The Scathing Atheist - 571: Nonbeliever Griever Edition

Episode Date: January 25, 2024

In this week’s episode, you’re not the boss of  State Representative Josh Schriver, a very small tunnel in Brooklyn doesn't really help with the space lasers, and Carrie Black will be here to talk about secular grief. --- Guest Links: Here are the links to pick up a copy of Sometimes Illness Wins: https://www.fillingthegappublishing.com/ https://www.kingsenglish.com/book/9781735140506 --- 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: Pew report about nones: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2024/01/24/religious-nones-in-america-who-they-are-and-what-they-believe/ West Virginia Bill Would Mandate "Curing" Trans People Of Being Trans Under 21: https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/west-virginia-bill-would-mandate Republicans turn on Fox News as MyPillow owner Mike Lindell has commercials ‘cancelled’: https://www.indy100.com/politics/fox-news-mike-lindell-mypillow https://ew.com/liberty-university-lil-nas-x-acceptance-letter-fake-j-christ-music-video-8426020 Michigan GOP lawmaker: My bill will revoke tax exemptions from "non-theistic churches": https://www.friendlyatheist.com/p/michigan-gop-lawmaker-my-bill-will Conservatives freak out about sexy calendar for conservatives: https://www.vox.com/politics/2024/1/10/24024341/calendargate-conservative-civil-war Secret tunnels under NYC synagogue are stupid but not a globalist conspiracy: https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/secret-chabad-tunnels-new-york-1234942995 And the tweet from "Richard Strocher" about hearing voices under his apartment is fake: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/richard-strocher-vindication-jewish-tunnels-post --- This Week in Misogyny: Utah law risks genital exams for bathroom use: https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/utah-bathroom-ban-goes-to-senate Florida law may put sex-assigned-at-birth on driver’s license: https://www.orlandosentinel.com/2024/01/23/florida-may-force-transgender-people-to-put-birth-sex-on-drivers-licenses/

Warning, the following podcast contains intransitive verbs, which seems as relevant as warning you that it has profanity. But what are you going to do? Anyway, we cuss on this show. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by Factor, Babbel, and by Weed. Weed. How the fuck else do you think I made it through David Icke's Everything You Need to Know? And now, The scathing atheist. Hi, it's James from Australia. I'm a union lawyer and proud atheist.

And if my experience negotiating with bosses has taught me anything, it's that you should join your union and that we did, in fact, evolve from filthy monkey men. It's Thursday. It's January 25th. And it's National Opposite Day. No, it isn't. I'm Noah Lusens. I'm Eli Bosnick.

I'm Ethan, right? I don't know what we're doing. And from Janine Garofalo's New Jersey, Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Waycross, Georgia, this is The Scathing Atheist. On this week's episode, you're not the boss of State Representative Josh Shriver. A very small tunnel in Brooklyn doesn't really help with the space lasers. And Carrie Black will be here to talk about secular grief. But first, the diatribe.

So I started getting emails and shit from people sharing stories that all basically had the same headlines. Something along the lines of nuns are now the largest religious group in America. And I'm thinking to myself, that's been true since like 2019. If you divide Christians up between Catholics and Protestants, which is something that demographers pretty much always do, the plurality of Americans list their religion as none or nothing in particular. We crossed that line years ago, and as the resident demographics nerd, I led the show in celebration when we did. So why was that headline circulating so much now? Well, I dig into it a bit. Turns out it's coming

from this new survey that Pew just released about nuns, and it's filled with good shit. The reason that nuns are the largest religious group is because it's the catch-all that's left over when you subtract out all the organized religions. Saying that America's largest religious group is nuns is a little like saying that America's favorite movie is Other. There's just word enough choices on the list to really capture a meaningful snapshot of people's religious beliefs. So this latest survey, the one that prompted the headlines, is an effort to dig into that group a little more and answer the question of what we're talking about when we say nuns.

Of course, the caveat that has to accompany every mention of the nuns is the reminder that nun doesn't mean atheist. The majority of people in that nun bucket actually do believe in a god of some sort. Atheists do count as nuns, and we're a substantial portion. 17% of nuns identify as atheist, another 20% as agnostic. And so, not surprisingly, when you lump us all together, you can wind up with some pretty misleading statistics. For example, nuns tend to be less civically engaged and vote less than religious people and they're pretty evenly split between men and women but if you tease out just atheists from that group they tend to be more civically and politically engaged than religious people and they lean hard on the male side of the gender spectrum now when you see these statistics it's easy to think of the non-atheist

nuns as the low-hanging fruit for us if we want to expand right these spiritual but not religious believers in a god too vague to define and too fragile to intervene are protected by the hard chrysalis of organized religion and formal apologetics so you know they should they should make for easy targets for anyone hoping to grow the ranks of atheism but But in a lot of ways, the lack of substance is precisely what protects their beliefs. Any proof against God needn't be proof against their God. Their conception of God can retreat forever and you're left punching smoke. I mean, if I'm going to argue, give me a Catholic or one of those hardcore Bible is the irrefutable word of God Pentecostal types or something like that, right? Their beliefs are as solid as a concrete block. And yes, that's a far less pleasant

thing to punch than smoke. But if you're punching concrete, something is going to break, right? There will at least be an end to all of this. And as unlikely as it is, if I can punch through just one of those concrete blocks, the whole wall might come tumbling down. I know an awful lot of atheists that got there by way of losing one single argument. But none of those atheists were rejecting the Gumby God of the nuns. If I prove their God doesn't fit into this hole, they could always just move them into some other hole. They have no doctrine to discredit, no holy book to repudiate, no imperatives to impugn. What's more, their lack of allegiance is also a lack of accountability. The members of a church can be persuaded by all the evil shit it turns out their church does. But the God of the

nuns can't be blamed for the kids that the Catholic church raped or the gay people the Baptist church tortured or the apostates that the Mormon church shunned. Right? They're free and clear. But now, none of this is to say that the non-atheist nuns are unreachable or even that they're hard to reach. It's just that you can't get there by arguing. I know because I was one of them. If Pew had asked 30-year-old Noah what religion he was and gave him the same options that there are in this survey, he'd have given the answer as nothing in particular. He might even have used the term

spiritual but not religious. And what I needed to get me over that hump all the way to admitting to reality of things, it wasn't an argument, it was permission. For me, that came in the form of a sign on the side of a bus in Manhattan that said, you don't have to believe in God to be a moral or ethical person. I remember just staring at that and wondering why I needed somebody else to tell me that. I felt like until then, if I rejected religion outright, I was being left out. There would be no place for me. There would be no category for me. But seeing that sign, hearing a friend of mine say, but come on, man, you know there's no God. Those were the things that made the difference for me.

Once I knew the door was there, I didn't need to be convinced to walk through it. Look, there's a lot of good shit in this new post report, and I'll have it linked to the show notes if you want to look at the summary. It mostly tells us what we already know, atheists skew male, young, educated, and white. But it also shows us that the pool of leftover nuns has all the diversity that we lack. Skew slightly female. It's got a lot more variation in skin color. And it includes people all along the education and income spectrum. And for many of them, like myself, all it's going to take to get them across the threshold

is a welcome mat. They're talking about you, Jesus. We interrupt this broadcast and bring you a special news bulletin. Joining me for headlines tonight are the Nina and Pinta to my Santa Maria, Heath Enright and Eli Bosnick fellas. Are you ready to set sail? Yeah. Should we make a rhyme for kids about the human trafficker who's running the show here? Is that a good idea? Okay.

There once was a guy who liked Subway. All right. Click before Eli gets us sued. We're going to pause for a word from this week's first sponsor, Factor. Okay. So then it says you need to gulamand the tapenade? Okay. I know you made up the last one of those words.

Hey, guys. What you doing? Oh, hey, Heath. Eli's just helping me with a so-called time-saving meal kit. Yeah, turns out these things can be pretty demanding. And most of the time, they come with their own special sauce that you can't even buy. Yikes. Okay, well, have you guys tried Factor?

What's Factor? Great question. Factor's ready-to-eat meal delivery takes the stress out of meal planning and sets you up for success in the new year. Skip the grocery stores, prep work, and cooking fatigue. Instead, get chef-crafted, dietitian-approved meals delivered right to your door. I don't know, Heath. These meal boxes can get kind of samey. Yeah, if I eat another Farrow Bowl, I might start a rookery down there.

Well, with over 35 meals to choose from per week, including options like keto, calorie smart, vegan and veggie, and more, plus over 55 weekly add-ons, you'll have a ton of nutritious and flavorful options to kickstart your resolutions. And you're saying they don't take forever to make? Nope. They're ready to heat and eat in just two minutes, which means more time for you. Amazing. But Heath, have you actually tried it? I sure have. I was a Factor customer even before they were a sponsor, and I even turned Eli onto it. It's true. He did.

That's why I, Heath Enright, personally endorse Factor. All right, Heath, we're sold. Where do we sign up? Head to factormeals.com slash scathing50 and use the code scathing50 to get 50% off. That's code scathing50 at factormeals.com slash scathing50 to get 50% off. That's code SCATHING50 at factormeals.com slash SCATHING50 to get 50% off. Thanks. Now, any chance you want to help us, uh, quenelle the ganache? I mean, do you have quenelle spoons? I can't tell if that's a real one or if you made it up for the ad.

Real. Food is stupid. Awesome. And now, back to the headlines. In our lead story tonight in Bigot Rock Candy Mountain News. You know, it's more and more rare these days, but we still get the occasional email asking us why we, to paraphrase, spend so much time on trans stuff instead of atheism, I guess. And honestly, I wish we could. We love and embrace every chance to talk about Christian idiots afraid of cereal boxes or dating websites. But the truth of the matter is that the thing Christian idiots in the United States are spending

most of their time and power doing right now is attacking trans kids. Where they go to the bathroom, whether they can play sports, and whether they have access to life-saving healthcare has been the hovering villain platform of the Christian right over the last couple of years. And we would love to stop talking about it, but first they have to stop doing it. Yeah, right. I'm sorry. When you're on some motherfucker's extermination list, the question of who they're killing now, pretty important subject to keep tabs on regardless. Right. Just even just out of pure self-interest. No, I read the poem. They're only on the Quakers. We got a couple of people. We don't have to stand up yet. Yeah. The other reason we spent so much time on said trans stuff is that if you live in a liberal utopia like I do, looking at you, New Jersey, it's easy to think of anti-trans talk as just so much theocratic saber rattling.

But it's not. These laws are getting passed, and they're often worse than how they're being sold. And such is the case with West Virginia Senate Bill 194 introduced last week, which would, quote, enact a total ban on gender affirming care for trans individuals up to 21 years old and mandates that all therapists and social workers in the state attempt to cure being transgender. transgender, end quote. Okay. Meanwhile, I had several great ideas for the cure to being Republican and we had to bleep it every single time. We did. So, okay, West Virginia therapists, just go like,

there, I tried to cure them with a method that is tied for most effective. Didn't work. Now, can I go back to giving them therapy? You absolute fucking demons. Yeah, for real. So, first off, big thanks to Jacqueline for sending us this link, scathingnews at gmail.com.

If you send us atheist news to scathingnews at gmail.com, I'll find and kill your greatest enemy without ever telling you. So, the burden will be off your conscience. Ibid, for what I just said, or bleep, or whatever. Right. I also want to give a big shout out to ErinInTheMorning.com,

which is the blog Jacqueline linked us to. Erin is a reporter who tracks transphobic legislation across the United States with in-depth and thoughtful reporting. And if you want to benefit from her work the way I do, you should check her out at ErinInTheMorning.com. Theme song provided by Heath, apparently. Now, some of you might be thinking,

wait a second, Eli. Didn't West Virginia already ban healthcare for trans kids? And yes, they did in 2023. But you see, that law was for kids under 18, you know, children, and carved out some exceptions. And I think we can all agree that was way too accepting. So, this bill aims to fix that in a goddamn bigotry palooza that begins with a section that defines being transgender as a sexual deviation and places it alongside pedophilia, exhibitionism, masochism, sadomasochism, and fetishishism and then only gets worse from there hey west virginia

lawmakers gender and sexuality are very different words very different there's just lots of different letters and mouth noises that's a good way to tell if you ask these congressmen like hey what's your sexuality what would they say they'd be like like, guy? Right. Guy with penis, the style of sexuality. Oh, okay, cool. What's your gender? Fucking vaginas is my gender. Gender, fuck, fuck, man, fuck, vagina, fuck, gender. Jesus. But by far the most batshit portion of the bill is the one that I teased at the beginning. Namely, the part that insists all medical professionals work to cure their trans clients. Quote, the most jarring provision in the bill, not found in any other gender-affirming care bill to date, is the one that applies to all social workers, counselors, psychologists, psychiatrists, and therapists. The bill mandates

that all mental health care professionals would be prohibited from, and here's the quote from in the bill, exacerbating gender dysphoria in those under 21 years of age by continuing such condition, delusion, or disorder with no intent of cure or cure-pursuing recovery, end quote, from inside the actual bill. Okay, well, luckily, these lawmakers don't know how words work in general. The bill says medical professionals are not allowed to exacerbate gender dysphoria. And then it goes on to say, by doing things that help gender dysphoria, that's nothing. That didn't accomplish anything for them. They're gonna have to rewrite that. You know what else is nothing is cure pursuing recovery. That's also nothing. That didn't accomplish anything for them. They're going to have to rewrite that. You know what else is nothing is cure pursuing recovery. That's also nothing. The thoughts and prayers of medical treatment.

Yeah. So quick reminder, in case you're new around here, being trans is not something you can cure. It's not a delusion or a disorder any more than being gay or straight is. We know that. And all the experts agree on that. What we also know is that trans youth who go through so-called conversion therapy, be it secular or religious, are twice as likely to kill themselves.

So this isn't so much an instruction to deny trans kids help as it is a command to directly do them harm. Right. Yes, it's a requirement to do them. And notice how the concern for the conscience of the caregiver that was so goddamn important when they were passing laws that allowed professionals to deny care to trans kids is nowhere to be found when it comes to laws that would prohibit that care, no matter how sincerely said professional holds their conscience. So fucking weird. It's so weird. weird. It's so weird. Yeah, that one's real, so you don't have to write it down, I guess. One more thing. This fucking awful-ass bill is just one of multiple anti-trans bills introduced into the West Virginia legislature this week, with

Senate Bill 195 defining transness as obscene and making transgender exposure, performances, or display to any minor illegal, which is obviously an attack on drag shows, but as Aaron points out on the blog, exposure, performances, or display to any minor illegal. That's absurd. Which is obviously an attack on drag shows, but as Aaron points out on the blog,

that also just makes being a trans person at brunch illegal. Yes. Anywhere. If the trans community and its allies start wearing burkas and full niqabs to make a point, maybe West Virginia pumps the brakes

because they freak out a little bit. I don't know. Or they just shift into a different bigotry lane and go around. No, we got one for this. We're okay, guys. We got it. It's an established lane we made. Either way, there's obviously a lot of work to be done in the Mountaineer State.

And forgive me, but I'm going to be saying this a lot till November and then hopefully way less in December. One incredibly important way to do that work is to vote wherever you are, however you're feeling and vote correctly. Yep. Yep. Next up in headlines in just take the Lindell news, Christian Wright, lunatic, former pillow magn pillow magnate current pillow failure and one of the only people in the world who i'm 1.3 billion dollars richer than in approximate net worth

mike lindell had another giant embarrassment last week these these make me so happy this time around he's having a big sad mad because the woke liberals won't show his ads on TV anymore. Which woke liberals, you might ask? The ones who run Fox News. Oh, poor Fox. You're just trying to hit that ever narrower band of viewers that just want to be medium lied to. Exactly. It was tarot cards last week.

No to Mike Lindell this week. You're in brand crisis, Fox News. Brand crisis, I say. So here's what happened last week. I learned about this thanks to, well, my drug of choice called Google Alert for Mike Lindell failure. But also thanks to Adrian for sending a link, scathingnews at gmail.com, very helpful. So here's what Lindell had to say in a video he posted on Twitter last week. He's almost weeping the whole time, and it's just perfect. It's so fun.

Actually, Eli, do you have a good almost weeping Mike Lindell you could do for us? No. All right, here's the quote. I don't have the details yet, but all I know is that the commercials have been cancelled. Anything with my pillow or Mike Lindell cancelled on Fox News, please help us

to support us during this time of cancellation. Yeah, he was having a rough time. I did that perfectly, by the way. I made up no words in case anyone was wondering. We might have used the actual clip. You don't know.

And in surprisingly self-aware fashion, right after that, he also added, this is my favorite part, exact words. He added, they don't want my face. They don't want my face. All right, let's be honest, Mike. You don't want your face either, man. Right.

I, I told Jimmy Kimmel, he could punch me in the face for $9, but then he just did it for free. And everyone said they didn't see it, but I know they saw it. They just said they didn't. So I couldn't get help.

So next to this beautiful, almost weepy video, so I couldn't get help. So, thanks to this beautiful, almost weepy video, hordes of Christian rights sick of ants for Trump and Lindell are now in a crazy feud with Fox News. People are posting things like,

Fox News hates America and Fox News is just another putrid bunch of leftist traitors. But those were exact things that I saw. Oh, sure. But my favorite part was the response from Fox News themselves. Here's the official statement from their spokesperson. Quote, as soon as MyPillow's account is paid,

we would be happy to accept their advertising. That's all I said. I told you guys I'm good for it. All right. That's the greatest punchline in the history of reality. Reality doesn't usually have such good comic timing. I'm impressed. I'm being canceled because you didn't pay.

End of conversation. It's the best. So, Mike, I know you're listening. If you need some advertising slots, we will free up that space. Give us a call, buddy. We have a sneaker-based Fae Demon, a pug Pegasus unicorn thing.

They will sell the shit out of your pillows. Call us anytime. We would treat you better than you are treating me. Very competitive rates. Check it out. And in swing and a mish news, state representative Josh Shriver is working on a bill to revoke tax exemptions from illegitimate churches in his home state of Michigan. But before you get too excited about his awesome idea to kill God, he means that in a bad way because he's a Christian. So the illegitimate churches he means are not, you know, all of them. They're just the ones that aren't his.

Everything but evangelical Christianity. Yeah. Hey, Josh, here's the thing, though. of praying duels to figure out church's level of legitimate magical fucking units or whatever's in your head i will drive out to lansing and help you whip votes for this law to set up that tournament fuck yeah i just want to hear me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me that was the jews they weren't allowed in the tournament come on be, be realistic. But yeah, it's really something to watch all of these leaders from minority faiths championing the vision of religious freedom that's been pushed by Christian nationalists as though there was ever any intent in letting them in on that privilege.

Yeah, exactly. They're all getting stung by scorpions while they swim across a river. I had no idea it was going to go this way. So yeah, all of this starts with Shriver being big mad about the satanic yule goat at the Michigan State Capitol this month. Shriver,

who looks and acts like Bo Burnham got radicalized by the other half of the internet, made a video condemning the display saying, quote, in the name of Jesus Christ, I rebuke the sadistic, satanic Baphomet goat altar at our Michigan Capitol. Hey, okay. Fellow Michiganders, maybe do a quick Google before you vote. I mean, you know, for like issues, but just to look at the person because this guy is insane looking. to look at the person because this guy is insane looking.

He looks like he just murdered his acapella rival in every single photo I found. It's uncanny and terrifying. No, it looks like every one of these photos, he was told to smile and then that was followed up with,

like a human would. Yes, exactly. Have you ever seen those viral posts that's like, here's photos of people before and after they were told to smile? All of Josh's photos look like they were after he was told you can take pictures of other people's bare feet for free. Like you don't have to pay them.

But apparently getting in a magic fight with a fake moss covered bench wasn't enough because he then announced his plan for theocracy in an interview last week on the podcast, Your Defending Fates. And yes, podcast listener, that podcast is just as bad as you're imagining. And yes, I absolutely did subscribe to it so we can bring you more if they're crazy. I just, I'm glad there's so much public record of you liking this shit ironically for the sake of your descendants, right? Yeah, yeah. The algorithms will not be kind to my history. So here's the quote. I actually am working on a policy right now. I haven't introduced it yet,

but it's actually to really focus on making a distinction between the church, the church of Jesus Christ, and this quote-unquote church of Satan. You really have an issue where they're seen as equal in the eyes of the state. Do ya? And that doesn't seem right to me

for many, many legitimate reasons. Well, my reasons are very legitimate. Very legitimate. My reasons are triplicate. I won't name them. And so, removing tax-exempt status from non-theistic churches, such as the Church of Satan, I think is very, very well in order. End real quote.

Not so well in order that I introduced it as the bill, but still, it's very, very... And they just changed the name to Theistic Church of Satan. Are we done now? Oh, curse you! Idiot. Quick side note, by the way, Satanic Temple and Church of Satan are different organizations. Not that I expected Josh Shriver to know that, but I know that and I don't want to get emails. So he's wrong to the second power in case anyone's wondering.

I think he's wrong to a higher power. Spoilers, Heath. Now you might be wondering to yourselves, okay, but has Shriver heard of the First Amendment? And yes, he is familiar with that one, but do not worry, he hasn't read it. Because here's what he had to say. Quote, there's many examples of us looking- Just regular amount of many? Not many, many, many? Not many, many.

No, he's chilled out in his old age in this podcast. Hedging. There's many examples of us looking at our First Amendment and how it doesn't really protect against obscenity. There's no need for a moral and religious people to indulge in certain things. Okay, sorry. Is there a church of obscenity in Michigan? How the fuck do you know that? That's amazing.

Right? You should be a guest speaker at the very least. So wait, so the argument is it's not a First Amendment violation if I find your beliefs obscene? I have bad news for you, Josh. Oh, Josh. Yeah, I think it's many, many, many opposite from what you said. Yeah.

But perhaps his conclusion is the most terrifying part of this story. When asked whether or not he owed anything to his non-Christian constituency, this is what he had to say about that. Quote, We have a duty to lead people as representatives who are appointed by God to make sure that we have a state that is not just good, not just great, but godly. Honestly, I work for God and not for man. And so at the end of the day, I answer to one person.

And that's Jesus Christ. Side tackle. Sorry, I was just fantasizing about Eli being there maybe. Yeah. You were on a rope for like a swinging side tackle. Yeah, no, there you go. There you go. Well, it sounds like Michigan can stop giving him a paycheck then, at least.

Sure. Yeah, that'd be good. All right. Well, I hit up fucking Michigan HR or whatever. We're going to take a quick break for a word from this week's other sponsor, Babbel. Okay, you got your Lunchables? Yep. And your helmet?

Yes, for the last time. Yes, I have a helmet. Okay. Hey, guys, what are you doing with my shenanigans catapult? Oh, Noah's launching me to Italy. Why? Are you guys arguing about this or next Friday again? The word has to have a meaning, but no. It's because I want to learn Italian,

and immersion is the best way to learn a language. I mean, that's true, but it sounds like a catapult might be kind of painful. Have you tried babble? Oh, okay. Babbity bo, okay. Nope, still not Italian, I don't think. No, Keith, Babbel is the science-backed language learning app that actually works. What do you mean science-based? Well, Babbel's quick 10-minute lessons are designed by over 150 language experts to help you start speaking a new language in as little as three

weeks. Three weeks? That's almost as fast as a catapult. And way less deadly. Babbel's tips and tools are approachable, accessible, rooted in real-life situations, and delivered with conversation-based teaching. So you're ready to practice what you've learned in the real world. But Eli, have you actually used it? I sure have. Babbel's convenient courses help you learn real-life conversation skills in a different language.

It's so easy to learn how to order food, ask for directions, and speak to merchants without having to consult language apps while on vacation. Plus, Babbel's speech recognition technology helps you improve your pronunciation and accent. All right, Eli, I'm sold. Where do I sign up? Here's a special limited-time offer for our listeners. Right now, get 55% off your Babbel subscription, but only for our listeners at babbel.com slash scathing. Get 55% off at babbel.com slash scathing.

Spelled B-A-B-B-E-L dot com slash scathing. Rules and restrictions apply. Thanks. Looks like we'll be speaking a new language by next Friday. Okay, by next Friday. Did you mean... You did the right thing. Yes, I did, Eli. I'm far away, but you guys are still wrong about this.

It has to have a meaning. I knew he was going to do that. Yep, me too. Last word. A man wrote the Bible. A horse, which one? If it's a legitimate race. It is a slut, right? Cooking can be fun. Hey, I'm proud of a man wrote the bible a whore is what you want if it's a legitimate race cooking can be fun hey i'm proud of a man this week in massage

i know they treat it like a slur word and everything but the term turf is way too kind it means of course trans exclusionary radical feminist which is a fucking contradiction in terms there's no way you can be trans exclusionary and a feminist that would be like saying you were a feminist except for asian women the reality of it if you ask me is that trans women take an awful lot of heat off cis women and some cis chicks are just thrilled to pass on the bigotry burden basically they're trying to distract lawmakers from their uterus by pointing to a trans chick trying to take a piss. And boy, is that distraction working.

Just look at Utah, where they're on the verge of passing a law that could include up to six months in prison for using the bathroom that matched your gender, provided that gender didn't line up with the assessment of a disinterested doctor looking at a one-minute-old's junk. This is House Bill 257, and it would make it illegal to use the bathroom that matched your gender identity unless you'd undergone gender reassignment surgery and had your birth certificate updated to reflect your current gender, which isn't even allowed in several states. And as if an afterthought, the bill would redefine sex for legal purposes in such a way to exclude trans people.

The bill isn't a law yet, of course, but there doesn't seem to be much standing in its way. There was fierce opposition when it came time to make public comments. 47 people spoke against the bill compared to 10 that spoke in favor of it, but it passed out of committee five to three, and now it's going to Utah's overwhelmingly Republican Senate floor for final passage. And even if just the gross unfairness of this doesn't outrage you as a supposed feminist, maybe you could think of some other reason not to put the state in a position where law enforcement has to check people's genitals to enforce the law, which is how this law has to work. I mean, some rando says, hey, that lady just came out of the bathroom is trans. How else are you going to prove otherwise? The law specifically says it has to match what it says on your birth certificate.

So what it says on your driver's license isn't going to save you here. Speaking of which, not to be outdone by Utah, the state of Florida is considering a law to expedite similar bigotry there. They just got a testament to transphobia passed out of committee in the form of House Bill 1639, which among other things, would force trans people to put the gender they were assigned at birth on their driver's license. And make no mistake, the only purpose this could possibly serve is an aid to tell law enforcement which brand of misogyny to apply to you. Standard garden variety misogyny or extra strength trans chick misogyny. So yeah, the red states are basically in a competition to see who can pack the most

transphobia into a single bill. And if you aren't opposed to that, you haven't earned the right to call yourself a feminist. If you're not here to protect all women, then get the fuck off my turf. And on that note, I'll wrap things up and hand you back over to Noah, Heath, and Eli. Thank you, Lucinda. And in calendar-ision news, we have the genre story that gets Eli so excited he breaks out in impromptu jingles over it. That's right.

We got ourselves a good old-fashioned bad guy fight. Eli? But he doesn't do that all the time, I guess. So, yeah. Though I was not aware of it until Josh recently sent it to scathingnews at gmail.com. Thanks, Josh. Apparently, a big chunk of the conservative media

sphere spent their holidays engaged in a stupidity brawl that they're calling Calendargate, in which an anti-woke beer brand dared to sell a calendar featuring women who are just blatantly exposing their naked shoulders, ankles,

and clavicles. I get it, though. I'm a collar man. I'm a clavicle man. If it wasn't supporting literal evil, I might think about getting one of these calendars. It seems pretty cool. Podcast listener, I did Google clavicle porn, and the internet was like, yeah, man,

of course it exists. What are you, a child? That's an easy one. Come on. So yeah, this controversy was sparked by an explicitly anti-woke beer brand called Ultra Right Beer, which was founded amidst the backlash against Bud Light for acknowledging the existence and humanhood of trans people.

And I'm sure it's just delicious. Anyway, that company put out a calendar in December that they called Conservative Dads Real Women of America 2024. It's a collection of pictures of scantily or fully clad conservative women in sexy poses, one of whom seems to be wearing a black lacy negligee in a bubble bath. Huh. Impractical. Which seems counterintuitive. Another one is fully dressed, but giving you a coquettish look over her shoulder. It's like, it's jerk off material

for people who don't want to finish. Okay, if we're doing an ad for him, Noah, I feel like we should get paid first, right? Careful, Heath. Fox News said the same thing and now Mike Lindell is mad at them. Yeah.

All right. Well, well, apparently ultra-right beer forgot along the way that they'd sold their souls to the church lady and aligned themselves with the people who lose sleep over how sexy the Burger King commercials done got. Needless to say, there was an ultra-right backlash where the calendar was dubbed sinful,

lustful, and in one case, demonic. Yeah, right? Really. jenna ellis lambasted the project saying quote this is the problem with conservatives who think they can act like the secular world if conservatives aren't morally grounded christians what are we even conserving end quote uh bigotry jenna it's bigotry is what you're doing. Yep. I'm sorry. Jenna Ellis is criticizing the moral grounding of others. Sure is. Could they not get Al Pacino from the devil's advocate to speak out on this?

Was he taken this week? So, yeah. So this should be a fun fight to watch for the next little while. The white-splain dude bros got sick of us calling out their racism and shit. So they ran to the conservatives with hope of fighting more consequence free speech there and the conservatives i guess stopped putting cloth tubes over their provocative piano legs long enough to get their vote and then went right back to their fainting couches so should be interesting to watch that coalition tear itself apart over the next few years yeah and finally tonight in tunnel of shove news

a dispute over a secret makeshift tunnel under a new york city synagogue led to an absurd little conflict last week that required the nypd to show up and eventually arrest nine young men who are yeshiva students charging three with disorderly conduct and that somehow confirmed every single insane anti-semitic conspiracy theory all at the same time for the entire internet of bigots turns out none of those theories were accurate this was not a zionist conspiracy involving a very small tunnel in crown heights brook. But it was very silly and stupid. We're going to talk about it. Yeah, it turns out fucking Agent Emesis cover was blown for nothing.

Yeah, and I mean, no matter what, it wasn't going to be a Zionist conspiracy. I mean, unless that tunnel was a couple thousand miles short of its intended target. Took a wrong turn in Albuquerque or something. You stopped us so short. We was going to get there. We had a whole ocean plane. We did a Bugs Bunny trick on you. Yeah.

So apparently a group from the Yeshiva made a shitty little tunnel as part of an expansion plan by a former leader of the synagogue, but they never got any permits and the current leadership found out in December. So last week, a crew showed up to fill in the illegal tunnel with cement.

And a group of these young men lost their goddamn minds at that point and ran inside the tunnel to physically block the cement workers from doing the job. So the cement workers were like, cool, now you get arrested and we fill it in right after that and we get a little extra overtime.

Great. So they call the police. That's what happened. That's the entire actual story. But it ended up fueling a viral campaign of misinformation. That includes the claim that babies were being hidden down there. What? Not clear how that does anything. clear how that does anything. And also the claim that the Jewish community of New York City has a secret group of underground fucking mole people living inside an elaborate network of secret tunnels that had been uncovered and therefore they profit or something.

Again, it was none of that stuff. I don't feel like you should have to say it, but none of that. Well, given that it's in New York City, I feel like we're lucky the solution was to fill in the tunnel rather than to put in hardwood floors and charge somebody $4,800 a month for it. Exactly, yeah. But can I say, in the conspiracy theorist defense of all the anti-Semitic conspiracy theories I have heard this year, the Orthodox of Brooklyn just started building their own Mold People City without asking is by far the most reasonable one. When I saw this story, I was like, I'm going to wait and see how this

shakes out. I don't want to look silly. Okay? Alright, well, one of the most absurd theories, it came from Andrew Tate during an idiot fight with Ben Shapiro. Hell yeah, it did. Just in case anyone's not familiar, Andrew Tate is a

former MMA fighter, a social media personality, and an Ed Hardy shirt come to life who's currently awaiting trial in Romania on charges of sexual assault and human trafficking and being part of a cartel to do that stuff. And during his latest little spat with Ben Shapiro, Tate tweeted, And during his latest little spat with Ben Shapiro, Tate tweeted, quote, Hello, Ben Shapiro. Please explain the tunnels under a synagogue that leads to a kids museum. Thanks. And again, I have no idea what that even means, what he thinks the conspiracy is.

The Jewish Children's Museum is across the street from the synagogue, but the tunnel wasn't going there. across the street from the synagogue, but the tunnel wasn't going there. Also, what would the end game be if the tunnel was going there? Like, secretly fudging the attendance numbers of the museum down? I don't understand. Well, to be clear, for the bigotry impaired,

Andrew Tate is saying that it was a tunnel for kidnapping children to harvest their adrenochrome for the Illuminati. God, I hate that I speak fluent enough bigot to know that, but yeah. Okay, see, I thought it was the much more reasonable accusation that Orthodox Jews have so many kids that they were sneaking their children into the children's museum without paying. And again, I was like, I want to see the evidence. I'm not ready to take a stand. Okay.

As a man who worked in a toy store on Passover, I just want to see all the evidence before I'm not ready to take a stand. Okay. As a man who worked in a toy store on Passover, I just want to see all the evidence before I judge. Okay. Well, there was at least one piece of the ridiculous misinformation that was amusing. The day after the tunnel fracas, a guy named Richard Strocker on Twitter posted screenshots of tweets that he made in November and December of last year before the tunnels were in the news. According to Strucker, he lives in the building next to the synagogue. And in one of the old tweets from December 11th, he wrote, I swear I keep hearing Yiddish under the floor in my New York apartment. I live at ground level and we have no basement. And apparently he told people

like his friends, maybe that he was hearing underground Jewish ghosts and they made fun of him. So his comment on that screenshot said, some of you owe me an apology. I mean, look, I know the Orthodox are pale, Richard, but ghosts insensitive. Come on, buddy. Well, it turns out he's just an alt-right troll. And there were plenty of clues about this guy being an alt-right troll. For one, those posts from last year aren't there on his account on Twitter. He tried to cover that with another tweet on January 9th that said, I had to delete my original posts months ago because people called me schizophrenic and anti-Semitic. But here's the thing.

You can't delete something from December 11th months ago when it's January 9th. Another clue was pointed out by Taylor Lorenz of the Washington Post in a video debunking this whole thing. She noted that the screenshot had a follow button on the top right corner and you don't get offered a follow button when you're looking at your own account and also if he's not a fucking liar why would he have been posting on twitter thank you that's what that's for now but for me here's the most important clue the screenshotted tweet said i keep hearing yiddish under the floor in my new york apartment nobody who actually lives in brooklyn would use the phrase in my New York apartment.

Right. In New York, we just say apartment. I imagine that's how it works in New York City. I lived in New York for a long time. I never called it my New York apartment of New York-edness. Nobody says that. Yet somehow, despite all those clues, the tweet from last week got over 51,000 likes and 10,000 reposts within three days. And a bunch of the other insane anti-Semitic posts got similar traction. So two big morals of the story. One,

if you see what appears to be a slam dunk on the internet, good chance it's a lie. Check it. Especially if there's a bigot angle, definitely check it. And two, if Judaism wants to control the media, they really need to step up their game on the social media. They're doing a really bad job at the conspiracy. I think we can all agree that conspiracy, they're doing it not great. All right, Heath, please. You sound like the president of Harvard. All right, quick before Heath has to resign in disgrace, we're going to close the headlines for the night.

Heath, Eli, thanks as always. And when we come back, it might get a little dusty. One of the few things religion actually gives to believers is an easy answer to a grieving person. It's not a true answer. It's not a true answer. It's not a good answer. It's not even a helpful answer, but it's an easier one to articulate than the answers that a secular person is left with. But just because the question is hard doesn't mean we have to shy away from it. And that's why I'm happy to welcome Carrie Black to the show. She tackled that very question with

a book that she co-authored called Sometimes Illness Wins. Carrie, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, well, so now I frame this as sort of an attempt at a secular answer, the book, but I'll leave the other half of the equation to you. What question is this book answering and who is it for? Mostly it's answering somebody died. Now what? We don't have a good societal level conversation about grieving,

especially like you said, one that is not tied to religion. And there's so many things we just don't have cultural knowledge for. What can I expect to experience now that my brain is wildly traumatized and I'm living through this intense experience that I don't have a guidebook for. And who's the intended audience? So adults and children, really anyone who wants a better handle on like what is evidence-based best practice, tell us right now for what to expect when grieving. Okay. So, and what, I mean, I've read the book, so I sort of already know the answer to this, but what prompted you to write it?

My daughter, Addie, drew her first recognizable portrait at the age of three. It was a praying mantis. It was serrated forelimbs and compound eyes and everything. She wanted to be an illustrator, lived with a pencil case and drawing pad on her person at all times. The line drawing that is on the dedication page is actually hers. That's concept art for a picture book we were working on together when she died.

When she died in 2018, gosh, people tried so hard to be helpful they gave me so many books and none of those books were as helpful as they could have been they were either so generalized as to be useless or so dense as to be incomprehensible really to my traumatized grieving brain. During grief, you have this brain that can't do so many things. You lose skills and you lose computing power, like all these things that happen to your brain. I remember standing in the grocery store, looking at the card reader with my credit card in my hand,

and I couldn't remember how to use it. Wow. Yeah, probably not the time to start digging through a thick tome on what to expect. Yeah, yeah, I guess I can understand that. Thank goodness for the very kind cashier who recognized my distress and ran the card for me, but I had no idea. Nothing in my religious upbringing had prepared me for the kind of experience I was having. And nothing in my science education even had covered this or even anything adjacent to it. So how much information I didn't have was a bit shocking. Now, so as I well know, books tend to be a team effort, especially an illustrated book, which I've never tried to do something like that.

So can you tell us a little bit about your co-collaborators on this? Who were they and what do they contribute? So Becky, who is co-author with me, has been my friend and neighbor for over 15 years now. And she is very conveniently an LCSW, so licensed clinical social worker, as well as just first-rate outstanding human being. I knew what I wanted to say about grieving and those things that don't get talked about enough and like some of the information I wanted people to have access to.

And she was there to, you know, make sure it was all research-based and lined up with evidence-based best practice. She also has the clinical experience to make sure that we were including things that mental health professionals really wish people knew. Like, oh, if everyone could come into therapy with an understanding that emotions are signals and not something inherently good or bad, that would be amazing. So we have a double page spread about emotions being there to tell you that there's something that you need. Right on. Awesome. Awesome. Well, that's one thing that I think far too few people who are setting out on an effort like this do is make sure that everything lines up with best practices. So kudos to you for that. Was there any other research that you had to do on your way into it? There's a lot, a lot of listening. You know, I had my own experience and I knew what I really

wish someone had been able to give me like in book form or advice form or just commiseration. But we really wanted it to be very generally applicable. Right. No matter your background and that. long ago or somewhere in the middle, listening for those things that only get said in grief groups because society at large doesn't want to do that or deal with that. And then especially those things that only get said in particular grief groups, because even other grievers don't want to hear about things like how your kid was shamed to death by the local culture. There's those limits even within populations that are supposed to understand.

And I really wanted to get past all of that. There's so much normalization that we need around the grieving process. Absolutely. Absolutely. And kudos to the people who are doing the work to actually change that. Now, of course, I've had some experience with writing a book in the past, and I feel like you're not really done with a book until you hate it. A lot of stuff goes into getting it across the finish line. Was there one thing that stood out to you as the biggest challenge for you in this? Okay, I'd be a bit ridiculous here, but it's also true. And that was reading my drafts after I'd cried on them. Oh, wow. more old fashioned way. So I have these physical copies and it would be a very emotional experience trying to capture the essence of this intense thing people go through. And I just, I would

relive it. And so, yeah. Yeah. Wow. Lots of salt water. Lots of salt water. Yeah. I can only imagine that is not one of the challenges that like, of the challenges that I really had to worry about with Diatribes Volume 2 or anything. I'm with you, by the way. Pen and paper, way to go. Tom from Citation Needed was making fun of me for that the other day. I'm the same way. Oh, for shame.

Oh, it's very tactically satisfying. Yeah, well, it forces you to slow down and think about every single word a little bit more. I don't know. Or I'm just an old guy and I'm used to writing with a pencil. Maybe that's it too. You find what works for you.

Right, right. So within the book, there are a number of times, like you said, there's a lot of lists in the book. And I think that's really good because I think that's exactly the kind of thing, the kind of rote thing that, you know, I know I would want in a book like this. But there's a number of spots where you left blanks, right?

Like there'll be a list of different emotions you might feel and it ends with a series of blanks. What are you communicating with those blank spaces? So there's lots and lots of overarching themes in grieving, like things you can just expect to have happen in some way. But it's also this hyper individual process and remains so to an extent that I just don't think we're really good at comprehending, especially since we tend to tell only certain stories about grieving, that we lose a lot of that individuality

that naturally exists in this space. And I want to present enough options that it makes it really easy to see your own experience clearly. But I also want to normalize all the things that happen when you're grieving. And those things shift so readily. Like if I'm having a really intense grieving day, what my pencil or my brain automatically puts in those blanks can be really different in 20 minutes. And that sort of flexibility that we need when faced with grief, it's really hard to keep that. Which is why we also say in the book, scribble out anything that doesn't apply to you particularly. My extended family was actively harmful before my daughter's death and they weren't any better after she died, if anything, they got worse.

In my personal copy, the helper's page has a bit of a hole where I've scribbled out family kind of emphatically. Yeah. There's one of the things that really jumped out at me in the book is that there was such an effort to personalize it to, you know, obviously you say you want it to be approachable for everybody, but there was a very like, there almost seemed to be a bit of a back and forth within the book that I thought was really impressive. So obviously, other than pick up a copy of Sometimes Illness Wins, what advice can you give, you know, because like you said, this is a book for adults and for children, but it's, you know, it's in the form of sort of a children's book. What advice would you give to parents who might find themselves in a situation, or not necessarily parents, just people dealing with a kid who suddenly needs to understand grieving?

What advice would you give them just sort of top level? Really big picture stuff. This might feel like a bit of a cop out, but adults are often explaining death to themselves at the very same time they're trying to help children navigate it, especially their own children. Sometimes learning on the fly is really fun and exciting. I would suggest that this is not one of those times. If you can manage it, and I know this is a big ask because society will not support you in this, learn about grieving now, like before you need it. And if your kids,

you know, if your word particularly about your own children, if your kids are emotionally developed enough, take them along for the ride and say, I don't know, lots. That is probably the best phrase that I ever employed in parenting was, I don't know, let's figure that out. Let's go look it up. Awesome. That's great advice, actually. Yeah. And I want to sort of veer off script because as we've been talking, this question, it just keeps recurring to me. You've mentioned a couple of times that our society is very bad at having conversations about grief and having fulsome conversations, right? We are very prescribed, like this is your line, this is my line. Yes. Do you have any,

and I know I'm just asking you to wildly speculate here, but do you have any thoughts on why that is? Why we're so bad at that conversation? I think because we're just basically bad at emotions in general. From my own experience, the day my daughter died, I had over a dozen people come to the house and they wanted to comfort me and they wanted to be helpful.

I ended up spending more energy on them than they gave it back to me. Right. to me because they didn't know what to do with my emotions and me being chaotic and like unpredictable and all over the place. There was a script that they felt they needed to walk through to comfort themselves. And there wasn't room in that script for my messiness in that moment. Not because they weren't trying, but because they didn't have any practice really with dealing with emotions on that kind of intense level. And that's the thing I would really love to see our society get better at. Great answer. All right. So I saved the most important question for last. Where can our listeners go to pick up a copy of your book?

Fillingthegappublishing.com has links to our Square store and an e-book and a form to fill out if you qualify for the Mental Health Rockstar discount, which applies to anyone who works in mental health or even peripherally. Nurses, therapists, teachers, nonprofits, afterschool programs. We try and be very generous with that one. And the King's English Bookstore, which is here in Salt Lake with me. If you're outside of the US and you would like a physical copy, they are currently our only way to get you one. Oh, we're the... Many blessings on their heads for writing that service for us.

Yeah. All right. Awesome. Well, we'll, we'll have all of that linked on the show notes. Of course, if you want to pick a copy,

all you'll have to do is go there. Carrie, thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing with us today. And thank you for prompting this conversation. Thank you for being part of the conversation and making a difference. Before we wind things down tonight, I want to add a quick addendum to the interview there.

Carrie had a few butterflies while we were recording. I guess I moved things along a little bit too quickly for her. And when we finished up, she was mortified to realize that she hadn't said a word about the book's wonderful illustrators.

That would be artist, teacher, and podcaster, Kendra Fair, and extremely talented 16-year-old artist, A, and podcaster, Kendra Fair, and extremely talented 16-year-old artist, Aria Hancock. So huge apologies on my behalf for not getting your due during the interview. But for the record, the artwork is gorgeous, and I love the clear effort that you made to make it inclusive. And if you'd like to see that artwork again, check the links on the show notes. Anyway, that's all the Blast Movie we've got for you tonight. We'll be back in 10,000, 22 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,

a big 7 Eastern on Monday, an even newer episode of our sister show, Hot Friend, God Awful Movies, a big 7 Eastern on Tuesday, and an even newer episode of our half-sister show, Citation Needed, debuting at noon Eastern on Wednesday. Obviously, I can't padlock the shutters until I thank Heath Enright, whose love is like a ticking clock, Eli Bosnick, who would like some making fucking Lucinda illusions who is a berserker sorry deep cut but the movie clerks turned 30 this week it's been on my mind I also I need to thank Carrie Black one more time for hanging out with us tonight I want

to thank James for providing this week's Farnsworth quote he said he had nothing to plug but union membership so join your union or James recorded a Farnsworth quote for nothing but most of all of course I want to thank this week's best people Cheddar, Chet, Jamie Sean, Al, Sunshine, Chonk Cat, Cheddar, Chet, Jamie, Sean, Al, Sunshine, Chonk, Kat, and KV. Chet, Jamie, Sean, and Al, who are bright enough to make a supernova jealous, and Sunshine, Chonk, Kat, and KV, whose IQs have more digits than a royal massage.

Together, these seven savory savants savvily saved our severe savaging of saviors this week by giving us money. Not everybody has the legendary genitals it takes to give us money, but if you do, you can make a per-episode donation to patreon.com slash scathingatheist, whereby you'll earn 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 to a monetary degree, you can also help a ton by leaving us 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 Romanoano 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 skatingads.com i love how much you committed to that fucking catapult launch. Holy shit. Oh, the performance was there.

I mean, look, the greatest performance of today's record was my Mike Lindell. But the second one, I'm just Ken. Definitely you. Appreciate that. The preceding podcast was a production of Puzzle and a Thunderstorm LLC. Copyright 2024. All rights reserved.