The Scathing Atheist - 578: Keeping it Rael Edition

Episode Date: March 14, 2024

In this week’s episode, Christian movies give themselves a participation trophy, students in Manchester are given the choice to be anti-choice, and Marsh will finally get around to talking shit about the French. --- 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: Biden restores rules about tax-payer funded, faith-based charities: https://www.friendlyatheist.com/p/biden-restores-protections-for-those 31ST ANNUAL MOVIEGUIDE FAITH & VALUES AWARDS GALA https://deadline.com/2024/03/movieguide-faith-values-awards-gala-honors-lori-loughlin-1235849746/ Anti-LGBTQ bills die in WV and FL: https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/the-tide-is-turning-dozens-of-anti and https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/over-20-anti-lgbtq-bills-die-in-west Controversial pro-life society at University of Manchester founded by a male president who 'opposes abortion' shares photo of its first official meeting after the event was met by thousands of protesters https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-13145995/Controversial-pro-life-society-University-Manchester-founded-male-president-opposes-abortion-shares-photo-official-meeting-event-met-thousands-protesters.html  Religion News Services highlights “Animal Chaplaincy” https://religionnews.com/2024/03/08/animal-chaplains-offer-spiritual-care-for-every-species/ Church authorities in Greece slap religious ban on local politicians who backed same-sex marriage https://apnews.com/article/greece-church-samesex-marriage-ban-lawmakers-a4799bbdcff0c70f9f28304bbcfa4e2f Church of England attacks Lyle's Golden Syrup over rebrand dropping Christian-inspired dead lion logo as firm apologises for upset and is forced to deny religion was reason for switch https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13107957/Church-England-attacks-Tate-Lyle-rebrand.html 

Warning, the profanity in this episode has subliminal profanity snuck in between the syllables. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by the ready-to-eat meal plan, Factor, and by the ready-to-bang sex worker plan, Fuckter. Factor and Fuckter. In my experience, they're both done in about two minutes. And now, The Scathing Atheist. Hi, I'm an aerospace engineer, which means I get to meet people who work on everything from robots to rockets, which reminds me just how smart humans are. But I

also meet people who sneak Bible verses into their computer code, which reminds me that, smart though we may be, we did in fact evolve from filthy monkey men. It's Thursday! It's March 14th. And it's Pi Day! Hey, while I'm on the show, that is a savory celebration, dammit.

I'm no illusions. I'm Eli Bosnick. I'm Michael Marshall, and from Mira Savino's New Jersey, Liverpool, England, and Waycross, Georgia, this is The Scathing Atheist. On this week's episode, Christian movies give themselves a participation trophy. Students in Manchester are given the choice to be anti-choice. And Marsh will finally get around to talking shit about the French. But first, the diatribe.

What the fuck does it even mean to say that you're spiritual? Seriously, what the fuck does that mean? I've been trying to get a straight answer to that question for more than a decade now, and the closest I've ever gotten is confident gobbledygook from people too dumb to know they didn't just say anything. When she was kind of browbeaten to delineating the difference between religion and spirituality on Oprah's show back in 2013, long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad rambled, quote, I think you can be an atheist who doesn't believe in an overarching being who created all of this and sees over it, but there their spirituality because we human beings and we animals and maybe even we plants but certainly the ocean and the moon and the stars we all live with

something that is cherished and we feel the treasure of it and tortured nonsensical quote and look i i don't point this out to pick on naya this came after oprah said she could be an atheist because she was good or some bullshit. She was scrambling to find middle ground with a bigot on live TV. I don't know that I could have done any better even if I'd had a dictionary. Hell, dictionaries are no help here. Right? Because they just tell you that spirituality is of or relating to the spirit.

And under spirit, they'll tell you that that means the little ghost that drives the person. But that's not what a person means when they say, I'm spiritual. They don't mean I believe in ghosts. It's not what Diana Nyad was talking about. I mean, most of those people probably do believe in ghosts. But when people say, I'm spiritual but not religious, they certainly aren't trying to convey to you that they believe in secular souls. The closest thing I can find to an academic definition comes from the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

Here it is, quote, Spirituality involves the recognition of a feeling or sense or belief that there is something greater than myself, something more to being human than sensory experience, and that the greater whole of which we are part is cosmic or divine in nature, end quote. And while I'm sure that most of the people who identify with the term would agree that pretty much sums it up, it's also meaningless, completely meaningless. Let's break it down. There are three distinct claims that are being made here. The first is that something is greater than myself. Greater how? In achievement? Sure. In number? Definitely.

Greater how? In achievement? Sure. In number? Definitely. In volume? Absolutely. Regardless, that's a universal belief that all people share.

I've met plenty of people who behave as though they think they're the greatest thing that ever has been or could be, but I doubt any of them would tell you that outright. It's certainly not like a default religious belief one needs a term to differentiate from. The second claim is that there's more to being a human than sensory experience, which is likewise a universal belief. Having an idea isn't a sensory experience. Neither is wanting a coffee. Now, the third claim, of course, is that the greater whole that we're part of is cosmic or divine in nature. And this sentence might as well be a snake eating its own fucking tail i mean cosmic in nature as in relating to the cosmos because that's just what the word cosmic means it means pertaining to the universe as a whole so to say that the

greater thing we're part of is the universe is to make yet another non-statement that would, at least in this instance, be literally impossible to disagree with. Now, there is an or hanging out there, perhaps trying to distract us from the fact that the inclusion of cosmic makes the whole goddamn thing tautologically, and the other option is divine. So, assuming we veer right at the or, we came all this way to say that to be spiritual is to believe in the divine. In other words, to be religious. So if we take this definition at face value,

the spiritual but not religious people are either trying to tell us that they're not religious but religious, or they're trying to tell us that they're not religious but they are contained within the larger universe. I don't think either of those things really captures what the fuck they mean. But of course, what they actually mean is nothing at all. It's a meaningless term that is kept intentionally vague.

No effort to pin it down could possibly be effective because the whole point of it is to be undefinable. The information that's being communicated when one says, I'm spiritual but not religious is, I don't belong to any religion, but I stopped short of admitting that the world is confined to reality, right? Or they're doing the thing that fucking Diana Nyad was doing where they're trying to say I'm an atheist, but I'm not like those atheists, right? They're trying to cater to the bigotry of religious people by offering a deceptively meaningless olive branch. And and look depending on the circumstances

I don't necessarily fault anybody for that. Sometimes you're waving that olive branch defensively Right using it to beat back bigotry for some bigots You actually have to say i'm an atheist, but that doesn't mean I hate beautiful sunsets and think rainbows are stupid On the other hand by catering to those bigots, we're also empowering them. We're leaning into the stereotype that says that one is required to externalize their awe in some way to fully experience humanhood. That's dangerous as hell, especially for those of us reluctant to adopt a meaningless identifier just to claim our space amongst those capable of experiencing wonder.

They're talking about you, Jesus. We interrupt this broadcast and bring you a special news bulletin. Joining me for headlines tonight are the Ken and Ryu to my guile, Eli Bostic and Michael Marshall. Fellas, are you ready to beat up a car, I guess? No, Marsh is from England where it was called Lane Hooligan 2, and they beat up a postman. Well, you know, I'm actually much more sophisticated

at that, so I play Boulevard Dissension. What you've got to do is you've got to make pointedly wry comments at a horse-drawn carriage. Oh, there you go. Well, I've got multiple game ideas to patent now, so we're going to take a quick break for a word from this week's sponsor, Factor. Nicholas from Black Bull,

so she played Street Fighter. So, like, 1970? I think we might have to go earlier. Yeah, yeah, maybe. Hey, guys, what are you doing? Oh, hey, Marsh, we're just grabbing dinner. You want to come? Really? Because that looks an awful lot like a time machine Yeah, so we're going to have a home-cooked meal

So we're traveling back in time to where you could support a household on one income So that we can spend all day cooking Right Well, if you guys are short on cooking time Why don't you try Factor? What's Factor? Eating better is easy with Factor's delicious, ready-to-eat meals. Every fresh, never-frozen meal is chef-crafted,

dietician-approved, and ready to go in just two minutes. I mean, two minutes sounds great, Marsh, but can they work with my diet? Or mine? They sure can. You'll have over 35 different options to choose from every week, including Calorie Smart, Protein Plus, and Keto. But can I afford Factor? Yeah, we spend a lot on these diluthian crystals. Definitely. Factor is less expensive than Takeout,

and every meal is dietitian-approved to be nutritious and delicious. All right, Marsh, where do we sign up? Head to factormeals.com slash scathing50 and use code SCATHING50 to factormeals.com slash scathing 50 and use code scathing 50 to get 50% off. That's scathing 50 at factormeals.com slash scathing 50 to get 50% off.

Alright, Marsh, thanks. So, how come you guys never told me you had a time machine before? Oh, we do, but then you go mad with power and we have to go back in time and stop ourselves. Do I? Maybe. We stopped ourselves. ourselves. Do I? Maybe. We stopped ourselves. Yeah.

Oh, I see. Yeah. And now back to the headlines. In our lead story tonight, the Biden administration, while falling short of forcing religion to keep its unwelcome dildos out of our asses, has insisted that they at least lube them up first. And sometimes that's the closest thing to a victory that we can hope for in America, so we're going to raise our glasses to it. Specifically, we're going to be toasting the

return of minimal protections that keep faith-based charities that receive federal tax dollars from forcing recipients to participate in religious services and forbids them from excluding recipients on the basis of things like sexual orientation or gender identity. Things that they, and I can't emphasize this enough, could do until Biden had it changed. Yeah. If your thing has jobs that you need to be born with a penis to do, it's probably not a great job. I don't think it should exist, probably. Right. Yeah. Because the only job on that list is being part of Puppetry the Penis. That's the only job that you need a penis to do.

I don't think they're actively recruiting. No. Although I do hear their existing members are overstretched. How dare you, Marsh. How dare you. We invite you onto our podcast, and this is what you give us. All right.

So, yeah. So, the chief problem here is that faith-based charities are receiving taxpayer dollars to begin with period there is no secular way to force me to give money to churches regardless of what past democratic presidents and many prominent voices within the atheist movement might say about it but if the government is going to do that which like it or not they are the least they could do is take basic steps to do that, which like it or not, they are, the least they could do is take basic steps to ensure that the aid these dollars are buying will be distributed in an equitable way. That's what Obama did back in 2016 when his administration

put rules in place to bar those groups from discriminating against recipients and forced them to make potential recipients aware of secular alternatives, Rules which Trump rescinded on his way out of the door in 2020. Okay, but Noah, I've heard that Trump and Biden are the same. Why would Biden do that to himself? That makes no sense. Yeah, now look, the manner the Trump administration rescinded the rules in was illegal as all hell. No, really?

Yeah, a blemish on his otherwise perfect record, yes. So that led to a series of lawsuits from secular watchdog groups like the FFRF. And very early in his presidency, Biden set out to undo those changes. But unlike Trump, he went about the legally prescribed manner of changing federal regulations, including allowing time for public comment and the like. So it's taken quite some time to return the glory days of only being medium discriminated against, but it looks like we're there. Do you think they ever sit on their podcasts and talk about

how awesome it is that we insist on following the rules just so they can break them again? Like, is that a... I mean, you joke, but you're just describing the audiobook version of the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025. Yeah, really? Yeah. Well, we should keep in mind, though, the fact that they did it illegally kept

their rule change from ever actually taking place. It's been in legal limbo ever since in a way that Biden's won't be. Now, under the new regulations, which are set to go into effect on April 3rd, aid recipients have to be informed of their rights to receive aid without religious proselytization or conversion,

and faith-based groups will no longer be allowed to turn recipients away from being trans or atheist, which again, they can do under the current guidelines and will be allowed to do again should Trump re-inherit the White House. And in gaffe news, it's award season, and that means this past week was host to the biggest night of the year in cinema, the star-studded evening sure to be the talk of every town. I'm talking, of course, about the 31st Annual Movie Guide Faith and Values Awards Gala and Report. Yes, they're the grouch to the Academy's Oscar, exactly. Exactly, yeah.

So first off, big thanks to Scott for sending us this story to scathingnews at gmail.com. Not only can you send us the latest atheist news at scathingnews at gmail.com, but if you do, we will give you a coupon, which you can give to Drug Marsh at QED so you don't have to pass his infamous tickle test. And trust me, you will need it because nobody passes the tickle test. scathingnews at gmail.com. Yeah, you see, the key, it's not about the where, but about the when.

Yeah. And also the how. That's going to get you every time. Yeah, right. Exactly. Sober Marsh gives out lots of tips for the tickle test. It's Drunk Marsh that administers it. Now, in case you've been hiding under a rock

and there's a chance, however small, that you haven't heard of the Movie Guide Faith and Values Awards Gallon Report. It is the official faith-based and family-friendly award show of the Great American Family Network, which I'm sure I don't have to tell you holds the prestigious spot of channel 1,529 on fine television networks across our nation. Well, it's number 1529 on my dial, but number one in my heart.

Yes. Obviously, yeah. And what a star-studded evening it was. Celebrity guests and presenters included Full House's Lori Loughlin, Candace Cameron Byrne, Corbin Bernson, and Pat Boone.

Okay, please tell me Corbin Bernson came on stage naked, hiding his dick behind the envelope. Oh, if only, if only. The thing is, I've not heard of any of these people, but they all sound like an AI was asked to invent credits for a fake Christian movie as part of like an elaborate tax scam. Assistant director, Kalmyth Bunderson.

Yeah, exactly. But Eli, you say, those other award shows have musical performances. Does the Movie Guide Faith and Values Awards Gala and Report have those? You bet your ass it does. None other than world famous musician

Dennis Quaid gave a musical performance. He does music, does he? Uh-huh. But first, and I swear this is real, you can watch the clip on YouTube, he called

Kris Kristofferson on stage and had the whole audience yell, we love you, Kris, into the phone for him. I'm sorry. Wait, wait, wait. So Kris Kristofferson

literally phoned it in? Yeah. Amazing. So, you're probably wondering, all right, Eli, who were the big winners of the night? Well, finally, those assholes at Barbenheimer were put in their place as Dennis Quaid

and Lori Loughlin took home the prizes for best performance and Sound of Freedom took home the Faith and Freedom Award for Movies. Not so snubbed now, are they? Although Sound of Freedom, it won Best Movie, but not the Best Family Movie, because that went

to suit Mario Brothers. And that's because even the Faith and Values Awards knows not to trust Tim Ballard with your family. Right, yeah, obviously. Right. So, obviously, this was a magical night, not at all an embarrassing ceremony in which a bunch of bigots and has-beens gave themselves awards about how great they are.

Here's hoping next year we can attend in person. Oh, yes. The 1974 Oscar streaker will have nothing on us. Hell yeah. Yeah. I streak is unknown for having nothing on. Yes. Well, no-streakers are known for having nothing on. Yes.

Well, no, that's true. Yes. And in putting the die in Cinedia news, we have a promising sign that the anti-LGBTQ political tide might be turning a bit

in the red states. And lest I oversell this, I want to be clear that even if this is the high-water mark of anti-LGBTQ legislation, which is, I think it may very well not be, it's damn high water, right? Like gasping for air high.

But there's a positive sign that it might be receding in the form of both Florida's and West Virginia's legislative sessions coming to an end with scores of the bigoted anti-gay and anti-trans bills proposed within them dying with the last gavel yeah we got you all psyched up with the religion might have to follow a law story so we're going to bring you back to earth with the but they were allowed to pretend they might not story you know yeah that's it yeah so we're going to start in florida where the legislature adjourned last friday afternoon leaving a full 21 of the 22 anti-lGBTQ bills proposed during the course of their session to die. The only one that actually made it through was an anti-diversity equity and inclusion bill targeting DEI offices in Florida schools. The ones that didn't make it included a bill that would have banned the inclusion of preferred pronouns and communications from state employees

or companies contracted by the state, a ban on pride flags in schools and government buildings, a bill that would end all legal recognition of trans people, and a bill that would have made it defamation to call somebody racist, sexist, homophobic, or transphobic. I think that last one didn't make it because Florida Republicans would just have had to admit how many people call them those things, and the paperwork alone.

The thing is, aren't they meant to be the party of small government here? And they want the government to be just large enough to control what companies put in their email signature. Yes. If this bill had passed, you'd have had to consult with your local representative about the wording of your out of office. Well, yeah. No, it's weird how their commitment to small government is directly

proportional to their control of the larger culture, right? Right. Sure is. Yeah. So West Virginia's legislature during the following day, and in so doing, killed even more anti-trans bills than Florida did, and the slate of dead proposals there managed to somehow be

even worse than Florida's. It included a bill that would ban all gender-affirming care for transgender kids in the state and a bill that would end all legal protections for trans people the only anti-trans bill they managed to pass of the more than two dozen proposed was a bill that banned non-binary gender markers on birth certificates in the state of west virginia which already weren't a thing uh Hey, guys, while we're jumping at shadows, can we ban heffalumps and woozles? I just want to be careful. Yeah, I'm not going to comment, but only because I can't be sure that heffalumps and woozles aren't some old timey racial slur that Eli mistakenly thinks are still OK to use. So fair. Yeah, no, it's probably a good precaution. It's a risk. It's a thing that happens.

so fair yeah no it's a probably a good precaution it's a risk it's a thing that happens now it's it's america pretty much every combination of syllables used to be a racial slur thank you noah you big jew see how much i've grown everybody we all know what word i would use this last time a couple years ago a couple years ago would have been last time. A couple of years ago, a couple of years ago, it would have been a very different joke. I grow with you, podcast audience. You went straight in with Jew and not even like some fraction of a Jew as well. So we're not even getting mathematical

on this. It's great. Thank you, everybody. I have grown and I deserve praise. It's what we've all learned. Yes, yeah. Now, despite this positive development, I'm still talking about Florida and West Virginia, not Eli's growth. Not Eli's growth positive development, I'm still talking about Florida and West Virginia, not Eli's. I think you should be talking about my growth, if I can be honest.

This positive development. And Paris mentioned that West Virginia and Florida remain terrible places to be gay or be trans, right? They may have failed in these past sessions, but the biggest had plenty of success the years leading up to this one. So there are still some egregious laws on the books. But it does look like a bit of the anti-trans hysteria that was such a centerpiece in Republican politics the last few years might be running out of steam. Yeah.

Or maybe it's just that the British right wing has stolen it all. Well, yeah. Either way, though, it's better. And hey, with a little luck, the conversation they force will turn against them the way it did when they drove voters to the polls with anti-gay marriage amendments yeah if only trump and biden were just a little bit different in their lgbtq policy yeah damn their similarity i just i don't think it's going to motivate anybody i just don't think anyone's going to be able to tell the difference and in end of term in nation news there are are riots on the streets of Manchester right now. And I'm not just talking about the people demanding we release the date of QED 2024,

which is October 18th to 20th. Tickets on sale soon. But no, I'm talking about the full scale hullabaloo that's erupted over the founding of an anti-abortion student group at the University of Manchester. Because as of January this year, students looking to find a new group of like-minded young people can decide whether to join the drama kids or the politics kids or the university newspaper kids or the controlling women's rights kids. Yeah. And look, Marshall, I know you're not intentionally bragging, but our elementary schools have anti-abortion clubs. So just check your privilege at the door, okay?

Noah, for the last time, those are crossing guards. We have to know. Well, at least some of those kids in Manchester have the choice to be anti-choice. Because from its very foundation, the society has attracted members from a rather specific and entirely predictable demographic. In fact, at the society's conception, which is obviously the point in time that they value above any other point in the society's life,

the number of uteruses on the society's board was equal to the personal stake any of the board had in this issue, which is zero. Oh, really? Yeah, they look around the room and they're like, see, now this is the problem with feminine autonomy. They're not showing up at our meetings. And it was only after the site he received like a cascade of online ridicule for

being a male only anti-abortion group that they decided to like go out and recruit some women, but not too many because, you know, ew, women. Okay women okay folks marsh has included a picture of the group there are 17 men six women okay four of them are clearly exchange students that don't know enough english to know what they got into a fifth is a hipster chick that's there to like do the report about this on her podcast later and i swear to you the sixth is standing a good like nine feet away from everyone else in the group. Already distancing herself from the group. Good for her.

I also have to point out that I have never seen a photo more accurately portray each individual's mental illness than I have in this book. It's like a diagram in a 15th century textbook about lunacy. Like every single one of them are like, here's what's going on with me, just in case. Now, Manchester Student Union admitted exactly this in their response to a petition that called for the pro-life society to be disbanded because the union pointed out

that they legally can't stop a hate group from forming as long as the hate remains within certain legally approved boundaries. Though they do pointedly state in that statement, quote, however, if the actions of any society amounted to hate speech, unwanted attention,

harassment, and caused harm as a result, we would challenge that, unquote. Which is basically saying, please just give us a legitimate reason and we'll show this pro-life group exactly what it's like to be terminated while still small enough to have done no real harm.

Yeah, I mean, look, that group's actions are absolutely going to amount to hate speech, unwanted attention, and harassment. Like, you might as well be reading off of their three-point plan right there. Okay, but see, now, if I'm the head of that anti-abortion group, I'm just spending the whole year

doing pump fakes now, right? We're having a march for breast cancer. We're protesting the tuition hikes. Head on a swivel. Head on a swivel. Still, I actually think I've got a better solution to this than disbanding. And that solution is merchandising. Huh.

Because often, like, student university societies print hoodies for their members to wear with the name of the society on it. student university societies print hoodies for their members to wear with the name of the society on it. So I think they just need to make sure that all of their members at all times wear hoodies with the Manchester Pro-Life Society emblazoned across the front. There you go. And that way, they'll never need an abortion because they'll already be wearing the most effective form of contraception imaginable. Right. And hey, if they're not gone by October, I am 100% sure I can fool these idiots into thinking I'm a right-wing podcaster so I can give them a speech about why they should kill themselves

while we're at QAD. Please do that. Please do that. Will you do it as an event? A bunch of us could show up. And in pause in Pew's news tonight. Fantastic. In a piece that looked to all the world

like a half-ass onion article or a tongue-in-cheek April Fool's bit, religious news services highlighted the career of one Sarah Bowen animal chaplain. And while the bulk of her work does revolve around providing spiritual guidance to religious people who have lost pets. At least some of that work includes offering spiritual guidance to animals. And then presumably getting paid by someone

for that. I'm going to say right now, she's going to turn out to have molested a bunch of those animals. I've been doing this job for seven fucking years. I know what's up. She's going to have been fucking the animals. Yeah, I'm going to move to a new petting zoo and start all over again.

Yeah, exactly. I'm just disappointed that she isn't a chaplain who is an animal. You know, I was thinking like a bloodhound dressed as a bishop or a pug dressed as a priest. I mean, they're already wearing a dog collar. They're halfway there already.

Makes sense. And can I say, I would grind this podcast to a halt in defense of a bug priest absolutely now look you'd be hard-pressed to find a panel of three guys more sympathetic to the loss of a beloved pat than the three of us we have all been through that we would not wish that on anybody eli especially not in fucking writing but it's, he's a Supreme Court justice for fuck's sake. But it's almost impossible to read this article without laughing out loud at it. It starts with Bowen reflecting on tagging along with her preacher dad to hospices and

funeral homes and reflecting on the fact that, quote, the chipmunks and other animals crumpled on the side of the road weren't treated with the same compassion shown to the people end quote and presumably the next thought was i bet there's a buck in that yeah okay she knows they don't have souls right like surely she didn't reach chaplaincy before someone did the whole how would squirrels even accept j as their Lord and Savior talk with her. No, but I think she's got a point here because I think chipmunks should get more respect. They're really smart. They're capable of so many things. I watched this one nature documentary where three chipmunks started a band and even got world famous. It was amazing. There was a squeakle and everything. Squeakle and everything. Got to work with David Cross. Weird choice for him.

Weird side note, I went down a rabbit hole about what the religious think about that. And of course, the Catholics have an official statement, which is fucking insane. Animals don't have souls, but God creates simulacra of your pet in heaven. He gives you a fake pet.

I get a simulacra of Loki one day. In heaven. Jesus fucking Christ. All right. Yeah, I mean, maybe the simulacra of my cat wouldn't shit in my bathtub from time to time,

so it may actually be an improvement. That's a lot of requests I would have about my simulacra. I'm not... So then, okay, so the article then goes on to detail a funeral service that Bowen performed for a,

and these are the article's actual words, quote, feisty beloved goat. That service included what she would have regretted dubbing a furry wake if she'd invited Eli to it. And immediately after talking about her very serious goat funeral, it says these actual words, quote, the field of animal chaplaincy is nascent, but growing and involves ministering to animals, pet owners, animal care providers, and communities affected by wildlife conflicts, end quote. Okay, here's the thing, Marsh. If we win, and numerically we are winning, all you're going to have left for be reasonable in a few decades is this lady.

So fucking buckle up. Hey, I recently had a conversation with a guy who believed he could regress people into their past lives as wolves. So I think we'll be okay. Yeah, you got job security. Okay, so again, look, I am really sympathetic to a small sliver of what this lady does. Veterinarians

and people who work in kill shelters, they probably really need the kind of support the chaplains pretend to be qualified to give. So to whatever extent there's a secular version of this job, I'm all about it. But a secular version wouldn't include, quote, spiritual care for animals themselves, including animal blessing events and praying for pets, end quote. Anybody engaged in that profession is a charlatan who is taking money from vulnerable people and can promptly go fuck themselves. Yeah, also, all the animals I've ever met are atheists,

so it's insulting. It's also insulting, yes. To their religion, yeah. And in my big gay wedding news, we didn't get a chance to mention it last month when it happened, but on February 15th, Greece became the first Orthodox Christian country to legalize same-sex civil marriage.

With 176 lawmakers in their 300-seat parliament voting for the bill, 76 voting against it. And in a move that represents peak Grecian politics, 46 people didn't show up to vote. Well, it's not peak Grecian unless there's like a much smaller force held them from showing up in a narrow hallway. But it is peak Eli to think that those three numbers add up to 300. That's fair. That's fair. So first of all, big thanks to Stormy D

for sending us this link to scathingnews at gmail.com. Stormy already knows how much we love them. But what's this right here next to my left ventricle? Why, yes, it's room in our hearts for you, dear listener. You can nuzzle right in by sending us atheistnews to scathingnews at gmail.com. You do not want to know what's in my left ventricle. Yeah, it's not. It's mine. You have to use that one. Anyway, while the passage of this law is an about time for most of the Western world, as I mentioned at the beginning of the story,

Greece is the first country to take these steps while under the influence of the Orthodox Christian Church, an institution that makes Catholicism look sane by comparison, at least when it comes to the outfits. So you can imagine they're not taking the news well. And so this week, the bishopdom on the northwestern island of Corfu announced a religious ban on two local lawmakers who backed the reform, accusing them of committing a, quote, deep spiritual and moral error. Yeah, but given that Cavos is a major destination for 18 to 30 holiday resorts,

it's not even the deepest moral error taking place in Corfu. Like the things that British tourists will do in front of a crowd for a half-priced vodka and Red Bull, that would make gay marriage look positively conservative. Yeah, it's fair. It's fair. Their statement demands that the lawmakers should, quoting from the Associated Press here, be excluded from the key Christian right of communion,

abstain from any church events, and not be accorded formal honors by church functionaries at official events or parish gatherings. And adds, quote, we exhort them to repent for their impropriety, end quote. Guys, should we just go ahead and legalize gay Greek marriage too?

Because that sounds like stuff that I would also like to be banned from, right? I love that excuse. Oh, no, sorry. I legalized gay Greek marriage. No, it's hard to go to your daughter's bar mitzvah or whatever it is. So yeah, obviously,

huge blow to these lawmakers no longer being accorded formal honors by church functionaries at official events or parish gatherings, maybe informal honors, like their guy can still call them chief or if it's a laid back unofficial event, they can have a medal or something.

Right, yeah, exactly. Who can say? A picnic or something. Either way, I'm sure these politicians are deeply moved by the men in silly hats and ready to go back to whatever century the Christian Orthodox Church keeps its outfits in, in hopes of getting back to their good graces. And finally tonight in treacle down

economics news, it seems that nowhere is safe from the scourge of anti-Christian persecution in modern Britain, not even the breakfast table. Let me explain. Golden syrup is like a sugar-based spread that your nan has on toast. And for 150 years, its logo has been a picture of a dead lion with some bees. Because the company's founder, Abraham Lyle, was intensely religious, and so he picked the logo as a reference

to the bit in the Bible where Samson kills a lion and then later notices that some bees have made honey in the carcass. Yeah, just the story to get your appetite going. Yeah, right. And the visual image, right. Let's just say his Ezekiel-based bread company was not as successful. So, incidentally, like Samson later turns that whole thing into a riddle,

which is out of the eater come forth meat and out of the strong came forth honey, which isn't a riddle. If bees often hung around in lion carcasses, okay, maybe at forth honey, which isn't a riddle. If bees often hung around in lion carcasses, okay, maybe at a push that's riddle-esque. But at best, Samson's just stumbled across a catastrophically confused swarm of bees, inferred some incredibly apianistically inaccurate conclusions, and then used them to con some poor folk out of 30 linen garments, really. Yeah, I was really hoping the laymanites would just be like, yeah, man, riddles aren't allowed to be

a thing you saw once. Tell that to that cheating fuck Bilbo Baggins. Thank you. Take my precious. No, are you, Smeagol? You have to tell him. Lyle's have used the second half of that

so-called riddle as a slogan on their golden syrup logo ever since they launched in 1883. So that means on day one of their company, they decided to write out of the strong came full of honey on the side of their product, which again, I cannot emphasize enough. Their product isn't honey. It's something other than honey. It's such a weird flex. Look, if our motto doesn't make sense, then our stuff doesn't have to be honey. It's right there in the message. We're not the strong. The strong are out there somewhere. They're making honey. They're making honey somewhere. Yeah, absolutely. We're making sugar syrup for poor people.

But either way, this is a flex they've decided has served its purpose because they've updated their logo to show what is an apparently still alive lion plus a single B with no Bible quote at all, which I guess means they'd like maybe switch to the before picture from the story. I don't know, it's hard to say. Well, yeah, but like in reality, my guess is that someone in the boardroom finally had the guts to say, hey guys, to all but the most biblically literate, our logo is Tanzanian roadkill. It's just a dead lion with a bunch of bugs flying around. Still, of course, this branding update is cast iron proof of the constant religious persecution that the Church of England has to endure on a day-to-day basis in modern Britain.

Because as Sam Margrave, a member of the church's general synod explained, golden syrup are apparently more than happy to benefit from Christian branding every Easter. So why are they changing what is, quote, an iconic logo which tells a story that works for every generation, unquote? Because, yeah, if there's one thing that can really unite boomers and Gen Zs, it's an appreciation of the way in which bees just love to get down and sticky inside of dead lions. It's one of those truisms. It just cuts right across that generational divide. Just take comfort in the fact that your nation's conservative Christians get offended at syrup logos less racistly than ours. That's true. Your lion wasn't even in blackface. Yeah, he wasn't. That is true. That is true. Yeah. Still, Margrave carried on telling the Telegraph, quote,

it does lead to the question, is there a place for Christians or Christian messaging in the UK anymore? Unquote. What? Said the man with his job in the newspaper. Yes. I can only assume that the church sent Sam to ask that question because 26 of their more senior

church of england bishops were unavailable at the time given they were sitting in the house of lords passing judgment over the laws of our land because yeah it turns out there is still a place for christians in the uk and that place is an unelected seat in our upper chamber of government yeah a position they maintain in such a secular nation by presumably holding super still and hoping nobody notices them. How is that not changed yet? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, Sam, I'll do a deal with you right now. You can keep your weird lion bee honey turducken on the side of your archaic sugar leaf spread if you like.

But in return, you and all your bishop friends can get the fuck out of our legislative process. I'll even throw in 30 linen garments if you like to sweeten the deal yeah there you go and since inviting religious legislators to fuck off

as the singing fat lady of our headlines I guess we could wrap up for the night Eli Marsh thanks as always and or sometimes Jumanji

and when we come back this shit'll get real. One of the many things that we here at The Scathing Atheist have in common with Batman is that we have a cast of recurring villains. Greg Locke, Jerry Falwell Jr., and Pat Robertson, who tragically died before I could compare his viscous visage

to the guy who ran into the vat of toxic waste in RoboCop. Actually, I probably did. But even the most vile cast of recurring baddies needs the help of an occasional villain of the week, as our friend Marsh will remind us again in this installment of...

Who's Woo? So, Marsh, who is haunting Gotham today? I recognize that this periodic rundown of the worst pseudoscientists of history could seem like a bit of a downer. If I'm not telling you about the people who convince folk not to take chemotherapy, I'm talking about the ones who exploit grief or lie about vaccines or spread conspiracy theories laden with anti-Semitism. And I have to admit, yeah, it's a bummer. So that's why this time around, I thought I'd go for a bit of a palate cleanser that features aliens, tits, human cloning and sexual liberation and obviously still some anti-Semitism. Because this week, I'm going to tell you about Rael,

the founder of Raelianism. Right. And don't blame yourself, Marsh. Anything I'm on has a little anti-Semitism kind of baked into it. I'm like a World War II cartoon of my people, you know, at a certain point. So Claude Maurice Marcel Vorillon was born September 30th, 1946 in France. No, that guy's French? He was the son of a devoutly atheist mother, but his father is something of an unknown.

He might have been a Jew who was hiding from the Nazis, or that might just be a story people like to tell, because they do like to tell stories about Vauly-Lan's parentage. So put a pin in that for now, actually. Well, okay. I'm also putting a pin in the term devoutly atheist, since that seems like a trick I should probably learn. I know, yeah. She won a podcast.

So as a teen, he moved to Paris and he became a pop star, releasing six successful singles. And then he went on to found a motor racing magazine called Autopop at the age of 26. And while Autopop would only last for three years, Vorilon's next creation would have a much more enduring legacy. Even more enduring legacy. Even more enduring than the occupation that inspired the term flash in the pan and a failed foray into the most antiquated modern industry that still exists. Whoa, interesting. Interesting to see how that works out for him. So according to Vorilon, he was walking along the Puy-le-Solas mountain in France in December 1973

when a mysterious craft gently descended from the sky, and out of it emerged an alien. They were a member of the Elohim, who'd come from afar specifically to speak to Vorilon, in French. Because even aliens know that it's polite to at least try to speak the language while you're abroad. Yeah, but he's French,

so he was super rude about it and interrupted them in Elohim to make sure them feel bad. I get it. So the Elohim asked him to come back the next day and to bring a Bible with him so they could spend six days explaining to him

the real history of the human race and what all that stuff in the Bible actually really means. I feel like if you're an omnipotent alien force, you drop by Barneses and noble yourself right feels feels weird to send me on an errand right you would think like okay it seems weird that you would simultaneously a know what the bible really meant and b have no means of providing

your own fucking bible our printer is out of ink we don don't even need magenta, but it's still... Well, it doesn't work when it doesn't have the magenta in it. So you see, humans were actually created by the Elohim, who are a race of advanced scientists from another planet. And because they're so advanced, whenever in history they've like popped in to see how we're doing, they've been mistaken for gods. In fact, Yahweh from the Bible, he was just an Elohim scientist.

So to help clear up that embarrassing misunderstanding, they started creating these Elohim slash human hybrids in order to spread the truth about humanity's real origins. And those hybrids throughout history have included the Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad, Joseph Smith, and Claude Voriland. I'm just picturing Yahweh getting reamed out by his boss. I'm sorry, you said, I am the Lord God, worship no other gods before me. And he's like, I got caught up in the moment and I didn't know how to talk about science.

So it's obviously worth pointing out at this point that we don't have any corroboration of this whole silly story really and in fact the only account that we do have that we've got to go on is in the book that he'd go on to publish a few years later titled le livre qui dit la verite or the book that tells the truth which feels like an exceptionally pushy title for your book on the origins of all mankind it's got the feel of like a one book always tells the truth and one book always lies, but where there isn't a book that always tells the truth. Yeah, right, right. Yeah, exactly. Okay, so his book is called Trust Me, but this concept

wasn't even new back then, was it? Right, because on that, people have actually pointed out that large parts of this story are concepts taken from other UFO and ancient astronaut authors of the 1950s, 1960s, and early 1970s, including some sections of his book where he's clearly just paraphrased entire paragraphs from other works. And also, as author Maurice Pellequin points out, the dialogue of the encounter with the Elohim closely resembles the dialogue from George Adamski, who claimed he had an encounter in December 1952. Oh, and let me guess, he and a grumpy old Elohim get stuck at a boarding school over Christmas and come to understand this script just really got around.

Still, Vorilon, or Rael as the Elohim named him, he told his story regularly in the French media, whoever he'd taken with his whole ancient astronaut notion since the 1968 publication of Erich von Däniken's Chariot to the Gods and other similar works. And as a result, Rael began to build a following, leading him to found in December 1974, the Movement for the Welcoming of the Elohim Creators of Humanity, or MADEC for short and for French. The group would be disbanded two years later and replaced by the Raelian Church with Rael at its center as the supreme prophet whose word is considered to be scripture.

Guys, I feel like welcoming committee for the alien gods is kind of underselling it. Let's get some outfits and a tax-free building. What do you say? Hey, guys, I changed my mind about what the aliens told me back then. So that scripture includes the contents of his 1976 book, Les Extraterrestres M'ont Émené sur Leur Planète, in which he explains that during the previous year, the Elohim came back to visit him and took him to their home. And once there, they offered him six robot women that he could have

sex with. And they also showed him how to make a clone of himself, presumably because six is a lot and he needed to like share the workload. Yeah, a sevensome? Come on, that's just clumsy. At that point, you and half the people might as well be in adjoining hotel rooms. You're not having a sevensome, okay? Still, while we're on the subject, this is a UFO religion slash cult. So let's talk about the weird sex stuff. Oh, the Godhead told his earthly representative that there should be kinky fuck stuff with his followers. How unexpected.

Never happens. Yeah, yeah. Because firstly, according to Rael, out there on the Elohim home world, where everything is super advanced and perfect, everybody is just naked all of the time. Plus, they're constantly engaged in endless fuck sessions with whoever they want, with zero sexual jealousy. So that is a worldview that Rael spends more time promoting than Eli does on an episode of Dear Old Dads.

And much like Rael, I am mocked in my time, but will be revered by weirdos when I am gone. And while he doesn't mention it specifically in the book, it's not hard to imagine that the guy whose name is on the sign above the front door probably gets first pick of those partners. And also given that he teaches that the elohim are all female because femininity is perfection i imagine his first pick is more like an nba draft than a one-to-one connection here yeah also how could a society

be all female unless have they invented jar opening technology marsh because we need to declare war this is a three body problem situation now. The Rayleigh movement does claim at least to value above all the need for respect and mutual consent in sexual behavior. And anyone found to be guilty

of forcing unwelcome sexual attention on anybody gets excommunicated for a period of seven years, which is the length of time it takes, according to Rayleigh, for every cell of your body to regenerate

and therefore you to be a new person. Which, it all sounds kind of great, but think about it. How easily can you consent when the person coercing you into bed is the one your entire religion is named after? You know, all I'm saying is, Jesus could get a lot of action if he were around today.

Yeah. I mean, if he was offering the handholds I would be in, and I don't even like the book, right? I'm not even in his religion. I mean, even back then, he's dead for like a day and a half before he's inviting disciples to finger him. And we know that Rael himself has behaved in ways that are, let's say, not great.

Like, for example, with his third wife, Sophie, who is the daughter of one of his followers. Sophie was baptized into the religion at 15, and Rael married her in 1992 when she was 16 and he was 47. Yeah, and she didn't even get to be the president of France, everybody. Now, a lot of this stuff tends to get overlooked about the Raelians, mostly because of their high-profile activism for a series of causes that we'd actually really agree with. They promote the use of GM technology to make crops more resistant and easier to grow. They're really big advocates for the reproductive rights of women,

although they think contraception and abortion is essential mostly because of their commitment to discouraging overpopulation, which they think is going to cause the apocalypse. Broken clock twice a day, I guess. Yeah. And look, if I was in contact with super intelligent alien gods, I might ask them to step in rather than, you know, handing out condoms at the teen center.

But that's me. So, Raelians teach that women are in control of their own bodies, and they promote the notion that they should therefore be allowed to go topless in public if they want to. So, they hold an annual Go Topless Day. Although, people just accuse that of being a stunt that uses women's bodies as bait to recruit members into a religious cult, which is kind of the opposite of empowerment there. Okay, you say that, Marsh, but if the lads from the Mormon church started showing up without the button-up short sleeves, I'm a lot more interested in what they have to say. You know what I'm saying? It sounds like you think you're contradicting Marsh here.

But yeah, it's amazing how easy it is to get men to rally behind women's rights to show us them titties, though, right? Yeah. Absolutely. So, Raelians even have an outreach and activism program which opposes female genital mutilation, sponsoring clinics that perform clitoral reconstruction. Though they could have spent a bit more time naming the NGO that performs that outreach instead of going with what has to be

like the first top of the head suggestion because they called it clitorade. Okay, that's how you know it's a cult, right? Because a non-cult definitely shuts down clitorade. But clitorade sounds delicious, right? It a non-cult definitely shuts down clitorade, alright? But clitorade sounds delicious, right? Sounds so thirst-quenching. I mean, at least they were persuaded to rethink the name that they

had originally planned for their Bikino Fasol Clitoris Hospital, which is now, thankfully, no longer called the House of Pleasure as they originally wanted it to be. Hey, guys, Rallians, bring it in. I'm going to give you the advice I give every polyamorous couple at a board game night. We get it.

You're fucky. We need you to tone it down. We need you to tone it down. This is not the time or the place. Plus, like the Raelians, also, they spend about as much time calling out the Catholic Church as this show does. They've distributed condoms to Canadian Catholic schools in protest of the church's veto on contraception. And they've also handed out pamphlets

on the streets of France, protesting the Catholic Church's harboring of pedophiles. And that latter thing was part of their anti-pedophile group, which they call No Pedo, block capital. Okay, see? Yeah, there you can make it fun. Get a mascot. We're all good.

That's a great place for wordplay. So Marcia, I'm going to need you to get to the butt really quick or the listeners are going to expect you to give them an 800 number where they can get more information about this thank you yeah absolutely your lesser focus on the reasonable stuff so much that risks eli signing up it's too late it is worth highlighting that or it is worth highlighting that all of these things are either genuinely held progressive positions or they're cynically deployed and unserious publicity stunts aimed at garnering headlines and laundering the reputation of a cult, which encourages its followers to kick in between 7% and 10% of their income. And also kind of maybe sleep with whoever in charge takes a shine to you. Yeah. And for the record, if you're going to give us 10% of your income podcast listener,

you get to fuck any member of our cast that you want. Right. Yeah, exactly. And depending on which cast member you want, that might count even if you're unemployed. So, yeah. Because like, look, unquestionably, Rael has led the Raelians in some much less socially appealing publicity stunts.

One of which, and perhaps the most obviously visible one, is the official symbol of the Raelian religion, which is a swastika integrated into a Star of David. A little problematic, yeah. Yeah, because according to Rael, that was the symbol that he saw on the side of the Elohim spaceship that time, and it actually means infinity. And that's why he makes followers wear it on a necklace that they have to wear around

their necks at all times, where people might glance at it from a distance, think it's a Jewish star of David, and then look a bit closer to see it's a borderline hate crime. Okay, this is the dumbest, but it's an alien language excuse since Superman's S was the symbol for peace on Krypton. Yeah, if only we had some existing symbol for infinity that we could have used but see here's the thing even if the aliens show up we don't know that we're not just getting the white supremacist mega aliens right if an alien shows up and they've got the fucking confederate battle flag painted on the roof of their spaceship

i'm gonna ignore whatever revelation that alien has on tap for me, right? Yeah, that's fair. That is absolutely fair. So, unsurprisingly, the use of the swastika got the Raelians a lot of attention amid accusations of fascism and anti-Semitism, especially when they tried to build an extraterrestrial embassy for the Elohim in Israel. It turns out we're not super into that idea. Yes, hello Francois.

So we got the letterhead and we are going to put a pause on the project. Yeah, no, we're going to put a pause on it. And in response, of course, Rael and the leading Raelians then spend their time being interviewed publicly about that symbol, explaining they're actually like really nice people

with a quasi-Buddhist worldview and maybe you should come along and check us out for yourself sometime. There's boobs and there's a really chill vibe here. Yeah, I was going to say who would be dumb enough

to fall for that kind of thing, but then I realized the answer is people who are dumb enough to join the Ralliance. So that's just targeted marketing right there. No, and it also seems

like a great example to have in your pocket anytime anybody wants to debate the no such thing as bad press adage. In 1992 at least, Rael did replace the symbol with one that instead of a swastika had a whirlpool at the center

but that one wasn't quite as catchy or as headline grabbing and so in 2007 they went back to the Nazi centered one. Well, in 2007 it wasn't too soon anymore. Right, well, never is a long time to not forget. Thank you. And then we come to what is the most high-profile and cynical publicity stunt of Rael's entire career.

So given that cloning is such a key part of like Rayleigh and law and the Elohim backstory, because human cloning is something that the Elohim did to create humans. Therefore, human cloning has to be something that Rael has claimed to be at the forefront of ever since 1997, which is around the time he launched another poorly named NGO, Clonade. Okay. That's very clearly trying to cover up the clit thing by being like no that's just the suffix we always use you guys are bigots right yeah well they didn't go with peter wade they could have gone with peter but in 2001 ryle actually proposed that they could clone the 9-11 attackers in order to make them stand trial for their crimes. Fucking what? As babies?

I mean, look, I know it wouldn't be America's most irrational reaction to 9-11, but still. What does he think a clone is? Or does he think moral culpability is genetic? Maybe, maybe, yeah. And then in December 2002, clone aide Bridget Boisselier announced at a press conference that they had successfully cloned a human baby that they'd called Eve. And preempting the obvious first question from the press, no, the baby isn't here.

No, you're not allowed to see her. Oh. Or the mother. Or any DNA samples or genetic tests that could prove this wasn't just bullshit. Huh. And in the years that followed, it even emerged that Boisselier had announced the successful clone

before any genetic testing had ever taken place to prove that the baby was actually a clone. So, it might just have been a regular baby. Right. So, the question is, did they think they were fooling us, or did they get fooled by a guy who knew a lady

with twins? Like, what? Either way, far less terrifying than the option where they get fooled by a guy who knew a lady with twins right what yeah either way far less terrifying than the option where they actually cloned a fucking human though yeah and it might not even have been any of those because to this day there's still no evidence at all that eve even existed or that any of the subsequent other cloned babies claimed by clone aid are real at all which would make sense given that the success in animal cloning is like relatively rare and lots of cloned fetuses of animals end up being malformed or dying before birth. So either clone aid is genuinely able to avoid those issues that are faced by every of the scientists in the field, or they're lying for attention because they know

that attention brings them followers and brings them money. But why does it do those things? Are people joining religions like me following people on Facebook to watch their messy divorce? Why is that working for them? And, you know, before I go any further in calling the still alive leader of the human cloning sex cult a cynical and manipulative liar, I'll just point out that it doesn't actually matter whether Rael believes he's the part alien messiah

or if he knows he's full of shit. Either way, he's still a very worthy entry for Who's Woo. All right. Well, I guess the UK's overly punitive libel laws have foreshortened yet another entry, but I look forward

to the next installment. Regardless, Marsh, thanks so much. Before we relinquish your ears tonight, I want to clarify that, yes, indeed, the best conference in all of skepticism is going to be back in Manchester, England again this year. QED is October 18th to the 20th. Tickets on sale soon. Save the date. Anyway, that's all the best we've got for you tonight, but 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's hot friend Godawful Movies debuting at 7 Eastern on Tuesday and an even new episode of our half-sister show Citation Needed debuting at noon Eastern on Wednesday. Obviously, I can't quack proudly unless I thank Heath Enright, who's in my heart, whether he's here or not. Eli Bosnick, who's in my heart

because he's pretty sure he can just scrub out those arteries with a baby bottle brush. And Lucinda Lutions, who is my heart. Except that she never attacked me. I also want to thank Michael Marshall for helping out again this week. Be sure to check him out on Skeptics with a K and Be Reasonable. I also want to thank Mitch for providing this week's Farnsworth quote slash terrifying insight into the

minds of our fellow humans. But most of all of course I want to thank this week's best people, James, Timothy, Brandon, Fran, Dookie, Esmus and Jet. James, Timothy and Brandon, whose, Dookie, Esbjus, and Jet. James, Timothy, and Brandon, whose dicks are so big even Paul Atreides would be nervous to ride them, and Fran, Dookie, Esbjus, and Jet, who are sexy enough to make a rackus moist. Together, these six delightful disbelievers deign to donate dollars to our dour derision of deistic dumbassery this week by giving us money. Not everybody has the money it takes to have less of it on our behalf, but if you do,

you can make a per-episode donation at patreon.com slash scathingatheist, whereby you'll earn early access to an extended ad-free version of every episode, or you can make a one-time donation by clicking on the Donate button on the right side of the homepage at scathingatheist.com. And if you'd like to help, but not in a financial way, 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, 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 scathingatheist.com. He could have gone with one. Honest Wibble. To really throw you. A zero. Honest Wibble, yeah.

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