you'd hear some clashing off camera and then you'd pan over the pile of bodies and show Samson standing all bloody and victorious amid them. But even in that case, even if you did that, you wouldn't show him standing amid a thousand corpses because even that would be enough for us to be going like, okay, yeah, that's nonsense. This is hardly a uniquely Christian problem. Nowhere is it more glaring than when we watch Hindu movies, but we've seen this shit in Jewish movies, Muslim movies,

and even the ones from that weird Japanese cult that make all the animes that Eli makes us watch. When you hear a story, you can corral your mind's eye enough to swerve around the silliest parts, right? But when you have to actually stare it in the face, the mendacity is unavoidable. Now think about what that means for a second. Because what is a movie but an imagining?

Films are our imaginations rendered in a shareable form. Which means you can't even actually imagine this shit without highlighting what obvious fiction it is. Religion stories are quite literally unimaginably stupid. They're talking about you, Jesus. We interrupt this broadcast and bring you a special news bulletin. Joining me for headlines tonight are the proton and neutron to my electron, Heath Enright and Eli Bosnick. Fellas, are you ready to get up and at them?

I'll keep my eye on the prize. Here's hoping we don't bomb. It's hard to follow Heath in this kind of thing. Because Adam bombed though. That's the thing. And once we're reflecting on how weird it is that I always ask you guys if you're ready right before we take a break,

we're going to pause for a word from this week's first sponsor, HelloFresh. Okay, and how about this sauce? Kind of thin and gritty. Yeah, that would be the tires. Yeah, definitely the tires. Hey, guys. What are you doing?

Preparing, Noah. What are you preparing for? Pizza. Detroit-style pizza. Tim thought it would be nice to buy the VIPs at our upcoming live show, Detroit-style pizza. But Eli and I don nice to buy the VIPs at our upcoming live show, Detroit Style Pizza, but Eli and I don't have the guts for it. Not after HelloFresh we don't. What's HelloFresh? With HelloFresh, you get farm fresh pre-portioned ingredients and seasonal recipes delivered right

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we do. When you need dinner fast, don't call for delivery. Think HelloFresh. Their fast and fresh recipes are ready in just 15 minutes or less. Plus, HelloFresh is 25% cheaper than takeout. So I'd save time and money? That's right. HelloFresh sent us a box to try when they became a sponsor, and I've been a customer ever since. The meals are easy to cook and unload into the fridge in a snap. That's why I, Ethan Wright, personally endorse them as a product. All right, guys, I'm in.

How do I sign up? Go to HelloFresh.com slash scathing50 and use the code scathing50 for 50% off plus free shipping. So I go to HelloFresh.com slash scathing50 and use the code scathing50 for 50% off plus free shipping? That's right. All right. So why do you guys think you won't be able to handle Detroit-style pizza anyway? I don't know.

It's something about digesting the rubber, I think. Yeah, we're trying everything. Guys, Detroit-style pizza is just square, deep dish. Oh. We thought it was tires. Thought it was tires, yeah. I see. Should we go to the hospital then, probably?

Yeah, probably, yeah. Shotgun. Oh, come on. And now, back to the headlines. In our lead story tonight, the New York Times spelled that Uri Geller's dick was insufficiently sucked. So they devoted 4000 words to that task last Sunday. That's them. In an article called the end of the magic world's 50 year grudge.

Grudge. As though the skeptical world's issue with Uri Geller wasn't the fact that, you know, he devoted his career to conning people out of millions of dollars by pretending party tricks were psychic powers, so much as the fact that they didn't think of it first. Right? This truly appalling tragedy of journalism

comes from business reporter and presumably unpaid PR spokesperson for con artistry, David Siegel, and seriously made me reconsider my subscription to the goddamn New York Times. Also worth noting, David Siegel looks like a fetus made a LinkedIn profile and is trying to get a job. He really does. I googled David Siegel neck illness to make sure we weren't doing something problematic when I read that joke.

Yeah, it feels like the New York Times has really taken all the news that fit to print to its, like, philosophical conclusion at this point. Well, it's not child porn. Yeah. Jesus. So, in the article, Siegel declares Uri Geller the victor in the

long-standing war between him and accountability, and I guess that's true in a sense, but not in the celebratory sense it's presentedor in the long-standing war between him and accountability and I guess that's true in a sense but not in the celebratory sense it's presented with in the article the reality is that Yuri Geller is an unapologetic fraud but no amount of proving as much could ever satisfy the desire of a credulous mass raised on faith's desire to believe otherwise but in the article the proof that Yuri won comes in the form of a fucking museum to himself that he funded it's a real thing and a magician who used to be one of geller's fiercest critics but apparently ran out of money and integrity at the same time and agreed to collaborate

with geller on his upcoming book yeah in terms of the integrity it's hard to catch but uh he just bends the integrity when people look away i catch, but he just bends the integrity when people look away. I'm pretty sure he just does that when you're not looking. Yeah. So for those unfamiliar, the magician that's mentioned in the article, Ben Harris, his book before this one was about the TV magic cards I used to sell to children at F.A.O. Schwartz. So he more than anyone represents skepticism's viewpoint. I think we all agree. Clearly. Now, the crux of the article seems to be that, you know, of course, it's just a trick. And Uri Geller only ever said otherwise because admitting it's a trick breaks the illusion of the

trick, which is a hard fucking claim to pull off when later in the same article, you have to admit that he charged mining companies millions of dollars with the promise that he could psychically intuit the location of mineral veins also by the way it's the claim that yuri geller repeatedly sued skeptics for making right the article goes on to praise him for quote challenging our relationship to the truth and daring us to doubt our eyes end quote as though that's something a vaccine denying trump electing Trump-electing, flat-earth-abounding, borderline theocracy should be praising. Yeah, we're in a relationship with truth, but also it's complicated. That's the state of the universe right now.

Thanks, Uri Geller. Yeah, also, Siegel acts in the article like Geller is the first guy to use magic tricks to fake superpowers, when in actuality, it's been literally all of the frauds. That's just what frauds do, David. I will say I'm glad he fucked over the miners, but other than that little aspect of this, asshole. So now the other major apology that Siegel can muster are the repeated reminders that other people are even worse. Right. He praises Geller for refraining from faith healing. He claims that he's better than online misinformation.

He quotes a magician who says only that, quote, there are bigger lies and bigger frauds out there that are more damaging. damaging end quote and at one point even praises how reasonably priced erie geller's cons were by noting that quote he didn't charge enough to leave many with a case of buyer's remorse end quote don't answer yet also hey fun fact podcast listener erie geller currently offers faith healing as a section on his website. Oh, it's on the front page. Do they teach you about websites at journalism school before you get a job at the New York Times? I'm going to fucking pull it to your eyes, you fucking fetus. Skeptics. So there you go.

Uri Geller isn't quite cancer. So we skeptics probably owe him an apology. The New York Times. And in putting fingers on the pulse news. Fantastic. Ron DeSantis campaign is imploding like a libertarian submersible. Apparently the thinking man's Trump decided to reinvigorate his GOP primary campaign with an extremely homoerotic commercial about how he's going to keep waging war on the LGBTQ plus community. It was very confusing for everybody involved.

It really was. It's like, I'm going to take a hands-on approach to just pound in that opposition until i really drive the point all the way oh what what what's happening cut what do you mean cut i just want to take a moment to appreciate that we live in a world where no i'm the most homophobic is a bid for president and not i don't know a bid to be shot before you're fed to the wild dogs and i don't like yeah what i'm saying is I don't like it. Yeah. So the general concept of the ad was to attack Donald Trump from the right, from the bigot side, which is impressive, I guess, like laterally speaking, but also insane.

The video starts by showing Trump being not enough of a bigot. That includes a quote from 2016, right after the Pulse nightclub massacre, in which Trump said, I'll protect our LGBTQ citizens. So DeSantis would be on the other side of that mass shooting topic, according to this ad, I guess. The video also has Trump saying that he's fine with Caitlyn Jenner using whatever bathroom in Trump Tower.

And then to hammer home the point, there's a series of people describing how DeSantis is truly evil. But those people are gay and trans. So, you know, vote for Ronnie D because Donald Trump is too woke and I'm just the right amount of evil. Yeah, they brag about a quote where somebody says that he's a threat to trans existence. They're like, huh? That's pretty good. Terrifying. We're going with that for a byline maybe.

Yeah, so following the pro hate crime segment at the beginning of that ad, it really goes off the rails from there. It does. The music kicks in with what i'd call techno porn music sure and we get a montage of super manly characters that are supposed to be just like ron desantis that includes these are his choices he chose these or his campaign people

chose these it includes christian Bale from American Psycho. That's a character who murders homeless people in that movie. Sure does. Insane, murderous sociopath. Brad Pitt as Achilles in Troy. Oh. Just like Ron DeSantis. Leo DiCaprio as the giant fraud Jordanordan belfort in wolf of wall street and of course

the giga chad meme that's the really oiled up muscly guy from fucking incel forums originally oh my god so so the only admirable character he included was the one that fucked dudes okay sure yeah all right yeah i just love love that Republicans constantly have to reflect a culture that hates them. Yes. Right? Like, oh, really, Ron? Should we ask Leonardo DiCaprio, the actor in this picture you just used, what he thinks of you? Maybe you could include his quote in your next ad, Ron.

He's a threat to trans existence. Oh, damn it. Okay. Yeah. We were're gonna include that and just to be extra clear the video did not come from the official desantis campaign account and he's now had plenty of time to realize it was completely unhinged and back away from that ad he did the opposite of course he's already doubled and tripled down he supports this ad and now pretty much everyone hates him even within the republican party and that includes the log

cabin republicans the gay conservative group the ad was so incoherent to be clear that a group of gay people who support the republican party were like, wow, this guy DeSantis is really confused. We're backing Donald Trump because that makes more sense. And a big chunk of establishment Republicans came out to criticize the video too. So great job, I guess, to them here. Have a cookie. But my favorite response was from Chasen budaj the husband of transportation secretary pete budaj chasen posted a reply to the video that just said this is actually very gay yeah and i hate to admit it but that's probably the response that bothered ron the most so

and one last thing you're probably wondering at this point were there lightning eyes yes there were ron desantis literally shoots lightning bolts from his eyes like palpatine having a nightmare about himself in a campaign ad for him i i cannot wait for the primary debate season because he's probably still going to be involved. And in swinging Amish news. That's pretty good.

That's pretty good. Thank you. Thank you. Every so often here on The Scathing Atheist, we get a story that's such a perfect metaphor for the problem of religion

that I just want to carve it into golden plates and launch it into space rather than talk about it. Oh, swing and a miss. Sorry, I was taking a sip and also now I just that's awesome. Oh, thank you. I like it. I gotta say, I was hurt. I was moving on. Swing and a miss. Thank you.

But until Joseph Smith gets back to me with those carving tools he promised me, this medium will have to do. After this week, a state court, following a Supreme Court ruling from 2021, declared that Amish people can pour their bath water wherever the fuck they want

because God doesn't give a shit about your groundwater poisoning. Ridiculous. It's like chasing around a stupid little kid so they don't smash their head open dealing with religion at this point. Except their head is also like a dirty bomb in your aquifer. Fuck. Right.

The fact that we still accommodate the Amish is all the solution I need to the Fermi paradox. Right. The aliens took one look. They said, yeah, they subsidize a group of people who are afraid of zippers and they fucked off. I get it. Yeah. Yeah. Can't blame

them so little backstory here the schwarzentuber amish in southeastern minnesota are among the most traditional amish groups in the country eschewing most modern technology like cars telephones electric lights and in this case septic tanks for gray water, aka the dirty water from your house that isn't from your toilet. Now, that's a problem because the state requires you to use septic tanks for that water, because if you don't, it leaches into the groundwater and poisons you and also everyone around you. But back in 2021, the Supreme Court ruled that the Amish are literally allowed to poison the people around them

like the motherfucking Riddler because God told a guy not to use motor oil 300 years ago in Germany. Fuck. And a state court upheld that decision this week. They're poisoning the groundwater around them as we speak in the name of religious goddamn freedom. It's absurd.

We're living in a parable and doing the opposite of the lesson every fucking time with religion. But this one's even dumber than usual. We're in the prisoner's dilemma and we're like, okay, nobody cheat and put poison in the well and we all don't get poisoned. Everybody got that? Everybody got it? Because it's really simple. And religion is like, sincerely held poison already did it. Or you have to let us do it. We already did it. What is happening? Also, while we're on

the topic of the Amish, it's important to note that there's like a cultural zeitgeist of you may not agree with it but that's the way they choose to live and that is a fucking bananas in pajamas level of insane take on the Amish, okay? These people are born and raised in repressive cults that tell them

this is the only way to live. They no more choose to live as Amish than Buffalo Bill's victims chose to put the lotion in the fucking basket. Right, yes. Well, yeah, and even if they do manage to leave, they do so with virtually no education or useful skills or knowledge of how to operate

in the world. They're in an abusive relationship with history, and we're enablers. Yes. Yeah. One last thing about the Amish before we move on, because, again, I'm sorry the metaphor is just too face-slappingly obvious. The Amish do not, in fact, reject modernity.

They drive on modern roads. They use modern health services. They often live off modern social safety nets. What they do do is cosplay antiquity while being supported by the modernity around them that they contribute nothing to. And if that isn't the perfect metaphor for religion, I don't know what is.

And in Prism Schism news, Prism Schism TM, Methodist, if you want to use that, you have to at least try to. It's not that most Christians aren't homophobic bigots, it's that most homophobic bigots spend more of their time doing other stuff than actively hating gay people. And we were reminded of that once again when the United Methodist News Service updated their tally of departing congregations in the wake of this year's annual conferences.

And the new total in the anti-LGBTQ exodus from the United Methodist Church swelled all the way to 6182 in the last four years that's congregations not churches in total that represents about one fifth of all methodist congregations in the u.s oh my god i know i'm supposed to care about this but the methodists are just the middle child of american religion we got the catholics fucking kids and the mormons building volcano lairs made of gold and they're like, hey everybody, 20% of us just added a word to our sign, so

if anyone wants to message me on Facebook, see how I'm doing, check in. I am open for long phone calls. My ringer is off, so I won't miss your call. So, now, let me be clear about I'm a podcaster. What's actually happening here? Because this story

has been too often sold as Methodism like taking a progressive stance even at the cost of one-fifth of their adherence. And that's, I guess, technically true. But I feel like it overstates the case a bit. So as of right now, the official position of the United Methodist Church is that it is impermissible

for a member church to ordain or recognize the marriage of a quote self-avowed practicing homosexual end quote. And I'm quoting from their standing policy but that policy isn't being sufficiently enforced for

one-fifth of Methodist congregants and counting. Yikes. So they've jumped ship for the new, more explicitly homophobic, global Methodist church. Okay, you guys know when you're mentally hate-fucking the gay community, but your partner's just kind of laying there and not doing anything.

That's what it feels like to be a Methodist right now. Let's leave and find something more hateful. Yeah. Yep, exactly. Now, this current exodus began in 2019 when the governing body started issuing basically like, you know, permission slips for congregations to leave. Keep in mind that this isn't like leaving the Southern Baptist Convention. The UMC is less of a breakup, more of a divorce.

There's mutual property to divide. There are contracts that need to be dissolved, shit like that. And that's led to a flood of exits that's increasing rapidly. Of those 6,182 departing congregations I told you about, more than 4,000 of them are from just this year. And though the UMC is closing the window at the end of the year on the easy out thing, several regional groups are expected to hold additional special conferences to expunge quite a few more congregations before that happens hey if your thing has open enrollment for the hate plan stop being that or the other thing don't do anything close to what you're something's gone horribly wrong in your life turn away yeah yeah i know the remaining methodists are like super

proud of themselves but we have an amicable and official way for you to declare yourself a bigot in the name of our God. Not the woke take they're hoping it is. No. Thank you. Exactly. Now, of course, the good news is that what's left over at the UMC is a significantly more liberal body. The fifth of the congregations that left were pretty much the fifth that were the most conservative. They were also most of the largest congregations as well, by the way. So it's expected, though, that next year they actually will change that disgusting rule and

start ordaining gay ministers, which will probably lead to even more bigots jumping ship for the GMC affiliated Methodist church across town. And look, a modern uptick in LGBTQ acceptance among American Christians is meaningful, but I think the slow-motion death of one of America's largest denominations probably means more for gay rights than any policy change they might make. Mm-hmm.

And in good-for-the-goose-step, good-for-the-Michigander news, we have a story about Nazis and Michigan. According to a new federal court ruling, the state prison system of Michigan has to recognize a thing called Christian identity as an official religious group that gets extra rights in jail. And Christian identity is a literal white supremacy group not just because of you know what those words mean and what it says in the bible like american christianity in general is kind of that although that is part of it but it's way more direct the christian identity group has a core tenet that says white people are the race chosen by God. I mean, there is Supreme Court precedent, Heath.

I don't know. Centuries of it. In fact, if we're doing originalism. Yup. And a big thanks to Scott for the link, scathingnews at gmail.com. Good work. Wait, wait, wait, Heath.

You're telling me that not only can listeners send us the latest in atheism news to scathingnews at gmail.com, but if they do, Noah will dress up like a duck sneak into their daughter's furry themed wedding and loudly object during that part of the ceremony interesting really thought we were going to go without it this week noah says no yep me too also yep we're not doing that so oh no no i'm still doing it oh no we are doing that but it would

have been nice yeah sure okay didn't Okay. Didn't expect it, though. Agree. We're all on the same page. That's happening. So here's how we got literal white supremacy as a recognized faith group. It starts with, well, it starts with people not understanding how general elections work and Donald Trump being able to stack the federal bench with absurd theocrats. A small consequence of that election, if I remember correctly. Fast forward, though, to this recent lawsuit by two inmates, James Fox and Scott Perot,

who demanded meetings and special food for their white supremacy club. The prison said, no, is this a prank show? What the fuck's happening? No, absolutely not. But no, it was real and the inmates sued the Michigan Department of Corrections because they were not allowed to have prison sponsored, sincerely held Klan meetings with a slightly different title. Okay, now Heath,

several of my plans also involve gathering all the imprisoned white supremacists in one room, so let's hear them out. Let's hear what happens next. They even get special food in Eli's version. Sure. Beverages. Nice ladle for everybody.

There you go. So last week, this federal court handed down a ruling in favor of religious freedom for neo-Nazism. And apparently the judges were touched emotionally by the sincere argument of white supremacist Scott Perot. He's in jail for child abuse and murder,

just for the record. And according to that guy, it's about heritage and not hate. Seriously though, seriously. He said, quote, it's about Caucasian history and heritage, Christian heritage. It's not about anybody being a supremacist.

It's truly about being separatist. Oh, apartheid, I guess that's fine. It's sorry. Look, it can't be about Caucasian history and not be about white supremacy, bro. I'm sorry. Those two think that's mutually exclusive shit. We know about that. Maybe it's like a really honest.

And then once again, we thought we were superior, but we were actually just a bunch of sister fucking idiots. So we got our asses kicked. This is what happens when the president appoints judges, everybody. Arguments like this don't get interrupted by a taser, okay? Yeah. I'm that president, yeah. So the judges landed on the religion of separate but unequal, but they only said the separate part,

we're going to give them a pizza party. That's what happened. That's the ruling. If I'm giving the best possible version of the argument from these judges i don't know why i'm doing that but if i'm trying to do that they're saying there's a less obstructive way to deal with neo-nazis in prison than a full ban on their so-called made-up bullshit religion called christian identity on the other hand though fuck you fuck you you're a neo-nazi i don't care about the latin words just fuck you you're a neo--Nazi. That's what we should say every time they ask for stuff. Also, you're all Christian and you can already do that in jail for sure. I'm certain.

And honestly, I'm not even sure about that being cool. I don't like that you're allowed to do Christian stuff in jail, but you are. You're fine. Either way, we have federal judges who can't find a spot where a line might go before sincerely held race war they can't use that no more sincerely held anything if you're not going to be mature enough to have that toy we're taking away your sincerely held toy bad no there you go yeah honestly the only way for this to be more obviously wrong is if they like make a Jewish inmate, bake them a swastika cake for each meeting.

And finally tonight in claiming the mural high ground news, a conservative school board in rural Michigan is shutting down a school based health clinic that acts as the primary care provider for a lot of underprivileged kids in the area because it's satanically gay. Specifically, this is so fucking stupid, the school allowed a middle school student to paint a mural on it with a cartoonish little message that said that all kids are welcome. But that welcome included LGBTQ kids as denoted by a gay pride flag on one cartoon character's shirt and a trans flag on a couple other's sleeves. And doing unto others as you'd have them

do unto you is apparently against their religion so Christian parents complained that the mural was political and depending on who you ask, also satanic. Okay, based on their tactics would they be open to a ski-off for the final decision on this thing?

I got a good feeling if they are. You do the painting montage with the rollers. Yeah, exactly. And bring it back to the man. So now this boiled over at a school board meeting last October that included a transphobe dubbing transgenderism, a mental illness, homophobes joining hands to pray away the gay from the school and people accusing random symbols on the mural of being satanic and when the young artist tried

to explain the origin and meaning of those supposedly satanic symbols grown-ass adults called her a liar to the point where she left the room in tears she's a middle schooler whose crime was painting a mural to make other sick children feel welcome. And it's so clearly not satanic. It's so dumb to think it's satanic. It was all about the Illuminati Jewish lizard aliens. There's like the big eye with the dollar bill pyramid. Read a conspiracy. Yeah, I got to say, I hope youall enjoy hearing me on this podcast now because if anyone ever makes my child run from a room crying the results will make the wikipedia description of my city like you just you won't even have to click before you see what i do your city doesn't have a wikipedia no not now but it will but yeah no yeah exactly you'll be the reason

so ultimately the young artist did agree to paint over the symbols that the bigots complained about but apparently a pound of flesh was just enough to wet their appetite because now half a year later the school board has decided to shutter the clinic it's not officially because of the mural they say that the utility costs are too high and they want to use the space for something else. Though when pressed, they couldn't name the something else they wanted to use it for. And according to the local reporting, the clinic remained a point of contention among conservative asshats who have been vowing to shut it down ever since they dared to suggest that trans kids were welcome in the first place.

Do good guys ever make vows anymore? I feel like our vow game is seriously lacking. Okay, so it feels like Eli's about to suggest we all cut our palms again or something, so it's probably best that we close the headlines there for the night. Heath, Eli, thanks as always. Too much. And when we come back, we'll put the ick back in David Icke.

You know, like a lot of nerds, I have a certain reverence for books. I shudder when I see him laying face down. I wince when people dog ear pages. And yet, as I sat down for the 16th and anti-penultimate chapter of David Icke's Everything You Need to Know and realized how hard it was going to be to hold it open while I took notes, I seriously considered ripping out the pages I didn't need anymore. It's reasonable. No kidding. I'm reading the e-book I stole, so I don't give David Icke any money. And I've gone through an iPad a month based on this segment, No Illusions.

It's a pricey one. It's hard to hold open one way or the other. Just like aggressively putting the PDF into the recycle bin hard each time and then getting a new one just for spite. But that's how much we hate this fucking book but we still read it for you

and for this month's installment of Everything You Need to Know. So this week, we're treated to 30 pages of an old man bitching about technology he doesn't understand. Again. Old man yells at data cloud, the book. That's what we're doing. Oh, that's a good one for this month for sure.

Oh, yeah. No, that's actually where we start. We start with him ranting about the dangers of uploading our minds to the cloud. It's not the first time that I thought to myself, like, I wonder what he thinks X is. Like, what does he think the cloud is?

Yeah, and it's actually worse than that because he understands so little about the cloud that he says they're going to upload us to the cloud and then delete us there right yes yeah there's a plan by alien demigods to delete all of human awareness and they also created a backup in the cloud of all i don't know but if enough people read this book right now stop it that's how you start a fucking chapter.

David Icke. Good job. Damn straight. He tells us that Silicon Valley is the devil's playground and I'm just like, man, okay, so nobody who wasn't old and stupid ever unironically called something the devil's playground. Okay. Right. Except, of course, for

Heath and I's countersuit to the Trinity Lutheran ruling, which I still think we should have put more money into, guys. Fair. Fair. We backed off too quickly. He also explains that Siri is coming for you. Yeah. Flash cut to an alien. No, upload the mindscape to the Jew matrix. No, not new matrix. Oh, God, she's just taking dictation.

I'm going to do it. I'm just going to do it on my phone. I'm going to do it. And then he explains to us that Google and Facebook are evil and Jewish. I mean, he's half right. Yeah. Apparently, Mark Zuckerberg is controlled by the archontic lizards or whatever. Not clear how choking out Elon Musk until he shits himself is going to fit into that, but I don't really care, actually.

I just look forward to that. I'm good rooting for an archontic lizard now and again. He also points out that Alphabet is Google as though parent companies were some mystery that he just unraveled. This was a scoop.

This was all him. Just wait till he finds out what Time Magazine and Warner Brothers Entertainment have been up to. Yeah, right? Have you heard about squares and rectangles? I have the scoop. And seriously, right after he exposes that intricate shell game of Alphabet and Google,

he says, interestingly, intelligence organizations in the United States, including the NSA, CIA, and FBI are known as Alphabet Agencies.

Yes. Letters, other letters. That's an alphabet. Interesting. He seriously says all that. No, you're not even exaggerating.

That's really a point. I read you an exact quote, except for the last thing. I said, yeah. Yep. This is where he starts talking about Ray Kurzweil, who is a tool of the Zionist overlords, apparently. Okay, I have a weird take, admittedly,

but do you guys ever get sad when two crazies you enjoy don't like each other? Because I feel like Kurzweil and Ike would have fun comparing like vitamins and skin tensility. No? I feel like there's a buddy comedy there. Oh God, there's also this great moment

where he starts bitching about augmented reality and he very clearly has no idea what that term means but he's scared of it anyway. Yeah, based on this part of the book he's scared of it anyway. Yeah. Based on this part of the book, he's pretty sure it's injecting steroids into realness, sir. Yes.

Right. Yeah, exactly. Somehow augmenting the reality. He seems to think it's another shell game that he exposed, like Google and Alphabet. Like when people hear AI and start being like, rabble, rabble, rabble, the globalists are like, no, it's AR or IA is this other thing. And everybody calms down in his head because they switched letters a little bit. Right, but also things, right?

Like that's different stuff. He starts talking about IA, which is intelligence augmentation. And he's like, but you know, that won't control the brain like AI. I'm like, what do you think AI is dude? Yeah. At this point he's having a,

who would win in a fight, Batman or Superman argument with himself about superheroes. He invented Siri, kill Batman. Fuck Alexa, kill both. I don't know what's happening. God,

he starts shitting on technological immortality or the goal of transhumanism which is good because like him living forever is one of the major downsides right to this whole idea sure damn it had never occurred to me that we might get infinity ben shapiros and it's not worth it anymore no i will yep i'm ready to die right right yeah exactly and then he finally gets around to scaremongering about 5g took 578 fucking pages but 5g apparently it operates in his estimation on the same frequencies as crowd control weapons it's nonsense what does that mean light standing wave oscillation what are also words in the paragraph yes that he likes to say sometimes he explains that they could turn 5g to the burn everyone's skin mode at any time apparently yeah it's actually a new setting they're calling melt

your face time uh yeah be careful yeah to make sure you check your settings before midnight. But he does explain that in his book. According to David Icke, quote, do what we say. No. Ah! End quote. Seriously?

End quote. End real quote. Right out of the book. Because of the 5G burn rays. Yeah, right. He explains that they can delete our memories with 5G. They can control our minds with 5G, which seems like if you can do that,

you don't need memory deletion or skin burning, right? Right. It feels unnecessary, redundant. Also, if you control all the banks and governments and corporations and fucking militaries, you don't need to keep doing any more plans of anything you're done you're done you don't need stuff exactly because he starts talking about he's like well zuckerberg says you're going to be able to make facebook posts with just your mind and i'm

like man he that guy said vr would be profitable you can't listen to that yeah but don't get me wrong i also wish that people would start making facebook posts with their brains because that's certainly not what they're doing now. They're using something else entirely, aren't they? Oh, God. And then he hyperventilates about AI for a bit. He's like, I always hear people talk about AI, but I never hear them

ask what it is. That's because they already know what it is. It's both how and why they're talking about it david there's a man inside the computer something isn't adding up to me here who's drawing these squiggles people say friend a lot what is that though i don't two hoops people say don't choke on the cookie but like what what is What is doing not that? He's like

it's all well and good now, but what about when the computers are even smarter than us? And I'm like, dude, come on. For you, that's been true since the days of the speak and spell, okay? And then he's like, he explains to us that they've had this technology the whole time and they're just giving it to us piecemeal because apparently

the point of their plan is to do everything as slowly and inefficiently as possible question how do they decide when to release the bad stuff we're not gonna like like zooms and nintendo power gloves oh interesting yeah is that a separate department or are they just kind of throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks? Sure. Also, why does the technology always match up with our time? Like, I feel like they should mix it up and release, I don't know, like a dark matter phone every so often just like, fuck with us.

Right, yeah, right, right. Yeah, exactly. There's some kind of like steampunk type phone or something. Go one way or the other. Ooh, yeah. And I wish, this was the point in the book

where I started wishing that I had highlighted it every time he tries to use the existence of his conspiracy theory as evidence of his conspiracy theory. Right? Like at this point, he starts talking about, well, you know,

if the tech wasn't already there to begin with, how would it be that they keep coming up with the latest mind-controlled device just as their plan calls for it? All the Gs lined up in perfect number order.

Really? Perfect. Come on. Five in a row? Come on. He accidentally includes a quote that basically says, weird that the Large Hadron Collider

and this book were both made by the same species, isn't it? David? David, are you accidentally doing the what a piece of work is man speech

from Hamlet again? What did we say about becoming self-aware 587 pages into your book, David? Okay. I feel like we could have fun dropping little hints into David Icke's life that he's in the Truman Show. Like, I bet we could get him to run into a wall thinking it's a hologram. That's a whole podcast. I'll move to the UK, wherever the fuck he is.

100%. All right. Also kind of a weird tangential note here. He talks at this point about how Elon Musk bought a company that's going to put microchips in our brains. And I just love that because it got me to thinking about how many fewer people will now let him put shit in their brains than would when this book was published.

Yeah. And Hey, everyone who still would, good. I want Elon Musk to put stuff in their brains. There you go. And it's funny because when he's talking about Elon Musk, he's very carefully treading carefully because he knows his wackadoodle readers

love that asshole, right? He's like, these companies that are admitting that they're trying to rewire the human brain. And I'm like, yes, so that they can, for example, allow amputees to control robotic limbs. It feels so much less sinister when you finish the fucking sentence, doesn't it, Dave? Oh, yes. The Illuminati and their army of landmine victim children. Oh, shit.

Yeah, right. And mine victim children. Oh, shit. Yeah, right. And then he proves for the first time that the Matrix and the Hunger Games aren't the only entertainment he's aware of in a chapter or a subchapter rather called Human Borg. Where he basically opens up. He's like, okay, you know what? I've just spent 586 pages trying to say, you know, the Borg gets like that.

So, you know what? Let me get out in front of that now. Okay. When Star Trek The Next Generation came out, the Illuminati were fucking furious. They must have been right on. Really? That's exactly what we're doing. Also, I just want to point out that he does switch very quickly

from Borg as metaphor to, so I turn to Borgie Borgstein and I say to him, the thing about you guys is... You're right. Yes. We learned that nanotechnology also scares him.

Yeah. To be fair, same. Okay. Okay. He called the nanotechnology micromachines at the very beginning of the section.

Yes. The rest of the chapter, I was just the speed talking guy from the commercial for micromachines. I'm not saying anti-Semitic slurs are okay. Even if they're in speed voice, I'm not saying they-Semitic slurs are okay, even if they're in speed voice.

I'm not saying they're okay, but they are amusing. They are very amusing. Right, they're funnier that way. That's for sure. They are definitely better, yeah. And we also learned that the internet of things is scary. That scares him as well.

Okay. I'm starting to feel like David might just be scared of buzzwords that show up on TikTok. And I mean, I get it. Same, just, you know, I didn't write a book. Right. And if I had the same insane arguments with myself out loud that David Icke certainly has all the time, I might not want a smart device hearing me either, if I'm being honest.

Right. Sure. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. No kidding. Well, as David Petraeus says, he points that out here. He's like, you know, David Petraeus, he has a quote here that basically boils down to,

man, smartphones make this spying shit almost too easy, don't they? Crazy. And broken clock twice a day. There it is. We found it. Every segment, right? Don't do crimes. Just don't do them.

You're fine. Also, he seems to think that self-driving cars will just take you wherever they feel like you should go right yeah so when maximum overdrive came out the illuminati were like wow that's dumb that does not fuck up our plan at all like the board thing that we're fine oh he rails against electric cars here apparently they're there so that we won't be able to travel as far okay you can't get away from them look i have to admit i've heard a lot of panicked fear-mongering over electric cars but they don't like small towns is new kudos to you david kudos to you yeah it's the same

stupid fucking fantasy for every american redneck though like them commie libs, they'd take over the world if it weren't for my stronghold here in mud fucking forest or whatever. Yes, exactly. What does it matter? You don't matter at all. It wasn't for my diesel truck. Yes, exactly. We'll never bring electricity to this town.

Okay. Great. He warns us that smart fridges are coming for our cheese consumption patterns okay okay now you're scaring keith david too far too far am i being detained no i already have countermeasures in place for this obviously well yeah no obviously yeah is it is it eating a lot of cheese yes oh there's also he promises to explain quantum computers to us later, and I, for one, cannot wait for that explanation.

Yeah, I would like him to explain a simple circuit, let alone quantum computers. David Icke's at your front door clapping with one hand at you, Noah, right now. No question. He points out, he's like, you know, the internet right now has more transistors than the brain has synapses i mean so fucking what do you think that once you have a number of components greater

than i have synapses then like by default you become alive this is two different numbers who some guys making one of those giant domino videos for YouTube and it becomes sentient. It swarms up into Cthulhu somehow and then you take away a domino and it falls back down. This is fun. We found exactly it.

He's half. Adorable. And then, okay, so he starts talking about nanoparticles. So it's time to circle back to the subject of chemtrails, or as he dubs them for the purposes of this subchapter, smart dust from the sky. I love that he already talked about chemtrails earlier in the book, but he couldn't really delve into that topic all the way until

after explaining the smart fridge technology of the internet. Yes, right. Now we have the prereqs from David Icke to understand this 400 level course that we're in here in chapter whatever. He's got this list where he's like, tests have shown chemtrails to contain and he's got this long list of shit

but I'm like, no, I'm going to stop you right there, man. Tests have not shown chemtrails right they have not there are more synapses in the brain of a leprechaun than nope nope i'm gonna stop you i'm gonna stop you what are you talking about he's like our shit is so dumb the government won't even test for it what are they hiding yes i asked them personally to check their chemtrailometer and they said they don't have one are you talking about interesting he goes

there's also this weird moment right this crazy close to self-aware moment where he's like you know dementia is increasingly common especially in my part of the world in my age bracket anyway the bees are dying because their waveform balance is interfered with by

the aluminum. I told the bees I told the bees you don't need deodorant, guys. That's not how you were, but they wouldn't listen. But apparently they're not just killing the bees. They're using the chemtrails to give the bees

dementia. Seriously. He quotes an article called Bees Suffer Dementia Due to Metal Pollution Something Something Something. So there's like an evil brainstorming session on a whiteboard somewhere that says like senile pollination. That's what's happened in his head. What? What would that mean? Honestly, there is no indication that he remembers what this subchapter

or chapter is about at this point. Or book, really. Right? He's just on a roll. Yep. Yep. And this is where he's going to tell us all about Morgellons disease. Come on, man. Really? Morgellons here? Like dust robots from a chemtrail with a skyhook causing Morgellons disease. Come on, man. Really? Morgellons here? Like dust robots from a chemtrail with a skyhook causing Morgellons?

This has to be a prank. This can't be a real book. It can't be real. Oh, Jesus Christ. In his telling now, by the way, the fibers from Morgellons disease continue to grow outside the body and have a form of intelligence. Now, to be clear, in reality, they're clothing fibers that got caught in scar tissue.

Yeah. Right? So he's poking at those going, I feel like that one just moved, right? Didn't it look like it moved to you? You know David was looking at the picture he downloaded for the Borg earlier and then like some Google photos of Morgellons and he was like, holy shit, this is all coming together.

Yeah, he even explains that the Mgellons and he was like holy shit this is all coming together yeah he even explains that the morgellons fucking robot worms that they're dumping on us with the chemtrails are just like the he says remarkably like the the robot they put neo's belly in the matrix back to the old standards. Okay, new version of that Truman Show plan. Eli dresses up like Morpheus. We get David Icke to do so many things at that point. Yes. Kung fu.

I don't know. Whatever we want, right? Sure, yeah, yeah. So this is also, by the way, where he calls Joni Mitchell as a witness to his side. She believes him on the Morgellons.

How dare you? Look, don't you drag Joni Mitchell into this, David. The only medicine she practiced was healing your parents' marriage. And he's like, you know, if Morgellons is supposed to be delusional parasitosis, how do you explain this picture of a guy with eczema?

Okay, exact words here. Spheres found in Morgellons sufferers look remarkably like nanofiber biodegradable polymers. And there's a visual aid after that. And it's just things that are vaguely spherical. Yep. Somebody fell and got like pebbles in a cut, which are remarkably geometrical. Also, nanobots exist in physical space, are geometric solids, too.

Yeah, and he's like, and in case my argument doesn't seem academically sound enough for everyone, allow me to quote from that famous scientific treatise, Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Ah, yes, that documentary. Yes. All right. Well, now that David Icke's fulfilled the challenge to name three sci-fi properties that weren't the Matrix, I suppose we can wrap things up. You did it.

Yeah. But there are still two more chapters and a postscript to go on everything you need to know. to know. Before we retreat to the inner recesses of your phone once again, I want to make sure that you're getting as much Eli as you can in your life, so don't forget he actually does a parenting podcast with Tom from Cognizant and Thomas from Serious Inquiries Only called Dear Old Dads, and you'll find that podcast wherever you

found this one. Anyway, that's all the blasphemy we've got for your night, but we'll be back in 10,022 minutes with more. If you can't wait that long, be on the lookout for a brand new episode of our sister show, The Skeptocrat, debuting at 7 Eastern on Monday,

and an even newer episode of our sister show's Hot Friend God, off of movies, debuting at 7 Eastern on Tuesday, and an even newer episode of our half-sister show,

Citation Needed, debuting at noon Eastern on Wednesday. Obviously, I can't click submit until I thank Eli Bosnick for always giving 110%, and Heath for giving 100%

since he's better at math. I also want to thank Lucinda Lusions, who's sorry. She didn't have a twin for you this week and won't for the next couple of weeks. Cause we're about to go on vacation, but she'll be back very soon.

I also want to thank Dinah for providing this week's Farnsworth quote. If you need another podcast about bullshit in a good way in your life, be sure to check out the show notes for a link to her show. But most of all, of course I want to thank this week's most marvelous mammals. J S Steve by numbers, Kevin Cecil, Nathan Stella,

Simon, Deborah, Scott, Molly, Jane, Ben, Michael, William, nature, not Rowan by numbers, Kevin, Cecil, Nathan, Stella, Simon, Debra, Scott, Molly, Jane, Ben, Michael, William, Nature Nut, Rowan, Morgan, Matthew, Anna, Thomas, and I escaped the hellscapes of Russia to keep giving you my money, who make me harder than Battletoads. And hellscapes, not that I don't appreciate

it or anything, but I can think of way better reasons for you to have escaped from Russia. Congrats, though. I'm very glad to hear it. Together, these 20 dazzlingly delightful disbelievers donated to our droll disproofs of dubious deistic disinformation this week by dispensing them dollars. Not everybody has the alliterative descriptors it takes to give us money, but if you think you're up to the challenge, 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 money's too expensive to give away, you can also help a ton by leaving 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 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 skatingads.com. are we doing the post script yeah we gotta do the post we're doing the post he can't make us of course we're doing the post script i feel like we can make i don't we gotta do the post. We're doing the post. He can't make us. Of course we're doing the post script.

I feel like we can make us. I don't want to do the last two chapters. We can do it in a snip. Okay. The preceding podcast was a production of Puzzle and a Thunderstorm LLC. Copyright 2023. All rights reserved.