The Scathing Atheist - 584: Autocorrected Edition

Episode Date: April 25, 2024

In this week’s episode, Daniel Dennett was awesome and STAYED awesome, a new anti-vaxxer supplement can vaccinate you against vaccination, and the Bible will thy and thou at us some more. --- 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: Daniel Dennett dies at 82: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/19/books/daniel-dennett-dead.html More delicious drama around sword swallowing guy: https://www.christianpost.com/news/alex-magala-says-he-has-no-children-wasnt-saved-10-years-ago.html https://www.christianpost.com/news/pastor-john-lindell-says-mark-driscoll-tried-to-divide-his-church.html   Christian Right is freaking out over rumors of furries overtaking school and biting students: https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2024/04/conservatives-are-freaking-out-over-rumors-of-furries-overtaking-school-biting-students/ Catholic League responds to NY AG statement about new child protection policy: https://www.catholicleague.org/ny-ag-misrepresents-brooklyn-diocese/ People attend church way less than they say they do when they check cell phone data: https://www.nber.org/papers/w32334 Kash Patel's COVID vax detox vitamins have 3 times the nothing of regular supplements: https://www.wonkette.com/p/kash-patels-covid-vax-detox-vitamins --- This Week in Misogyny: Arizona Court to uphold 1864 anti-abortion law: https://www.vox.com/politics/24128840/arizona-abortion-total-ban-law-roe-court-1864 Republicans considering fake pro-abortion ballot measures: https://jessica.substack.com/p/republicans-fake-ballot-measures

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Any Direction Long Enough. You won't find the edge of the world, but you'll be the fuck away from me. And now, The Scathing Atheist. Hey everybody, it's me, Donald Trump's ball sack. Whatever image you have in your mind of me right now, believe me, is much worse than that. Much worse. It's, I don't't know more wrinkly and old and longer for some reason but at any rate i think i'm proof that we did in fact evolve

from filthy monkey men the hair is weird down here too it's likeursday it's april 25th And it's National Plumbers Day. Yeah, thanks for taking our shit all the other days of the year. I'm no illusions. I'm Eli Bosnick. I'm Heath Henright. And from Clara Bartons, New Jersey, Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Waycross, Georgia, this is The Scathing Atheist. On this week's episode, Daniel Dennett was awesome and stayed awesome.

A new anti-vaxxer supplement can vaccinate you against vaccination. And the Bible will thine thou add us some more. But first, the diatribe. In my time as a vocal atheist, I've been locked into a lot of long-lived, intense debates about matters of faith. But perhaps none has been as enduring and as vitriolic as the 15-year fight I've been in with the blue squiggly line that wants me to capitalize the G in God. I've been in with the blue squiggly line that wants me to capitalize the G in God. And look, I'll admit, most of the time, the blue squiggle is correct. Given the conventions of the English language and most of the contested incidents, I should be capitalizing God. When I'm referring to the fictional character named God, right, I should be using an uppercase G, even though it's a really stupid name. I was writing about a superhero named superhero I would capitalize the S as well that being said I've

always been hesitant to do so even when I'm technically supposed to because of course the word God is used interchangeably whether we're talking about the genocidal character from the Bible or the vague concept of a first mover and if you capitalize the G every time you're supposed to, you're very often lending credence to the Christian worldview. You're personifying the concept of the universe's creator. What's more, you're suddenly reinforcing the idea that the Judeo-Christian God, which is the only one named God, is the default deity. And that all makes sense, right? The grammatical rules that we follow, after all, were crafted in a time of unquestioned Christian supremacy and were designed in many ways to reinforce that supremacy. If we follow all the prescribed conventions, we'll be capitalizing their God's fucking pronouns.

A hilarious demand from the people that pretend the singular they is the thing that makes English pronouns confusing. So there's definitely some justification in breaking the commandments in the Chicago Manual of Style here. And for years, that's been all the justification I needed to reduce God to the dangly G. God is, after all, a concept as well as a fictional character. And if anybody takes issue with the fictional character's lack of capitalization, I reckon they could just borrow a couple of capital letters from all the superfluously capitalized pronouns they had lying around. But over the years, that justification has seemed less and less convincing to me. And I find myself more and more often just giving in to the whims of the blue squiggle or letting autocorrect have its way.

I mean, the lowercase still seems justified to me, but I'm increasingly aware of how petty it must seem for people who stand far outside of the atheist echo chamber and are not familiar with my reasons. But just as I was about to hand over my sword to the blue squiggle, I had a revelation. I realized that grammar check was never my enemy in this thing. It turns out we were on the same side the whole time. The solution, you see, wasn't to cave in and conform to social conventions. It was to step further outside those conventions until I found myself back in the blue squiggles good graces. Because pretty much anytime there's a need to capitalize God, there's an alternative phrasing that robs the Christian God of some of his unearned cultural cachet. I'll give you an example. One of some of his unearned cultural cachet.

I'll give you an example. One of the methods is the one that I just employed. I was talking about Christian God, so I said as much. Instead of playing along with the cultural assumption that God means the God that Christians believe in, I specified. I didn't say it robs God of cultural cachet. I said it robs Christian God, which is grammatically correct even when the G droops below the line. Another solution? Just use his fucking name when you're talking about him specifically. That God's name is Yahweh. There are three reasons we don't generally use that name, though. Each one's stupider than the last. The first is that an awful lot of Christians don't actually know their God's name, right? They either don't know that Jehovah is a bastardization

or they don't realize he has a name at all. The second is because we're catching the English language after that aforementioned long effort to linguistically erase every concept of other gods. And the third reason, the dumbest of them all, is that that name is sacred. And when you say it out loud, it makes really devout Jews and Christians super sad. And when you consider all of those reasons together, those are three pretty solid reasons to use the name. When we call Christian God by his name, we're educating ignorant Christians who might be more inclined to see their

God as just another in the long list of deities pre-scientific people conjured up if they hear Yahweh, right? We're pushing back against the linguistic illusion that there is one singular concept of god that is common to all theists and we're pissing off the types of religious zealots who need pissed off most but of course there are other times when the correct solution to the capitalization of god problem is to realize that you're not actually talking about the christian god sometimes the right way to satiate the blue squiggle is to add an indefinite article. Instead of, they thought God did it, maybe what you mean to say is, they thought a God did it. Or maybe you want to retreat even further and say, they thought a supernatural agent did it.

I'd imagine making this change will be a taller order for me than most, since I spent a lot more time writing about God than most people who aren't enthusiastic about capitalizing it but i'm going to give it a go and it's something that you're probably going to hear in the show if you listen to it there will be no doubt times when brevity demands the shortest phrase and there will be no doubt other times when i just forget but yahweh has way more unearned legitimacy than he deserves and he sure as hell doesn't need any more from me. They're talking about you, Jesus. We interrupt this broadcast and bring you a special news bulletin.

Joining me for headlines tonight are the Atari and ColecoVision, to my Intellivision, Heath Enright and Eli Bosnick. Fellas, are you ready to play? Dig, Doug. Let's do it. Hoop and stick. Let's make it happen. Dad's generation minus two. We're on generation plus two, Eli. And quick, before I bore the majority of our audience with an explanation of what

the fuck I'm talking about, we're going to pause for a word from this week's sponsor, Aura Frames. Because it's totally cheating. Rules are rules, Eli. Hey, guys. What's the hubbub? Heath is beating me by two holidays so far this year. I mean,

he just destroyed me at New Year's, swept Valentine's Day, and now for Mother's Day, he's getting his mom an Aura Frame. What's an Aura Frame? It's the digital picture frame every mom and grandma wants this Mother's Day. It comes with unlimited storage, an easy to use app. You can even set it up while it's in the box. so all she has to do is plug it in. Wow, that sounds great. It is great. I got one for my mom and my sister and even for my aunt. They all love how it updates with new photos, and they don't have to do anything to set it up.

Amazing. Yeah, and right now, Aura has a great deal for Mother's Day. Listeners can save on the perfect gift by visiting auraframes.com to get $30 off, plus free shipping on their best selling frame. That's a-u-r-a-frames.com Use code SCATHING at checkout to save. Terms and conditions apply.

Yeah, I mean, I guess he's got you there. Yeah, he does. Three holidays. You know, you guys could do stuff that's not a competition. You mean like sleeping? We sleep. Yeah, we sleep. Okay.

Slept so much better than you. And now, back to the headlines. In our lead story tonight, atheism lost a titan last week when philosopher and best-selling author Daniel Dennett died at the age of 82. He was one of the pioneers of the New Atheist Movement, and unlike many of his colleagues, he never used that status to pivot into a career in transphobia, racism, or neoconservative talking points.

What? Yeah, right? He was a best-selling author of more than 20 books, including influential works like Elbow Room, The Varieties of Free Will Worth Having. Also known as Heath Enright is Wrong and is Afraid to Admit It. Darwin's Dangerous Idea, Evolution and the Meaning of free will worth having also known as he then right is wrong and is afraid to admit darwin's dangerous idea evolution of the meaning of life and breaking the spell religion is a natural phenomenon he's also the co-founder of the clergy project a non-profit that provides support for religious leaders who realize that god doesn't exist and he's as much a reason that

this show exists as anybody who isn't on this record right now. Yeah, and he was so wholesome and wonderful. I just want him to teach me to play chess while we drink homemade iced tea. Shirt right. Pitcher and the wooden spoon. I want to unlearn chess so that he can teach me in the past. Yeah. I mean, I never met Dan Dennett,

but I feel like if I did, he would have thought I was a little much. Yeah, probably. Probably. So quick bit of biographical information that I first learned from his obituaries. Daniel Dennett's dad was a spy for the CIA. And when he was a wee young tyke, dad actually took little Danny Dennett III along with him to live in Beirut as part of his cover.

Okay. Well, now I'm picturing five-year-old Santa Claus blending in. Right? Yeah, no, that's what it was. Jumping into a cart of hay. No, but after that,

he went home, he graduated from Harvard, he did his postdoctoral work at Oxford and became one of the most widely read and debated American philosophers of the last hundred years.

Right, but unlike when we say debated about most people, we don't actually mean he had a garbage truck of bad ideas that he demanded every following generation debunk for him. Well, right. He was just interesting. And so people talked about his books. Right. Now, of course, as heavily associated as Dennett is with atheism, I think it's safe to say that his longest lasting impact is going to be his work on free will or more accurately, the lack thereof. He was a pioneer in exposing the illus his work on free will, or more accurately, the lack thereof.

He was a pioneer in exposing the illusory nature of free will, though his adherence to compatibilism made him a frequent target from both sides of the free will debate. He spent decades as the preferred target for advocates of libertarian free will, but he was also pretty much the antagonist in Robert Sapolsky's recent book, Advocating but if anybody was well equipped to deal with constant vitriol it was daniel fucking dennett who was never better than he was when he was smacking down some critics of his work very good at that i'm picturing just like a very serious super hot fire yep yes for sure okay now i'm picturing dan dennett jumping from the top rope on top of robert sapowski and i think that's what he would have wanted. I think that's a lot of flying elbows, intellectual flying elbows, but a lot of them. Yes, exactly.

And look, I'm not actually familiar enough with Dennett's work to give him his due here. I've only read one of his books and I've seen a couple of his lectures on video, but if you want a glimpse of just how influential he was, check out his Wikipedia page and look at the list of notable ideas on the quick facts bio. There are 14 of them i i have been

in search my entire life for one single notable idea and i don't think i've come across one yet this motherfucker turned him out at the rate of once every six years once every five if you assume he didn't think any particularly noteworthy shit pre-puberty the point, the guy was a mental giant, and he will be missed. Hell yeah. And in hard-to- swallow news, last week, in case you missed it, we reported on what may be the most important story we have

ever covered here on The Scathing Atheist. As unintentionally hilarious as Four Seasons' total landscaping, and as breathtakingly lacking in self-awareness as the time Ben Shapiro's wife told him a wet vagina is a disease and that he said it on television. I'm talking, of course, about the time a sword-swallowing pole dancer at a Christian's men's conference made Mark Driscoll's pee-pee hard and he had to be removed from the conference

program as a result. Well, now there's even more to the story, and it is all so much more delicious. Even more delicious than Mark Driscoll's hard pee-pee, folks. Buckle in. Okay, so first of all, big thanks to me for sending us this story to scathingnews at gmail.com. I'm not saying if you send us atheist news to scathingnews at gmail.com, I'll give you a handjob, but I've jerked off multiple times since I sent us this story. So draw your own conclusions.

All right. To be fair, I've jerked off multiple times since anyone sent us a story that wasn't sent this morning. So I'm just not sure what conclusion you're expecting from this. Exactly. If you don't send us news,

you have to jerk off now. So as I mentioned... I don also have a statistic about that. But we're just going to move on. We're moving on, yeah. So, as I mentioned at the start, this all began at this year's Stronger Men's Conference in Missouri, where sword swallower and former stripper Alex

Magala was booked to perform. And, as I said, his sword-swallowing pole dance made Pastor Mark Driscoll tickle in his tummy. So after Magala left the stage, Driscoll got up and accused him of being filled with the Jezebel spirit, whatever that means. Well, according to the Bible, Jezebel was a murderous prostitute. So that means Mark Driscoll watched a guy swallow a sword upside down on a pole and he was like

I want to hire that guy for sex work and then he murders me. I gotta warn everybody and he jumped up on stage and warned everybody. I have to announce this to a room full of people. Right. So Driscoll gets himself thrown off stage and since then Driscoll and John Lindell

the pastor who booked the stripper have been having like a pastoral beef with lindell accusing driscoll of freaking out as an attempt to divide his church and family and urging him to repent that was a perfectly heterosexual half-naked pole dancing man deep throat and a a two foot metal shaft mark. Now admit it. Yeah, exactly. But of course, this is a Christian bad guy fight, which means there also has to be insane lying. So while defending Magala, Lindell said that he'd been a born again Christian for 10 years, is married with children and that quote, while Alex was here, he participated in worship. And when he was taken to the airport, our James River

church host watched as Alex boldly shared his faith with an individual. What? Yes, Alex, like many Christians, has a past. But he has been made a new creation. He's been made a new creation through his faith in Jesus Christ. Okay, to be clear, he was at the airport

and he was like, hey, other guy from group 11 who's crowding the gate way too early with me, do you have a moment to talk about Jesus Christ and his message of sexual sword swallowing? I'm on a mission. Well, and also, what's the argument? He used to make gay men hard,

but now he makes them hard for Christ? Right. So, yeah, it turns out Lindell might have gotten a wee bit carried away the argument he used to make gay men hard but now he makes them hard for christ right so yeah it turns out lindell might have gotten a wee bit carried away in magala's defense because uh this week magala got on instagram to set the record straight saying quote after watching a video yesterday from john lindell explaining and just defending me I just want to clear some details. First of all, I have no kids. I have a family. I have no kids yet. So that's number one. They will be on the travel team for sexual sword swallowing, obviously, Christianly. They'll do that Christianly. We're just not there yet. I don't have kids to be clear. Exactly. He continues, and secondly, some sources say that I

was saved by God around 10 years ago, which is not correct because I'm an Orthodox Christian. Orthodox Christian means that I get through the ceremony of becoming a Christian as a baby. So pretty much all my family is an Orthodox Christian and me as well. I know y'all keep turning Christian when you're already Christian, but even other Christians find that shit weird. Stop it. He concludes, and I love this so fucking much. I'll think about it every day for the rest of my life. Here's how he concludes. I know my way of expressing my faith is different. And let me explain just like real quick. That's how I see it. When I perform, I swallow a sword. And attempting a death-defying stunt, climbing on top of the pole and then going upside down,

the moment when I drop down, that to me is when I give my life to God. And that moment when I stopped one inch before hitting the ground, that's the moment when I get saved by God. God bless everybody. And book my show. End perfect quote.

You know that moment when you don't choke to death on the very large object in your throat? That's God right there. Like and subscribe. Yeah, exactly. So this story just keeps getting more delicious. Will it end in a pole dance off for God

between Driscoll and Lindell? One can only hope. They show up at the beach at dawn with wildly different concepts of what kind of sword fight they were supposed to have. Yeah. Next up in headlines, in Furries Paradox News.

Fantastic. With about 130,000 schools in the country, the odds are that one of them is going to put litter boxes in the bathrooms for all the cat kids who can only shit into a plastic box full of sand. That's just basic math. It took me a second to get the joke,

but you're right. It is. That's Furry's Paradox. It's fucking fantastic. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. It's just a matter of math.

Yet somehow, nobody's found a single example of that ever ever happening huh very paradoxical nonetheless every few months christian right lunatics get a chain email or they watch a tiktok and they start yelling about furries taking over their local school and the latest example happened last week when students at a school in utah staged a walkout about, well, not that. I love that this has become their go-to freakout because, right, it's not true. It's like obviously not true.

But even if it was true, it would have zero consequences to anyone who didn't clean the bathrooms in those schools. Right. So even in their persecution fever dreams, they're still not persecuted. Right. even in their persecution fever dreams, they're still not persecuted. Right? It's just a thing they might not get to persecute that they don't like. Yes. Yeah.

So the main lunatic spreading the absurd rumor this time was alt-right commentator Kaya Raychik, who is by the online moniker Libs of TikTok on various platforms. She has about 3 million followers on Twitter alone. And according to a recent post, the students who did the walkout were protesting, quote, the furries that bite them, bark at them, and pounce on them.

Oh, God. Now, sadly, that is not what happened at all. Very sadly. Oh, I was so hoping. It's nice of them to use their preferred verb, though, and say pounce, you know, rather than jump. Yeah, exactly. Nice. So what actually happened is a small group of kids would sometimes wear headbands with little ears on them, like kids do sometimes. And a different group of kids threw food at them.

So the school sent a message to parents explaining that, yeah, disruptive clothing is prohibited, but so is throwing food. That's the whole story. Well, yeah. Well, you can see how this freaked them out because nothing happened and that freaks them out every single time. That's true. They do react to that a lot. I'm sorry. The bullies staged a walkout about not being allowed to bully the cat ears kids. Correct. So in response to that very simple message from the school, some

of the local parents made a petition on change.org entitled students for humans at school not animals aka furries. That's the entire title of their thing. Well, right, because people would be like, no, animals at school would be fucking adorable with their little pencils. Great.

Right. Yeah. Because, you know, cats have ears and that relates to their stupid thing. Senor Petticoats. And they demanded a complete ban on furry costumes. To be clear, there were not any furry costumes. Nope. Regardless, the petition got 600 signatures,

and the ridiculous parents encouraged their kids to have a protest. And when the walkout happened, a local piece-of-shit radio host went to the school and interviewed some students. Those students mostly talked about a few kids wearing dinosaur masks. And then one kid shouted, and I heard they were putting litter boxes in the girl's bathroom. And of course, that right there is

the hard-hitting journalism that fuels a furry panic. Well, gossip from a 10th grader is actually well-sourced compared to what we come to expect from right-wing media, so yeah. Yeah, obviously. Do you think the people who started Change.org are like, this website was mistaken.

It's just mad moms talking about cereal commercials. We wanted to make democracy easier. So the furry litter box panic has been happening for years now. And it's pretty much always an attempt to make the stupid and very bigoted claim that a trans identity is the same thing as a feline identity joe rogan helped spread the litter box myth in 2022 during an episode of his show with special guest tulsi gabbard he later admitted the story was clearly fake and I've been kicked in the head so many times. I'm done.

And yet the same thing keeps happening. Earlier this year, a GOP lawmaker in Oklahoma introduced a bill that would let schools call animal control to remove any furry students from the building. As usual, that was in response to the nothing that had happened to the nothing. Yes. And now another school across the U.S. and Canada, this keeps happening, another school had to make an official statement explaining to their entire community,

I can't believe we have to say this, but no, we don't have litter boxes in the bathrooms. You're all idiots. I'm a superintendent with an advanced degree in educational philosophy. This is my job today. Thank you. Jesus Christ. And on that note, we're going to take a quick break and hand things over to my lovely wife, Lucinda. A man wrote the Bible. A horse, which one? If it's a legitimate race. You're a slut, right? Cooking can be fun. Hey, I'm proud of a man. This week in Misogyny.

Cooking can be fun. Hey, I'm proud of a man. This Week in Misogyny. One of the big lessons of the 21st century in America has been that our national commitment to democracy came from two distinct groups. One was the group who believed in majority rule as a moral imperative. The other was a group that was fine with that as long as the majority kept saying what they wanted to hear. But with an increasingly diverse electorate and increasingly empowered women, that latter group hasn't been hearing what they want as much,

and they're fucking done with this democracy shit. And I've got another great example of that via Jacqueline, who sent us this story at scathingnews at gmail.com. Thanks, Jacqueline. Anyway, so as you all know, Republicans have a huge problem when it comes to abortion. Since the Supreme Pontifical Court of the United States of Jesus

revoked our right to reproductive autonomy, Republicans have lost every single election where the question of abortion rights has been put to the people, even in deep red states. Because overwhelmingly, the majority in this country don't think we should force women into motherhood. And as much as mainstream Republicans are trying to just pivot away from the subject, it keeps coming up.

Like earlier this month when the Arizona State Supreme Court upheld an abortion restriction from 1860 fucking four. Just really hard to sell. Our views haven't updated since before the Civil War ended to the undecided voters. So it looks like a lot of Republicans are switching to a new tactic, pretending they're the pro-abortion ones. There are now multiple examples of this fucked up strategy in action, like in Nebraska, where pro-choice groups are pushing for a ballot initiative that would enshrine abortion rights into the state constitution until the point of viability so anti-abortion groups are pushing for their own ballot initiative that would enshrine abortion rights up to 12 weeks which matches the 12-week ban the republicans in the state have already enacted in other words they're trying to trick

pro-choice voters into enshrining their abortion ban into the Constitution by pretending it's a pro-abortion bill. And they're not the only ones doing it. For another example, we have to look no further than 1864. As you can imagine, the right to abortion is suddenly quite the hot-button issue in Arizona politics. A leaked strategy document that NBC reported on shows that the plan of Republicans there is to propose a ballot initiative that would protect abortion up to 15 weeks, but undermine it with a bunch of restrictions that would ultimately make the law toothless. It's basically the same strategy that cut-rate studios use to trick grandmothers into buying a movie called Finding Norman.

Except instead of preventing a happy birthday, they're revoking people's basic human rights. And when you think about it, what greater admission could you possibly want that these people are against democracy? Well, other than making it illegal to give water to people waiting in line to vote. The point is that by doing this, they're admitting that their ideas don't have majority support. And more than that, they're admitting that they don't give a shit. And with that important reminder to double check the ballot initiatives you're voting on, I'll wrap things up and hand you back over to Noah, Heath, and Eli.

Thank you, Lucinda. And in Bill Dunna Who Are news. What? You are. If you've been following our show for a while, you know that one of the few pieces of good news about the Catholic Church we've gotten to report on in the last couple of years is that the New York Attorney General, Letitia James, is finally doing something about all the kid fucking. In addition to demanding internal documents on child molester priests, the Attorney General's office is now working with the Archdiocese of Brooklyn to amend their child protection policy to, well, actually protect children.

Yeah, yeah, to do that. Yeah. And they released a statement to that effect. Well, in the opinion of the Catholic League and Bill Donahue, that statement about their decades of child rape was a little harsh. So he's got a response about it. Oh, lucky them so i okay between us how many times would you have to say and in the child rapist defense professionally before you would find a new job

right yeah you'd think already killed myself you'd think yeah so let's hear bill's objections now keep in mind that i am quoting directly from the Catholic League report with all of these objections. So, quote, OAG, that's the Office of Attorney General, says the archdiocese failed to consistently comply with its own policies and procedures for responding to sexual abuse. DB, that's the Diocese of Brooklyn, notes that the agreement specified that the diocese policies and procedures were significant and improved the diocese policies and procedures were significant and improved the diocese responses to sexual abuse. So it could have been worse?

Right. That's a weird flex. That's the argument? Yeah, the whiteboard makes the show less illegal, even though Eli ignores it a lot. I have no idea what you think you've proved here. As a correction, as a correction. All right, moving on. Again, this is all real quotes.

OAG claims the diocese did not have policies in place to ensure a prompt and thorough response to allegations of sexual abuse or misconduct. DB says the agreement admitted that in most cases, the diocese timely referred to the abuse allegations to the diocese and review board and hired an independent investigator to investigate the charges just gonna translate real quick he said sometimes we did

nothing about abuse and hired nobody to investigate there you go i fixed it yes yeah that's like arguing that your pool rules are fine as long as you try to resuscitate most of the people who drown in it. Most of the people. Next up, quote, OAG argues that the diocese will also post online a confidential portal and telephone number for submitting complaints. Breaking news, the diocese has had such a phone number for 20 years. Oh, cool.

Other breaking news, Alexander Graham Bell got a patent for the telephone in 1876. Lots of people had them by the 1920s. What are we talking about? Yeah. Continuing. O.A.G. opines that the diocese will also refer all complaints it receives to law enforcement.

Hello. hello unlike other religious and secular institutions which are never scrutinized the diocese has been doing this for a very long time yeah most of the time even yeah why are we the only ones who have to knock on everyone's door when we move into town this is persecution of sexual abusers sexual predators and finally OAG contends that the agreement requires the diocese to take significant action to prevent and address allegations of clergy sexual abuse and make reforms such as installing

an independent secular monitor who will oversee the diocese compliance with policies and procedures. Fact check, it was the diocese which proposed the appointment of an independent third party to monitor compliance.

Once they were under investigation for failing to do so. Yeah. Hello, breaking news. Think about writing hello about getting caught

for your child rape policy. But yeah, little sassy for a response to a legal body finally taking over our non-enforcement of child safety

for my taste. But then again, I'm a little harsh on the church. We'll see how the aforementioned O-A-G takes the feedback. Yeah, we will.

And in a bridge to cell news, but cell like C-E-L-L. Fantastic, yes. We have an amazing new paper that used cell phone tracking data to determine when people are in churches in this country and then compared those numbers to the responses people gave when asked if they

attended church. And to the surprise of nobody but Captain Renault, it turns out that the number of people telling researchers that they're going to church is more than four times higher than the number who are actually going. Yeah, those people, they're also totally fine and nothing's wrong. I'd say their phone died too, but we know it didn't. Yeah, people who answer the phone and say yes to pollsters are psychopaths. This is not a good way to get information, people. We got to stop using it.

People who answer the phone are psychopaths. Yes. And then somebody's like, I'm a pollster. And they're like, to an unknown number. I would like to have a conversation now. And they're like, yeah, I got 30 minutes. Absolutely. Favorite breakfast cereal.

Let's get in on it. All right. So look, so this is something everyone researching American religiosity has known for a long time. If you look at the number of people who say they attend church every week, and then you divide that by the average number of asses a church holds, you can calculate how many thriving churches it

would take to accommodate that number. And when you do that, you get way more thriving churches than America has. Leading researchers to conclude that either the majority of American churches are made of dark matter that they can't detect or the overwhelming majority of Christians are full of shit. Yeah. Full of shit about another thing.

You don't believe the Bible is true and the word of God. No, you don't. You're a liar. Absolutely. If you did believe that stuff, worshiping the lumberjack slam with Pastor Denny wouldn't be winning every Sunday against your church.

And we know that now. And look, I'm just saying, if God gave me unlimited coffee refills and septuagenarian waitresses who called me honey, I'd show up more for him too. Yeah, right. So what this new research did was very simply check the location tracking data of cell phones.

Researchers have access to vast amounts of that shit once it's been stripped of identifying information. And using that data, this researcher, whose name, by the way, was Pope, which I loved, he was able to show that about 5% of Americans attend a religious service on a weekly or near-weekly basis compared to around 22% that claim to. And I should emphasize here that this varies wildly by religion rightly mormons jehovah's witnesses and muslims for example attend church weekly at a much higher rate than catholics baptists and methodists the latter three of which by the way are the three largest denominations in the country i love that they're all lying to

just some guy from a polling thing. Like he's going to tell their mom after they say they don't go to church all the time. And to make it even dumber, their lie is about the omniscient being they claim to worship. Well, maybe if God upped his passive aggressive text message game. Well, there you go. Mrs. Sanderson said we haven't seen you in a while. Okay, God. No, of course,

the news wasn't all good. The paper also shows that around 45 million Americans do go to a religious service every week, which that's still an enormous fucking number. That number is skewed a bit

because church attendance is super high on Easter and Christmas, but those two weeks aren't dragging the other 50 up by all that much. It also shows that approximately 70% of Americans will attend a religious service at

some point in the year, and that's a frighteningly high number as well. Right, but even then, you have to count, like, no illusions in that high number because he didn't skip religious funerals, right? The point is, there's still fucking liars who cheat even when their numbers are high. Now, it's also worth noting, by the way, that the point is they're still fucking liars who cheat even when their numbers are high now it's also worth noting by the way that the data is skewed at least somewhat by cell phone

ownership right since the people who are least likely to own cell phones i.e poor and or elderly are also the ones most likely to attend church on a weekly basis the real number might be higher the research does its best to account for this fact but any attempt to zero that out it introduces like a possibility of bias that being said given the scale we're talking about the fact that most of the people who tell random researchers that they've never met will never talk to again that they attend church every week are fucking liars is beyond dispute yeah and finally tonight in money cash hoax news former trump staffer former aide to devin nunez who wrote the nunez memo current vitamin peddler and professional liar that whole time cash patel money cash hoax is selling a covid vaccine detox supplement on truth social because apparently we're chock full of toxins from the vaccine and even the unvaccinated patriots are at risk just based on physical proximity to the

vaccinated hordes the pills are jam-packed with it doesn't matter. And they're selling for one easy, unlimited recurring payments of $90 a month or so much less if you act now. Keep that in mind. Oh, fuck, fuck. I answered yet. Damn it.

The name of the main product, and I had to double check this because I really thought it was a joke. Maybe I was on the onion and I didn't know it. But no, this is real. It's called

NoCovidium. no-covidium. No-covidium. Jesus Christ. I bet real fucking money that there was a conversation somewhere about whether it should be called no-no-covidium, right? Because that would be more accurate. Oh, man. That line would be cut from idiocracy.

And yet here we are living it, huh? Living it in our day-to-day lives. Okay. So given the double danger of being vaccinated and being surrounded by other vaccinated people, for me, I decided to learn about the science of no-covidium and its many supplemental supplements that you can also buy for an outrageous discount in the next 10 minutes. supplemental supplements that you can also buy for an outrageous discount in the next 10 minutes. The first thing that happened is my computer absolutely refused to go anywhere. Fucking klaxons went off. My computer tried to kill itself with a grenade.

Google was like, blink twice if you're a hostage who's being radicalized right now against your will. But eventually I was able to promise my laptop that I'm checking it out, ironically. And I went to the site for their parent company. Again, this is a real name. It's called Warrior Essentials. Oh, you bet your ass it is. Fuck yeah. And they protect against the harmful effects

of the spike protein, which is part of the mRNA vaccine. And they're sharp. The spikes are sharp. So you got to protect people from it. They also have a site called SpikeGangsters.com. Oh, you bet your ass they do. And podcast listener, it is not problematically hip-hop themed. Disappointing.

I know. It just goes to the other side. Here's the sales pitch. Lots of autodidactic epidemiologists were smart enough to avoid the vaccine after doing their own research. But they're still at risk from all the sheeple who got vaccinated. Apparently, us vax heads are just spewing out the spike proteins, much like a person with COVID is spewing out COVID. They call it shedding. So anyone who comes within like six feet of a vaccinated person can get infected by spike proteins.

But, you know, social distancing, that's a a woke liberal term so you can't do that instead you got to get some no covidium the add-on truth social says you were immune to the propaganda but are you immune to the shedders the no covidium allegedly promotes the internal process called autophagy by which your body can eat up all that spike protein and make you safe. I love how close their tagline is to you're bad at knowing things. How about our product?

Okay, wait, sorry. Do the spikes give you COVID or the vaccine? Something is, what is the, what do the spikes do? I think it's the vaccine. It gives you. They make you feel full, but it's sharp.

Oh, sure, yeah. Yeah, so you might be saying to yourself, I think they're lying. I feel like they made up shitting. I am saying that to myself. Well, Eli, maybe you need to hear a testimonial. According to some fucking guy. A person. Quote, shedding is real.

Oh. Every time I'm somewhere with poor ventilation, I can always tell when I have heavily China-vaxxed idiots around. I start to feel a bit ug for one to three hours. It varies on how long I was there and how fast i can get virus free air at first i thought i was tripping shedding is definitely real and yeah well how much more reliable can you get than a guy who isn't sure whether or not he's recently taken psychedelics okay okay i'm on drugs again yeah no no no solid point noah well if the anti-vaxxer who doesn't know he just ate mushrooms wasn't good for you maybe you'll trust the section of the site called

doctor and physician feedback oh well apparently they found both of those types of people that includes dr yoshinori osumi who won a no Nobel Prize in 2016 related to his work on autophagy. And according to Osumi, quote, the important function of autophagy is the elimination of harmful or unwanted material, dot, dot, dot. That's the entire quote on their website. Oh, it's just a definition? Yep. Imagine being the TA that had to be like, hey, professor.

So, a lot of people finding out about your work. Do you remember when you said buy dot, dot, dot once and also pills dot, dot, dot once? Yeah. Gotta be careful about that. Hate to break it to you, but they're using that at Warrior Essentials. Okay.

Warrioressentials.com, yeah. I know Noah already did, but Eli, don't answer yet. I'm not answering. First of all, the no-covidium doesn't really work unless you also buy natto repair. Sure.

Which gets your autophagic stuff all yoked up with proteolytic enzymes. Oh, need those. That's very scientific. Okay, but it still doesn't work yet without also RestoraGene. Because right now, your bad genes are turned on

and your good ones are turned off. But don't worry. Oh, no. They fixed it according to Warrior Essentials. RestoraGene will, quote, turn on good genes and turn off bad ones. Oh, well, this is a no-brainer then, I think. I know this is fake, but I feel like if it was real and I took it, I would just vanish entirely.

Okay. Also, you need Lunacell, by the way. I didn't mention one more thing. because you're obviously not avoiding the hailstorm of spike protein shedding without a polypeptide complex of non-GMO soy and pea concentrates, also known as baby food in a pill. Call now. Oh, I can't answer yet. Okay, awesome.

There you go. Well, I've been informed that I should act now, so we're going to close the headlines there. Heath, Eli, thanks as always. To Monji. And when we come back, that I should act now. So we're going to close the headlines there. Heath, Eli, thanks as always. Too mongey. And when we come back, we'll explain why Don Ford's been sitting quietly

in the corner this whole time. So the slide is like his trauma? Oh, yeah. He's revisiting the moment when he thought his mom left him alone at the park. Oh, OK. He's revisiting the moment when he thought his mom left him alone at the park. Oh, okay. I had a much darker interpretation about, like, death and stuff.

Sorry, you thought Bluey had an NDE episode? I don't know what to think. The Australian dogs are sneaky, Heath. Okay. Hey, guys. Are you ready to do some Bible piece theater? Oh, you mean the part of the show where we act out the Bible so our listeners don't have to read it? I sure am.

Hey, wait. Don, when did you get here? Oh, when I tried to leave last time, Eli replaced the door with a fake one that led to a coffin, and he just kept me in there until today. Yeah. Didn't we skip a month last month? You did. Yes.

You did. Cool. I'm so cold. cold right so where were we in the bible well so jesus was arguing with the pharisees and he said that the only unforgivable sin was saying that he isn't god right right so we're gonna just do some more of that now i haven't seen my family in a month. Uh, Jesus? Oh my God, what now, Pharisees? Look, so we appreciate all the miracles and stuff, but we're wondering if you wouldn't mind giving us some kind of sign, you know, that you're definitely God. Okay, look, the only sign you're gonna get is the sign of Jonah.

Just as Jonah spent three days in the belly of the whale, so will the Lord spend three days in the earth. Wink. Wait, sorry, what's the wink? So Jesus is referencing that he's going to be in the tomb for three days. But he's not in the tomb for three days. No, he is not. Like, all the Gospels agree that he's in the tomb

for one day and two nights, right? I mean, well, maybe he means three days-ish. Ish? The Son of God kind of ballparks his prophecy here? Yeah, but apparently. Okay, I got it.

Got it. Okay, anyways. So, it's it. Got it. Okay, anyways, so it's like this. You know when someone is exorcised of a demon, the demon kind of, you know, wanders around for a while, just kind of looking, scoping out the new bodies and stuff, you know?

Uh, no, I do not know that. I don't understand that. But then, then, he doesn't find a place, so he's like, okay, fine, I guess I'll just go back to my old body, but that body is all clean and stuff, so he needs

seven other demons even worse than him to get back in, you see. Like a roommate situation? You could co-sign a lease. So confusing. I mean, anyways, those eight demons entering the body is what this generation is about.

How? What? You know, like, bad. Bad. Got it. Okay, so I was just thinking, everyone who wears socks with sandals, straight to hell.

That seems a little extreme. Uh-uh-uh, socks and sandals, Peter. Socks and sandals. Uh, Jesus, your mom and brothers are here? Hi, honey, I brought you clean loincloths. Who is my mother, and who are my brothers? Uh, honey. I brought you clean loincloths. Who is my mother? And who are my brothers? Uh, over there? Them?

No, no, no. Whoever does the will of God is my mother and brothers. See, it was kind of a thing. Wait, what, what, what? Mom, it's a metaphor. A metaphor, my ass, young man. I was in labor with you for eight hours, Mr. Metaphor. Okay, Mom, I'm God.

I need people to know that the eight hours, Mr. Metaphor. Okay, Mom, I'm God. I need people to know that the path through the Father is through me. Yeah, well, the path to you was literally through me when I was 12, mister, so pick a different metaphor. Okay, some scholars say you were 14. Still not great. Still not great, yeah. Wait, wait, wait, wait, sorry.

Jesus had brothers? I mean, half-brothers, yeah. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Sorry. Jesus had brothers? I mean, half brothers. Yeah. I feel like that should come up more. No? Oh, like on an episode of Bluey, maybe? Okay, the dogs talk about a lot of stuff, Heath. They talk about a lot.

He's right. They do. Yeah, I mean, I guess if they did talk about the brothers it it might be a little disappointing yeah i wonder what that would be like hi someone here oh hey uh so yeah welcome to christ carpentry can i help you with something? Yeah. Is Jesus here? He is not. I think he's on a boat with some guys or something. With some guys, sure. So I placed an order for a chair, like, it's maybe four weeks ago. Right.

Yes. So we are working on the chair. Jesus, he's been a little distracted i don't know if you heard but he cured the blind and the lame oh very cool very uh cool right so cool it's just it's just that he said the chair would take a few days right that was right yeah like uh i don't know when he's back and we have a lot of orders backed up i'm really sorry about this but we don't we don't have it yet you know what it's it's fine it's fine when it's ready it's ready cool yeah thanks for understanding and you know while i'm

here um i have this little thing on my neck i don't suppose i don't have any healing powers, man. I don't have that. Nope. Just a guy. Just a guy. Okay. Got it. So let me know when that chair is ready. Will do. Uh-huh. Why are you guys looking at me? Eli, you doodly-dooed to that out of the

beep. Oh, shit. Oh, did I do that? Yeah. So we're still in the beep. Oh, I was Oh, did I do that? Yeah. So we're still in the beep. Oh, I was eating. I was eating. So un-beep, man. Just un-beep. Okay.

I just didn't know. Oh, man. Nice day by the ocean. Finally, a little me time. Hey, Jesus. Oh, hey. Hey. Lord Jesus.

Hi. Silence, everyone. Hey. Lord Jesus. Hi. Silence, everyone. He speaks. No, I was just kind of, you know, doing a beach day. Wait, what did he say? Hush, you're ruining the speech. Okay,

okay, you know what? I have a parable. So, one time a sower is walking along right and he drops some seeds and those seeds fell on the rocks and some of the seeds fell on the

thorns and those were both bullshit but then some fell in the earth and they made like so many plants. The end. Fucking what? Sorry, sorry, Lord Jesus.

Yeah, hi. We were just kind of wondering why you're doing parables today. Okay, because you have eyes, but you don't see. You have ears, but you don't hear just like isaiah said so it's like uh if you know you know situation oh exactly if you know you know okay he says if we know we know know what though that's great but i know what okay you know what you know what i'll explain this one the seeds that fall on the rocks are people who hear the word, but don't take it seriously enough.

And the ones with the thorns, they hear the word, but they're too caught up in the world, you know, to follow it. But then like the ones that were in the ground, well, they did it good. I don't think he knows what a parable is. You know what? We'll just do this in a doodly-doo. It'll be fine. Lou, Lou, Lou.

Doing planting stuff. Planting stuff is my favorite stuff. Ah, well, a fine day's work. Time for bed. Myeh-heh-heh-heh. I am an evil man, and I will spread weed seeds with the good seeds. Sir, what happened to our fields? They're all full of weeds now. I know. Someone evil has done this.

Do you want us to pull them out? No, no. You might destroy the wheat with the wheat. When it's harvest time, then we'll pull the weeds and we'll throw them in a fire and we'll harvest the wheat. All right, you got it, boss. Okay, Jesus, what does that mean? The surgeon is a woman? Okay, no, oh, God, you guys, no, look, the wheat is good Christians and the weeds are bad people sent by the devil. Sure, yeah.

And the people who are going to throw the weeds in the fire are the angels who will throw the bad people into a furnace of fire for eternal torment. Wait, sorry, what? Did I not mention the furnace of fire before? No, nobody in this book has mentioned a furnace of fire as an angel punishment at any point. I don't remember that either. Oh, well, yeah, sorry. There's like an eternal fiery punishment for those who don't follow me.

I thought it was clearer. Okay, and you're giving this information for the first time in a riddle? Uh-huh. That's why it's so important to pay attention to the words that are coming out of my mouth. Sure. Got it. Got it. Okay.

So let's do another one with how doodly-doo this time. So you know how a mustard seed is the smallest seed there is? It's not. It's actually orchids. And yet, it grows into a tree. It does not do that. No, it's like a big

bush thing. The point is heaven is like that. Why? Because heaven's like bread, you know. What? heaven's like bread, you know What? It's like treasure

Sorry, are you asking us? Is this a question? You guys ever go pearl diving? Alright, that's it, Jesus Get the fuck out of town Okay, whatever, fine I'm going back to my Nazareth Great, go

Nerve of that guy Introducing eternal damnation to popular thought. Right? What an asshole. Asshole. So Jesus heads to Nazareth, but they are not fans. Anyway, I'm God or whatever. Whatever, man.

We all know your mom. Yeah, and your brothers, James and Joseph and Simon and Judas. We know them. Okay, wait. Sorry, I have a brother named Joseph? What can I say? I like a J name. Oh, mom.

Anyway. Boo. Boo. You suck. Whatever. Fine. I'm not going to do any miracles for you guys because you're mean to me. Enjoy hell.

Yeah, whatever, man. So now we're going to get the story of the whole John the Baptist in prison business from like a couple chapters ago. Oh, yeah. I forgot about that. Wait, why is he in prison again? He told Herod that he couldn't marry his brother's wife. Oh, makes sense that Heath does the voice. I do all

the king voices. This is unrelated. That's not a thing. Let's get to it. Heath, it's your line. I don't want to be King Herod anymore. Dude, you already did the voice. Heathelton, Bethesda, Elizabeth, and... Fine. Fine. It's a great party we're having. Hey,

servants, great party That's right, your majesty And now Herodias' daughter, your niece Would like to dance for you Oh, nice Little birthday dance thing Cool Excellent

Yeah, loving this, loving it Look at her go Look at her go. Look at her go. All right. Yeah. No, good job. Good job.

That's good. Did I please your uncle? Huh? Yeah. This is great stuff. I really loved the kicks you did. Oh, thank you. Oh, you're still here?

You're going to, like, hang out? Do you want something? Okay, yes, uncle, since you've offered me anything I desire. Nope, not what I said. Nope. I wish for John the Baptist's head on a platter. Ah, yeah. I'm really trying to not kill that guy.

A lot of people think he's a prophet, so... Any chance he'd be open to, like, a juice? Maybe some gold or something? No, I want John the Baptist's head on a platter. He insulted my mother. Man, she really is a Jewish woman. Yeah, he insulted my mother. Man, she really is a Jewish woman. So anyways, Jesus, that's how John the Baptist died.

Oh, how sad. I think what I need now is some time alone, you know, some time to grieve. Right, but there's like a crowd of 5,000 people who want healing and wisdom and stuff. Yeah, mostly the first thing. Should we just send them home? I mean, it's actually getting kind of late. Nobody brought any food. So least realistic story about the Jews in the Bible. Eli.

I'm just saying we have snacks. We have snacks. Okay, no, no, no, no need to send everyone home here. Give me those loaves of bread and fish. Okay, there you go. Great. Now there's bread and fish for everybody. What about leftovers?

Okay, and 12 extra baskets for leftovers. That guy gets it. Yes, I do. And with the anti-Semitism coming from inside the house, we're going to call it quits there. But we're back in a month with even more Bible Peace Theory. Before we slip back into the darkness from whence we came, I want to thank everybody who shared their eclipse stories with me. I know what it's like to be the only person in the room that gives a shit, and I'm happy to give a shit for you when I can.

Anyway, that's all the blasphemy 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 able to look out for a brand new episode of our sister show's hot friend, God of the Movies, debuting at 7 a.m. Eastern on Tuesday, and an even newer episode of our half-sister show, Citation Day, debuting at noon Eastern on Wednesday. Obviously, this show wouldn't meet with the OSHA standards

if I neglected to thank Heath Enright for all the self-deprecating humor. I want to thank Eli Bosnick for all the Heath-deprecating humor, and I also want to thank the lovely and talented Lucinda Lusions for telling it like it is, even though the way it is really fucking sucks. I need to thank Don for playing along again this month. I also want to thank Trump's ball sack for providing this week's Farnsworth quote. Seems unappreciative to say that I hope you get cancer at this point, but it would be dishonest not to say so. So there you have it. That's where I am in life. But most of all, of course, I want to thank this week's best people. But I was running out of time

putting this outro together. So in the sake of getting Morgan the audio in time, I have to compliment you by name on next week's show. Together, these wonderfully patient people who completely understand and don't begrudge me the delay at all help to keep us in regular food and electricity again this month by giving us money.

Not everybody has the money it takes to give some to us, 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 you can't get behind buying free shit, you can also help a ton by leaving a five-star review, telling a friend about the show, and following us on social media.

And speaking of social media, Tim Robertson handles that for us, and our audio engineer is Morgan Clark, who also wrote all the music that was used in this episode, which was used with permission. If you have questions, comments, or death threats, you'll find all the contact info on the contact page at skatingatheist.com. Now go see your family, Don. The preceding podcast was a production of Puzzle and a Thunderstorm LLC.

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