The Scathing Atheist - 555: Little Pascals Edition

Episode Date: October 5, 2023

In this week’s episode, Catholics remind the Pope that “not actively hateful” isn’t hateful enough, the SBC draws the line at TWO blackface performances, and Kevin Sorbo proves that he does, too, know how to read. --- 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: Pope expresses openness to blessing gay marriages. Conservative Catholics lose their minds: https://religionnews.com/2023/10/03/pope-suggests-blessings-for-same-sex-unions-possible-in-response-to-5-conservative-cardinals/ Christians freak out over nonbinary character on paw patrol  https://onemillionmoms.com/current-campaigns/paw-patrol-spin-off-goes-woke/ Court Preliminarily Enjoins Montana's Ban on Transgender Treatments for Minors: https://www.lawdork.com/p/montana-court-blocks-law-banning SBC expels Oklahoma church over pastor’s racial impersonations https://baptistnews.com/article/sbc-expels-oklahoma-church-over-pastors-racial-impersonations/ ND lawmaker thinks we should make lawmakers do push ups and love Jesus: https://www.wonkette.com/p/lunatic-north-dakota-gop-state-rep Kevin Sorbo doesn't want anyone to say his anti-trans children's book is anti-trans https://www.friendlyatheist.com/p/kevin-sorbo-doesnt-want-anyone-to

Warning, this episode would make Elmo faint. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by the fact that unlike the House of Representatives, you still have a speaker. I know you're listening on headphones so the joke doesn't really work, but it's still a good joke. Anyway, and now, The Scathing Atheist. Kia ora, this is Nico in Aotearoa. As someone who grew up in Ray Comfort's hometown, I'm here to tell

you that we did, in fact, evolve from filthy monkey people. Gippity. It's Thursday. Nailed it. It's October 5th. And it's National Kiss-a-Wrestler Day. The only sting I want to feel is that of Cupid's arrow. I'm no illusions. I'm Eli Bosnick, and from William Sanford Pennington's

New Jersey and Waycross, Georgia this is the Scathing Atheist. On this week's episode Catholics remind the Pope that not actively hateful isn't hateful enough. The SBC draws the line at two blackface performances. And Kevin Zorbo proves that he

does too know how to read. But first, the Dive Track. Okay, so I've known for a long time that there are a thousand ways to refute Pascal's wager, but I only learned last week that one of those refutations is Pascal. So now we've obviously talked about Pascal's wager a lot on the show, and most of the time we shorthand it to, but what if you're wrong, right? And that does accurately portray the gist of the argument, and it does correlate more closely with the form of the argument that you're most likely to encounter in your day-to-day life. But that reduction is

a bit of a disservice to Blaise Pascal. It's kind of a shame that we really know him for this shit apologetic, because Blaise Pascal was a brilliant thinker. To the point that if you were putting together the brief history of math, he's almost certainly going to get a mention. By the age of 16, he was publishing revolutionary treatises on conic sections and projective geometry. While he was still a teenager, he started building a mechanical device to help his dad in his job as a tax collector,

making him one of the two claimants for the title of guy who invented the fucking calculator. He made contributions to the study of probability, fluid dynamics, and vacuums that are important on like a historical scale. And of course, his most important mathematical contribution was a, bear with me, tabular presentation of binomial coefficients that we now call Pascal's triangle. Now look, I don't know what a binomial coefficient is, so I don't want to pretend to fully grasp Pascal's contribution to math here, but I know enough to say it's really fucking important. His was one of those rare brains that had the capacity to actually broaden our understanding of the world. He could

invent knowledge, and he did. He had a really prolific period in his teens and his 20s, and then he stopped. And to understand why, you have to take a deep look at Pascal's wager. So as I've hinted, the actual formulation Pascal offered up is a bit more sophisticated than what if you're wrong. What he was setting out to do was to prove the existence of God mathematically, or barring that, at least prove that we should act as though God exists. And this came from a place of genuine fear. See, among the things that Pascal had done was challenge this long-held Aristotelian concept about vacuums. And in so doing, he was one of the first people that really called Aristotle's worldview into question. Now, that was a problem because that worldview was the one officially endorsed by the Catholic Church.

All their proofs of God were based on the idea that we lived in Aristotle's universe and we didn't. And Blaise Pascal was one of the first people to see that we didn't. Now, luckily for him, he was born a little bit before the Vatican realized that they were going to need to burn people at the stake over this kind of thing. So his revelations weren't really interpreted as a threat by the state, but they were treated as a threat by Pascal himself. His brain was sharp enough to glimpse atheism even in the 1600s, and that scared the shit out of him. So he tried to call in math to save his ass. So the trick in Pascal's wager is that the reward for accepting Jesus is described by Christians as infinite, right? So any number times infinity is infinity.

So even if the chance of God existing is zero point, the billion zeros one, the reward for taking that chance is still infinite. And of course, at the same time, any probability times zero is zero. And the reward, at least a posthumous one for atheism is zero. So no matter how likely it is, you're better off betting against it. The odds are zero to infinity. Now, this is a trick. This is a manipulation of the fuzzy ends of the numeric spectrum to achieve a desired result. And it falls apart the instant you account for things like other religions. But you don't have to go that far.

See, the reason Pascal stopped contributing to the world of science and mathematics actually was a bad bet on the wager that we named after him. The story is that he had a religious experience in 1654, and he converted to this sect of Catholicism called Jansenism, and he decided to devote himself to Jesus instead of advancing knowledge. He stopped doing any useful thing, and he did theology instead, and the future was robbed of whatever genius was still locked away in that remarkable brain. It's even worse than that, actually, because Pascal also died really young. He was only 39 when he died. And even by the standard of the time, a low-level aristocrat like himself could have expected a significantly longer life.

But his branch of Christianity embraced suffering. So he refused any advice or assistance from his doctors, and instead he told them that the sickness was the natural state for a Christian. And I mean, given the quality of doctors at the time, there's no way to know whether that killed him or spared him a couple of years, but there's no question that the reasoning was shit. And you might even be inclined to think we didn't miss much, right? Like maybe Pascal had already thought

of all his best thoughts and maybe his religious conversion was just a really convenient way of not disappointing all the people that were still waiting for his winds of winter or whatever. And that if he'd ever had an important insight after that,

maybe he would have just deconverted long enough to share it. But even that unlikely excuse is demonstrably false because the work that he did, the Pascal's triangle thing, again, the work generally accepted as his most important contribution to math came during that period. And he wrote it down and he never published it because he was afraid that science and knowledge would lead people to stray from God's path.

It was only published posthumously. And there are a lot of really likely scenarios you can imagine where we just never would have found it. It would have been lost to the world. Again, I don't know enough about math to know how much that would have cost us, but we're not talking about multiplying by zero here. And that's the thing. See, religion likes to talk about the infinite afterlife to distract you from all the shit they're taking from your actual finite life. Sure, maybe you and I aren't going to revolutionize binomials or whatever, but we're still granted only the hours we have. There's no set of infinite do-overs in the cloud. And when you stop and you truly grasp and accept that fact, you realize that every single one of those hours has an infinite value.

Realize that every single one of those hours has an infinite value. Joining me for headlines tonight is the Brian DeMais Stewie, Eli Bosnick. Eli, are you ready to make us laugh and cry? As long as you promise not to revisit the jokes from my first season. Yeah, there you go. In our lead story tonight, Pope Francistern isn't conservative enough for a lot of Catholics. That is to say that the Pope, the current Pope,

who heads the world's most conserved institution, isn't conservative enough for them. And this has been a problem for a while, right? Like when he did an impromptu interview and he said that whether or not gay people went to hell for the crime of existing was between them and god they really wanted a more full-throated condemnation of the oppressed minority there or when he said that people should be able to eat the magic cracker even if they're remarried right and if that was enough to freak them out you can only

imagine how pissed they were this week when the pope expressed a sliver of support for gay marriage oh even the pope is only pretending to be catholic for his mom at this point is that right it's gonna start skipping church except for christmas now now look it would be truly difficult to understate what francis here. He didn't offer support for gay marriage. He didn't signal that he might be inclined to offer support for gay marriage in the future. He didn't change or seek to change any Vatican policy. This is being reported in a lot of places as though that is what he did. To be clear, he didn't do any of that shit. What actually happened is that five cardinals from four different continents sent him

a letter demanding that he affirm the official Catholic policy that forbids the church from recognizing the sanctity of gay marriages. And he did that. But he added at the end that while same-sex couples could never have the full sacramental marriage, they could look into ways, the church could look into ways of offering a lesser blessing to same-sex couples a separate but unequal solution and that was too much for conservative catholics yeah also hey which gay catholics are lining up for the fucking silver medal of marriage blessings guys i had to break it to you. I think they jumped ship when you said they were going to

burn in fire forever. I think that's when you lost them. But there still are a lot of gay couples and stuff that believe this dumb shit, you know, and for them, that really matters. Stop. Stop doing that. Right, yeah.

Now, of course, even this tepid endorsement of only employing medium bigotry to gay people does represent an actual shift in the stance from the vatican's existing policy as recently as 2021 the congregation for the doctrine of faith or spanish inquisition that's really what that is still have that thing yeah they sure do but anyway so the spanish inquisition issued a statement saying that the church couldn't bless same-sex unions because, quote, the church cannot bless sin, end quote.

But then some priests in the more liberal parts of Europe started offering up blessings anyway, and the Vatican failed to excommunicate them or even punish them in any way, leading to the angry letter Pope Frankie was responding to in the first place. Okay, guys, Catholics are like the patrons of Eli's blog. We're sending out personal letters to keep people in this thing at this point. You gotta work with me. You gotta work with me. And again, the Pope's response was, in comparison to anything other than the demands

of the especially conservative Catholic cardinals, incredibly bigoted. He goes no further than saying that so-called pastoral charity demands that they treat gay people as sinners who might not be fully at fault for their situation, and that summarily opposing such a blessing would be denying them an opportunity to commit to living better. In other words, maybe a little God magic would make them less gay to begin with. Just wait a second, Greg.

Now that this 68-year-old virgin in a magic dress has given us the meh prayer, I think I might try puss again. Yeah, no, me too, me too. Let's shake hands and part as friends. That is what they're envisioning. Now, I should note that there's been no official word from the Cardinals that sent the letter in the first place, but I can only assume that's because they're still waiting for Matt Gaetz to get back to them

with more information about that motion to vacate shit. We'll keep you posted. We'll let you know. Oh, yeah. And in emergency dog whistle news, if you've been adjacent to a toddler like myself for five minutes within the past 10 years, then you're probably familiar with the Nickelodeon program and copaganda called Paw Patrol.

The animated squad of rescue pups continue to charm youngsters with the illusion that we still have an infrastructure that supports emergency services, canine or otherwise. But for those of us outside the children's television workshop, it might be surprising to hear

that the show also has a spinoff called Rubble and Crew. It's my favorite U2 album. Yeah, exactly. And if you're not on the Christian Outrange email chain, you might not have known that Rubble and Crew just introduced a new character named River. Who is River, you ask?

Well, River is an avid skateboarder, enjoys photography, and, oh yeah, they're also non-binary. So, you know what that means. That's right, a Christian freakout indeed. So, first of all, big thanks to the one, the only, Monica Cole over at One Million Moms, whose email list I am subscribed to and who could single-handedly

support our podcast with its previously only screamed through a hospital door levels of batshittery. Oh my God. Like seriously, like we subscribed to this thing. I would be 0% surprised

to open an email one time demanding that those starving children in africa wear less revealing outfits in their commercials right yeah i they she might have done that one we got to do a control f on our archive there anyways river was introduced in an episode called the crew builds an observatory wherein the construction pups you guessed it build an observatory so river can photograph the stars. That seems like overkill. All you really need is a tracking mount and a good phone.

But, you know, good on them for helping out. I'll send them in your email, though. Thank you. So the episode itself was written by LGBTQ activist Linz Ammer, and River is voiced by a non-binary actor. And while River's gender is not explicitly referenced within the show, the character's pink, white, and blue colored socks mirror the transgender pride flag. And that was more than enough to start a turf war.

All right. Look, Heath just loaned you the pun master trophy to look after while he was gone. Okay, calm down. I'm in possession of it, and that's all that matters. In a post regarding their anti-trans campaign one million moms acknowledged that the character isn't outwardly trans yet calls their inclusion a quote blatant attempt by nickelodeon to normalize children identifying as non-binary end quote and yes you hear how you're the bad one for not liking that right you have to hear well and also like

like the assumption here is that monica's kids are going to look at that character and go i wonder if that colored pattern on their socks has been imbued with any gender significance you know politically we should look that up yeah and then change our genders as a result obviously if that i'll tell you if that brings up anything in google i am going to change my gender the post continues quote the nickelodeon that parents knew as children is long gone nickelodeon has now decided to be politically correct instead of providing family-friendly programming end end quote. Which is fucking hilarious because if the Ren and Stimpy of my childhood premiered today, one million moms would storm their headquarters

like it was January 6th. Yeah. Whatever happened to the good old days when cartoons were all rapey skunks and racism? Yeah. Jesus, lady. But the busybodies at one million moms aren't alone in a tweet that channels cronkite reporting the death of jfk conservative pundit robbie starbuck wrote quote i regret to inform you that paw patrol has gone woke oh no

and right wing cretin matt walsh not the good one from Veep, the bad one from Twitter, called Rivers' inclusion in a children's show indoctrination. Yeah, but the doctrine is don't be a dick. I guess I can see why you're worried about that, you know, your cross-generational viability and all, but still. Yeah, obviously, yeah. So, yeah.

Looks like there's no end in sight with regards to Christian outrage over children's programming. So, you know looks like there's no end in sight with regards to Christian outrage over children's programming. So, you know, job security. And, hey, we can at least have some fun with it. Maybe let's all start a rumor that Tweety Bird is gender fluid. See if we can get that Monica's way. All right. I love it.

And in transubstantiation news tonight, trans rights have a minor victory to celebrate in Montana this week after a district judge in that state enjoined their new ban on gender affirming care for minors pending a trial on the law's merits. And based on the absolutely scathing preliminary decision, I wouldn't hold out a lot of hope the law will stand up during said trial. Yeah, look, I'm not saying I'm looking for more American judges to break decorum for their politics. I think we've got plenty of that. I'm saying it's nice to see someone do it for us every once in a while. I don't know that he does, though. So, of course, trans rights are the latest front in the culture wars, by which I mean the religious rights war against culture, with conservative politicians fighting all over the country for which state can most egregiously abrogate the rights of trans

people. Abrogate means kill a baby gate, everybody. If you don't know what that means. Repeal or get rid of it. It's just, it goes so good with egregiously. Egregiously abrogate. That sounds so good. It's a good word choice, just not everyone's as smart as me. So I thought I would help.

No, that's nice. That's nice of you. So according to the Human Rights Campaign, over 35% of transgender kids live in states that currently ban treatment for gender dysphoria, with laws or policy banning it in 22 of the 50 states and the one in montana which was signed into law in april is among the nation's worst not only would it ban surgery puberty blockers and hormonal treatments for trans kids but it would also suspend the medical license of any

doctor in the state who violated the law so like So Montana is willing to deprive itself of qualified doctors rather than allow trans kids the treatment their doctors recommend. Yes. And look, I know we say this every time, but seven new listeners a week and all that. So it bears repeating. Medical science agrees that medical treatment for trans kids is life-saving treatment. Yes. Right?

This isn't like, oh, there's four plastic surgeons who will give you quadruple M-sized boobs, right? All the legitimate medical bodies are in agreement that this is essential medical care, and states are banning it to pwn the libs. Yep. Sure the fuck are. So naturally, of course, the second the law was signed, parents of trans kids sued the state. They argued that the law was unconstitutional since it only targeted trans kids, right?

That is, the treatments that it specifically bans would still be allowed if a minor needed them for something other than to treat gender dysphoria. The state argued, though, I shit you not, that it was not discriminatory because it banned the treatment for trans boys and trans girls. We allow straight men and straight women to get married. This is equality, everybody.

It's going great. Now, suffice to say, District Judge Jason Marsh wasn't buying that argument. In fact, he wasn't buying anything the state was selling, going so far as to reject the entire premise of the law. The law is, of course, sold as a way to protect minors from fucking big trans or whatever. And in assessing the merits of that claim, Marks said, quote, The legislative record does not support a finding that SB 99, the law in question, protects minors.

In fact, the evidence in the record suggests that SB 99 would the law in question, protects minors. In fact, the evidence in the record suggests that SB 99 would have the opposite effect. Yeah. End quote. He goes on to point out that the legislative record surrounding the passage of the law, quote, was replete with animus towards transgender persons, end quote, and that supporters of the law made repeated misstatements about the treatments banned by it. Yeah. If I could just zoom out for a second, when Gen Z finally burns the senior living center that is our ruling class to the ground, can they rebuild it in such a way that if your law doesn't describe reality, it's automatically not a law? I feel like that's a fair ask, right? it's automatically not a law yeah i feel like that's a fair ask right right right like if your supreme court decision includes a picture in the descent of how wrong you are yeah it shouldn't

count yeah i'm with you yeah it's also worth noting as the judge does in the decision that the very same legislature that passed this law to ostensibly protect children from experimental treatments what they describe as experimental treatments also passed a law protecting the rights of montana's children to get experimental medical treatment yes they're in emt state i can't fucking believe it yeah which means that as things stand now a parent can consent to any treatment at all regardless of its efficacy or risk unless the treatment is for gender dysphoria and falls within the range of the recognized standards of care. And I just I just point that out in case you were wondering if there was a limit to their hypocrisy. If there is, we still haven't fucking found it.

Right. We haven't found it. We're not there yet. And in blackface, the music news, you know, there's much to be said about the separation of church and state, but too often we overlook a societal imperative that desperately needs to be addressed. The separation of church and entertainment. Hear, hear. Yes, even the devout would agree. It's painful enough to sit on a hardwood bench for a three-hour Leviticus rundown, but it's absolute torture to top it off with the comedy stylings of Pastor Punchline

or an atonal guitar rendition of Bringing in the Sheaves from your lame-o neighbor's 12-year-old. No one should expect a church leader to have their finger on the pulse of any artful endeavor, especially if their cultural touchstones end at, well, 1920s minstrel shows. But oh, no. Yep. One Baptist pastor in Oklahoma is beginning to learn about showbiz expiration dates after his church was expelled from the Southern Baptist Convention due to a blackface performance in 2017.

Oh, my God. Mm hmm. And by the way, even for a blackface performance, this one was pretty out of touch. Yeah, no, it wasn't the kind of tasteful blackface you would expect out of the Democratic governor

in Virginia or anything. Exactly, yeah. So first off, big thanks to Stormy D who sent us both the opening pun and this story to scathingnews at gmail.com. I believe that puts them

in our headline segment three weeks in a row now. Congratulations, Stormy. Yeah. No, at this point, Stormy's doing more work on the show than Eli is. Hey, they are not writing the ads. They're not writing the ads. You write the ads? I hadn't heard about that. Anyways,

Pastor Sherman Jacquez came under fire by members of his congregation for a blackface impersonation of Ray Charles at his church's Valentine's Day banquet. In addition to dark sunglasses and a literal shoe polish complexion, Jacquez also donned a giant Afro wig for the performance, which pretty much undercuts his defense that it was intended to be a faithful impersonation of Ray Charles. Oh, really? Jesus Christ. As if his lack of commitment was the thing that we were upset about. Exactly, yeah.

So in a scramble to clear his name amid the backlash, Jacquez released a tried and true damage control method known as digging yourself deeper. Quote, my face was not black, he told the Baptist Press, but the flash on the camera made it look black. It was just brown. Oh, my fucking God. Yeah, put away the pitchforks, everyone. Mr. Pantone color swatch has their tight defense.

He got it. If you think about it, my face is a lot like that white and gold dress. He might as well have pointed out that he didn't use the hard R at the end of his black face here. Yeah. It should be noted that this isn't the only instance of Jacques Quez's racial

appropriation. Twelve years prior to 2017, he actually dressed as a Native American woman for a Cowboys and Indians night at the church camp. So if any of our Canadian listeners are looking for a backup prime minister, we do have a guy. We've got a guy now.

Jesus, it's hard to be the racially insensitive one at Cowboys and Indians night, but apparently he was up to the challenge. Hell yeah, he was. And if anything, Jacques-Ouest remarked, it is he who should be offended by the reaction to his harmless tribute, telling the Associated Press that it is, quote, repugnant to have people think you're a racist, adding, my whole life's work, I've worked with multiple different types of racial people.

What? I don't have a racial bone in my body, end quote. What? Which I know sounds like he doesn't know the word racist, but he could also think that his bones don't have a race. So it's hard to tell what he means there. I don't see race so much that I don't even know how to use the relevant words.

But despite Jacques' self-professed colorblindness, the Southern Baptist Convention deemed the Matoka Baptist Church as, quote, not in friendly cooperation with the group and was summarily expelled, a decision the SBC typically reserves for, as the Baptist News notes, churches that allow women to serve as pastors or gay people to fully participate in the congregation. So bottom line, if you want to be entertained in any shape or form, best stay away from a church, but definitely one in Oklahoma. Well said. And in CrossFit news, we've reached this really awkward part of our hellscape where

the terrible people in politics have realized it's really good for fundraising for them to be particularly hated by the libs. And while that's created an accelerating downward spiral of dysfunction that directly led to Matt Gaetz sharpening a stick on both ends in Congress on Monday, It's also led to this weird professional boon where countless Republican and Christian leaders are literally auditioning to be regulars on our show. Right? That's what's actually happening.

And I'm generally loathe to talk about any of them because I know I'm giving them what they want when I do. But some of them work so goddamn hard for it, but that I just can't help but give them a nod. And such is the case with North Dakota State Representative Brandon Pritchard, who, among other things, tweeted out last week that members of Congress should have to be able to do five pushups and swear allegiance to Jesus. Okay, look, Brandon, I know you're 22, but your colleagues are already shitting themselves on a really regular basis, man.

We do not need to bring strain into this, okay? You're just... The rooms you're in must smell terrible. Right? So, yeah, so thanks to Jacqueline, who was the first to send this one to us at scathingnews at gmail.com. But apparently, this dude went on a social media tirade

over the past week that might as well just be increasingly desperate versions of will heath give me a nickname check this box this includes a tweet about how pornography should be illegal because it quote destroys men end quote what about how all schools should include lgbtq history quote and lesson one should be sodom and gorrah, end quote. And of course, the one I started with, which I'm just going to present in all its glory, quote, the U.S. Senate and House should have a fitness test every year. Very simple. Every member of Congress must do five sit-ups, five push-ups, one pull-up, and submit to the gospel

of Jesus Christ, end quote. Okay, I think he definitely added that last part because he knows he's got about two and a half years until he can't do the first three, so he was sort of hedging his bets a little bit there. Well, yeah, no, so first of all, this was very clearly tailored to be easy enough for him to do. It really is.

Because it's five, five, and one, right? So he very clearly started to write five pull-ups, and then he looked at that and he went i'm gonna make that a one my shoulders nobody knows what i typed from that pickleball accident and of course it's also the classic white guy thing where you take the one damn thing that you can actually do and pretend that that's the measure of a person's value right like when they act like no one about engines or football is the real measure of a man. And look, I'm all for any solution that DQs Mitch McConnell, right?

But even before you get around to it, it's getting there. It really is. But even before you get around to the literal religious test for office that he's proposing, the ableism in it alone is enough to merit a spot on our assholes to watch out for in 2024 board. Yeah, we really did.

I have this new app that, so I don't do Twitter anymore, but it sets up an RSS feed where it emails me someone tweets and Brandon went right into the app. Let me tell you. And finally tonight in less than Xena news.

For all the right-wing accusations about child grooming, it seems like a lot of them are releasing children's books lately, isn't it? It wouldn't officially be projection without it. Last year, literal growing pain Kirk Cameron released his toddler-friendly propaganda and whined when public libraries wouldn't act as his PR agents. And now, another former recipient of agents' phone calls and God-awful movies darling,

Kevin Sorbo has released a children's book with a faith-based agenda. And he, too, has a knee-jerk reaction to criticism at the ready. Will the syndicated Hercules also choose to cry about it in right-wing media? You bet he will. All right, Eli, you have earned one trip to the soundboard, I think. Disappointed! I knew I had that for a reason. Thank you. Thank you. So choosing the only literature he can pronounce and absorb, Sober recently released the children's book,

literature he can pronounce and absorb, Sorbo recently released the children's book, The Test of Lionhood, which tells the tale of a young cub facing adulthood. While that might sound innocuous, Sorbo stresses that trans-friendly readers not apply. The book contains a few pages of Christian scripture, as well as a really weird diatribe on traditional gender roles as deemed by God in a kid's book about lions. Yeah, and to be clear, one of the gender roles offered up by the Bible is property. It sure is. It sure is.

So believing kids should be left to grow on their own, Sorbo nevertheless told the Christian Post that it's dangerous for children to change their sex as they see fit quote we're not the same it's like these transgenders going in racing against women in sports now boxing matches is just crazy to me end quote along with this, I had to do a proper Kevin Sorba performance. No, you did. You nailed it. You can just always tell

every time he says anything how much he wished he died younger. Yeah. Oh, and he had a stroke too. Like, there's a very clear moment where he would have died

and everyone would have been like, oh man, that guy was talented and then he just did not. Too bad there's nobody else like that. Anyways, along with his extreme concern for cross-gender combat, Sorbo also complained about drag story hour, naturally,

and had a very introspective thought about Pride Month. Quote, we give pride an entire month in this country, yet we give our veterans one day. This is really weird to me. Don't get him started on why we park in a driveway and drive on a parkway. Let me tell you. Jesus. Yes.

It's such stupid bullshit. And look, like Kirk Cameron's book, this title is published by the ironically named Brave Books, which appears to attach right wing mouthpieces to stories they never penned. Regarding the release, I love this so much, Sorbo told Fox News, I'm actually quite thrilled that I was asked to be a part of this, end quote. Which is not exactly the phrasing

an actual author would use about a book that they had written. Maybe he means asked by God. That's what it is. that's what it is that's what it is super happy to sign on to this thing i wrote down and let's be clear the entire game is very obvious right brave book shits out a faith-based story that even kids would find intellectually insulting slaps a half recognizable christian name on the cover and sends them out on a PR outrage tour on right wing media. Yep. The good news is that if Amazon rankings are to be believed, kids are not buying this book. Literally, they're not buying it.

All right. Well, I know we've got a couple of Amazon reviews to leave, so we're going to wrap up the headlines there. Eli, thanks as always. Seeks and ladders. And when we come back, David Icke will do his best impression of getting to the point. Hi, podcast listener. I'm Eli Bosnick.

And I'm Noah Lutions. As you may have noticed, Heath Enright hasn't been on this show for the last couple of weeks. And while we thought we could cover our asses for a bit by pretending he's on vacation, it's time we come clean. Heath Enright's not on vacation. He's trapped inside the sphere at the Venetian resort. That's right, Eli. No computer is advanced enough to run that many fully programmable LEDs. So through a series of targeted kidnappings, they're now running the sphere using the brains of literally dozens of kidnapped podcasters. The people that the world would miss

the least. But now there's hope. By buying tickets for our October 28th live show over at Godawfulmovies.com, you can give Heath strength to break free of the hollow nightmare his consciousness is now trapped in. Otherwise, I'm afraid he'll be trapped inside forever. And ever, Noah. And ever. Godawfulmovieslive.com. Or else, it'll be like that episode of Black Mirror for Heath forever. Which episode? A bunch of them.

It's the same. Yeah. Sure. Over and over again. David Icke's Everything You Need to Know But Have Never Been Told is so long and so cheaply printed that keeping the damn book open enough to read it has almost been as trying as actually reading it. Seriously, I wish I had a super cut of me reading this thing over the last couple of years and just piling different items from my desk onto different corners of it so that I could browbeat the spine

in allowing me to see the pages. And now that I'm nearing the end, the challenge is getting harder and harder as though the book itself is physically resisting me finishing it. But we're going to, damn it. And we're going to get really fucking close tonight

on this installment of Everything You Need to Know. Who else is here? Is anyone else here? Eli, hi. How are you? I'm also on this part of the podcast. You're still here. Yeah. So, Eli, this is the last full chapter of the book.

There is a postscript, Beefy Enough, that we'll still be able to squeeze another segment out of this thing no it's short it's really short compared to this one this is our last actual chapter though liar no it's like seven pages

it's only like you said we were done no I didn't say that I never said that but anyway so this chapter this final full chapter is called perception of freedom, which sounds like something we would be watching on gam. Absolutely. Just John Schneider dying,

holding up a racist tweet or something. A hundred percent. Yeah. So the opening sentence here is for those who have stayed with me this far, which is like, we're here in, at this point in the book, everyone has stayed with you this far. You is like, we're here at this point in the book. Everyone has stayed with you this far.

You can tell because we can read the word. Anyway. You think people are Harry Met Sally-ing your book or reading the last chapter? What's going on, man? So he says, but for those of you who have stayed with me this far, there will be a question screaming for an answer.

And I'm like, a question? But what he means is, what can we do? No, I get it, David. When I try to answer the question, what can we do? I get a one way ticket to Beeptown over here. So he's like, OK, step one, fundamentally transform human perception and self-identity. So not a weekend project then. No, no, probably not. Step two, change physics. Okay. Well, that one I've heard you can do in seven days. Well, even if you take one of them off. Yeah, really.

Yeah, exactly. With a break. He also has this really uncomfortable, how dare we let Jewish parents raise their children Jewish moment. I'm like, dial it back a bit there, Dave. No, no. I feel the same way whenever I drop my kid off at preschool. I get it. It's a lot going on. It's a lot. There's a point. Yeah. So he's like, now, look, I'm not saying you should reject all unevidenced bullshit. I'm like, yeah, I bet you aren't.

Please, please don't. Right. Although him repetitively railing against repetition is a thing of fucking beauty. Okay. I want to be clear that Noah is not kidding. Okay. I always look at his notes before I read in the chapter, and David literally spends a paragraph whining about repetition,

then talks about how books full of true things are cheating, and then he writes, I kid you not, essentially the exact same paragraph he wrote before about repetition again. Yep. Then he goes like, he's like science, academia, medicine, finance, all just as much

of religions as Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. And I'm like, in that you don't understand any of those things.

Yeah. And I get it as a stupid person when the whole universe is an impenetrable veil. Words can mean whatever the fuck you want, David.

Yeah. Like, I don't know. Yeah, sure. Clearly, he's like global warming, also a religion like everything you don't like is a religion isn't it at his next therapy session his therapist is like but when you look deep down david is david a religion too is david a religion too you know he's like people are obsessed with trusting their five senses but don't do that

you'll never believe my stuff if you do that and then we get this actual fucking quote he says from here comes identity politics the destroyer of all that is fair just and diverse now i should point out this is apropos of less than nothing. It comes out of fucking nowhere. Yeah, he's like Elon Musk explaining why his daughter doesn't talk to him anymore. He's just like, oh, okay. Yeah, he goes, liberals are just as ruthlessly obsessed with diversity and inclusion as bankers are with increasing their bottom line. But he doesn't seem to realize that that doesn't make both groups equally bad.

Yeah. Hey, David, do you remember the diversity crisis of 2007 when they bundled all those white guys with dreads with the black trans women and the whole thing went to shit and we don't have diversity anymore? Honestly, I think if you said diversity crisis of 2007, there would be a thing he thought you meant.

Yeah, he would have an idea for a thing. Yeah, I do remember that. And then he's like, well, this actually segues into transphobia nicely because all thoughts do that for me, David Icke. Then he has this big, like, why can't we just ignore race moment? And I'm like, oh my god, this is like arguing with my mom.

Right? It's okay, Noah. We're doing C.S. Lewis next, which is like arguing with my mom. So we're taking turns here. That'll be fun. And then on page 656, about three quarters of the way down the page, he literally ranks the races. Uh-huh.

And with that, all the jokes we made in 2016 came true, everybody. Good night. Thank you. It's too dangerous to make any more jokes. I'm sorry, folks. I'm going to do a video game podcast now. I was going to do a history section.

I think I'm going to do a review, just like a quick review section. There you go. So he's like, this is why liberals can't criticize Muslims for being homophobic because of all of this race ranking. And I'm like, yet again, our existence disproves the entire thesis of your stupid fucking book. Yeah. David being escorted out of a TJ Maxx. I can't help but notice you only ever catch me shoplifting while I'm in here. He goes, you know, the problem is, is that when you think in terms of groups, you don't blame entire demographics for an individual raping somebody.

And I'm like, are you huffing the gas on the way to the light at this point? He has a point that he's getting to, but that is how he introduces it. Yeah. And I don't know who he thought he was going to catch with that. Like, oh, you know what? I don't blame entire demographics when I hear about a rape. Right. That that's literally his point. He's like, you know, like a woman was raped by a migrant in Germany, but didn't report it because she was afraid that people like me would use that to try to punish the entire migrant community.

And that's a problem with somebody other than me apparently right and let's be clear i know he made that insane fantasy up but you'd think davy would be doing like did you get raped by a migrant outreach programs right maybe a softball scholarship right bolster his points here so by the way actual line in the chapter about how racist he isn't he says when was the this is an actual quote when was the last time a white father killed his daughter for having a relationship outside her faith race or caste yeah so fun fact i googled that just so i could do a quick like july 11th of 2021 joke right but then I went down an insane research rabbit hole of how like honor killings have become a mostly racist

fiction that white people made up to have a kind of murder we aren't the best at. So what I want to say is thank you, David Icke. I learned something from your book today. Oh, God. Well, it's a good thing you learned it then because right after that, he's like, you're probably wondering what I think of the homeless

as a race. It definitely feels like he's talking because the whole chapter at this part like the subsection has been like and here's what the muslims are doing and the jews are doing and then he's like and the homeless and i'm like i'm pretty sure he thinks you're born homeless yeah no the entire chapter is this refutation of an argument that nobody has ever made right that some minorities have no bad people in them jews other than jews anyway the point of his several page screed about how we need to treat people as individuals rather than groups is that european countries should stop letting in brown muslims that's literally where we wind up and he's like okay so i know it seems weird to write a book about trans-dimensional lizard aliens trying to steal our will and still find time to bitch about muslims taking our jerbs and raping our white women but hear me out okay noah you are smarter than me so

i need you to tell me what the fuck is happening right now is his argument that rapist muslims are a metaphor for jew lizards or is it that if you point out enough rapist muslims people will start to see the jew lizards no it's okay so the jew lizards are using the rapist muslims to make us angry so that they'll have we'll have more anger for them to eat got it all. All right. Duh. Using them on themselves? I don't know if this is all coming together. No, this was, I wrote my notes here. I'm like, I cannot make fun of this subchapter.

It would be like trying to make fun of Ipsum Lorum. There's nothing there. I literally, I took a picture of one of the pages of this subchapter and I posted it on Facebook just to prove the kind of nonsense we have to dig through. That you signed us up for an extra chapter of. It's not such a small chapter.

Anyway, I just want to point out that at this point he says you fight what you become, so I had to Google to see if David Icke had turned into a Jewish windmill. He had not. I checked to see if I was Matt Powell. It was a whole thing. Right, right. And then he has to come out against protests, which is so fucking weird

because he's just spent his entire career saying, we need to rise up and fight against the powers. And now people are doing that. And he's like, oh, that's not good for white people at all, right? So he now proposes a, we're mad as hell and we're going to continue to take it for at least a little longer approach to things.

Yeah, which is especially funny when you consider how much support he's going to give to protesting covet safety measures when 2020 rolls around right so yeah he really bounces back and forth on this idea yeah and then he quotes albert einstein or if you believe those assholes at quote investigator.com he quotes a special effects artist who claimed that he could channel an alien intelligence from the future. But it's one of those two sources. I mean, I know which is more likely to appear in one of David's books.

Yeah, right, right. Also, he tries to do a both sides argument. And his just random example is Israel-Palestine. Okay, now he's sounding like my mother, Noah. See, we got there. We didn't even have to wait for the C.S. Lewis. We did it. He goes, how effective would Gandhi be if he had an assault

rifle? And I'm like, well, he might still be around. I mean, not still, but he would have been around longer anyway. Yeah. Also, now I have to take Gandhi with an assault rifle off my scathing atheist, the video game vision board for the copyright reasons. So, wow, David Icke. Wow. To come up with a whole new boss fight.

He then quotes extensively from Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream speech, but he annotates it with his stuff too, right? He fixes it. Like, all joking aside about hating reading this book,

him annotating the I Have a Dream speech is one of the funniest paragraphs I've read. He's literally like, I mean, not right side by side right let me in what if you both what if you're left-handed and they're right-handed then after 664 pages of hateful bigotry he has the audacity to name the next subchapter love is the ultimate power oh my god i'm oh, just what I needed. David Icke

waxing intellectual under the true nature of love for three and a half pages. I would rather be taught cunnilingus by Mitch McConnell. He also says at one point, he's like, you know, we need to stand up against, these are his examples, smartphones, smart meters, and video games what

sorry one second no i gotta text tom from cog disc do you ghost write for david ike you have to tell me please text back right away so and then he's like you know instead of just accepting the doctors and pharmacists know best do your own research on things like vaccines. I'm like, yeah, that aged well. Ahead of his time. Right. Well, he specifically borns people off of chemotherapy. Mm hmm.

Like, it's hard to think of a more deadly thing he could have done in the last chapter of his book. It's like it's like he was afraid we wouldn't have enough. What's the harm answers? Right. It feels like he's wrapping an Oscar speech and he realized he has like a ton of bullshit left to thank and so little time left to do it. Oh, and I also want to thank chemotherapy doesn't work and

make up your own drugs if you want in your own house. Yeah, but the point that he's trying to make here is that like, you know, what business is it of the herd whether or not I choose to have an immunity, right? Yes. I don't know. I feel like this is the first time I've ever wished that reading had a 2x button, but that definitely happened at a certain point.

I realized at one point I was reading through it and I'm like, man, I haven't registered a single word from this entire last page. And then I started to go back and I'm like, fuck you. No, it was blah, blah, blah. Right. It was if it was more than that, I'd have noticed. I mean, you say that now, but you're the one who snitched about the postscript, Mr. Seven Pages. I'm just saying. Yeah, nobody would have checked.

Yeah. Now that I think about it. Nobody would have checked. We are the only people on the planet reading this. That's right. No. And I'm mostly just reading your notes. Well,

it's funny too, because like with every other book that we ever read, like the, the, the book of Mormon and the, and the Quran and everything. So many people were like, yeah,

I'm reading along with you. It's been really fun. No one has said, not a single God. We have some loyal ass listeners and not one of you yeah not one of you every damn movie with us not a fucking one of them i don't blame them don't by the way like don't take that as a please don't do anything else no we did it for you so then he he tells all the victims of a culture that elevates the unhinged rambling of a middle-aged cishat white man over the scholarly

reflections of literally any other group to calm the fuck down about pointing out how unfair that is in a subchapter called No More Victims. Okay, credit where credit is due, this is the first time in my life I have read a subchapter titled No More Victims where the point is not stop victimizing people. Yes, right. Yeah, hey Dave, and anyone else listening, Where the point is not stop victimizing people. Yes, right. Yeah.

Hey, Dave and anyone else listening. Look, if you ever find yourself having the urge to say, maybe you shut up about all your victimhood. It is a time for silent self-reflection. Truly. Right. That's what your brain is telling you in that moment. Yeah.

I mean, what David is essentially saying in this chapter is not that he can't imagine what it's like to be a person who's legitimately persecuted. What he's saying is that he doesn't want to try. Right. Yes. Yeah. He's like, stop being such a victim. And I'm like, hey, man, didn't you just spend 40 percent of your 700 page book complaining about your YouTube channel being taken down? He actually points out he's like people who think they're at high risk for heart disease die of heart disease more often and he thinks that that's like evidence that negative attitudes cause heart disease okay i did whip that excuse out at my last doctor's appointment and he was pretty impressed depressed i was eating i'm not sure what he said but uh yeah right right

well no but that's good, actually, because according to Davey, the best way to fight the alien lizard Jews is to ignore our doctor's diagnoses. Yeah, I bet it is, David. And then he explains that we need to raise the vibrational energy

of our heart vortex, is his advice. Okay, that's what I think my cardiologist said. That's familiar now. I don't think it is. He's like, but if knowing things wasn't in your heart, this is, I swear he really makes this argument. He says, if knowing things

didn't happen in your heart, why would you point to your heart when you say, I know that. I know it in my heart. That is a solid contender for the weakest argument in this book and perhaps the universe well you know being the weakest argument in this book and the universe are pretty much the same yeah exactly same contest then diagrams a circle exactly so he also quotes that great pioneer of american philosophy bill hicks yes who we all agree always

had chill things to say and is not alex jones now no uh-uh yeah he also says this is again a real fucking quote he says quote some idiots have called me hateful yep i don't know why i did this but i actually took out a ruler and measured some idiots have called me hateful. Yep. I don't know why I did this, but I actually took out a ruler and measured. Some idiots have called me hateful is exactly seven inches from Muslim rapists. Just in case you're wondering

where those words are in relation to each other. Yeah, he's like, and of course, at this point, I'm only reading the book to see if he actually like slips and falls into his own asshole. But this chapter has a ton's like, and of course, at this point, I'm only reading the book to see if he actually like slips and falls into his own asshole.

But this chapter has a ton of like, you know, look, I keep saying love stuff, but that doesn't mean I couldn't kick a little ass. Right. I love in a tough guy way, though. He's going to challenge us to a foot race around his house in a second. We're going to have to race him around his house before dinner. Oh, you know, if we could get him and Donald James Parker together, they would kill each other

off accidentally. Yes, absolutely. So, and then he gets a Matrix reference in. I was worried that he wouldn't get one into the last chapter, but he does. He does.

Yeah, no, we got there. He says, don't call me transphobic and racist while ignoring how heroic my transphobia and racism are. Okay, be real with me. This is a moment of reality, right? Because a lot of this Ignoring how heroic my transphobia and racism are. Okay. Be real with me. This is a moment of reality, right?

Because a lot of this is just like frou-frou. I don't know. Hippie-dippie. I love everybody lies. But this part, he is like, hey, you guys think it's easy being this racist? I'm the bottom of the goddamn racism pyramid. Okay. It all comes back to my books.

Okay. Alex Jones is stealing my shit yeah no he claims that critics won't read his whole book which i'll take as a victory right and i do not take that as a victory would have been super happy to take that l in retrospect yeah in retrospect sure mr post script it's not too late it's not too late I have a very direct agenda for this segment of our podcast. And of course, just in case you want to remake yourself in David Icke's image at this point, he offers up a blueprint of how to do that in a subchapter called A New You. And he's like, yeah, so turn the other cheek, but not all pansy ass like Jesus did.

I mean. Yeah. Do it like an action hero. You turn back all slow after they slap you and then you kick their ass. Right, right. And then he has this great moment where he basically like names us. He's like, you know, being called stupid by Eli and Noah is actually a compliment because they're stupid. So really, that means I am un-stupid.

Yes. And people, if you're going to make this argument, I need you to make it as a 50-minute video, at least on the Living Waters channel, so we can review it on our sister show, GAM. Please, we've talked about this. Right. He goes, stop caring what other people think. And I'm like, ah, the last vestige of wrongness, right? The last place wrongness goes to hide.

This entire subchapter could be summarized as, i didn't actually want a good reputation anyway i feel sorry for people with good reputations oh david's about to quit podcasting isn't he i can feel like he's about to leave podcasting it sounds like it yeah there's also this weird like and who the fuck cares if i get my kids to school late rant that comes out of nowhere sorry one second sending another text hey thomas if you're with tom will you read the message i sent him and answer for yourself and then we get our final subheading of the book forest and twigs because yes he is so bereft of things to say that his closing analogy for the book is don't miss the forest for the trees. Twigs.

No, it's his own thing. Very copyrightable. He's got some shirts for it. Right, right. He then he does the fucking put too many letters in LGBTQIA joke, but he includes a slur in it. He does. Yeah. I think he might be trying to start a fight with us as we leave this book.

Right. Yes. And then we get a long quote from the Mystic Osho, who I think was the comic relief in the old He-Man cartoons. Yes. Yes. Actually, it's so much better than that. He's the cult leader from Wild Wild Country.

Oh, my God. And he's basically David better than that. He's the cult leader from Wild Wild Country. Oh my God. And he's basically David's last word. Awesome. Awesome. He's like, you may have noticed that this entire chapter is just repeating the shit I've already said. I was hoping that you wouldn't. Damn it. The fucking penultimate sentence,

just to give you a sense of how banal this has been, the penultimate sentence is, the solution is to be yourself. I mean, God knows it's certainly been David's solution. Alright, well, I'll tell you what, that wraps up the book proper, but since we can't see

David off without Heath, we will be revisiting this next month for our final installment of Everything You Need to Know. I'm hiding your teeth no hiding them get to it before we totter on this evening i want to assure everyone that heath is not undergoing another penis reattachment surgery and that is not why he's been off the last couple of episodes when i asked him what to tell people,

he very specifically told me not to tell them that, so that's what I'm telling you. It's not that. Anyway, that's all the blasphemy we've got for you tonight. We'll be back in 10,022 minutes with more. If you can't wait that long, be on the lookout for a brand new episode of our sister show, The Skeptocrat, debuting at 7 Eastern on Monday, an even newer episode of our sister show's Hot Friend Godawful Movies,

debuting at 7 Eastern on Tuesday, and an even newer episode of our half-sister show, Citation Needed, debuting at noon Eastern on Tuesday, and an even newer episode of her half-sister show Citation Needed debuting at noon Eastern on Wednesday. Obviously, I can't power down the mixer until I thank Heath Enright for toughing his way through yet another not-penis-reattachment surgery. I need to thank Eli Bosnick for just being a lovely guy to spend an afternoon with. I need to thank

Lucinda Lusions for being a lovely gal to spend a life with. I also want to thank Nico for providing this week's gibbity-licious Farnsworth quote, and while there's still a bit of a backlog, I'm starting to run a little low. So if you want to hear your voice at the beginning of the show, be sure to check the website for information on how to submit a Farnsworth quote. But most of all, of course, I want to thank this week's most marvelous mammals. Morrow, Will, Karen, The Audio Mechanic, Rocktoberfest, J. Scott, Dawn, Skewball47, Ryan, Other Ryan, Other Other Ryan, Ken, Aaron, NunyaBidness, Ashley, Justin,

Callan, TheTheyThemBanana of Discord, Chris, OperationBrowniePockets.com, other Ryan, other other Ryan, Ken, Aaron, none of your business, Ashley, Justin, Callan, the they them banana of Discord, Chris, OperationBrowniePockets.com, Josh, Simon, Genan, and Orthon, whose IQs are higher than the dude who greenlit that weird-ass live-action Pixar football game thing that was on Disney+. Anyway, together these 24 forthright fornicators

forewent formidable foreboding to fortify our fortunes this week by giving us money. If you too would like to fortify said fortunes, you can make a per-episode donation to patreon.com slash scathingatheist whereby you'll earn early access to an extended ad-free version of every episode, or you can make a one-time donation by clicking on the donate button on the right side of the homepage at scathingatheist.com. And if you'd like to help, but

not with money, 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. If you have questions, comments, or death threats, you'll find all the contact info on the contact page at skatingadius.com. Did they say when the crackers will be back in?

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