The Scathing Atheist - 579: Cena Evil Hearna Evil Edition

Episode Date: March 21, 2024

In this week’s episode, Christians will pray away your digital privacy, Fox News advertises the smooth, dulcet tones of Marky Mark oratory, and CS Lewis will convince me his god exists to the same extent he convinced me Aslan the Lion did. --- To make a per episode donation at Patreon.com, click here: http://www.patreon.com/ScathingAtheist To buy our book, click here: https://www.amazon.com/Outbreak-Crisis-Religion-Ruined-Pandemic/dp/B08L2HSVS8/ If you see a news story you think we might be interested in, you can send it here: [e-mail] To check out our sister show, The Skepticrat, click here: https://audioboom.com/channel/the-skepticrat To check out our sister show’s hot friend, God Awful Movies, click here: https://audioboom.com/channel/god-awful-movies To check out our half-sister show, Citation Needed, click here: http://citationpod.com/ To check out our sister show’s sister show, D and D minus, click here: https://danddminus.libsyn.com/ To hear more from our intrepid audio engineer Morgan Clarke, click here: https://www.morganclarkemusic.com/ --- Guest Links: Find out more about American Atheists’ 2024 Convention in Philadelphia here: https://convention.atheists.org/ --- Headlines: Survey: 80% of Americans believe (wrongly) that religion is “losing influence” in our lives: https://www.friendlyatheist.com/p/despite-threat-of-christian-nationalism Fox News introduces sponsored prayers to Jesus: https://www.rawstory.com/fox-friends-jesus-prayer/ WI Supreme Court: Catholic-aligned charities don't get an automatic religious tax break: https://www.friendlyatheist.com/p/wi-supreme-court-catholic-aligned Evangelicals are using a data-harvesting app to target new potential converts: https://www.friendlyatheist.com/p/evangelicals-are-using-a-data-harvesting John Cena's presentation at the Oscar's might've been a satanic illuminati ritual: https://www.wonkette.com/p/how-did-we-worship-our-lord-satan-e8a

Warning, this week's episode contains thought crimes, also profanity. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by Stamps.com, Babbel, and by the new line of Christian children's books, Prayers Waldo. They're just like the regular Waldo books, except there's no Waldo to find. Trust us, Christian kids need this lesson. And now, The Scathing Atheist. Hello, welcome again to the Podcastiverse. I'm April, and please make yourselves comfortable, the show is starting.

Now, help me start the music by saying it with me. We did, in fact, evolve from filthy monkey men. Monkey Man. It's Thursday. It's March 21st. And it's National Vermouth Day. Yeah, so lick the inside of a misted glass and wash it down with three shots of gin. Cheers. I have no illusions.

I'm Eli Bosnick. I'm Ethan Wright. And from Jack Nicholson's New Jersey, Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Waycross, Georgia, this is The Scathing Atheist. On this week's episode, Christians will pray away your digital privacy. Fox News advertises the smooth, dulcet tones of Marky Mark Oratory. And C.S. Lewis will convince me his God exists to the same extent he convinced me Aslan the Lion did.

Well, different extents for me, but first, the diatribe. Now, you want to see some cognitive dissonance in action. Try watching two friends from church meet up by chance at a cardiologist's waiting room. I witnessed exactly that the other day, the stars aligning before me as if a diatribe tryout. Two guys in their late 50s, early 60s, they bump into each other while I'm waiting for my appointment. And they have one of these semi-scripted nonversations that people who don't really know each other have, light on the gossip, heavy on the platitudes. Anyway, eventually this works its way around to a fellow church member whose fortunes recently turned around for the better.

And one of them says, because, you know, it's his line, he says, God is good. And then the echo of those words bounce off the walls of the cardiologist waiting room that he's sitting in. Then they smack back into his ears and he kind of looks around at all us people that God recently tried to murder with coronaries and kind of has to laugh it off. Both of them actually laughed with an ironic shudder that could only mean, but for reals, how the fuck good could he be? And I think that moment is worth reflecting on for more than just its irony. See, it turns out that for people my age who have the kind of heart attack that I had, the highest risk for death doesn't actually come from another coronary. It comes from suicide. Sorry, I know it seems like I shifted subjects, but I didn't.

See, when I go to the cardiologist's office, the first thing they do is they hand me a are you feeling suicidal checklist to fill out. Before we even get to any heart shit, they want to make sure I'm not depressed. Why is that? Well, I'm sure there are a lot of reasons, and I'm even more sure that I'm not qualified to list them. But surely one of them is that having a heart attack forces you to come face to face with your mortality in a way that most people never have. In a way that, in fact, most people avoid at all fucking costs. In a way, we create whole, most people avoid at all fucking costs. In a way, we create whole religions just to avoid thinking about it. Because religion serves a lot of functions, but if there's a main function,

it's to provide convenient platitudes to hide your mortality behind. And sure, once in a while, something happens that's bad enough to poke a hole in that dam, and that's wildly unpleasant, so we reach for the nearest thing to plug it up with. Doesn't matter if it fits, doesn't matter if it'll hold, we just need a hole in that dam. And that's wildly unpleasant. So we reach for the nearest thing to plug it up with. Doesn't matter if it fits. Doesn't matter if it'll hold. We just need a finger in that tight so that we can go on living our lives and not confronting the ultimate meaninglessness that impermanence suggests. And since nothing is as malleable as religious bullshit,

they tend to be the easiest ways to plug those holes. Now, to be fair, you don't need religion to plug those holes. I've met atheists who insist that the concept of a soul or an afterlife or reincarnation or something is still somehow reasonable. Normally, this takes the form of you never know rather than an assertion outright, but the hedging doesn't make it any less stupid. Now, for most of us, though, the trip to atheism includes a long, hard look into the unflattering mirror of mortality. Hell, for most of us, though, the trip to atheism includes a long, hard look into the unflattering mirror of mortality. Hell, for many of us, that was our trip in its entirety. Just sitting there forcing ourselves to think all the anti-death platitudes all the way through until they fall apart.

And look, day to day, this probably does make me less happy. You know, having this knowledge at the forefront of my mind, confronting the fact that in the long term, I don't matter. Well, sometimes, yeah, that gets in the way of bounding carefree through the world day to day. But it also means I'm not relying on a leaky ass dam to keep me dry. I've been swimming in that river for years, so much so that my relationship to death doesn't change just because I shook his hand. And now, look, I've talked about all this before, but how can I not harp on this subject? Protecting people from the fear of death is religion's top selling point in our culture,

and it can't actually do that. In fact, in the long run, it does anti that. And yet, as atheists, one of our biggest hurdles towards recruitment is people's fear of giving up religion's leaky-ass, disingenuous damn spackle but knowing you're gonna die is not a bad thing in fact in a world with enough idiots hiding from behind nonsense accepting that fact becomes something of a superpower they're talking about

you jesus interrupt this broadcast and bring you a special news bulletin joining me for headlines tonight are the gulbert and cello to My Globglo Gabgolab, Heath Enright, and Eli Bosnick. Fellas, are you ready to repent? Okay, Scottish troll who's bad with money was most of my report from 23andMe, so I guess that fits. It's true. That's true.

But sorry, Noah, I have not been eating Chinese food four meals a day for the last decade, so you can try and snatch the title of Gobglo-Glab-Golab from me right now. Okay? Not now. And while I explain to Eli once more that true Globglo-Glab-Golabity comes not from your fucking body type, but for your love of voracious reading. And while those of you who didn't listen to Gam this week check to see if you're having a fucking stroke, we're going to pause for a word from this week's first

sponsor, Stamps.com. We are in a fight! I smell burnt toast. Hey, podcast listener. You know, when we started this show, we didn't realize quite how much was involved in running a business. Yeah, like payroll, accounting, taxes.

So much taxes. And also shipping. Sh shipping shipping merch shipping patreon rewards stuff that can be a real hassle without stamps.com I just can't fathom. We're supposed to be paying this many taxes. You know, what's what's stamps.com you say? Well stamps.com streamlines all your mailing and shipping to turbocharge your operational efficiencies and the stamps.com app is like a post office your pocket, so you can stay on top of things even if you're always on the go. Where's it going? The roads around me look like they've been shelled by the Germans. Postage rates just increased again. Luckily, Stamps.com has the best discounts in the industry, with rates you can't find anywhere else, like up to 89% off USPS and UPS. Plus, Stamps.com automatically tells you your cheapest and fastest shipping options, so you don't have to navigate all the different carriers. My town doesn't even have

a pool. We have to go to the other town's pool and we have to pay them. We have to pay them. Keep your mailing and shipping moving at the speed of your business with Stamps.com. Sign up with the promo code SCATHING for a special offer that includes a four-week trial plus free postage and a free digital scale. No long-term commitments or contracts. Just go to Stamps.com, click on the microphone at the top of the home page and enter the code scathing stamps.com one thing about business can be a little more easy am i a republican i think i might be a republican guys i'm not a republican okay good and now back to the headlines in our lead story tonight despite the precipitous rise in book banning, a Supreme Court that might as well end their decisions with amen,

and half the country's political parties openly calling for theocratic rule, according to a new survey from Pew Research Center, fully 80% of Americans wrongly believe that religion is losing influence in our lives. A higher percentage than has ever believed that in the 20 plus years they've been asking and the majority of those people think it's a bad thing. Yeah, too many people are choking and dying. What we need is more poison, right?

More poison. Yeah. Okay, I feel like lots of people are becoming more and more aware of all the different versions of delightful sex that they're not having and they're in a snip. Like, imagine a world that started revealing all these amazing new ice cream flavors. And this really big group made an oath of plain vanilla forever to a ghost. And they're mad.

It's like that. Yeah. No, I think that's exactly it. Now, one of the reasons this number is so devastatingly high is that the yes answer represents three distinct positions. One is that sort of, you know, religion equals good shorthand that a lot of people do where saying the society is declining morally and the society is less religiously influenced would be the same thing. Right. Like the way that people say church going as if that's just a synonym for moral person. The second group are the Christian nationalists who are saying, yeah, we can't use Jesus as an excuse to oppress gay people as much anymore. And that needs to change.

And the third are the non-religious people taking the long view and comparing us to like the fucking 1970s. Right. And sadly, that last fact-based group is the only one not benefiting from the high yes response right so stop saying that please yeah the rise of theocratic fascism doesn't show up on the radar for people who are already volunteering to lick the fascist boots as their worldview so right they don't see this now but luckily for us pew breaks those numbers down a bit so according to the survey which is fascinating from several angles, that 80% breaks down to 13% who say that religious influence is declining, and that's a good thing. 18% who believe it's declining, and that doesn't make a difference.

And a whopping 49% who say it's declining, and that's a bad thing. Only 6% of respondents got the objectively correct answer, which is that religious influence is growing, and that's a bad thing. Only 6% of respondents got the objectively correct answer, which is that religious influence is growing and that's a bad thing. Yeah. One pretty good clue is that 94% of people don't understand objectively correct answers. Right. Yeah. Objectively correct is trending badly. Religion is probably trending well. So yeah, there you go. And look, I want to speak to the people who think that, you know, the long view is the correct one. Look, I know it's not growing in comparison to like medieval England, but if a balloon used to be as big as a house and now it's much smaller, it doesn't make that balloon is inflating right now. An untrue statement, you know? Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Now there are a couple of minor bright spots we can pull out of the survey. One is that the majority of Christians who have at least heard of Christian nationalism do have a negative view of it. And that percentage is large enough that at least has to have some Christians in it. Another is that 19% of Americans have a net negative view of religion, which is a nice chunk, although that's actually down quite a bit from as recently as 2022 when that number was 26%. And possibly, though, best of all, that number, the number of people with a net negative view of religion, is way

the fuck higher among younger people. It's three times as high in the 18 to 29 demographic than the 65 and up demographic. We're probably doomed, but maybe our kids aren't. Yeah. Silver lining. Maybe we're probably doomed, but maybe our kids aren't. Yeah.

Silver lining. Maybe we'll die soon, right? Yeah, hooray. Next up in headlines, in love the Wisconsin-er news, we actually have some good news out of Wisconsin about the separation

of church and state. For now, asterisk. I'll circle back to that. But first, we're taking the win. We need this. In a shocking reversal of the recent theocracy trend in American jurisprudence,

the Wisconsin Supreme Court decided that a Christian thing has to follow a law. And that's a win condition right now, apparently. The court ruled that a nonprofit organization whose activities are not

religious by nature has to pay the state unemployment tax, even if the organization is run by a church. Yeah, the only reason to run a non-religious non-profit out of a religious organization is because you like paying taxes. That's like putting on a ball cage and then suing because you thought it was

underwear. Well, unless, of course, asterisk but i'll let things unfold on heath's timeline yeah and a big thanks to brian for the link scathing news gmail.com if you want to help out so here's the details of the just barely good news for now sort of in a four to three ruling the court narrowly upheld the appellate ruling that said the catholic charities bureau or ccb is not exempt from the tax because their activity isn't directly court narrowly upheld the appellate ruling that said the Catholic Charities Bureau, or CCB, is not exempt from the tax because their activity isn't directly religious, which is required by law. The state law in question says that religious nonprofits are exempt, but only if their work is

primarily for religious purposes. But the charity groups in the CCB do secular activities like providing food for hungry people and providing aid for people with disabilities. And those are real things that don't look any different just because somebody in the parent organization says, because Jesus is why we're doing it. So in that sense, the Wisconsin Supreme Court correctly identified that good things are good because they're good, not because of magic or whatever. Not sure why we needed professional legal scholars to parse that out, but here we are. And they did do it. Good little baby step back in the right direction, I guess.

Right. And the CCB is so close to getting it in their statement about the case. They're like, oh, so I guess you want all the charities doing real world work, not to have a specific religion in mind when they do it. And you hear yourselves right now. You got to be careful. Well, right. It's worth emphasizing here that they're not being taxed like a fucking Walmart. They're being taxed like any other organization that does the shit they do.

Exactly. Exactly. And now I'm going to ruin it. so i'm glad about the ruling but now it's definitely going to end up being appealed to the u.s supreme court of you know three human beings and six republicans also zero atheists just for the record and they're definitely going to fuck it up on a federal level but more generally the framing of the entire argument is absurd in two different ways first of all wisconsin and the entire country is granting tax exemptions but only if your charity does charity plus indoctrination about ghosts will subsidize your thing but only if you can prove it's good plus also stupid makes no sense okay

noah i know you won't let me and heath start a church but i can prove how stupid i am you know i can you know i can. You know I can. It was never because I didn't think it would work, Eli. It was never that. That's not why. All right. And here's the second problem. In addition to the charity work that I already mentioned,

the CCB also provides, crucially, job placement for unemployed people. So the argument from their legal team is saying, yeah, no, we're happy to provide help to unemployed people. That's what we do. But we're unwilling to contribute money that provides help to unemployed. What do you want us to put ourselves out of business? What are you thinking? Yeah. The court decided that an employer has to pay taxes just like every other employer of that type. We spent a bunch of tax dollars to allow a very obvious collection of tax dollars and to adjudicate a tautology about good being good. Why? Because Christ magic. And more importantly, because of absurd religious entitlement, along with the very

large budget for legal action that we all subsidize by letting religion pay almost zero taxes on all their other stuff. Right. Exactly. And in your prayers ring hollow news, it's been a tough couple of years over at Fox News. Turns out that supporting a failed presidential candidate and his lies about the election can get pretty expensive. For starters, there's that $787 million they settled on giving Dominion voting last year, which is not a small amount of money, but they've also lost quite a few sponsors. The news that used to be brought to you by Mickey D's and Tide

now spends a lot more time talking about catheters and ionized socks than they used to. Seriously, if you haven't watched Fox News lately, turn it on and watch the commercials. It's like late night TV is going through a bad divorce. Not a good sign when every ad spot

has like the phrase moderate to sphere somewhere in there. And then it ends with like, may cause fatal events, but you know, TikTok, whatever. Yeah. Not going great for Fox. But it's nice to know that even at a party this lame,

Mike Lindell still isn't invited, though. Right. Yeah, exactly. But this week... He actually is invited. He just can't afford to pay. He can't afford... Right, yeah, no, that's the truth.

He doesn't have that pee in a golf club money. Yeah, so... But this week, our friends over at Fox News hit perhaps a new low when they stopped what they are still very much pretending is a new show for a quick prayer sponsored by Marky Mark's prayer app, Holo. I feel like you wanted to call it Our Father, but nobody could fucking understand him. He's just like, Our Father. What do you think? There's a lot of running apps.

Dude, you got to go further into the thing with like something without an R probably. Just what's a word in there? So first off, big thanks to Sylvie for sending us this story first to scathingnews at gmail.com. Sylvie, no matter where you may roam, you'll always be in my heart, my home. Eli, unrecognizable song lyrics are kind of Heath's bit. Thank you? Yeah, nope. Fair enough. Fair are kind of Heath's bit. Thank you. Yeah, nope. Fair enough.

Fair enough. So here's the quote. We have more Fox and Friends coming up, but you know what? This is a transition for transitions if you've ever had one. So, so, so Fox and Friends, this is very Fox and Friends. So ready your heart it's the fifth sunday of lent and our prayer series continues with the reading of prayer from the hollow app wait what's hello it only counts if it's our sponsor check paragraph four of subsection g of rule 11 thank you we gotta get

them as a sponsor. Come on. We all need it. Continuing the quote here. We all need it. Let's do it this morning. Close your eyes if you would bow your head. I'm going to need your prayer request to sound way less like you're about to ask me for a head. So.

Yeah. And so here's that prayer. It starts good, but see if you can see where it goes off the rails. Jesus. No. Today, we begin the holy period of Passion Tide. In these last two weeks of Lent, help us understand the mystery of your sacrifice and surrender. Make us keenly aware of your love for us.

We ask that you make yourself known to us. Help us to feel the grace of your presence. It's a fire in us. The same sacrificial, selfless love, selfless love you showed on the cross. Jesus, we surrender ourselves to you. Take care of everything. Thank you again to Hallow for this partnership, to which his co-hosts responded, amen. Of course. I'm sorry, wait. Take care of everything? What kind of lazy catch-all bullshit is that? Yeah.

Also, God, get all the stuff. Do the goods also. One last thing about this story. I'm sorry, this is my Ben Shapiro moment. I do have to point it out. If you are not familiar with Halo, it is the Catholic response to secular apps like Calm and Headspace.

And yes, it does the Catholic response to secular apps like Calm and Headspace. And yes, it does contain multiple guided meditations and prayers from Mark Wahlberg. And yes, they are as hilarious as that sounds. Here's hoping Fox News has slotted him in for a live read ad sometime in the future. Yeah, that's not

bad, but when I meditate... And speaking of libraries, this would be the perfect time to pause for a word from our other sponsor this week, Babbel. You sure I can switch back? I'm not sure of anything, Keith. That's science. I feel like that's not science. Hey, guys. What you doing? Oh, hey, Noah. We're switching Keith's consciousness into a French guy's body.

Uh, why? Immersion, Noah. It's the best way to learn a language, and my French is a little rusty. Sure, but you know what's a lot easier and doesn't involve... I'm sorry, is that a satellite dish? It was a satellite dish. You know, it doesn't matter. The point is,

you should try Babbel. Oh, what's Babbel? It's the science-backed language learning app that actually works. Don't pay hundreds of dollars for private tutors or waste hours on apps that don't really help you speak the language. Babbel's quick 10-minute lessons are handcrafted by over 200 language experts to help you start speaking a new language in as little as three weeks. Plus, Babbel's tips and tools are approachable, accessible, rooted in real-life situations, and delivered with conversation-based teaching, so you'll be ready to practice what you've learned in the real world.

It's true. Anna and I downloaded Babbel when they became a sponsor, and I love how they even helped me with my pronunciation with their speech recognition filters. Oh, do they have one of those for English? You could use a tune-up on English. Here's a special limited-time deal for our listeners. Right now, get 55% off your Babbel subscription,

but only for our listeners at babbel.com slash scathing. That's 55% off at babbel.com slash scathing. Spelled B-A-B-B-E-L dot com slash scathing. Rules and restrictions may apply. All right. Looks like I won't need to switch into a French guy's body after all. Yeah, I'll call Francois and let him know to take off his helmet. Wait, you guys already had a guy?

Sure. We obviously need a second helmet obviously second helmet right yeah science were you listening and in give us this data our daily bread news as the resident tech expert here at puzzle on a thunderstorm llc it's my job to keep you, podcast listener, up on the latest Christian shenanigans on the internet, or as we in the expertise community call it, the web. Okay, as somebody who's seen your spreadsheets, I object entirely to your introduction. Yeah, sustained on that objection.

Okay, probably fair. But whether or not you like to start your tables on B2, like me, a citizen of America, you should probably feel a little winky about a new Christian app called Bless Every Home, which tells the Christians in your neighborhood which houses are ideal for conversion. Sorry, I was just checking out this place called aggressiveboobytraps.com. What were you talking about? Yeah, right. On the other side of that coin, tell me how to game the system, please.

Yeah, pin that. So first off, big thanks to Hemant Mehta over at the Friendly Atheist blog for bringing this to our attention. Hemant technically sent us this news to scathingnews at gmail.com because I subscribe to his sub stack.

But you can also send us Atheist News to scathingnews at gmail.com and we'll love you almost as much as we love Hammond. Side note, if you're not familiar with Hammond's work, you should check him out both in written and podcast form. Anyway, the app comes to us from the ominously named Mapping Center for Evangelism and Church Growth or McKiggick. Yeah, exactly. And claims to use publicly available data so you can look up your neighbors based on a variety of factors.

Quote from the actual article about it in the New Republic. Quote, it puts a lot of features at the fingertips of the faithful, including the ability to filter whole neighborhoods by religion, ethnicity,

Hispanic country of origin, assimilation, and whether there are children living in the household, end quote. You guys ever notice how Wile E. Coyote doesn't have any racist spyware for his maps? I got an idea. Why Hispanic

country of origin? Why not just country of origin? It is actually its own category, Noah. It's fucking hilarious. Okay, you know they're going to like the Estonian house being like, oh, it's just white people. All right. All right.

You know, you always hear like Spanish food and Mexican food are different things, but it's not here now until I showed up with this pamphlet in Spanish that I feel silly. It was Estonia. Even better, it has a shared notes feature so that you and your fellow Christians can strike while the iron is hot. Again, another quote from the article. Kevin Greeson, Texas hub leader of Global Gates, a large missionary network and enthusiastic customer of Bless Every Home, explains the ways the app can be used. In one instance, he points to the shareable note-taking function and suggests leaving

information for each household, such as daughter left for college and mother is in the hospital. Oh, jeez. Okay, so my instinct is to make a comment here about how easily this, you know, sharing people's personal details without their consent or knowledge thing can go wrong, but this is

wrong, right? Like the intended purpose is already falling into the wrong hands. Yeah. When asked by a trainee about how to respond to concerns that people may have about the app during the training video, Greeson concedes that, quote,

this thing is so powerful, it's an invasion of privacy. And quote. Sure is. But nothing about searching for booby traps on the app. It works for me. Yeah, I think it might be good.

And look, as Hemant points out over on his article about this thing, at best, it is a useless tracker for which of your neighbors you've thought nice Christian thoughts about. But in reality, it's a lot more ominous, right? So for instance, the app suggests a prayer walk where Christians could walk by the houses of their Jewish, Muslim, and Hindu neighbors. An experience that I can assure you said neighbors might find a little less comforting than the Christians on this app imagine. Jesus Christ.

I bet we'd be even more noticeable if we carried some kind of torches or something when we did it, y'all. Fuck. And by the way, I hate to break it to you, spy for Christ or whatever this app is called, but mortgage companies invented this app for redlining a while ago. This isn't your invention.

So you're probably thinking to yourself, okay, Eli, that's obviously all bad, but what have you done to fight back against this evil? Well, I'm glad you asked, podcaster, because I signed up for said app and I went down to Georgia where our very own No Illusions lives.

And I marked his house as atheist slash open to proclization very friendly. And if that doesn't single-handedly bring down this company, nothing will. Wait, so the app's company or our company? Because if I'm in jail, we can't make a podcast. This is a risk we have to be willing to take. We have to be willing to take this risk. That's fair. And finally tonight,

in Sina Evil, Hirna Evil. Phenomenal. Say it loud and proud, you bastion. You say it loud and proud. If you watched the Academy Awards ceremony, you might remember the moment when a beautiful, enormous man named John Cena presented the award for best costume design while wearing nothing but Birkenstocks and a chiseled smile. It's a nice little homage, actually, to 50 years ago during the streaking fad of 1974 that I learned about recently when David Niven's introduction of Liz Taylor got interrupted by photographer and gallery owner Robert Opel

running across the stage naked. It was a delightful moment. Or was it? According to the internet, full of human beings who are allowed to drive and vote, John Cena was secretly doing a satanic initiation ritual to join the Illuminati. Okay, to be fair, we didn't see inside the cheeks.

There could have been a cherry in there. Right, no, that's fair. We didn't check. No, it's good to hide your initiations in plain sight. Otherwise, there will be no clues. That's Secret Lizard Society 101 right there. Come on. So here's how the Illuminati works, in case anyone's not familiar.

They're a secret cabal run by lizard aliens or maybe stone workers. It's not clear. That has all the money and they run the world. And also they run very elaborate schemes to run the world more. Again, their human roster includes most of the rich and powerful people throughout history, like the British royal family, Jewish bankers, like all of them, Bill and Hillary Clinton, and of course, fake wrestling stars like John Cena. And the reason we know that John Cena got on board is because you have to complete a

public humiliation ritual in order to join the squad. Yeah, super embarrassing to show your perfect body off at the Oscars and have everyone talk about how hot you are. I bet that nailed it for him, huh? Yeah. It was so humiliating. Maybe the people publicly espousing this humiliatingly stupid theory are trying to join the Illuminati. Maybe that's it.

So, we learned about John Cena's demonic heel turn thanks to intrepid journalist and Pizzagate whistleblower, Liz Croken. Oh, fuck. Yep, her. She got into the business of exposing truthiness with Fox News, working for the O'Reilly Factor,

and now she's a leading voice in the QAnon movement, of course. And according to her post from last week, quote, no surprise that John Cena is walking on stage naked at the Oscars during prime time that children are most likely watching. This is not just a humiliation ritual. The Hollywood pedophiles, rapists, and perverts, use the Oxford comma, goddammit. The Hollywood pedophiles,

rapists, and perverts are currently getting off on this. I'm sure Jimmy Kimmel is as well. End quote. I mean, implied in that is that while she doesn't like Jimmy Kimmel, she doesn't think he's a pedophile, rapist, or pervert, I guess. Right, that's true. Eli didn't use any commas at all just to piss Heath off. So, I'm sorry, but did John Cena wear significantly more than that when he wrestled? No. Because most wrestlers don't, do they?

No, not at all. Crokin also let us know about one other big new member of the Illuminati. That would be Slash from Guns N' Roses. When he played guitar during Ryan Gosling's rendition of I'm Just Ken, that was also an Illuminati initiation ritual. So you're probably thinking, okay, okay, Liz Crokin making some good points, but I'll need more evidence. Do you have a diagram that shows how it all works?

Good skeptic, good question hood in America, 41 years old, dad of five, ex-husband, verified Twitter blue content creator, block equals your liberal American flag, according to his bio. I was just reading from his bio. Maybe you heard of him. Okay, there's so much to unpack there, but why did he put ex-husband in his bio? For the ladies. For the ladies, exactly. Obvious, dumb question. That's probably why he did that. I hate that. Thanks to Mr. Subtuptimus, we have

that very diagram and it's helpfully labeled to explain everything. It shows Jimmy Kimmel and John Cena and the important contrast in their outfits. Kimmel, who's presumably already in the cabal, is wearing a tuxedo and shoes, so his genitals are clothed and his toes are, quote, protected by status. But Sina's lack

of clothes accomplishes the Illuminati cock shame, of course, and his open-toed sandals are for, quote, sexual gratification. Who's's sexual are you sure you're maybe not telling on yourself a little bit there mr subtuptimus so just to recap john cena star of stage and screen with a net worth of about 80 million dollars decided his life wasn't really going anywhere unless he joined the secret architecture club. And that beautiful man getting a big laugh at the award ceremony watched by 20 million people was the public humiliation ritual

that served as his audition for the top secret cabal. That's what happened. Okay, well, I'm still going to keep walking out at live shows the way I do because I need that Stone Mason money. Damn it. It's tax season. All right.

Well, it looks like I need to explain once more to Eli that he can't sue John Cena for stealing his bits. So we're going to close the headlines for the night. Heath, Eli, thanks as always. Jumanji. And when we come back, C.S. Lewis will assure us he's going to prove God's existence any minute now. For most of my life, the Bible was sold to me as a beautiful piece of literature. Even atheists would often say, don't get me wrong, the Bible is a beautiful piece of literature, but dot, dot, dot. So when we decided to read through it as part of our comedy show, I was a little nervous that such a beautiful piece of literature might not offer up enough humor potential. And here we are revisiting it 11 years on because we left so much potential untouched.

And I'm thinking maybe those fears were overblown. And I'm also starting to have a similar feeling about C.S. Lewis's supposed masterwork of apologetics, mere Christianity. I miss David Icke. I don't know. I could barely even say it, but maybe. You ever go to like a meet and greet of a great athlete and they've really let themselves go, but you spend the whole time in the line being like, hey, everyone gets older. Is he eating two meatball subs at the same time?

I don't feel like that could happen before or after. Impressive, that's what it is. All right, so quick summary of what we've learned so far. Nothing. How quick was that? Yeah. We learned that people are inclined towards following moral laws

when raised in a society that reinforces that from birth. We also learned that by his own admission, C.S. Lewis's sense of morality wasn't significantly different than that of cultures that practice infanticide, own humans as property, and force widows to die on their husband's funeral pyre. Right. Or is it because those guys knew better? They just loved burning old ladies. Yeah, right. Right. But what C.S. Lewis thinks we learned is that there's a universal sense of morality that undergirds our lives

the way that scientific laws undergird physics. And that's the point he's going to carry on from in chapter four, what lies behind the law. So he starts off by admitting that natural law is just a figure of speech and thus his entire analogy to this point is meaningless. Yeah.

I want to be clear. Noah's not exaggerating. That is actually what he says, right? He might as well be like, stupid previous chapters. Don't read those. Yes. Yeah. He's admitting that the last chapter was nonsense, but he's acting like that somehow elevates his argument.

Yeah. He basically calls a do-over on everything he did so far the start of chapter four is just like okay so i spent three chapters trying to say that stones and trees have the same natural law as human morality i think we can all agree that went very badly you're gonna take a mulligan on that one here in my book book. Yes. Right. So he's like, humans have proposed two ways the world might work in all of history. Materialism and Christianity.

Yeah, which was fucking hard for all the time before Christianity existed, let me tell you. Everyone's like, why do we keep calling them option A? I just don't get it. I don't get it. Why are we labeling it? So yeah, so he's trying to break down the difference between materialism and like a religious worldview and he's trying to break down the difference between materialism and like a religious worldview and he's trying to describe the godless worldview

as though it's a silly thing to believe and he's trying to get there mathematically, right? But he's forgetting that he's talking about astronomical stuff, so astronomical odds are just odds. Those are just regular odds then. Yeah, and to make it worse, he seems very confused by

the idea of thousand as a word or concept it's so funny in his head it means like a nonsense noise it's like incomprehensible he's talking about the odds of a universe forming and he says by one chance in a thousand uh a chance happened a million zillion come on what are we What are we even talking about? Right. It's clearly a ghost of infinite complexity. Yeah. So he lumps all religions together in the religious worldview

as though most of those aren't musically exclusive. Now, in his defense, he does offer an asterisk after religious worldview, but in his prosecution, it's fucking nuts. We have to digress

into this footnote for a second. He points out that there's a middle ground position between materialism and religion that he calls the life force philosophy. Yeah. He starts by saying there's a reasonable middle ground between science and, well, anything else, but science and magic.

And from there, he makes it worse. Very next thought, yeah, middle ground's dumb. It's magic. It's definitely magic. Yeah. Look, I mean, if C.S. Lewis wants all the hippies who won't call themselves atheists

because they believe in energy, he can have them, but not as a philosophical argument. Right. Well, so what he's talking about here is a dumbed-down form of religion that's trying to find a scientific gap big enough to wedge their god into.

He literally opens with guided evolution as though that's not just still religious nonsense right there's an angel up in heaven uh sir the way their cells divides means that pretty much all of them eventually get cancer did you want to do you want to guide that in a different direction no okay you're keeping it get the fuck out all right okay well but to his credit he points out that it's nonsense but he says it's nonsense because it allows people to have a god but not like obey his rules about jerking off yeah he's claiming that guided evolution is either guided by god or otherwise it's just a thing that happens and things happening is not a thing that happens. Pretty much.

So he ends this footnote by saying, is the life force the greatest achievement of wishful thinking the world has ever seen? And I'm like, no, but you're getting warmer, brother. Stupid wishful thinking yokels. Anyway, let's learn how to find eternal paradise by loving the son of a genocidal ghost real quick. Do that, you fucking yokels. Anyway, let's learn how to find eternal paradise by loving the son of a genocidal ghost real quick. Let's just do that,

you fucking yokels. I don't know. Can I say I liked this footnote because it was fun to watch someone push on the woo rock from the other direction? Yeah, right.

Just like, no. Exactly. More wishing. This isn't bullshit enough. So the religious worldview, though, is that in its most stripped down form, according to C.S, though, is that in its most stripped down form,

according to C.S. Lewis, is that a conscious mind made the universe to create other conscious minds. And even when you're trying to make that sound like that's the reasonable option, it sounds so fucking silly. Okay. All right. Let's see. I, God, would love

an orange Julius. So I think I'm going gonna start with the universe of matter in a pre-expanded no you're making it harder than it has to be dude you made a line for the orange julius why would you do that why would that be a line the line is two billion years long yeah make a cinnabon while you're up if you're doing stuff so he explains that the question of whether religion or science is right can't be adjudicated by science. It's totally impossible. And that's because science is experimental

and you can't make a whole bunch of universes with and without a God to experiment on. Which, you know, it makes so much of science impossible when you look at it that way. Yeah, and that's because he thinks science is either a telescope or a beaker, and that's it. Right. His actual definition of science here was, I put some of this stuff in a pot and

heated it. Exact words. And then he's like, yeah, so try putting a universe in a beaker and heating it up while you're trying to work a telescope. It doesn't even make sense. That's crazy. Right. I want to be clear, because I don't want to misrepresent him. Is his meta point that science isn't as confident as religion?

So philosophically they're tied? Not quite, but we're going there. Yes. His side is winning because of that. Yeah. No, that's true.

It's 1-0. It is 1-0. Yeah. And he's like, you know, plus ours is not a scientific question. And I'm like, well,

you say that without admitting what a huge flaw that is in your question, but you said it one way or the other hey uh cs it sounds like you're trying to say this is an a priori thing instead of a posteriori but you had trouble with thousand earlier i'll make it easier you want to use logic or evidence and his answer is no right yes pass yeah you're never gonna guess what he does want to use yeah no chapter four seems to be science doesn't count which bold as it is makes his job a lot easier from here on out right ah sorry yeah i should have said this up front but um no checking stuff you can't check it we're playing with on my book.

So here's an actual quote that he gives in this stupid fucking book. He says, supposing science, this quote, supposing science ever became complete so that it knew every single thing in the whole universe. Is it not plain that the questions, why is there a universe? Why does it go on as it does? Has it any meaning? Would remain just as they were and i'm like well obviously they fucking wouldn't what does complete mean to you dude tricky it's like thousand i like

that he had to throw in a couple opinion questions just to hedge his bets on that though is a hot dog a sandwich only the lord of the universe will ever know And here's another actual quote that I love. Quote, there is one thing and only one in the whole universe which we know more about than we could learn from external observation. That one thing is man, end quote. So yeah, the one thing we know about from internal observation is the thing we're in. Very profound, bro. Keep in mind, that's just a fancy way of asking us to look into our

hearts about what we know to be true let me check your gut yeah that's what we're going to use instead of knowing things or thinking things also i just i know we all know this but we very much do not know ourselves right not only do we like hallucinate and lie but like our internal experiences are wildly different. Like I get what he's going for, but it's like he's saying the one thing I know is that everyone,

everyone has the same color eyes. And from there, we can build. It's like you read Plato's Allegory of the Cave and he was like, I'm a shadow. I'm a Christian.

Lack of photons. And I'm writing a book about it. I am pretty sure I nailed this allegory. Yeah. At this point, I wrote my notes. Hold on a second. Is he trying to prove that rocks do have a moral code? And I think he is.

Yep. Right. There's a very like we can't ask rocks if they believe in God. So they probably do feel to his argument. There's probably a rock C.S. Lewis who's writing the rock. Mere rock Christian. Stupid. Okay. I actually enjoyed this part. He tries to talk about electricity and cabbage and he gets very confused. He says that studying humanity from the outside doesn't work. Just like studying electricity or cabbage doesn't work

because we're not electrified cabbage i guess we can look at cabbage and we can look at electrons and we can know what they do but we'll never know how they ought to be cabbaging and electroning so particle physics and botany are hoaxes. Right, but apparently... They're either hoaxes or moralistically empty, which is not the point. Right. An actual quote, The only way in which we could expect the creator of the universe to show itself would be inside ourselves as an influence or a command trying to get us to behave in a certain way. End quote.

Why would that fucking be? Why would the architect of the universe care how we behave? That is such a huge inference that you could only miss if your Christianity blindfold was all the way opaque. Right. So again, even granting his premise, the creator of the universe shows himself in a way that's so individualistic and obtuse that by your own admission of action, you are required to write a book to explain it to us?

I feel like maybe a big sign might work better, C.S. Maybe a big sign? Apparently, the god of the universe is your disappointed partner being like, well, if you don't know why I'm mad, I'm not going to tell you. But I don't know. Maybe it has something to do with like six years ago when you asked me if I wanted a Negroni. And I said, sure, but not very committal.

You should have heard that. And now you want to order a round of Negronis today? I wish you knew a single fucking thing about me. Fuck you. Yes. That's his divine creator. Yep. Yep.

Sidebar, that felt specific. do you need to work it's unrelated i don't know yeah look so he seems to think that he's presented something very clever but here's what he's genuinely said humans believe in god and they're the only things that we can ask so everything else probably also believes in god yes and let's just stop and acknowledge what a horrible way of learning anything he is proposing, right? My personal experience isn't just probably universally true. It's probably so true that it's a secret message from the creator of the universe about his existence. Yes. Again, he's the insane kid from Philosophy 101 class. This time he read some Descartes, I guess.

And he was like, I think, therefore, Heath goes to the Lake of Fire forever. That's what Descartes meant by that. Stop masturbating, Heath. You were right behind him. I understand the concern. He assures us that we haven't yet proven the existence of christian god specifically though in case you were so wowed by his fucking postal analogy that you thought he had he hasn't yet and here's that analogy so um oh god yeah i hate this so much you guys know envelopes right

no envelopes you can't open envelopes without your address on them. So every envelope might actually be empty. And all of science is basically just envelopes to someone else. But the question of God is an envelope to you. And it has a letter inside that says something like, if you're reading this, I created you and stopped masturbating during philosophy class. That guy's annoyed about it. So if anybody listening wants to be a Christian right here, now that you've heard that amazing analogy, you could skip the rest of the book. Obviously, we understand the drop off on iTunes will probably be a bad thing.

There's also this brilliantly anachronistic line at the close where he tells us that he's going to give us the straight dope about God. This is the quote. I love this quote. There has been a great deal of soft soap talked about God for the last hundred years. That is not what I'm offering. You can cut all that out. End quote, end chapter. That was a strong finish.

Wax cylinder drop. Boom. a strong finish wax cylinder drop boom yeah just just the hard-hitting facts of what i feel in my heart to be so universally true for all people that i'm writing a book to convince people of what they already know in their hearts yes it's just like dragnet just like dragnet so so then we get chapter five we have cause to be uneasy and he opens chapter five basically apologizing for tricking us to believing in his religion with that last chapter where he's like i know i pulled a pretty clever juke on you in that last one but uh yeah you might have read the first three chapters maybe been annoyed that i took a fucking mulligan and then in the last chapter it was just word salad from the kid who thought descartes was

saying we all know kung fu well no no it wasn't that's the first thing in this chapter yeah so weird so he's going to spend this chapter addressing without ever directly saying this the idea that science has disproved the mythology of christianity and moved beyond the religious worldview and he's got three things to say to anybody who hears this religious jaw, that's his word, and says, you quote, can't turn back the clock. So thing one, you can't two turn back clocks. Look, I'm doing it right now. These gears can't stop me.

They have to let me. Stronger than them. I'm stronger than them. He's like, and then he's like, actually, you know what? Now that I'm three sentences in, I'd like to abandon the clack analogy because it's stupid. And I'm like, dude,

you're the one who brought it up. You can delete stuff. You only get one mulligan, man. Genuinely, the thing that I am most surprised about C.S. Lewis's writing is how often he's like,

that was a stupid fucking sentence. Also, did you guys still forget about those first three chapters? I'm really regretting those, but my publisher says I can't have another extension and the page counts fucking killing me over here he's like it's like adding numbers you know that's super hard to do and you mess that up a lot i'm like why would you use addition man no this was a good metaphor and it spoke to

me i am becoming more christian, look at my spreadsheets. Yeah. This is where he says, if you start working on a question and you have a mistake at the beginning, you're just making it worse if you don't turn around. And in fairness, he's going to drive home that point with the rest of the book existing. So I guess he nailed that one little thing. Right. So that was thing one. Thing two is that he hasn't technically religious jawed at us yet he reminds us that he hasn't proven the existence of any god let alone the christian one and we're like yeah man you haven't proven the existence of anything but you yet yeah postman maybe yeah postman singular and it has to be you you You have to be you. That's true. You're delivering your own letters.

Yeah, no, so he's pretty sure that he's proved, though, that there's an external mind governing our moral intuitions. Now, to be clear, he has proved nothing of the sort, but that's where he thinks he is. Right. And again, even if we accept his argument that we have a universal moral compass, which we don't, and that the compass is evidence of God,

there's no proof that God has a mind. That's like saying the machine that lowers the engine into cars must, by definition, love them. Like, there's no reason. Right, yes. Also, my external God mind just told me to ask about the machine that made the lowering machine. So, there's that.

Who said machine about the machine? Get the fuck out. Yeah, right. And notice how he steps outside of even his own grandiose assessment of his argument here, right? Because if all you've proven is that there is an external mind

putting moral intuitions in your head, you have not proven that that same thing created the universe, right? And in fact, you have no non-Christianity reason to even infer that. Yeah. I watched The Bachelor as I was falling asleep and it definitely put some stuff in my mind, but none of it was good. And I'm definitely not convinced Joey created the universe. I don't understand why you leap to that. Well, that makes one of us, makes one of us. And again, I don't

want to belabor this point, but there are so many philosophical alternative explanations for conscious experience that are not God, right? There's evil God. There's computer simulation. There's you being the only thing in the universe that exists, right? These are all bad arguments, but at least they're a priori statements, you know? Right.

So he's like, based on the universe, we know we can tell a few things about the creator of it. Like, for example, we know that God is an artist because the universe is beautiful. What? Right. Two objections. A, all the ugly stuff is also in the universe.

And B, beauty doesn't need an artist to create it. I've seen some wildly untalented people have adorable kids. Thank you. Okay. Have you. Okay. Have you been to the universe, man? Like, if God is real and created the universe, that was some night before it was due, giant margin, triple-spaced bullshit right there.

I wouldn't put the universe on my fridge if God was my five-year-old and made it. Yes. Yeah, absolutely not. Oh, sorry, buddy. There's a little too much gang rape in this one. Yeah, a little bit too much. Yeah.

Maybe the next one. We're looking for zero. Yeah, and he claims that inferences from his feelings are better measures of God's intentions than external observations because the former come from the inside, right? Like, if you think about it, the knowledge that he just pulls out of his ass,

that's insider information there. Yeah, it's true because i know what i think is actually what i think it's like me arguing with heath this must be how he feels when we disagree that's not what the word arguing means so at this point he says i think it means arguing and i think i think that's not what's happening now just i'm winning again. Okay. I want to get three to one. Listen, I made a chess move and you made a pigeon noise. That's nothing. I'm shitting.

Nothing. Okay. So this is where CS says you find out more about a man by listening to his conversation than by looking at a house he has built. That's an exact quote. So first of all, that's obviously wrong. That's dumb. But even if we grant that, I'd be like,

hey man, why did you build a house with the Holocaust in it? And maybe he'd start to answer. And I'd be like, shut the fuck up. You built a house with the Holocaust in it. Don't talk to me. Are you going to build a house with the Holocaust in it? Yeah, yeah, right. Despite having built a house with the Holocaust in it,

he says that God is very interested in right conduct. And he lists some right conduct. He says fair play, unselfishness, courage, good faith, honesty, and truthfulness, which is apparently different than honesty. And I'm like, I've read the Bible, man. I don't think he's into any of that stuff. Right. Yeah. Again, so God plants these morals in us. and then he wrote a book commanding the exact opposite of those that is the bible a test because honestly it makes way more sense as a test yeah right that actually checks out god's like um like the professor who got mad that nobody was doing the reading so he you know as a test he pastes mind conf into the middle of a different book but then but then everybody showed

up with armbands so now he's like fuck yeah okay i guess we're gonna roll with it be like a whole thing you can't move the clock back so another actual quote he says if the universe is not governed by an absolute goodness then all of our efforts are in the long run hopeless. End quote. What? And I'm like, take me there. It's your fucking book. Your job is to take me there.

Okay. If I'm wrong, I'd be sad. Do you want the creator of Aslan to be sad? I thought not. God exists. I'm C.S. Lewis. Eli used the same argument with senior pets with me.

I thought was the word arguing. Yeah. Senior pets. So and then we get his third thing, which is that it's perfectly OK for him to trick you into believing in God with his clever ruses. Oh, my God. This is so weird. Seriously, that's his big finale here.

Like, did you read this book in order so far? Ha ha. You walked right into my trap, you ignorant rube. Here's my actual point, starting now. Or is it? Yes, right, right. So yeah, he's like, well, first, I have to convince you that you're a worthless piece of shit

or the Christianity won't take, right? He's like, well, you know how, like, if you know you're sick, then you'll listen to what the doctor says. And I'm like, wow, you were talking to a more innocent pre-COVID world, weren't you, bro? That's why Fauci told us masks don't work so we would listen better. Right, yeah. And just for the record, my religion makes no sense unless you're dying of spirit cancer. That's not the amazing selling point that C.S. Lewis seems to think it is.

Right. Right. And then he emphasizes the need to look for the truth over looking for comfort when it comes to religion. Because if you don't look for the truth, you'll find, quote, soft soap and wishful thinking, end quote. Look at us agreeing again here at the end. A.C.S., huh? All right. Look at us agreeing again here at the end.

ACS, huh? All right. Well, armed with the knowledge that goodness is, I guess, we're ready now for book two. Jesus Christ, we're 54 pages in and he's calling it book two. Anyway, we're on to book two, what Christians believe in the next installment of God Awful Books. God awful books.

Before we seal the envelope this week, I want to remind you that American Atheists annual convention is coming up on Easter weekend. That's March 29th through the 31st, and it's in Philadelphia this year. If you want more info, check out convention.atheists.org or check the show notes for more details. We're going to have a table there, so be sure to stop in and say hi if you're around. Anyway, that's all the blessed movie we've got for you tonight, but we'll be back in 10,022 minutes with more. If you can't wait that long, be on the lookout for a brand new episode of our sister show, The Skeptocrat, debuting at 7 a.m. Eastern on Monday, and an even newer episode of our sister show's hot friend, God of All Movies, debuting at 7 a.m. Eastern on Tuesday, and an even newer episode of our half-sister show, Citation Needed,

debuting at noon Eastern on Wednesday. Obviously, the MP3 conversion would fail if I neglected to thank Heath Enright for being cool, Eli Bosney for being hot, and Lucinda Lusions for being just right. I also want to thank our favorite listener, April Poth, for providing this week's Farmer's Roof quote. Incidentally, if you come to see us at AACon, you might get to meet her too.

See you next weekend, April. But most of all, of course, I want to thank this week's most scintillating Simeons, Michael, Jason, Jeremy, Patrick, James, Jeraj, M68, Ken, Pugapega, Cornholio, this week's most scintillating simians michael jason jeremy patrick james jaraj m68 ken puga pega cornholio paul joanna caroline stones mcgillicuddy bs detector esquire and never spent michael jason jeremy and patrick who make my heart stop in a good way james jaraj m68 ken puga pega cornholio and paul who are so sexy they were the first through fifth choice before john

cena for that oscar bit and Joanna, Caroline, Stones, McGillicuddy, BS Detector, Esquire, and Never Spent, who are so bright the sun's gonna get the same view of the eclipse as we do. And not that we like any one patron more than any other, but holy shit is Pug a Pegacorn, Julio, a great name. Together, these 13 lean, mean lovers

of the obscene were keen to demean the Nazarene this week by giving us money. Not everybody has the bountiful and often rhyming qualities it takes to give us money, 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 money kind of way, you can also help a ton by leaving a five-star review, telling a friend about the show, and following us on social media, and speaking of social media. Tim Robertson handles that for us, and our audio engineer is Morgan Clark, who also wrote all the music that was used in this episode, which was used with permission. If you have questions, comments,

or death threats, you can find all the contact info on the contact page at scathingadeus.com. We're going to have an ad for Adam and Eve and Babel on the same episode. And it'll be an atheist show sponsored entirely by shit out of the book of Genesis. And that'll be awesome. The preceding podcast was a production of Puzzle and a Thunderstorm, LLC. Copyright 2024. All rights reserved.