The Scathing Atheist - 569: Poisonous Edition

Episode Date: January 11, 2024

In this week’s episode, American atheists will find fancy words for “it sucks right now,” Donald Trump wonders if his tarot reading had a "get out of jail free" card, and we’ll learn that Poison doesn’t have to be a hair band to be bad. --- To get tickets to see us live in Orlando, click here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/god-awful-movies-live-in-orlando-florida-tickets-778242784117 --- To make a per episode donation at Patreon.com, click here: http://www.patreon.com/ScathingAtheist To buy our book, click here: https://www.amazon.com/Outbreak-Crisis-Religion-Ruined-Pandemic/dp/B08L2HSVS8/ If you see a news story you think we might be interested in, you can send it here: [e-mail] To check out our sister show, The Skepticrat, click here: https://audioboom.com/channel/the-skepticrat To check out our sister show’s hot friend, God Awful Movies, click here: https://audioboom.com/channel/god-awful-movies To check out our half-sister show, Citation Needed, click here: http://citationpod.com/ To check out our sister show’s sister show, D and D minus, click here: https://danddminus.libsyn.com/ To hear more from our intrepid audio engineer Morgan Clarke, click here: https://www.morganclarkemusic.com/ --- Guest Links: Check out the Safety of Work podcast here: https://safetyofwork.com/ --- Headlines: American Atheist releases their 2024 State of the Secular States report: https://states.atheists.org/ Navajo Nation’s objection to landing human remains on the moon prompts last-minute White House meeting: https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/05/world/peregrine-moon-mission-navajo-nation-objection-human-remains-scn/index.html A bill could require future rest stop Chick-fil-A’s to stay open on Sundays: https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/28/business/chick-fil-a-sunday-new-york-rest-stop/index.html Lindsay Graham declares ‘war’ against NY to protect Chick-fil-A’s Sundays off: https://thehill.com/business/4374517-graham-declares-war-against-ny-bill-chickfila-sundays/ Ken Paxton's Shakedown of Seattle Hospital Warning of 'Tyranny,' Critics Say: https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/seattle-hospital-sues-ag-paxton-re-trans-healthcare-cites-shield-law-18236553 Psychic on Fox News uses tarot cards to predict Trump and Biden's future: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/jan/03/donald-trump-psychic-jesse-watters-fox-news https://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/fox-psychic-clip

Warning, by the time I finish this sentence, this podcast will already have started using words like fuck. This week's episode of The Scaling Atheist is brought to you by Adam and Eve. And by the new medicine to help you get through the election year, Hibernol. It'll knock a motherfucker out for a full year so they can wake up next year and just be done with all that bullshit. Hibernol. Sure, you can take it yourself, but your Trump-loving aunt isn't watching her coffee that closely. And now, the scathing atheist. This is Drew from the Safety at Work podcast.

I hate having to choose between literal and political correctness, so I'll just say that as a professor of science, I assure you that we did, in fact, evolve from filthy, open square brackets, monkey people, close square brackets. It's Thursday. It's January 11th. And it's National Girl Hug Boy Day.

Okay, we've got to stop letting Tarzan make holidays. That feels weird. Right? I'm no illusions. I'm Eli Bosnick. I'm Heath Enright. And from Judy Blooms, New Jersey, Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Waycross, Georgia, this is The Scathing Atheist.

On this week's episode, American atheists will find fancy words for it sucks right now. Donald Trump wonders if his tarot reading had a get out of jail free card in there. And we'll learn that poison doesn't even have to be a hairband to be bad. But first, the diatribe. As I said last week, the hardest theistic arguments to counter aren't the ones that argue that a god or gods are real. The fact that gods aren't real pretty much nails all of those arguments to the wall. The hardest ones instead are the arguments along the lines of, even if it's false, religion X still accomplishes thing Y and thing Y is beneficial. Now, you can make the argument that these kind of considerations don't matter, and if you don't want to, I'd be happy to make that argument on your behalf. Either religion

is true or it isn't, and if it's a lie, being a useful lie doesn't rescue its social value. But if we want to refute religion culturally instead of just logically, we still have to reckon with those types of questions, right? So here's another one that I want to tackle this week. And it's probably the most popular pro-religious argument that you hear among learned folk. In fact, it's the one generally invoked if and when you go looking for the evolutionary root of religion. And that is, of course, that religion aids in societal cooperation. societal cooperation. The shared beliefs and rituals of religion reinforce a sense of us-ness that encourages groups to work together to achieve goals that would otherwise be impossible. Religion is the glue that holds cultures together. And there's definitely truth in that.

It almost certainly is the reason that humans around the world kept inventing and reinventing religion. But just because something evolved to do a job doesn't mean it does it well the human eye evolved to see but that didn't stop it from being upside down and backwards these days we can achieve the same amount of societal cohesion by eating at the same fast food places and watching the same movies we don't really need an artificial system of usness the way our early hominid forebears might have. Of course, the more conservatives rebel against popular entertainment over culture war bullshit, the less we can count on that. But the same process weakens religion's ability to do that shit even more.

So it's not like it's even a handy backup plan. But luckily, we already have a backup plan, and it works better than religion ever did. backup plan and it works better than religion ever did. And interestingly enough, it's the same thing that supplanted and surpassed religion in virtually every other field of human needs, science. I mean, here's the dirty little secret about religion's value as a communal glue. It can only define an us in opposition to a them. That's all it does. You see all these statistics that show that religious people are more charitable than atheists, right? But what they so often fail to mention is that that charity extends only to other people in their group. Christians in America will donate more to, say,

Christians in China than atheists will, but atheists will donate more to Muslims in Gaza than Christians will. It's why Christians do better than atheists when it comes to donating to charity, and atheists do better than Christians when it comes to supporting policies that would permanently fix the issues creating all the need for charity in the first fucking place. But as ever, where religion fails, science succeeds. Now, don't get me wrong. Science has plenty of blood on its hands in terms of creating us's and them's. But it at least allows a plausible universal goal the advancement of knowledge you don't have to be an us for that to matter you don't even have to

be a human for that to matter i was thinking about this last week i was reading a book about the transit of venus back in 1769 right that's the one where astronomers the world over try to definitively measure the distance between earth and the sun by observing the transit from all different latitudes and then comparing notes. And it's a fascinating story. I'll probably do a Citation Needed episode about it or something, because, of course, it was way harder to get people all over the world with precision equipment back in 1769. It was way harder to coordinate. It was way harder to compare notes afterwards. But it happened.

Countries that were at war contributed together to this grand scientific enterprise. And as often as it faltered along the way, ever since then, science has been the focus of these grand cross-cultural endeavors. Whether we're talking about mapping the human genome or crunching the data from the LHC or building a space station bigger than a football field, these are things that you need international cooperation for. And they're things that don't benefit anybody unless they're shared with everybody, right? What fucking good is it to learn the distance between the Earth and the sun and then keep that knowledge to yourself? The very pursuit demands it be open. So yeah, look, religion was a useful cultural glue. Evolution has testified to that.

But you know what else was useful? We're fucking rock hammers. We've moved on as a species. What we need now are systems that can glue cultures to one another, an us that doesn't demand to them. And when it comes to the ability to do that, nothing else has ever come close to science. They're talking about you, Jesus.

We interrupt this broadcast and bring you a special news bulletin. Joining me for headlines tonight are the Superman and Batman of this Hall of Justice, Heath Enright and Eli Bostic. Fellas, are you ready to fight for truth, justice, and the American way? I'm a Christ figure. Nice. Yeah, and I'm a psychopath with several backup plans on how to murder you.

This is all tracking this week, everybody. It's all working out. Also kind of a Christ figure. Meanwhile, it's time for a word from this week's sponsor, Adam and Eve.

I wish the Super Friends were sponsored by Adam and Eve. Let me explain the monkeys. Such good ads. Ho hum. Hey, Eli. what's wrong yeah man you look blue i am fellas it's the existential dread existential dread oh sure with no gods or afterlife to comfort me and the certainty of my own death and dissolution into the long arc of history i'm chock full of existential dread okay Okay, well, have you tried fucking real good? What's fucking real good?

It's whatever you want it to be. Outfit stuff, putting things in your butt, putting things in other people's butt, anything. Wow, that sounds great. It is great. And whatever you're into, Adam and Eve is here to help. Plus, Adam and Eve is offering 50% off just about any item and free shipping, which includes rush processing.

Ooh, rush processing. But I don't know, guys. What if my neighbors see me bringing in my narwhal sex doll? No worries there. Adam and Eve wants to make your life easy. They offer discreet shipping as your privacy is a priority. Plus, 100% free shipping with rush processing on your entire order. Doesn't matter how much you spend or what you buy. All will be packaged and sent discreetly for free and fast. All right, fellas, I'm sold. Where do I shop? Just go to adamandeve.com and select any one item.

It could be an adventurous new toy or anything you desire. Just enter offer code SCATHING at checkout. That's SCATHING, S-C-A-T-H-I-N-G at adamandeve.com. This is an exclusive offer specific to this podcast, so be sure to use the code scathing to get your discount. 100% free shipping and get it fast

with Rush Processing. Code scathing. Alright guys, thanks. So narwhal sex doll. Yeah, the horns a dildo? Hildo yeah got it it's better that's better than what i was picturing me too actually yeah and now back to the headlines in our lead story tonight american atheists released their 2024 state of the secular states report this weekend spoiler alert it's fucking terrible this is an annual report the organization issues

on religious freedom in america or increasingly the lack thereof because what we saw last year of course was the normalization of all the shit that seemed so goddamn extreme a year before that or as american atheist president nick fish puts it in the introduction to the report quote these attacks on vulnerable communities and on democracy itself have gone from relatively rare outbursts of extremism to the centerpiece of a political movement, end quote. Their job's getting harder and harder. It's more and more like, remember Donald Glover in Community?

He walks back into the apartment with pizza and like everything's on fire somehow. He's like, okay, the annual report is fucking fire now. It's just lots of stuff on fire is the report. My job's weird now. Yeah, they could have done a one pager and just called it, we are the goatee universe, you know, kept it brief.

Right. So yeah, so this report breaks down the country state by state and it gives you like a current snapshot of where each state stands vis-a-vis religious freedom. Now, instead of a letter grade, the report categorizes them broadly into a green, yellow, or red categories, and then it breaks those broad grades down specifically on a number of different metrics. And as you'd expect when you look at the national map, what you've got

is a green band across the West Coast, a smattering of green in the Northeast, some yellow across the Midwest, and a huge honking chunk of red along the entire southeast that stretches up into the corn states all the fucking way to Canada. Yeah, cool. So the electoral map.

Yeah. Same as that. Or an education map or a truck nuts map. Good times. Informationally efficient. We can just memorize one thing. Pro tip, podcast listener,

if you have any generally liberal friends, but they don't really get the atheist activism thing when you try to talk to them about it, this report is a great thing to share with them because they're going to have their own private, oh damn, religion is the cause of everything I'm mad about moment when they read this thing. It's nice.

It's a little... Right, and they're going to look at their state and go and go like oh wow there's a lot of shit we still need to fix yeah not new jersey baby well yeah no there's still some shit to fix there so i'm here new jersey's perfect no thank you he said no one supportive please cut him saying no at the end please cut those parts it's very important to me no so the way the report works is that for each state they look at the presence or absence of 60 different laws or protections or whatever like you know does the state have religious exceptions for child abuse does the state have constitutional or statutory protections

for abortion does this state require religious displays in schools that kind of stuff and you can easily see this information about your state at a glance. But among the dozens of issues it looks at, they highlight a couple of important trends that we saw over the past year, specifically the targeting of trans youth, restrictions on abortion and contraception access, and school censorship done in the name of parental rights. Okay. Can we go back and just say yes retroactively to the whole secession thing? I know we need to do a big rescue, like extraction operation first,

but right after that, we shouldn't give away all the good weather like that. Yeah, no, they get all the good weather. That's true. I mean, to be fair, Trump solved this issue with the whole my supporters know that the cure is drinking bleach, but then you narcs had to tell him it was poison i'm just saying fair it's really on us be cool this was working itself out in payroll yeah now of course as dire as this all is

it wasn't all bad news the report points out new jersey the report points out new jersey yeah no it points out that the number of Christian nationalist bills introduced in state legislatures more than doubled from last year's already record number. That's the bad. And the actual content of those bills is also significantly worse than it was a year ago. But at the same time, the number of state bills introduced to protect civil rights and religious equality also doubled. So, you know, if it seems like nobody's doing

anything, perhaps that's because you're not standing close enough to the people doing the things. Yeah. And in Navajo, hold up a minute news. You know, we talk about so much dangerous Christian nonsense on this show that when we get a chance to toss in the occasional bone mow about what the smaller brands of stupid are up to, it's a nice refreshing difference, like a sorbet between courses or cheating on your husband. Well, take off your wedding ring and prepare for the taste of apricot because this week the White House convened an emergency meeting with Navajo Nation leaders because the moon is magic. Okay.

And you're not allowed to put dead bodies on it. Sorry. No, but the moon is my sacred burial ground sincerely held. So impasse, I guess. Oh, yeah.

Should be. We're allowed to just have sacred stuff. Should be, yeah. So big thanks to Thomas for bringing this story to our attention. If you send a story

to scathingnews at gmail.com, you too can earn the warm embrace of us saying your first name out loud on the show. So here's what happened. This past Monday, NASA was prepared to launch Peregrine Mission 1, which would have been the first time an American-made spacecraft has landed on the lunar surface since the end of the Apollo program in 1972, which is very exciting for space nerds like Noah. I mean, the difference of video game technology alone should get the moon people very excited. Am I right? Well, the stuff from the 70s is still pretty good, though. It's still a lot of fun. That's true. That's true. But because NASA has to fund itself

with fucking cereal box tops and bored billionaires, this mission is, in part, funded by private companies who pay to have stuff sent to the moon along with the science stuff. And two of those companies, Celestis and Elysium Space, sell we'll-put-your-dead-body-on-the-moon services. Well, they sell we'll-try-real-hard-to services.

Yeah, pin in that, pin in that. So Celestia's payload called Tranquility Flight included 66 memorial capsules containing cremated remains in DNA, which will remain on the lunar surface, according to the company's website, quote, as a permanent tribute to the intrepid souls who never stopped reaching for the stars, end quote. Right, right, because the moon is closer to the intrepid souls who never stopped reaching for the stars. End quote. Right, right. Because the moon is closer to the stars.

It's closer to half of the stars, Heath. There you go. And look, I want to acknowledge right here at the forefront that sending your body to the moon is a fucking stupid waste of money. I thought it was cool. I agree. In fact, the only thing that's more stupid and a waste of money. I thought it was cool. I agree. In fact, the only thing that's more stupid and a waste of money is religion. In this case, the Navajo belief that the moon is sacred and

therefore you're not allowed to throw dead white people at it for $10,000 a pop. Navajo Nation President Boone Green said, quote, the moon holds a sacred place in Navajo cosmology. The suggestion of transforming it into a resting place for human remains is deeply disturbing and unacceptable to our people and many other tribal nations, end quote. Okay, here's the thing. We're selling dumb shit to billionaires.

We're probably just throwing away their ashes anyway and then maybe going, just be cool about it, guys. Right, look, I feel like we should, you know, we should all be a little trepidatious about dismissing the concerns of the Navajo Nation about, you know, Americans disrespecting their sacred sites. And we should probably acknowledge that if this was like a Christian taboo or a Muslim taboo,

there's no way in fucking hell we would even be thinking about doing it. But on the other hand, it's the moon man nobody gets to call dibs on the fucking moon except america except for that one time yeah so you're probably wondering what was the response from nasa well dr joel kerns their deputy associate administrator for exploration, had this to say while, I assume, unpacking the lunch he's forced to bring from home. Well, we recognize that some non-NASA commercial payloads can be a cause for concern to some

communities, and those communities may not understand that these missions are commercial. They're not U.S. government missions. American companies bringing equipment and cargo and payloads to the moon is a totally new industry. A nascent industry where everyone is learning. We take concerns expressed from the Navajo

nation very, very seriously. Not adding Are you guys going out towards Baylandsville when you leave? Can you just drop me off near the exit? I'll hitch the rest of the way into town

on the back of a pickup. Ubers are really expensive out here. But rest assured, we're taking you two varies worth of seriously here in our official statement.

Trust me. For sure. Yeah, the NASA guy really loves spending his time on that shit. Fucking loves it. But my favorite response to this debacle came from the ceo of celestis who was apparently auditioning for our podcast with their statement quote no one and no religion owns the moon if the beliefs of the world's multitudes of religions were considered it's quite likely that no missions would ever be approved simply put we do not and never have let religious beliefs dictate humanity's space efforts there is

not and should not be a religious test end quote yeah and don't worry religious people will probably bonk our heads on the firmament and never make it to the moon anyway so what are you worried about all right but they actually did in this case they actually did. In this case, they actually did that. But yeah, normally, most of the time, that doesn't happen. Spoilers. It's a higher firmament than we originally thought. We got lucky. So whether or not you consider the moon landing

to be trespassing on the little green man's property, there is good news, which is that the Peregrine mission had a spark go blark and they are absolutely not going to make it to the moon. Which means, and this is why it's good news, a bunch of people paid like a lot of money to be thrown into space near the moon. Yes.

And then, at least from what I could tell from what I read, crash into the ocean and win everyone a taco, maybe. Now, I know that's not quite the poetry that was on the brochure, but certainly it's a fitting metaphor for man's quest to live among the stars. Am I right? Well, there you go.

Reaching for the stars. Ah, I tried it. Didn't quite make it. That's awesome. And in clock your face news, we have a story about Chick-fil-A. Very exciting. Hell yeah, we do.

My delightful home state of New York is persecuting Christians again, news. We have a story about Chick-fil-A. Very exciting. My delightful home state of New York is persecuting Christians again. This time by making them recognize seven-sevenths of the days in a week. A new bill would require that food outlets at transportation facilities and rest areas remain open for all

the days that we have in our time dimension. But that's going to murder God because Chick-fil-A is a chicken-themed bigot company that's known for, well, homophobic hiring and also closing their doors on Sundays in observance of the omnipotent creator of the universe needing a chill day on Saturday, actually.

Yeah. Look, nobody's more disappointed with a 14% rise in the availability of your product than me, Chick-fil-A, but rules is rules, damn it. Okay, what if the guy at Hudson News offers to deep fry a flip flop for you on the Sunday?

That's the same. That's our product. One pickle or whatever. That'll do it. And a big thanks to April and Jay for the links. Scathingnews news gmail.com. So here's what it says in the proposed bill. Quote, while there is nothing objectionable about a

fast food restaurant closing on a particular day of the week. Yes, there is though. That's dumb. Anyway, continuing service areas dedicated to travelers is not an appropriate location for such a restaurant. End quote. Good point. Yeah, they didn't write this part down, but it also says, you can hear in the subtext,

go back to the 90s mall food court from whence you came, your chickens not even that good. Also worth noting, the new rule wouldn't even affect any existing Chick-fil-A locations, even though it should. The policy just says, from now on, all the food servers have to serve food, do their fucking job on all the days that people eat the food. Sure, right.

But, counterpoint, Heath, enforcing a uniform set of rules is Christian persecution. Sure is. All right, I just want to, again, clarify, this is just for transportation hubs, right? Where people can't go elsewhere for food, right?

No one's going to step out of the Dallas airport during their 28-minute layover to grab a bite to eat, right? That's why the food that's offered there needs to be, and I know this is hard to comprehend, offered there. Offered there? Yes. Offered there. Offered there. Yes. So despite this proposed consumer protection bill being so very simple and obvious, the absurd Christian backlash required a response.

And that task was handled by very exhausted New York Assembly member Tony Simone, who said, approximately, quote, come on, just fucking sell food to the truckers or don't and go away. We really don't care either way. Just fucking do it or don't. And if you listen closely, you can also hear Lindsey Graham getting slapped with a leather glove on either side of his face when I read that. And that face was already shockingly bright pink.

So not a lot of room to get pinker. Now he's flashing red like a video game boss. Not great. In response to the bill, Graham said on Twitter, quote, this is war. No, no, Lindsay, you can tell it isn't war because you're going to it, right? If it was war, you would remain stateside and serve as the staff judge advocate. Graham also added, quote, the founders of Chick-fil-A made a decision early on to close on Sunday

consistent with their faith. For any government to try to reverse this decision flies in the face of who we are as Americans, end quote. Well, I would argue that hindering Americans' rights to stuff themselves

with fried fast food exactly 24-7 flies in the face of everything our founding fathers fought for, right? Whether our founding fathers knew it or not, that is the American way. I'm sorry. I'm really stuck on the term founders here. Okay. Chick-fil-A opened in 1967. All right. I have uncles with more established history than your bigot-themed mall kiosk. Relax, founders. Yeah. And on top of the chicken-based declaration of war

from a sitting senator, Graham also doubled down, KFC reference, nailed it, by threatening to introduce a law that would penalize any state that forces Chick-fil-A to stay open on Sundays, citing the legislative principle of my law can totally beat up your law. But again, the New York law wouldn't force any Sunday opening.

So that's nothing. Do you guys ever take a moment when we're doing this job and try to remember a time when our politics wasn't someone doing a mean impersonation of how Heath plays board games. Because I do, but I feel like I'm getting worse at it. Like I can't quite remember it. Also, just for the record, if anyone wants Chick-fil-A on Sunday, the only thing they do differently is brine the chicken in pickle juice before they fry it. You can do that without also hating gay people.

It's very easy. So there you go. You're welcome. Also, Shake Shack is way better. And in packs tons of fun news. You know, way back in 2016, when Donald Trump was elected president by people who didn't vote for Hillary Clinton

and exclusively people who didn't vote for Hillary Clinton, there were many who, having made their career in the previous couple of years, condemning the non-existent radical left while claiming to be truly liberal in their DNA, assured us that we had nothing to worry about. And I think it's fair to say that that diagnosis was incorrect, to say the least. A couple years later, when conservative state legislatures like Texas decided on murdering trans children as a political platform, those remaining talking heads who weren't in a medically induced coma to get over their benzo

and meat only addiction assured us that once again, we were panicking over nothing. Well, sadly, I am out of so's to told you because last week news broke that Seattle's Children's Hospital has sued Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's office over claims that Paxton's office had demanded records of transgender Texans receiving gender-affirming care in Washington. Which, I don't know if you are all super familiar, is not in the state of Texas. No. Yeah. Okay. Absolutely horrible.

But most importantly, Ken Paxton's nose hair is insane. It's pretty intense. It looks like Cthulhu. It's forming a Hitler mustache from inside his nose on his lip. It's like we found the alien that drives him's periscope. Right. Yeah, exactly. Now, luckily, and I really do mean luckily, Washington state actually saw this kind of

behavior coming, probably because Paxton and a bunch of other bigot lawmakers have explained in public and often in writing that this is exactly what they were planning on doing. So Washington actually had already passed what is called a shield law, which prevents the issuance of out-of-state subpoenas and criminal investigations for reproductive and gender-affirming care. A concept that I will remind our listeners states last had to apply in the form of fugitive slave laws before the Civil War. Yeah. If you have fugitive blank blank law then you're creating fugitives

people need asylum from you texas and according to you the u.s military should attack you yes you're insane right fucking oklahoma and new mexico start building the wall yeah hey this is actually pretty easy you guys seem to really have fucking shut up. Ours was bigger. God damn it. But Paxton doesn't remember who won the Civil War, obviously, because as I mentioned,

back in November, his office wrote a letter to the hospital demanding records identifying medication given to children who live in Texas, the number of Texas children

who received treatment, and documents that identify the, quote, standard protocol or guidance used for treatment. the number of Texas children who received treatment and documents that identify the quote standard protocol or guidance used for treatment. Well, the standard protocol is telling you to fuck off, which is also the standard guidance for you to fuck off. So there you go, fuck off. Yeah, you know it felt great to be the one to write that letter.

There was a furious slap fight in the office over who got to write the go fuck yourself letter to Ken Paxton. And look, even though this lawsuit will in all likelihood be successful, as the human rights campaign has pointed out, more than 35% of all trans youth reside in a state where lawmakers have passed prohibitions

on gender affirming care. And not all of them can afford to hop states to get that care. The damage caused by these laws aren't limited to state lines, and the bigots who passed them never intended for them to be. So yes, theocratic child-murdering bullshit is everyone's problem, and the only people in the situation who deserve anything are Paxton and his ilk. But I will choose not to say what they deserve on air because I would like to make it a full month into 2024 before committing a felony on air this year. Maybe you shoot for 12. Go for 12 this time. Don't overpromise, Noah.

Don't overpromise. And finally tonight in The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste. That's really fucking good. Give it a second, everybody. You're not looking at how it's spelled, listener, but that's really fucking good. You gotta be a patron. You can read the script.

You can see our notes. We had a fight in this script that you can't see unless you're a patron. It's all there. I stole my story about the nomination. Keith is gaslighting me because I'm a woman of color. So, Fox News said to ramp up the journalistic integrity this week

with some tarot cards in their journalism. Fair and upright temperance. That's their thing. They invited a psychic, in quotes, tarot reader to predict the future of Donald Trump. And he's going to die in jail with no money. The reading went so fucking badly right away. It's the best. The reader was clearly supposed to rig it with something positive or at least do a positive spin because it's tarot and you can just say whatever you want and that's how it works. But she scared the fuck out of all the

Fox News people and undoubtedly a bunch of their audience. It was a delight. I'm so confused about the brand choice here. Were they test marketing different bullshit for their audience? Like when Mountain Dew tests a new flavor, but it's just no high over a couple of months? Well, no, I feel like they're sick

of making up new bullshit all the time. And they were like, can we automate it? Can we just shuffle a deck of bullshit? That'll work. Yeah. And a big thanks to Anne for the link. Scathingnews at gmail.com. So, yeah, the guest sorceress from last week was Paula Roberts.

She started with a reading for Trump. And the first card was the five of cups. Oh, no. Which features a hooded figure with his head hanging in dismay at the sight of five golden goblets, three of which are knocked over. And, okay, I mean, I also get very sad

when I spill three of my five goblets of wine that I usually have. Can confirm. Can confirm. So the ominous card comes up and Paula Roberts immediately says, uh-oh. And then Waters pressed her for the meaning of the card,

to which she replied, loss. It's about losing. He's going to lose it, stuff. Losing. Loss. I mean, I could have told you that, Paula. Talking about taking the easy way. Come on, fucking find the ace of spades, Paula.

And just a quick, fun, nonsense fact about tarot cards. Fives in general are the struggle cards, and cups indicate something related to emotions. So that card does generally mean loss and failure, sort of? Well, yeah, time to deploy some of my embarrassingly stupid knowledge. The traditional title

for the Five of Cups is Disappointment. Oh, okay. Yeah, perfect. Point being, it's my nickname for my mom, too. So it's weird. I bet she's a big tarot fan. She probably thinks of you as a cop. You've got to talk to her about it.

Yeah, so point being, not lying about the magical deck of lying was shockingly honest journalism from Fox News. Right? Yeah. And it gets even better from there.

She moves on to doing a reading for Joe Biden and turns over the nine of coins which she interpreted as a sign that biden might be coming into some serious money and at that point waters is panicking because fucking the witch lady's going off script i gotta do something and he's like oh money probably money from china am i right joe biden china money and paula roberts was like no just just money. Nothing about China in the card. There's no China.

And Waters was fucking furious at this point. Waters is like, why would you say that? There isn't a China card. You can pretend one that has China on it, Paul. Alright, so I have to say this. Traditional title of that card is gain. Right? So it is hard for me to believe

that the tarot reading was not a biden plant here and i love her it's so good great job we also got a reading for america in general and the 10 of cups told us to expect quote big big big happy and again i i too get triple big happy good when i'm able to refill my spilled wine goblets with a new card that has more of them. This is all true. I can confirm this. Made perfect sense. Yeah.

By the way, that's the card of satiety. So spot on for America. Sure. Yeah. Nailed it. From there, she drew a card for Waters himself and predicted that he'd have another child in 2024. And he became even more angry and extra terrified yeah is there any word on if that card applies to my wife too uh this is very important as to how i respond to a text i got

this morning so yeah here we are in a presidential election year, and the source of news for about half the country decided to kick off primary season by trying to, like, fuck us in the common room on a futon and do a tarot reading. The plan backfired, yes, but still not a good sign. So I guess I'm going to make a prediction of my own. The news cycle is going to get even stupider from here. Oh, now that's a prediction. You would have been a great tarot reader, Heath. Yeah, exactly. Stupid news cycles.

Good for jokes, bad for my clinical depression, which coincidentally is also really well represented by the five of cups. Maybe tarot is real. So great job by Paula Roberts. New brand shift. Great job going rogue. Love it.

But if you're going to rig the deck for Donald Trump anyway, maybe mention some treason and draw the hanged man. Like, I'm glad he's going to be a sad loser, but you could have done better with the prank. That would have been a fun extra thing to do. There you go. Go broader. Go broader.

And while I once more wonder what useful stuff my brain could have held instead of tarot meanings, we're going to close the headlines for the night. Heath, Eli, thanks as always. Tarot. And when we come back, we'll try to tell you what's going on without knowing ourselves. Here at Puzzle and a Thunderstorm, we immerse ourselves in all forms of Christian entertainment, be they movie, music, book, or video. Sometimes we do it to better arm ourselves with counter-apologetics.

Sometimes we do it to see what kind of vile messages Christian leaders are sending to their flocks. And sometimes we do it just to stare in awe at how bad things can really be. And we're going to do that last one for you on this installment of God Awful Minis. So tell us, Heath, what will we be breaking down today? We watched Poison.

It's the story of a movie sitting on the metaphor of its own balls and physically injuring itself. So bad that they tried to do a metaphor so hard and it did not work out. I don't know about hard, but yes. So Eli, how bad was this movie?

Well, if you love the heavy-handed metaphors of your local pastor, but you wish he understood them even less than you do, you will love Ms. Minnie. I don't think they understand the word metaphor even, let alone like the one

they were trying to execute. Oh, what it does? Yeah. Yeah. All right. So is there anything you guys are going to nominate this movie for being the best

at being the worst at? Yeah. Besides metaphor, I'm going to say best worst. The church where these people go, these people who made this movie clearly go to church, I think in the UK.

This church fucking hates them and was like, I think, in the UK. This church fucking hates them and was like, all right, you're going to do a little skit movie. You can, you can shoot it in the back,

not in the front of the church. In the fucking antechamber. We actually get a scene next to the dumpsters in the back alley. We do. Yeah.

Yep. I'm going to go, of course, with Abe because we all like looked at it and we were like, well, you can't do best worst metaphor because that's too obvious. It's weird that we don't all three have that.

But I went with best worst couples fight. Sure. We'll get there. It's fun. And I'm going to go with best worst magazines. Once again, we will get there. Oh, yeah. The magazines, the metaphor, magazine metaphor, something. They're actually magazines about the metaphor.

Or are they the metaphor? Or are they the metaphor of the metaphor? Or are they a simile for the metaphor? Did Foucault make this movie, guys? I think Foucault might have made this movie. Or did we? All right. movie guys i think fuko might have made this movie or did we all right so we're gonna kick this one off with this amazing lazy cross logo for invisible sword productions right with another one

of those like actually uh christianity is pretty cool if you lay the cross on the side it's kind of like a sword yeah for when fiverr is too expensive for your local needs. Yes. So yeah, four, they went to four. So then we get 86% of a trigger warning, right? It says this program contains subject to meh that might, maybe I'm sorry.

That may disturbing to some view viewer discretion is advised. They ran out of budget and they only got like a little bit of, yeah, you guys, you guys buckled in when you saw that, right? When you were like, Viewer discretion is advised. They ran out of budget and they only got like a little bit of the. Yeah. You guys, you guys buckled in when you saw that, right? When you were like,

oh, they can't do the opening title screen, right? This is going to be something. Yeah. Although it says viewer discretion advised. And then the cold open guy drinking pee. And I was like,

okay, well, thank you for, for the advisement. Okay. Yeah. So no, like, okay. So I don't think this is supposed to be pee but that's sure what it feels like right after it says viewer discretion is advised and we cut to this guy drinking yellow liquid from a beat-up plastic

bottle yeah yeah oh so this is colin and he drinks poison every day. Now, poison is going to stand in, is our metaphor, right? But everything is just poison. Everything that is sin is just marked with a big skull and crossbones. And that's the clever idea they had that they thought, wow, we could make a whole movie based on, right?

Right. But he won't drink any spirit water, you know, just in case the poison metaphor was too subtle for you yes spirit water yeah we get a narrator that's like colin is 32 years old and drinks poison every day but refuses to drink the spirit water and and i wrote my notes and no audience you are no less grounded and what the fuck is going on than we are. Sure aren't.

Yeah. And it also seems very confusing, like what purpose they think the poison serves, because they don't know why anyone would sin when loving Jesus is so great. So he's like, I love drinking the poison. It's delicious. Also, I'm addicted.

Also, I have bottles and cans on my table. I don't know. These mine alright so it would be impossible to overstate how cheaply they have made these cans and bottles into cans and bottles of poison let me give it a shot hey podcast listener

you got your home printer there just grab a piece of paper from there and just wrap it around a random can you have in your kitchen if you got one. I think already too professional. You did too better. You did a much better job than this movie did. Do you have any construction paper in a garbage can

that you could just grab? And an old crayon? It's a little wrinkly if it could be a little wrinkly. And please by all means don't match it to the size of the can or anything. No. Definitely not. Somebody definitely cut their face on the edge of the paper that was standing past the can.

No question. By the end of the movie, everybody's got a paper cut on their lip. I love it. That's how they chose to end it is when everyone had a paper cut on set, they all left. Right. But we've got Colin sitting there talking about how much he loves the poison and then there's a chick interviewing him about why he loves the poison. She's's a chick interviewing him about why he loves the poison and

she's like you know does it bother you that you're addicted to the poison and he goes no because and then he pauses for like 37 years and he goes it takes away the pain I also drink atheism to take away my pain I get it the atheism porn

gayness okay my favorite little detail about this scene, this guy playing Colin has a sweatband on and they're just sitting there. And I guess he's acting so hard. He's acting so hard that the sweat was getting into it, obviously. Act, act, act, act. My favorite little detail of this scene

is that the quote unquote reporter is taking notes, but we can see the notes and they're very clearly just her squiggling on the piece of paper. There's nothing. Did you just mime taking a note? No. It's real. I am writing real

words. You're writing what you're saying right now? She switches over to how my son holds crayons. Okay. You know what? It's probably better for you to just mime. So we see him drinking some poison while a priest tries to give him spirit water. And then the narrator explains what we're looking at, right?

And as much as I normally am not a fan of narrating your own scene as you're showing it to me, in this instance, I'll take whatever the fuck I can get. This is Pastor Jesse Franks, and he is an advocate for pure spirit water. Okay, so this is real.

At this moment, I was like, oh, I thought they were doing a metaphor, but is he actually an advocate for spirit water, whatever that means in real life? And no, the answer is no. But just the fact that I had to ask, I genuinely had to ask, that's a real problem with your thing. Right, there was a point where all of us were like, oh, they're going to try to sell us this water. No. Oh, oh, oh, okay. They're just still doing an analogy so on the nose that Pilgrim's Progress would be embarrassed by it. Okay. Well, and it's made even more confusing of the fact that they did a real man on the street shot here, right? There's someone with a camcorder

and a really terrible case of MS. So I don't want to poke too much fun on them. He's following this pastor as he tries to hand out spirit water to real people on the street. And most of them tell them to fuck themselves. But the best is some car is backing in that very clearly just sees like,

oh, free water. And they're like, yeah, I'm thirsty. I'll take one. And then he does that thing where he holds onto the bottle and starts to talk to them about Jesus. And you can watch the guy in the passenger side be like, the water's And they're like, yeah, I'm thirsty. I'll take one. And then he does that thing where he holds onto the bottle and starts to talk to them about Jesus. And you can watch the guy in the passenger side be like, the water's not worth it anymore.

Please stop talking to me. The water is not worth it. I will drink from the sewer drain rather than continue this conversation. Drive, drive. Also, just for the record, yeah, he's handing out spirit water. Holy water is just full of shit molecules.

Full of shit molecules. So that's poison. Your thing is poison. Yeah, really, honestly. So yeah, and so then we're going to do some direct address with the water preacher himself. Yeah. He's like, you know, I'm offering them free water straight from God himself. And I'm like, could you guys only afford half of the analogy?

What happened? Yes. Also, it's not free. You're free spirit water. This is a metaphor for like becoming Christian. That's not free. You're going to ask for money in a second. That's like taking your free CD in Times Square.

And then you're going to be like, actually, I just need a little bit of money to work on the next album. No. It's actually significantly worse than that because if you didn't take the cd and they were like i guess i have to burn you and your family in fire forever it would actually be worse than the con that happens if you continue it that's what happens and then we get these lovely little like inner cuts which are supposed to be the reasons that people sin right someone's like i've been eating and drinking poison since i was a kid. I only drink diet poison because God is fake, right? All that stuff. And the reason why I love these inner cuts is, excuse me as I self-indulge slightly, I sometimes get to teach high schoolers drama. And people often ask me, why would you do that

to yourself on purpose when it's not your job? And it's because when you see really, really young people act, you get to see like talent when it's completely pure and unaffected by like a bunch of teachers who have been assholes to them, right? And so it's really wonderful. This montage of acting is the opposite of that feeling. It's the opposite of talent in its purest form. It's a lack of talent in its purest. It's the dark matter of talent in its purest form it's a lack of talent in its pure it's the dark matter of talent is this series of actors we found another anti-master class yeah yeah yeah this is fucking great we say see this happy couple where they're like well you know we've been eating and drinking poison together since we were kids we love to partake together in poisonous rituals. I'm like, what are we doing here? We're losing the metaphor,

Doc. Get in there with the paddles. Get in there with the paddles. There's also this one really nervous lady whose eyes are trying to read something written on the inside of my skull. I used to drink poison, but now I don't.

I drink the spirit water now but sometimes I still drink the poison because it's addictive who are you what do you represent what side are you on get it okay but now it's time for almost my favorite part of the movie because we cut back to the pastor trying to give people out

water and we see his full sized body for the first time in relation to an actual object and unless the bench he's standing on is 11 feet tall he is a tiny little man this bastard he is five foot nothing yeah and he's standing on top of the park pitch as though to distract you from how short he is and i'm like don't do that you fucking asshole people have to sit there and then we get this goth lady that walks by. Now, we're going to have about three of these in a row,

these women that are supposed to be the bad chicks that drink a lot of poison or whatever. And they've all found different ways of representing that without at all doing the kind of things that would represent that. This one is like, I'm going to wear a lot of black clothes. It gets weirder from there. This shirt is a tri-blend of mixed fibers. Yeah.

Nine cigarettes. I also like the last lady because her line was given was too long. And so she has to like jam it in super fast. Right? He's like, try some water. And she's like, buzz off. Try some water.

I'm having a great time with my poison. Try some water. Your God is a myth and a lie. I'll have you arrested if you ever bother me again because you violated code section. I didn't do it in a breath again. Can we try again? I'll walk slower. Yeah, that was an atheist getting

a priest in a park arrested. And that's why you never see preachers in parks is because we do that all the time. Obviously, because the atheists have arrested. So then, so then the priest explains that yes, he actually has been arrested for trying to give people his reclaimed rainwater or whatever the fuck it is that is that's in those bottles.

Right. He says, I keep getting arrested for giving away free water. And I was like, it's a, it's a weird flex, man. You,

you, you feel like you did something else wrong. And disturbing the peace, it's a weird flex, man. You feel like you did something else wrong. And disturbing the peace. Yeah, right. He's been arrested for disturbing the peace and preaching false doctrine about the spirit water. Really? Preaching false doctrine? That sounds

like a government based on spirit water is in charge of the peace department. Yes, I was going to say. So is the poison a different church now right the spirit seltzer government was mad at you do you hear it do you hear that your thing is dead and then he says that jesus gave him that water yes which is a very silly thing to do to your metaphor right because i'm picturing jesus just unloading a bunch of cases from the back of his truck now do please give this out to people or I will burn them forever.

I thought we were doing a metaphor. Are you not doing a metaphor? You're giving me real water. It's actual just bottles of water. Nope. This is for you. Okay. Yeah.

They have shit in them. Yeah. It's almost at this point it was like they replaced, they did like a find and replace with water and gospel or something. Yeah. And so, and then they get owned in their own fucking movie with the lightest possible argument.

So the interviewer lady from before, she's talking to the priest and she goes, so how do you know that the spirit water works? And he says, and these are direct quotes.

He says, because that's what God wants. And she says, how do you know what God wants? And he says, because God is everything, everywhere.

And that's nothing. And then you watch him look over and he's like, you didn't write anything on, you faked writing on that piece of paper. He's like, all right, I'll write down pass for that one. You said nothing. All right, okay, three points for Gryffindor. I love that they couldn't spring for a notebook for this person to take notes in as an interviewer.

No, no. They just had printer paper, but then they didn't want to waste a piece of printer paper. Somebody was like, we want to just put that paper back into the printer. We don't have the next read yet. Yeah, don't actually write on it. You actually printed most of it. You're definitely not getting a notebook. Took a lot of our paper to print all those little poison labels.

I thought it was going to be less than that. And then some fucking rando runs into the movie and he's like, I would like a meet cute now. Yeah, and hey, podcast listener, if you thought the accents, because there are accents in this movie, were hard to understand so far, get a load of this guy who

will kind of be the main character for the rest of the movie. Yes. But I watched literally every scene with him at least twice to understand a single fucking word he said. Yeah, this is John, and this is where we're going to get the best of the poison-y women.

John sees this woman. She's got a huge costume feather boa. Feather boa, just like the whores of Babylon. That was the sin. It was a feather boa feather boa just like the horrors of babylon that was the sin was it gets better because he drives up and he's like hello and she's like yes feather boa feather boa and then she sits in the back seat yes of his car he drives her somewhere so we see him getting into poison he's doing poison at all

of the parties with all of the hot chicks. He becomes a cab driver. It says he becomes a cab driver, which is, I guess, the most poisonous of all the occupations. That's how you meet the really lascivious poison-y chicks. Obviously, yeah. Taxi biz is a hotbed for atheism, right?

I feel like that's accurate. You drive by atheism. There's Like, I feel like that's accurate. You drive by atheism. There's a lot of stuff you can do there. Well, and then we get him picking up someone as a cab driver, and this is a I'm going to say 61-year-old woman who also was told to do rowdy and poisonous. She's wearing

a big wedding veil headdress thing. Yeah. He says at one point I picked up a woman on her hen night and I couldn't control the poison. And I was like, is this guy about to do a metaphor rape of a woman on her bachelorette?

What the fuck is happening in this movie? I don't know. I didn't catch what he was saying enough to know that that's what was going on. So, okay. At least the veil made sense. You didn't watch it 17 times, Noel. Right.

Doesn't he say, one night I overdosed on the poison? Yeah. So, this is the order of operations that confused me so much. He picks up the 340-year-old mummy bride. He says he couldn't control the poison. He overdosed on poison. And then he met a girl who made him better. What does the movie think they meant by that in their matter of what is overdosing?

Yeah, they're losing it like a child's grasp on a balloon. A bender of atheism. It's very confusing. Yeah. No, what the poison actually represent. So, okay. So the poison is supposed to represent sin in all its forms. But what happens then is that the metaphor starts to contradict itself, right? Because poison is a thing you drink, but it's also a magazine you watch,

and it's also a not believing in God that you have, right? Yeah. Okay, so but John got married one day, and afterwards, after he got married, his wife found out how serious his poison addiction really was that's when she found eli's best worst all his poison magazines yes and these poison magazines are why they lost access to the printer because they very clearly just printed the word poison 50 times and she hands him just a sheaf of paper and is like glued it to the top magazine yes yes so so we get and then we get my best words right where she confronts him in the hallway

about his poison magazines and he like they're doing this stupid fucking thing that people who can't act do where like he doesn't have any lines and she doesn't have any lines right so the like the we we don't hear what they're actually saying or just hearing the voiceover as this is happening. So she never gives him an opportunity to talk at any point in it as she just barks nothingness at him and then smacks the shit out of him. Beats the crap out of him. Oh my God, she hits him way too hard in real life.

A lot, yes, absolutely. What the fuck? And hey, everybody, John is not a I don't hit women type. So there's a real danger in this for her. Yeah. It feels very uncomfortable

for a minute there. Yeah. We're going to see a boxing match. But then he's like, but he comes over in the voiceover and he's like,

and she was going to leave me because of all the poison, but I convinced her to stay and have a family with me instead. And I'm like, oh yeah, that's a great idea.

I bet. Fucking yikes. Uh, unfriend on Facebook, unfriend. And by the way, the, the,

the message of this movie of course will be that she made the right decision. She stood by her poison addicted husband and had a kid with him. Right. It all works out for him because of that. Oh God. That is the message. I didn't even notice what they were doing. Cause the metaphor was so confusing. Okay. God. That is the message. I didn't even notice what they were doing because the metaphor was so

confusing. Okay. Right, right. So, yeah. So, John drank spirit water for a while, but then he got back on the poison again. His wife got a call from the hospital. He'd overdosed on, again, it was magazines just a minute ago. What does this mean? The poison

magazine? Such, God, a two- one deal. It's unclear. He overdosed on pornography, perhaps. I've done that. Okay. To be fair, that is a real medical condition. Okay.

I love because they have like the couple like standing there telling us like what happened reality TV style. And at one point he tries to snuggle her and she's like, oh, fuck you. It's so funny because that's very clear. The actor being like know we are playing boss man and wife and she's like you touch me again i will cut off your ears and he's like yep nope you did mention that the first time we met you did mention that you would cut off my ears i was wondering if you'd evolved on that position but you have not yeah but we see him being sick, recovering from his poison, her nursing him back to health. There's this great moment, right? Because bad actors don't know this.

He's lying down and she's giving him the spirit water, English patient style. But you can't drink while you're lying down. So we watch this actor almost drown. Stop, you're spirit waterboarding me. Boom. And then Sean gives his life to God. And I'm like, have you stopped? Did the metaphor quit?

The metaphor is so good. Who the fuck could blame it? The movie was losing the movie to itself because they don't know what metaphors are. And they panicked and they were like, enhanced interrogation techniques. We'll do that. We'll do torture and make him Christian. There you go. And then he converts to Christianity by Stockholm Syndrome is the final lesson of the movie. Yes.

That's the lesson. Yeah, that's the takeaway. Yeah, he gives this monologue, most of which is drowned out by the fucking music, of course, about how he gave his life over to God. And then we get the jesus quote right the water i give them takes away thirst altogether it becomes a perpetual spring within giving them eternal life so they like dunked on their own metaphor oh i guess you wouldn't have to drink it more than once would you if this was a metaphor for that i don't know i'm pretty sure

the message of this movie is bad is bad but but good, on the other hand, is good. Hold on. Let me write that down. I'm definitely writing this down on my paper. All right. Well, now that Heath knows to avoid badness and choose goodness instead, I guess we can wrap up yet another God Awful Mini. God Awful Many. Before we wander back out on that road again,

I want to remind everybody that you can pick up tickets to see us live in Orlando on March the 2nd. Be sure to check the show notes for a link to those tickets or just to go to GodAwfulMoviesLive.com. Anyway, that's all the blast movie 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, and an even newer episode of our sister show's hot friend, God of the Moose, debuting at 7 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday, and an even newer episode of our half-sister show, Citation Needed,

debuting at noon Eastern on Wednesday. Obviously, this episode wouldn't earn its number if I neglected to thank Heath Enright for being my buddy, Eli Bozzi for being my pal, and Lucinda Lusions for being my everything else. I also want to thank Drew from the safety of work podcast for providing this week's Farnsworth quote. Incidentally, if you want to know more about the science of what does and doesn't work when it comes to keeping people at yours at workplace safe,

check the show notes. There's a whole fucking podcast about it out there apparently. But most of all, of course I want to thank this week's most salacious Simeon's David, Mark, Phil, Josh, Andrew,

John, Kellen, Casey, Tiffany, Carrie, dragonfly, automatic Bobcat, Julie, super friend, Jason, Robin, Dr. Frost, Andrew, John, Kellen, Casey, Tiffany, Carrie, Dragonfly, Automatic, Bobcat, Julie, Superfriend, Jason, Robin, Dr. Frost,

Dwayne, and Chorus. David, Mark, Phil, Josh, Andrew, and John, whose dicks are so big they need a spotter to safely masturbate. Kellen, Casey, Tiffany, Carrie, Dragonfly, Bobcat, and Julie, who the Hawaiian Punch Guy knows better than to fuck with. And Superfriend, Jason, Robin, Dr. Frost,

Dwayne, and Chorus, whose eyes sparkle like diamonds, but ethically sourced ones. Together, these 19 notorious non-believers nudged our net worths northward this week by giving us money. Not everybody has the money it takes to give some of it away, but if you do, you can make a per-episode donation to patreon.com slash scathingatheist, whereby you'll earn early access to an extended ad-free version of every episode, or you can make a one-time donation by clicking on the donate button on the right side of the homepage at scathingattheist, whereby you'll learn 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 skathingatheist.com. And if you'd like to help, but you're plenty broke without any assistance from us,

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. Additional writing for this episode was provided by Mike Schuster and Andrea Romano, and our audio engineer is Morton 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 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 scathingatheist.com. you gotta squanch it squanch the preceding podcast was a production of puzzle in a thunderstorm llc copyright 2022 all rights reserved