The Scathing Atheist - 549: Dolphin Assisted Edition

Episode Date: August 24, 2023

In this week’s episode, the Catholic church sues for everybody to just mean Catholics, a federal judge rules that a human fetus is an endangered species, and Southwest Airlines is experiencing some delays. --- 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/ --- Headlines: The Op-Ed Noah was talking about in the diatribe (sorry, it’s behind a paywall) https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/08/21/leaving-christianity-religion-church-community/ Kenya closes church over starvation massacre: https://religionnews.com/2023/08/21/kenya-closes-churches-over-starvation-massacre-that-has-killed-427/ Catholic Schools Sue Over Rules for Inclusion in Colorado's Universal Preschool Funding: http://religionclause.blogspot.com/2023/08/catholic-schools-sue-over-rules-for.html?lctg=195322114 Sweden raises terror threat due to Quran burnings: https://religionnews.com/2023/08/18/sweden-raises-its-terror-threat-level-to-high-for-fear-of-attacks-following-recent-quran-burnings/ Trump-Appointed Judge Cites Wildlife Cases As a Reason to Ban Abortion Pills:  https://www.politico.com/news/2023/08/19/abortion-pill-ruling-environment-00111843 Judge pauses order to make Southwest’s lawyers attain bigotry classes: https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/judge-pauses-ruling-ordering-religious-liberty-training-southwest-lawyers-2023-08-17/ --- This Week in Misogyny: South Carolina Supreme Court uphold abortion ban they just struck down: https://apnews.com/article/south-carolina-abortion-ban-f4e0d8ef8187fdd1e8db54dd464011b9 Antiabortion groups spread disinformation about contraception: https://msmagazine.com/2023/08/17/anti-abortion-pro-life-over-the-counter-birth-control-women/ Catholic hospitals in Australia refuse contraceptive and reproductive care: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/aug/22/do-australian-catholic-hospitals-perform-abortions-provide-contraception-reproductive-care

Warning, this podcast contains such high-level profanity that there are probably cuss words in it you don't even know. Like, bescumber. This week's episode of The Skating Atheist is brought to you by HelloFresh. And by the new marker designed to clear your criminal history in the eyes of American voters in Dite Out. Just apply it to the headlines on newspapers or on your phone and the information won't be there anymore. In Dite Out. The motherfucker thought we wouldn't notice when he took a sharpie to a weather forecast. on newspapers or on your phone, and the information won't be there anymore. In died out. The motherfucker thought we wouldn't notice when he took a sharpie to a weather forecast. I'm convinced this is a viable business model.

And now, the scathing atheist. Hi, this is the skeptic Viking from Sweden. While my country is far from perfect, our secular and publicly funded schools and universities have ensured that I and all of my fellow Swedes know that we did in fact evolve from filthy monkey men. It's Thursday. It's August 24th. And it's Strange Music Day. That's right. Go off, you beautiful theremin-playing angels.

Go off. I'm no illusions. I'm Eli Bosn go. I'm no illusions. I'm Eli Bosnick. I'm Ethan Wright. And from Ezra Miller's, New Jersey, Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Waycross, Georgia, this is The Scathing Atheist. On this week's episode, the Catholic Church sues for everybody to mean just Catholics. A federal judge rules that a human fetus is an endangered species. And Southwest Airlines is experiencing some delays.

But first, the diatribe. I read an interesting op-ed by a columnist named Perry Bacon Jr. He's a recent deconvert who spent the piece lamenting the loss of his church community and wishing for a secular alternative. His is a familiar story, of course. He realized years ago that the basis of his religion was probably bullshit, but he liked the church community. It had been a big part of his life since childhood, and he was under the impression that it mostly steered people towards moral behavior.

So he stayed for a long time. Then along came Trump, and he started to back away and say, wait, how moral is this religion actually? And about the same time, he learned that somebody in his church wasn't being allowed to lead some group or another because he was gay. And then along came the pandemic, gave him an excuse to stop going to church, and nothing Christianity has done in the interim has

given him any excuse to go back. Now, to be honest, from my perspective, it's hard to understand the whole pining for the good old days of going to church thing that is so common among former believers. I mean, I went to church, Bryce, I think. And in all three instances, it was so deeply unpleasant that I wrote it off altogether even before I was sure there wasn't a hell. But I get that my experience isn't universal. After all, the primary benefit people cite of religious worship is a feeling of belonging, and I certainly never felt like I belonged in any of those places. So I'll readily concede that Perry Bacon Jr.'s church experience,

that of an African-American dude from Louisville, Kentucky, whose dad was an assistant pastor for his church, was entirely different from that of a satanic-looking white kid at a Pentecostal church in South Georgia that his girlfriend had clearly dragged him to. That being said,

I get the feeling reading the article that he misses church the way I miss going to the video store. Right. But unlike Perry Bacon Jr., I recognize that I'm motivated by nostalgia rather than some inherent positive quality of blockbuster. See, within the column, he acknowledges that there are secular alternatives. He mentions trying out a few Unitarian Universalist churches and finding them to be overwhelmingly white and elderly and lacking in the diverse activities that made church such a social hub for him. He also mentioned Sunday assembly, a concerted effort to create exactly the thing that he's looking for, but dismissed it by simply saying it, quote, has struggled to gain much traction, end quote. He also admits that clubs and neighborhood gatherings serve many of the same functions as churches do, but he writes them off because, quote, none of those gatherings provide singing, sermons, and solidarity all at once, end quote. Which, forgive me, sounds an

awful lot like a nostalgic blockbuster customer pointing out that with Amazon Prime, you can't get your movie and overpriced giant Twizzlers in the same place. Now, don't get me wrong. I agree with the overall point that Bacon is making in his piece. I don't think there's anything that atheists can do to make our side of the fence more appealing to the uncommitted nuns than creating community groups to fill the void that's created when people leave church. And it's something that we're doing emphatically. It's the reason we have skeptics in the pub meetups and Sunday assembly and online groups and conventions and local atheist group. Hell, it was the impetus to start this podcast. But it's only a sad testament to just how thoroughly

religion has co-opted the very concept of community that despite that it's never enough see in the end bacon's solution is just better churches because he can scarcely imagine a viable alternative to church even after naming a few so much so that he literally says that there's a quote church-sized hole in american life end quote he laments the fact that left-leaning americans are abandoning churches instead of, quote, reinventing them to align with our 2023 values, end quote. He even spends a few seconds imagining what a church for the nuns might look like, and he describes Sunday assembly pretty much exactly, and then laments the fact that it doesn't exist. And look, I can fault Bacon for

his reasoning here, but I can't argue with his lived experience. And I think a lot of theological atheists that wouldn't dare wear the A word label are walking a very similar path to his. And when I read it, I see two calls to action. And the obvious one is that we need to redouble our efforts to build communities. We have a lot. We have more than Perry Bacon Jr. realizes, I would imagine, but we're still wildly outnumbered by churches. A person looking for churches can be really specific with their needs in most of the country if you're looking for a secular alternative you've got one option if you're lucky right i doubt we're ever going to outnumber churches so we need to fight their

advantage and variety with ours and inclusion we need to fight their quantity with our quality but the other call to action that's hiding in the middle of that is the fact that we need to tear down this bullshit idea that churches have some kind of proprietary right to community. It's something they've jealously guarded for centuries, and they still do, so much so that they try to grab the communities that don't belong to them, right? They try to take over online groups and book clubs and community groups, and, oh, can we pray first or whatever, whatever they can get their fucking prayers on. Because on some level, they recognize that any secular alternative

to the community that they offer is a threat to their social dominance. You know, Perry Bacon Jr. imagines better churches, but churches are inherently exclusionary, right? And notice that he didn't call for a mosque for the nuns. He's modeling his very concept on his Protestant upbringing as though there's something inherently valuable, not just in community, but in that community. That in some way or another, the way that Christians did things was the correct way to do it. And that idea is so often the poison pill that dooms the secular alternatives.

The nuns don't need an alternative church. They need an alternative to church. And that's what't need an alternative church. They need an alternative to church, and that's what we need to give them. They're talking about you, Jesus. We interrupt this broadcast and bring you a special news bulletin. Joining me for headlines tonight are the nitrogen and phosphorus to

my potassium, Heath Enright and Eli Posnick. Fellas, are you ready to fertilize some minds? Anarchist cookbook. Oh, okay. I thought we were doing the bomb thing. some minds? Anarchist cookbook. Oh, okay. I thought we were doing the bomb thing. Well, yeah. I mean, eventually. We'll get there. To be fair, I resent the accuracy of being the smelly element of the podcast. I'm not saying it's

not true. I just... No, I also resent that. So while we crack a window and open a fan, we're going to pause for a word from this week's sponsor, HelloFresh. Okay, and then the Smiths get in on the 30th, which means we need a pescatarian and vegan option, plus normal basic food for Noah and Lucinda on that day.

I think we might need to order from two places. That's what I was thinking, was to order from two different places. Hey guys, what you doing? Oh, we're just preparing the food for the pajama party. With everyone having special diets and needs, this is going to be a huge handful. Yeah. Tell me about it. I mean, if you guys have a diverse house of food needs, why not try HelloFresh? Oh, 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 mean, that would save us time for the grocery store, but are you sure they have the right stuff for everybody, Noah? They sure do. HelloFresh has 40 chef-crafted recipes

to select from every week. From family-friendly to fit and wholesome, you'll always find new and exciting recipes to try and love. Plus, you can add snacks, sides, and more to your weekly HelloFresh order. Just simply shop HelloFresh Market and take your pick from a curated selection of over 100 add-on items. I don't know. All those meals? It sounds kind of expensive. Actually, HelloFresh is 25% cheaper than takeout and less expensive than grocery shopping, too.

Just choose your recipe and receive fresh, pre-portioned ingredients so you can get cooking quick. It's true. Anna and I became HelloFresh members when they became a sponsor and I love how there's always something for me to choose.

That's why I, Eli Bosnick, personally endorse HelloFresh. All right, I'm sold. Where do I sign up? Go to HelloFresh.com slash 50scathing

and use the code 50scathing for 50% off plus free shipping. So I go to HelloFresh.com slash 50 scathing and use the code 50 scathing for 50 off plus free shipping so i go to hellofresh.com slash 50 scathing and use the code 50 scathing for 50 off plus free shipping that's right thanks noah now we just need a system for picking out what board games to play it's code names yeah man it's just it's just code names. Fine. Maybe Crokinole. Yeah, a little Crokinole. Nice.

And now back to the headlines. In our lead story tonight, we have an update to one of the most morbid and fucked up stories we've ever had to cover on this show. Back on episode 532, we talked about Kenyan pastor Paul Mthangi McKenzie when news broke that he was convincing his parishioners to starve themselves to death to expedite their entry into heaven. At the time, the death toll was 89, but we knew it was going to go higher. We knew that more bodies would be discovered, but also when authorities got to his church, a lot of people were far enough along in their heaven expediting process that there was no way to save them. Well, that number is now 427. Yeah. Over 400 people were convinced by a religious leader

to stop eating to death so that they could meet Jesus. Well, the tiny sliver of good news that earned the update is that last Friday, Kenya officially closed his church, all its affiliate churches revoked his registration and banned his cult oh they banned the cult christianity's banned in kenya now that's a good start that's good not all yeah baby steps i feel like in this case sending thoughts and prayers is a little like sending bullets to a mass shooting you know yeah right no you can't do that now to be clear the mass murderer was more than just

fired right he's been jailed in mombasa since this story broke he's facing charges of cruelty to children kidnapping murder and terrorism unless we underestimate how truly evil this dude is i want to point out that while most of his 427 victims starved themselves to death according to police some were suffocated or beaten to death as well but the thing to keep in mind about the deregistering of his church is that the church had been around for 20 years by the time this story broke it had affiliated churches and spin-off churches and the same web of sub-church and sub-ministry shit that american churches have right so by taking this action the government was able to shutter several very problematic churches that were apparently following mckenzie's sociopathic

model yeah uh hey kenya while you got your stamp out and everything we have some churches over here i'd love for you to take a peek yeah right when it comes to self-destruction well so naturally in the aftermath of this horror there have been calls for greater regulation on what can and can't call itself a church in Kenya. Right. In May, President William Ruto charged a task force to review legal and regulatory governance of religious organizations and figure out, you know, fucking how a serial killer got through. And just as naturally, that's led to Kenya's religious leaders strenuously objecting. Right. Because that's bound to Kenya's religious leaders strenuously objecting, right? Because that's bound to end in accountability. And like religious leaders all over the world, the ones in Kenya would much rather risk hundreds more people

being tortured to death by a madman than have as much regulatory oversight as a fucking professional dog walker has. Right. But even if the church did have as much oversight as a dog walker, that's way too little still it shouldn't be tied that shouldn't be a tie no matter what a dog walker says to anybody they're not going to cause a mass suicide based on their dog walking expertise why not becoming

a church should be like buying uranium if they're going to have special rights yeah right right you're probably a terrorist and you're on a list now. And really, it should be illegal. And you don't get it. Yeah, exactly. And look, in the objector's defense, if the standard for not being a church is self-harm, this slope is fucking slick, y'all. There's astroglide and the blood of kids everywhere on this slide.

You know what I'm saying? I get why they don't want it. It's not just blood. Yeah. And look, with all due apologies for bringing the mood down, I think it's really important that we look at shit like this as something other than an over there problem, right? Because there are three factors that make this kind of predation

more viable in Kenya than it is here in the US, right? People are poorer, people are less educated, and churches have less government oversight. And all three of those things are things that the GOP is pushing for in America. They sure are. And in pre-KKK news, being an atheist is less worrying about slippery slopes and more worrying about runways. Sure, religion tells you they're just building a well-lit piece of road just outside of town, but you're pretty sure they're going to start landing planes any minute now. And thus, when Supreme Court decisions like Trinity Lutheran from a few years ago came down, we pointed out that it set a dangerous

precedent of private religious institutions demanding access to public funds while maintaining their private religious exemptions. Well, put up your tray tables and return your seats to the upright position because this week the Catholic Church is suing the state of Colorado for the state's universal preschool funding requirements being too damn universal. Yeah. No, it turns out that maybe this will be the one time in all of human history where religion doesn't abuse their privilege. Wasn't a good bet again.

Yes, again, exactly. So first off, big thanks to Alan, who not only sent us this story to scathing news at gmail.com, but also sent me the pre KKK pun. So if you would like to do our jobs

for us, you can send us Atheist News to ScathingNews at gmail dot com, and you'll be paid in deep and abiding gratitude plus midnight karate lessons. Eli, surprise karate lessons are just assault. How many times do me and the restraining orders have to tell you that?

Obviously more than 11, No Illusions. Obviously more than 11. I feel like I sent Eli mixed messages about that. It might be my fault. That might be my fault. Thank you. We've had fun. You said I never felt more alive. I did say that. I did say that and it was true. I meant it, Eli. Anyway,

I love you. Did we just become best friends and lovers? Did we just fucking fall in love? Right here? What more do you need, people? Giving you gold. Never said that before. Anyway, to the story.

The sewers in question are the Catholic Archdiocese of Denver plus two Catholic schools from the state. And they claim that their free exercise and speech rights were infringed by several conditions in the program. For instance, you aren't allowed universal preschool funding if your preschool only allows attendees to be Catholic because that's what the word universal means. Yeah.

We're saying the anti-bigotry rule is bigotry against us. Why do you keep asking me to repeat that out loud? I don't understand. Yeah. I'm saying anti-bigotry is bigotry against me. Yeah. But it actually gets worse. I'm going to quote from the Religion Clause blog here.

Quote, The complaint also alleged that the program's non-discrimination requirements prevent Catholic schools from requiring teachers, administrators, and staff to abide by Catholic teachings on marriage, gender, and sexuality, from considering whether a student or family has identified as LGBTQ, and from assigning dress requirements, pronoun usage, and restroom use on the basis of biological sex, end quote. In short, the universal preschool funding doesn't let us be bigots, so we're suing. Well, that's exactly, it's not even

that it doesn't let them do that, it just doesn't pay them to do that. The fucking, the argument from you're being held to a law and that's not fair, which has been a fucking winning argument so far for our fucking current Supreme Court, rears its head again.

Okay, can we just be honest and ban Catholicism in the good states? I feel like we need to spam the court at this point, right? Just like make them say things. Sure, yeah, exactly. They should be all about states' rights. They're all about the founding fathers would have wanted to ban Catholicism state by state.

No, that's probably true, yeah. It's about heritage. we were all children once anyways like i said at the beginning of the story the precedent for this case was laid out before our supreme court was a theocratic shit show that didn't believe gay people have the right to websites so there is every chance this case will move forward and your secular tax dollars will fund straight virgins only universal preschool. That is, unless Alan

wants to really earn my love and uses those midnight karate lessons in the way I taught them. You can do it, Alan. I heard they all eat lunch together in the same room. You know what I'm saying? He's not talking about the preschoolers. I can't tell you who he is talking about, but can at least say that i'm at least allowed to say that and in swede whacker news sweden has joined denmark in raising their national terror threat

level to the notch right below actively being attacked by terrorists this week after repeated public quran burnings have stoked the ire of all of Islam's top terrorist organizations. The rash of unholy desecrations are mostly the work of a single Iraqi asylum seeker who justifies his acts by pointing out that he's using his free speech to criticize Islam. And if nothing else, kudos for his commitment, right? Since few things are going to justify a religious asylum claim from a Muslim country better than, come on man i'm the i'm the quran burning guy that's that's solid that's very solid yeah it's one way to boost the strength of your visa i guess now to be honest there's a degree to which i'm conflicted on this one right because because muslims are a minority in sweden and if any minority anywhere was like hey guys it's super duper offenseless if you mistreat this one important totem

of our ethnicity or sexual orientation or whatever, I'd be pissed at the dude who set it on fire, right? Plus, I'm against book burning just on principle. Okay, Noah, you're nicer than me. This particular minority group is a choice, so that makes it different to me. And it comes with a user's manual that demands hate crimes. Again, that's part of this me. And it comes with a user's manual that demands

hate crimes. Again, that's part of this group. Just like the manual for Judaism and Christianity, there's like demands for hate crimes in the group. The fact that Islam is a minority group in Sweden, it doesn't make me angry at the ex-Muslim asylum seeker from Iraq for doing what he wants with the book he owns that happens to have hate crimes built into it. Like, I bet he had really good reasons for burning that book. That's not my thing, but I get it, I suppose. I just, if there was some white dude doing it in front of a mosque in America,

my guess is he wouldn't be doing it because he has legitimate complaints. That's what I'm saying. And again, it's not like you can't criticize Islam without setting Korans on fire. And for evidence of that, I would like to submit exhibit us. So I'm not allowed lighters. Well, that's true. But this dude who has now burned Korans

in front of parliament outside of the Iraqi embassy and in front of a mosque is almost certainly an asshole who needs to fuck off. All that being said, the terrorist group issuing threats aren't urging people to attack him, right? They're urging people to attack Sweden for letting him do it. That falls way outside my range of sympathy. Yeah. Okay. Anyone suggesting violence against a human being in response to violence against magical

paper? They just made the violence against the magical paper extra reasonable for me. Like, I'm not going to burn a Quran, but now I want to do that a tiny bit more. You're not helping your cause. Yeah, I have a suggestion. Can we launch this guy and also the people who are mad at Sweden about him into space and sort of let them work it out? There you go.

Seems like an Ouroboros that none of us really need to be a part of. Yeah, we could have Russia land him on the moon, maybe. That maybe that's great right now it's just a confusing and upsetting riddle and i'd like to be separated and look for what it's worth swedish prime minister olf kristensen basically said the same thing that i'm saying right right when he addressed this situation he emphasized that sweden doesn't have blasphemy laws and isn't planning on acquiring any. He then added, though, that, quote, not everything that is legal is appropriate. I've heard that. Adding, quote, I think if you care about the security situation in Sweden, you should consider whether what you're doing is good for our country, end quote.

In other words, yeah, we get it, man. Now, will you please fuck off before somebody plows a bus into Eli's tour group? True, true. Okay, but let's just say it man now will you please fuck off before somebody plows a bus into eli's tour group true true okay but let's just say it right now if i die in a terrorist attack about someone doing an anti-religion bit that went too far that's pretty good right no it is it's got a lot of levels you can be sad but everyone like you have my permission to meme it everybody i just want you to know and now that you said that it's even better like yeah it's, like, you have my permission to meme it, everybody. I just want you to know. And now that you said that, it's even better. Yeah, really. It's even funnier. You can send people to this when they are mad at you for it.

This is like a callback forward meta. It's a call forward back forward swoosh. Fuck yeah. It's okay. Carl will take over my part of the show. All right. Well, it looks like we've got some just-in-case meme templates to set up. So we're going to take a quick break and hand things over to my lovely wife,inda a man wrote the bible a whore is what she wants if it's a legitimate

right cooking can be fun hey i'm proud of a man this week in massager well i've been gone for seven whole days so abortion laws in america have gotten measurably worse on the day we're recording this the the South Carolina Supreme Court just upheld an abortion ban it had struck down only a few months earlier, which effectively bans abortion six weeks into pregnancy. So what changed on the court? Well, the only woman on it reached the state's mandatory retirement age and got replaced with a dude. So now all of a sudden, a woman's right to privacy is no longer a controlling concern when it comes to what happens to her body. Now, don't get me wrong. I love the idea of a mandatory retirement age for the Supreme Courts.

Given the makeup of our federal one, I'd say set it at 23 and raise it after we've ousted the chuckle fuck theocrats that are burning shit down right now. But the end result of this is terrifying. South Carolina was the one remaining holdout in the South in terms of abortion bans. Now the state with the least restrictive abortion laws in the region is Florida. Florida, which already bans abortion after 15 weeks and is in the process of trying to whittle that number down. But as we all know, it was never just about abortion. It was about sexual autonomy, not just for women, for everyone, which we're reminded of every time the concept of birth control comes up around anti-abortion activists.

Those groups, of course, are fighting hard against the newly approved drug, Norgestrel, which is sold under the brand name Opil. It's the first over-the-counter contraceptive pill ever approved by the FDA. So for the first time, women can get the most effective form of birth control available to them without paying a doctor for their permission first. And of course, it's the target of a rampant disinformation campaign by anti-abortion groups, groups that should be all about making contraception as widely available as possible. Unless they're full of shit and actually just anti-woman. Anyway, there was a good expose on the tactics they're using in Miss Magazine online, which Alan sent to us at scathingnews at gmail.com,

and which I'll share in the show notes if you're interested. And for our international listeners who are thinking, man, I'm glad I don't live there, I should remind you that they're always looking to branch out internationally. Like take, for instance, a story we got from astute listener Kevin about Australian Catholic hospitals refusing to provide birth control and abortion. And as fucked up as that is, we're kind of numb to it in America. But we don't have universal health care.

Our hospitals aren't publicly funded the way that theirs are. And they're not as cowed to the legal impunity churches demand for themselves as a condition of helping people not die. So revelations about the restrictive policies are causing quite a stir. And I need to remind everyone on the practical consequences of this shit. Like, a lot of people want a tubal ligation if they're getting a C-section, since, you know, they're already opened up, and it would be the safest possible time to do it. Catholic hospitals won't do that.

Worse still, they can't even see sexual assault victims since they pre-refuse to administer the morning after pill. So these patients just have to be diverted to the second closest hospital. Now, the good news is that Australia's secular activists are way more organized and, at least historically, way more effective than ours, and there's a concerted effort to change this shit. The bad news is that we know Catholic institutions would literally stop providing medical care before they'd make baby Jesus cry. So, at least right now, the public funding looks unlikely to change. And now that you're good and depressed, I guess I can hand you back over to Noah, Heath, and Eli.

Thank you, Lucinda. And in fetal attraction news, a federal judge made a ruling last week that would restrict access to the abortion pill, citing the legal argument called, we think unborn babies are pretty and we want to look at them. That's a real thing that happened. Like I genuinely thought I was being pranked by a satire site, but sadly, no, that is real. I double checked the ruling from the fifth circuit court of appeals pending a review

by the Supreme court will ban all telemedicine prescriptions for Mifepristone and restrict its use to the first seven weeks of pregnancy down from 10 weeks. And the opinion from Judge James Ho cited the unfair, quote, aesthetic injury to the anti-choice doctors, the plaintiffs, who really like looking at fetuses and babies. So they were injured aesthetically by the FDA. Okay. Now, to be clear, though, what makes this stand out from other anti-abortion arguments is its novelty, right? Not its stupidness.

It's tied for stupidness with pretty much all their other arguments. But it's new. In fact, if I may be so bold, this may actually be the most reasonable anti-abortion argument ever. Really? I'm closest to pro-life that I've ever been after reading this, for sure. Yeah, sure.

And a big thanks to Jacqueline for the link. Scathingnews at gmail.com. Good stuff. I'm behind you, Jacqueline. Here's a little background on Judge James Ho. He was appointed by Donald Trump in 2018, not surprisingly, and sworn in by Clarence Thomas. That swearing in happened

in Harlan Crowe's library. Oh, you're fucking kidding me. Yeah, in case anyone missed it, Harlan Crowe is the billionaire GOP megadonor who literally has Clarence Thomas in his pocket and also owns a giant collection of Nazi memorabilia. Crow claims he owns that stuff. Ironically, you know, like people come over and he's like, hey,

what if we get stoned and watch like Manos Hands of Fate and also look at my signed copy of Mein Kampf, right? Like ironically, like for fun. Yeah, that's his excuse. Anyway, James Ho is also a giant piece of shit, just like all the people involved in getting him onto the bench. Back in May, during a hearing about contraception, James Ho thought he was being very clever when he said, Is pregnancy a serious illness? When we celebrated Mother's Day, were we celebrating illness? were we celebrating illness jesus christ that is so stupid on so many levels not the least of which is that motherhood is surviving pregnancy right like so like in his mind when we commemorate somebody surviving cancer we're celebrating the cancer yeah i guarantee you if we ask james ho of getting hit in the balls hurts more than childbirth, he would say yes. He would absolutely say yes.

And here's the reasoning we got from James Hill last week. He argued that a group of anti-choice doctors had valid standing to sue the FDA because those doctors were robbed of their constitutional freedom to look at fetuses and newborn babies, which are just like the flora and fauna on a safari.

Do it now. For real. In his concurring opinion, he mentions lawsuits about environmental groups filing lawsuits on behalf of birdwatching interests, writing, quote, if a plaintiff has concrete plans to visit an animal's habitat and view that animal,

that plaintiff suffers aesthetic injury when an agency has approved a project that threatens the animal. Unborn babies are a source of profound joy for those who view them. Expectant parents eagerly share ultrasound photos with loved ones. Friends and family cheer at the sight of an unborn child.

Doctors delight in working with... Do they cheer at the unborn child? Sorry. I'm going to stop you right there. Cheering for the unborn? I don't know why they're doing a racist cheer for the fetus. That's very problematic, but I would like to believe it happens after the birth. Anyway, continuing. Doctors delight in working with their unborn patients problematic but like i would like to believe it happens after the birth anyway continuing doctors delight in working with their unborn patients and experience an aesthetic injury when they are aborted end quote if they plan on visiting that uterus also look look i'm not saying the fact that nobody whose kid or grandkid is ever gave a fuck about ultrasound photos is the reason

that he's wrong but it's at least a reason that he's wrong right right also these are not happy and expectant parents and families that this is this argument is like saying some people go to the zoo to see lions so why shouldn't we legally force one into random people's homes? Right. Yeah. And since pregnant people are exactly the same as a fucking national park, you have to birth those lions for the viewing pleasure of insane evangelical doctors. Whatever. That's actually the argument. Seriously.

Judge Ho also added, quote, the FDA has approved the use of a drug that threatens to destroy the unborn children in whom plaintiffs have an interest. I see no basis for allowing standing based on aesthetic injury when it comes to animals and plants, but not when it comes to unborn human life, end quote. And finally tonight in ADFU news, we have an update on a story from a couple of weeks ago as you'll recall from episode 547 three lawyers from southwest airlines were recently ordered by a federal judge to undergo religious freedom training by a hate group like a legitimately sblc listed hate group well after an appeal from southwest and a judicial misconduct complaint from a judicial reform advocacy group,

Trump-appointed District Judge Brantley Starr has backed away from that unprecedented order and said he would not enforce it pending Southwest's appeal. Aw. Okay, obviously the original order was absurd, but I really wish the Southwest legal team had just done it, you know, for the bit. Like, nobody's bigger than the bit. Yeah, right, yeah. Take one for the team there. Record it for Gam.

You're a hero. Is this a Hunger Games situation? Can we volunteer as tribute? No, so yeah, obviously the whole fucking thing was nuts. Judge felt that the lawyers for Southwest had insufficiently complied with his orders vis-a-vis religious freedom. So he hit a big red fucking button

that all Trump- trump appointed judges have that sets off a klaxon at the alliance defending freedom headquarters and then a bunch of people were like hey man you can't give lawyers in school suspension at bigot high and then i guess the fucking federal judge apparently checked with somebody who knew stuff about laws and then backed off okay yeah and i bet that legal expert told him that Brantley Starr has to fly us to his house now and feed us nice food and take our secular freedom tutorial and has to pass. Or else he's our butler. Yeah.

And by the way, for those meals, I am getting real vegan, Judge. Real vegan, just so you know. Damn it. i am getting real vegan judge real vegan just so you know damn it so yeah so in response to the complaint the adf said it was quote intolerant to suggest that people of faith cannot provide legal instructions simply because their religious beliefs might differ from their audiences end quote which of course nobody was fucking suggesting right they might as well say it's intolerant to suggest that they just stop beating their wives i mean mean we don't even have any reason to think the lawyers sentenced to the bigotry classes weren't christian demographically speaking they probably were what people were suggesting is the adf can't provide legal instruction because they're the adf right but even that's irrelevant

to the fucking complaint, which is that people can't be forced to take legal instruction from any single fucking person. Yeah. Imagine being told you're too bigoted

to teach in the fucking annex of the fucking Ramada Inn by the airport. And your response is, actually, that's my religion. And also,

I know this isn't really relevant to the story but i learned while i was researching this one that the judge in this case brantley star is the nephew of course his name's brantley yep no and he's the nephew of kenneth star the guy who acted as special counsel on the bill clinton blowjob case and more or less directly led to one of the most embarrassing political moments in america's pre-Trump history. And look, I agree that problematic unclehood shouldn't disqualify somebody from the federal bench,

but I feel like it should at least be a red flag, right? We should take it into consideration. You should have to explain it on your application like a felony conviction or something. Also explain why your name is Brantley Starks. Like that's the name, right? Right. He should have lost

points on the SATs. You know how you get it? And on that slight and probably ephemeral nugget of good news, we're going to wrap up the headlines for the night. Heath, Eli, thanks as always. Jumanji. And when we come back, we'll have to patiently explain to Eli once again that that's not what blowhole means. We'll have to patiently explain to Eli once again that that's not what blowhole means.

We'll see. Hey, podcast listener. I'm Eli Bosnick. I'm Heath Enright. And I'm Noah Lusions. As we stand just days away from our annual pajama party, we want to remind you of several things. First of all, if you're a patron of our show, you can tune into the live stream Saturday at 8 p.m. Eastern to watch fun shenanigans and general tomfoolery. But that's not all. As you know, our very own Don Ford, voice of fantasy and adventure, will be joining us for the PJ party, which is why you should buy tickets to our Las Vegas show on October 28th. That's right, Heath. If our listeners don't buy enough tickets to our live show

at GodawfulMoviesLive.com, we'll be forced to kill Don and sell his organs for money. Sad but true, Eli. Sad but true. So tune in for the live stream on Saturday at 8 p.m. Eastern, and don't forget to get your live show tickets at GodawfulMoviesLive.com to save

Don's life. GodawfulMoviesLive. to save Don's life. Godawfulmovieslive.com. $3,500 a kidney. There's no doubt that religious belief rests high upon the mountain of bullshit, reigning supreme over all the nonsense below it. But as every chess player knows, if you want to come for the king, you're probably going to have to take out some knights and rooks and shit along the way. Which leads us to another edition of...

How Bullshit Is It? So, Heath, what morsel of mortifying manure do you have for us today? Today, we're going to be talking about the most adorable entry in How Bullshit History, dolphin-assisted therapy, or DAT. Okay, listeners, if you're not picturing a dolphin in spectacles with a clipboard, sitting behind a guy on a couch, you are not the woman I married, just so you know. Okay, so... Sorry, Noah, one more.

The dolphin therapist in the picture that you're picturing, he practices CBTEEE. Sorry, Noah, one more. The dolphin therapist in the picture that you're picturing, he practices C-B-T-E-E-E-E-E. Okay, all right. Yes. So with the assumption that Eli's instincts are wrong here, what is dolphin-assisted therapy?

It's the idea that traditional therapies can be rendered significantly more effective when combined with dolphins. Oh, okay. But what are the dolphins doing? Mostly regular dolphin stuff,

swimming around, blowing shit out of their blowholes, and occasionally doing that, you know, adorable like, ee, ee, ee, that dolphins do, obviously. So, okay. I can immediately see

how that would make my therapy better and more effective. So I would like to officially object to the C segment. I will no longer be participating. But making it better for you in that sense doesn't necessarily mean making it more effective, the therapy. We've had animal-based therapies for like 12,000 years. And despite all the recent advancements in psychiatric pharmacology, the absolute peak of therapy, you got to admit, it's getting your face licked by a dog, and it's amazing.

Or giving belly rubs. When they do the face push, you know, when they take their face and they push your hand with it or whatever. When they wake up and they do a big stretch. A stretch? Sometimes when I come home, my cats have left a space for me on the couch. Oh.

That sounds nice. Cats are cool too. That's fun. Cats are cool too, yeah. Anyway, the point is, there are plenty of legitimate uses for animal therapy. So deciding the bullshit level of a particular kind is going to be based entirely on what kind of claims are being made about it.

Okay, so what kind of claims are being made about it? And do they make these claims on purpose? You have to stop. Nice. Okay, I'm done. I'm done for now. For now, I am done. At the most plausible end of the spectrum,

they say it increases language, speech, gross motor, and fine motor functioning among children with various disabilities. Some say it also improves memory, accelerates healing, and reduces stress, pain, and depression. But the more enthusiastic supporters also claim

it's effective for treating autism, epilepsy, Down syndrome, dyslexia, Tay-Sachs disease, Tourette syndrome, cancer, and AIDS. What? They say dolphins can cure cancer and AIDS? Well, okay. They say it's useful in treating people who have cancer and AIDS, treating them psychologically, though. All right. Well, I mean, I guess that's more plausible than them actually curing the AIDS,

but I still don't see how dolphins are going to, like, help a disabled kid's language skills either. Right. But just in case Noah's wrong, do they have signups available and do the parents participate? Okay. Well, no, I think you're focused on the D and not thinking about the A and the T of DAT, the assisted therapy part. What we're talking about isn't just swimming with

dolphins. It's doing traditional forms of therapy whilst swimming with dolphins or in between swimming with dolphins. Very often, the dolphin is just used as a reward to reinforce the desired behavior. You show improvement in your speech, you get to play with the dolphin again. But that part generally gets left out of the narrative when you see this stuff in the news. They'll talk about swimming with dolphins and they'll talk about improvements in speech therapy for kids. And the reader is left with the impression that there's just something about the aura of dolphins

that makes the kids be able to speak better. All right, so, but does DAT make traditional forms of therapy work better? Maybe, but probably not. To be fair, there are a few studies that do show positive benefits for DAT, and the most prominent advocates claim that two weeks of DAT can be as effective as six months

of dolphin-less therapy. But whenever skeptical researchers look into those studies, those studies fall apart very quickly. Yeah, so you could say this is a case of cetation needed. Okay. Cecil ran that play a while ago.

It depends on how far you're willing to stretch that joke. But yeah, sure, you could. But my point is that when skeptical researchers started digging into the studies, they found serious methodological problems in every one of them, including lack of consistent randomization,

small sample sizes, insufficient or even absent control groups, lack of valid measurements, selection bias, and novelty effect. So yeah, half a dozen studies show that kids who get dolphin-assisted therapy do better than kids who don't. But if they don't account for things like increased personal attention and novelty and the known therapeutic benefits of travel, swimming, being somewhere warmer,

and none of them do that, it's impossible to say what part, if any, the dolphins themselves are really playing in this. Okay, but imagine being the control group in that study and being told at the end yeah so um the other kids got to go swim with dolphins but you got to practice your m's with miss kelly huh that was fun miss kelly all right so so where does fun where does the idea of dolphin-assisted therapy even come from? All right. We have John C. Lilly to thank for that. Or if you take Lilly at his word,

we have the aliens he was psychically communicating with to thank for that. There it is. Can't have anything nice. He insists it was actually them, those aliens that suggested he start looking into dolphin research. According to his Wikipedia page, Lilly was, quote, an American physician, neuroscientist, psychoanalyst, psychonaut, philosopher, writer, and inventor, end quote. I've never heard of psychonaut, but I'm assuming it's astronaut for psychic abilities, something like that. For psychedelics, yeah.

Psychedelic astronaut, yeah. Yes. And he was, in fact, a prominent LSD researcher who pioneered a lot of sensory deprivation research. So if you ever heard his name before, it was probably on a list with Timothy Leary and Ram Dass, people like that. Yeah. Okay.

So what I'm hearing is a very legitimate and reasonable source for mental health advice. Now, just because something originates with a bit of a nutter doesn't mean it can't have value, to be fair. This podcast, for example. Oh, there you go. Okay. Some very legitimate scientists did get involved in DAT research in the 70s. That included Dr. Betsy Smith, who was the first person to do research with dolphins and kids with neurological impairments. And she did see promising results that were worth following up on, which she did, and rightfully so. But it's also worth noting that once DAT became widespread, she denounced its use and called it ineffective and exploitative. Okay, but if there's so little evidence that this works and the evidence is so sketchy, why would people do it at all? Oh, because money, Noah. Right. Money. Got it. But

the whole thing started with legitimate scientific observations. Granted, that's from a guy taking enormous amounts of acid, but scientific observations, nonetheless, they were there. So it wasn't unreasonable for researchers to look into its possibilities. But the media cannot resist any story about dolphins being awesome and possibly having magical powers. So as soon as the study showed that there might be any therapeutic benefit to swimming with dolphins, the media immediately started running stories with headlines like, Swimming with dolphins can relieve depression and dolphins help kids cope with emotional challenges. Like no matter how bad the studies depression, and dolphins help kids cope with emotional challenges.

Like, no matter how bad the studies were, they ran the headlines. Okay, but this is hardly the only therapy that the media overhyped based on bad evidence. I mean, that's most of science reporting, really. Oh, he's been hanging out with Tom again. He's been hanging out with Tom again. Right, but this is a case of taking something people already want to swim with dolphins and adding a veneer of medical necessity to it and that creates a feedback loop a bad one the media does a story about the research then patients avail themselves of therapy then the media does

a story about the people doing the therapy then more people do the therapy, etc. And on top of all that, DAT is generally aimed towards children with disabilities, autism. And desperate parents of kids with autism or cognitive impairments are ready to try everything. So before you can even say valid control group, you've got a multi-million dollar industry. Okay, so how much would dolphin-assisted therapy run you? Okay, so how much would dolphin-assisted therapy run you? Well, a hell of a lot more than doing a swim with the dolphins tourist thing after doing therapy. The typical price for five 40-minute sessions is about $2,600. The typical cost for the exact same thing but without the word therapy attached is between $100 and $125, according to Google. And look, if you're rich

and you notice your kid with autism does better when therapy happens in a dolphin tank, that's one thing, I guess. But a lot of people doing this are desperate parents who believe this is the best use of their $2,600. And that's money that could have bought way more time with pretty much any other therapeutic option for people who aren't rich. Okay. I mean, can we get the dolphins working with early intervention? Are they willing to take sliding scale? Maybe we group them together in an app called Better Kelp.

Okay, that's fine. No, that's pretty good. I don't think I could have done better. When you look into this stuff, a lot of it is absolutely heartbreaking. It really is. It's sad. National Geographic did an expose on it where they talk about these parents of a young boy

who was paralyzed in a car accident. And they spent thousands and thousands of dollars after an acupuncturist recommended a DAT clinic in the Bahamas to the family. Wow. I mean, they really should have put a life jacket on that kid, though. That's on them.

All right. So how widespread is this? How widespread is dolphin-assisted therapy? The study linked on the National Institutes of Health website found that, quote, all over the world, including Europe, the Middle East, Asia, which includes the Middle East, USA, the Caribbean, Mexico, Israel, Russia, which is either Europe or Asia. Either way, they already covered that. Japan, China.

Okay. What do they think Asia means? Whatever. Bahamas and South America all have this type of therapy. End quote. Wow. Okay. So now let me clarify here because I think we mostly agree that swimming with dolphins or using dolphins as rewards for behavioral improvements is plausible.

But DAT practitioners, they're saying that the therapy is effective beyond that, correct? Beyond that, yes. Okay, so what the fuck are they saying? Are they saying that dolphins have magical psychiatric powers? Almost exactly that. Yes, they are. Okay, so follow-up question. What the fuck? Yeah, right. Perfect question. Well, there are three dominant theories about how and why DAT

works other than it doesn't, which seems to be the correct answer. I'll give them to you in order of stupidness. So the least stupid is that dolphins have a built-in affinity for people with disabilities and are therefore able to communicate with those people through mutually understood instinctive body language. This is called by the people who actually want you to take it seriously. They call it secret language. And that was the least stupid. The least stupid.

I was going to say, yeah. Oh, okay. and that was the least stupid the least stupid I was gonna say yeah correct oh okay so the idea that dolphins can look at a person and go well that one seems down because of his clear cognitive impairment I should cheer him up

with the old tail waggle that's the theory more or less yeah I don't know guys a dolphin and my son watching an ASMR marble video

both make the same sounds they do the same flaps I feel like we should be more open guys alright no let's crank the stupid up SMR Marble Video both make the same sounds. They do the same flaps. I feel like we should be more open, guys. All right, no, let's crank the stupid up a notch here. What's the next theory?

Well, this one is the most common, as far as I can tell. And it's the theory that there's something about the chirps and clicks that dolphins make to echolocate that has a mechanical effect on the human endocrine and neural systems. These effects, and to be clear, this is the theory and wording from the scientific studies used to justify this form of therapy. These effects enhance healing by changing the individual's body tissue and cell structure. Yes, and that is why, I shit you not,

you can buy hundreds of dolphin and whale therapy CDs for autism online. Oh, no. Now, the justification here is that there are therapeutic effects from ultrasound, but a researcher looked into that claim and concluded that, quote, even if the dolphin produced ultrasound continuously with a maximum power of 230 decibels, the application time of 10 seconds per patient is not long enough to be comparable to therapeutic ultrasound in human medicine, end quote. And needless to say, that's more ultrasound than a dolphin could possibly produce. And besides, as they point out in the skeptics dictionary entry

on this subject, if ultrasound is the healing factor why not just use ultrasound therapy right okay well i i was promised an even dumber theory on top of this one okay this one comes from the skeptics dictionary as well or rather that's where i got it the theory comes from self-proclaimed psychic artist and vibrational energy facilitator. Those are the titles of this person. Rosemary Angelus, who believes that dolphins emit healing energy vibrations. Okay. She also claims she can channel dolphin energy and that if you put your hand over a picture

of a dolphin that she drew, you can, quote, receive the sensation of their loving, healing energies. Can you now? And does she sell those pictures? Sure the fuck does sell those. Yes. Amazing. Who would have thought? I looked so hard to see if I could find one.

I couldn't. Oh, too bad. And Heath's got a birthday coming up and everything. Oh, exactly. Okay. Well, this is where the real danger lies in all the shit i could get a bad birthday present that's horrible but yes there are some potential therapeutic benefits of adding dolphins to traditional therapy especially for patients who don't respond well to normal social interactions but the real question that researchers should be asking is whether the benefits are worth the costs. Is DAT more effective than doing the same thing,

but with like a room full of rescue dogs instead of a dolphin? Is it more effective than just doing therapy in a tropical environment? Nobody knows though, because none of the studies on it bother to ask those questions. And because they've abandoned that basic scientific rigor, they've invited in all the woo merchants now, of course. After all, you can't really knock down Rosemary's magic dolphin picture claim without potentially knocking down the whole house of cards. So you have no real choice but to make room for every single ridiculous claim. Okay. And so I asked this not to be dismissive, but because I find that the answer to this question is always worse than I thought it was going to be when we do these segments. But what's the worst that could happen? Well, you have to consider, first of all,

that dolphins are wild animals. You can't really be domesticated the way a dog can. And while I couldn't find any instances of dolphins behaving aggressively or biting someone during DAT treatment, it's always a possibility. But there's also the possibility that the bullshit theories that are propping it up, i.e. the idea that dolphins emit soothing energy waves or that echolocation clicks have healing properties, that stuff could spill out into other medical areas. Such as? All right. So let me tell you about dolphin assisted birth oh you're fucking kidding me y'all wish i was as much as we know i am not back in 2015 a couple in hawaii

named darina rosen and micah sun eagle decided to rely on the help of dolphins and not acknowledge that we're just gonna go right past it his name is micah sun eagle that's fine they decided to rely on the help of dolphins to deliver their baby in the Pacific Ocean, of course. Well, right, because that's where the dolphins are. In the Pacific Ocean, that's where you find them. Yep. So yeah, the plan was that when Doreena went into labor, they'd close down the spiritual healing center that you already knew they owned,

even before I mentioned it, and they'd rush to the nearest dolphin-infested beach to give birth the way that God intended. Dangerously. Dangerously true, yes. In preparation for the birth, Darina even communed with dolphins in a special dolphin blessing ceremony.

Of course, of of course she did. So why did she want Flipper as her midwife? You mean other than the fact that the baby's immediate exposure to the dolphins would mean it would be able to speak dolphin other than that? Is that what she thought? Well, it's what she said, she thought. Okay. I mean, you're being sketchy here, Heath. Can the kids speak dolphin eggs?

Unfortunately, no. As far as we know, no. Rosen went into labor in the middle of the night. And since it was the middle of the night, there was no time to, you know, get to a beach and wake up the dolphins. Right, they'd be sleeping. She had to give birth on dry land

like a like a noob yeah so we have no idea if it would have worked we're dolphin birth language immersion agnostics thank you very much yeah not willing to make claims either way actually you wouldn't wake up dolphins they only sleep with one half of their brain at a time sorry sorry not really important okay as silly as this, is it a real concern? It's not clear that anybody has ever actually done a dolphin-assisted birth, like, quote, successfully. But there's at least one clinic in Hawaii that does promote it. And there are clinics all over the world that are already offering dolphin-assisted therapy and are increasingly unmoored from science.

So it feels inevitable that they're going to start making ever more grandiose claims to fill out as many of those $2,600 sessions as possible. All right. Well, I guess the only real question left to ask is, how bullshit is it? Okay, I'll tell you how not real it is. It's less legitimate than dolphin assisted shitting like there's a way for that to be real i feel like a dolphin could help you shit in a more real way than they could help you do therapy i i have a sneaking suspicion that eli's gonna find out and on that note we're gonna wrap it up but there will always be more fecal fallacies to come on

how bullshit is it? that's pajama party night we're going to be doing a three-hour patron only live stream with music q a games pajamas inebriants it all starts at 8 p.m eastern time eli kind of made it sound in the little ad thing like it was going to be this coming saturday but it's next saturday september 2nd and it'll be a ton of fun but it's patrons only so if you're a patron be on the lookout for a link before the stream starts and if you're not a patron be sure to rectify that oversight between now and next Saturday. 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 that long, be on the lookout for a brand new episode of our sister show, The Skeptocrat, debuting at 7 p.m. Eastern on Monday, an even newer episode of our sister's most hot friend, Godawful Movies, debuting at 7 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday,

and an even newer episode of our half-sister's citation needed, debuting at noon Eastern on Wednesday. Obviously, it would hardly even count as an episode of another day to thank Heath Enright, whose birthday is coming up on Sunday. Be sure to jump online. Wish him a happy birthday. Nothing that Heath loves more than a bunch of people contacting him. But seriously, though, wish him a happy birthday. He'll secretly love it and pretend like he doesn't. I need to thank the lovely and talented Lucinda Lusions, who has an adorable new haircut that you will get to see if you tune in for the live stream. I also want to thank the Skeptic Viking for providing this week's Farnsworth quote and the subsequent reminder that it is possible to do better, even on a national level.

But most of all, of course, I want to thank this week's most sinful Simeons, Paul, Sarah, Laura, Inquiring, Raven, Danny, Oivind, Berndissimo, Slickmeister, Michael, and Amy. Paul, Sarah, and Laura, who are so bright the sun's looking forward to the next big eclipse for the same reason that we are. Raven, Danny, and Oivind, who are so hot NASA uses them to test their heat shield. And Brandissimo, Michael, and Amy, who have now officially displaced the hokey pokey in terms of what it's all about. Together, these nine naughty non-believers nudged our net worths northward this week by giving us money.

Not everybody has the money it takes to give us some, but if you think you're up to the challenge, you can make a per-episode donation at patreon.com slash scathingatheist, whereby you'll earn early access to an extended ad-free version of every episode and a pajama party livestream. Or you can make a one-time donation by clicking on the donate button on the right side of the homepage at scathingatheist.com. And if you'd like to help, but not in a monetary way,

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 was used in this episode, which was used with permission.

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