The Scathing Atheist - 613: Dear Waaabby Edition

Episode Date: November 14, 2024

In this week’s episode, we’ll see how believing in reality did at the polls, the Church of England come clean about a scandal Justin the nick of time, and we’ll learn that apparently we were playing Minecraft wrong. --- 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/ --- Guest Links: Check out more from Marsh on Be Reasonable and Skeptics with a K Check out the Bibliowrecks podcast here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bibliowrecks/id1702968867 https://open.spotify.com/show/7ICdAsxUvIfNuboh6Jpk8Q --- Headlines: Atheist election roundup: https://www.friendlyatheist.com/p/how-the-2024-elections-went-for-openly The Satanic Temple introduces 'Hellion Academy' at Bristol Tennessee Middle School https://newschannel9.com/news/local/satanic-temple-introduces-hellion-academy-in-response-to-tennessee-religious-bill The Satanic Temple introduces 'Hellion Academy' at Bristol Tennessee Middle School Church covered up 'abhorrent' abuse, report finds https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cje0y3gqw1po  Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby resigns over Church abuse scandal https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cj505ygdp17t  Dems try on irrational “stolen election” conspiracy theories: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2024/nov/12/threads-posts/no-elon-musks-starlink-wasnt-used-to-rig-the-2024/ One million mom’s freaks out over Pandora ad https://onemillionmoms.com/current-campaigns/pandora-be-love-ad-sparks-controversy/ Scientology-linked UK rehab centre falls foul of charity regulator https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/oct/20/scientology-linked-uk-rehab-centre-falls-foul-of-charity-regulator 

Warning, this podcast contains words that aren't profanity, which seems inappropriate given the circumstances. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by Factor and by the fact that they haven't even gotten around to coming for the Socialist Chat. We've got time. We've got plenty of time. And now, The Scathing Atheist. Hi, I'm Bugs.

And I'm BamBam. And we are the Bibliorex Podcast, where we read bad books. Such bad books. After almost a year and dozens of books, we can assure you that we did, in fact, evolve from filthy monkey men. And authors. It's Thursday. It's November 14th. And it's International Girls' Day!

Oh, quick while it's still legal. Right? I'm no illusions. I'm Eli Bosnik. I'm Michael Marshall. And from Debbie Harry's, New Jersey, Liverpool, England, and Waycross, Georgia, this is the Scathing Atheist. On this week's episode, we'll see how believing in reality

did at the polls. The Church of England come clean about a scandal just in the nick of time. And we'll learn that apparently we were playing Minecraft wrong this whole time. But first, the diatribe. Let me tell you a story. It's a true story. About, I guess, Jesus, 25 years now ago, I had a job working the counter at a convenience

store in Illinois, and among the wares we trafficked in were lottery tickets. Now, those came in three basic forms. You had your scratch-off tickets, you had your weekly Powerball drawings, and you had the twice daily three and four digit draws. And in my experience, the true problem gamblers tended to gravitate towards those last ones. In fact, there was a group of guys that I had dubbed, at least in my own head lottery snobs, cause they seemed to look down at people who use scratch off tickets.

And these folks didn't just pick numbers, they had strategies. Now, for those of you who have never played the pick three, and I would imagine that's most of you, they've got like a dozen different ways that you can play a number. Right. So you can pay your dollar and you can bet that like one, two, three is going to come up on the next drawing. And if it does, you win $500, But you have the option to add 50 cents to also play 3-2-1 for a $250 payoff if that misses. Or you can pay extra to play those digits in any order. Or you can pay extra for a small payout if you just get the first and last digits right. And they all had names, right?

So people would come in and they'd tell me they want to play 4-17 straight, boxed, reverse, scattered, smotherothered and covered or whatever And they all seem to think that if they did that just right that they found the right Combination of numbers and add-ons it was gonna give them an advantage at the lottery Now very simple math tells you that's a fool's errand right the payoff is always 50% of the odds You pay a dollar you have a one in a thousand chance of winning $500. You can monkey around with that all you want, but the odds always remain

the same. Your chance of winning X is one in two X, no matter how many variations you add. And though I'm sure my boss would not have approved, I did at least try to explain that math to a few of them once in a while. There was even one instance where I brought in a piece of paper for one guy I really felt sorry for it. I had done all the math and had little tables and shit. I showed it to him. But as you may have guessed, my carefully crafted charts and tables didn't sway any

damn body. And it's not like anybody disputed my arithmetic, right? They didn't say, well, you've done your math wrong. But my problem was that my math was based on that naive assumption that the numbers are just randomly drawn and that any one number is as good as any other. But among the pick three elite, there was a pervasive belief nays certainty that the numbers were actually being chosen by a nefarious cabal that was always trying to stay ahead of their clever guesses. It was not at all uncommon to hear them talking amongst each other and saying things like, yeah, but you know, they're never going to let that number come up.

But not only did the cabal choose the numbers in advance, of course they chose them with some kind of discernible purpose, right? That was the idea. My mistake was to treat all the numbers equal, but that's because I wasn't a lottery snob and I couldn't sense whatever numerological deficiencies they were privy to.

When lottery snubs would, for example, compare numbers, they'd say things like, oh, that's a good one, or I don't know if I'd have the guts to play that number. And for my part, I tried to penetrate this myth as well. I explained that randomly generating the numbers would actually make it better for the evil cabal, since any step away from randomness would be a step towards predictability. I pointed out that no number could be better or worse than any other. I pointed out that they didn't even need to invent a secret cabal that was trying to screw them over because the very public cabal running the lottery was very clear on how much they

were screwing them over. They printed the odds on the back of the fucking tickets. So they were creating a shadowy conspiracy to fulfill the functions that a well-lit conspiracy was already fulfilling. Now, I don't want to paint myself as the perfectly innocent observer here. This was at the height of my libertarian well-actualism phase. And I just figured, look, I was correct and they were incorrect, and all I would have to do is show them the data and teach them how to interpret it and then they'd come along to my line of thinking. After all, I was

smart and they were dumb. What I didn't consider is that by and large the people I was talking to were living paycheck to paycheck and the lottery offered them a dream of escape. No matter how illegitimate it was, it was a dream. And this illusion about a nefarious conspiracy that kept them down and kept their numbers from coming up, that was a protective measure against confronting what a flawed dream it really was. It was an excuse that, though intangible, could at least be held in the mind pretty easily, unlike all my charts and fucking formulas and whatnot. I looked at them and I just saw a bunch of stupid people who couldn't do math, but what I

should have seen is a group of people so thoroughly victimized by the world they lived in that their most plausible means of escape was a rigged system that always took twice as much as it gave. Now I'm sure some people are surprised that I didn't do another diatribe about the election this week, but I feel like most of you already realized that I did. And look, I get that a lot of people are going to say this is antithetical to what I talked about last week. After all, the last damn thing the American body politic needs is another person calling

for us to empathize with the plight of the fucking Trump supporter. But I'm not calling for empathy here. I'm calling for understanding. And no matter what our tactics are going forward, we desperately need to know why people voted for Trump. We need to understand that. We desperately need to understand what systems allowed us to churn out such a hate-filled and ignorant populace because we already tried showing them the tables

and the charts and that shit didn't work. Those idiots are still gambling with our future and they're pretty sure the only reason they haven't fulfilled their dream yet is that they haven't picked the right three digits. They're talking about you, Jesus. You need to wrap this broadcast and bring you a special news bulletin.

Joining me for headlines tonight are the shit, piss, and fuck cunt to my cocksucker motherfucker tits Eli Bostic and Michael Marshall fellas. Are you ready to remind folks why we aren't on TV? I mean, I don't know when the last time you checked on TV was Noah, but there's a lot of cunt fucking on those these days. It's on there. Oh, so we didn't get George Carlin over here because our seven words were, get wanker bollocks like toss a bugger belling. We're gonna pause I guess for a quick cultural exchange of profanity and while we do that we're gonna treat you

to a word from our sponsor this week, Factor. Hey guys, have you seen my- Jesus! What are you guys doing? We're storing up for winter Marsh. What's it look like? Is that a rotisserie chicken? Chickens. Poor old Marsh. And yeah, the days are getting shorter, but we got to fuel up fast.

Yeah, and Sam's Club closes like so early. So fast. Guys, if you want to fuel up on the fly, why don't you try Factor? What's Factor? Power through your busy days with Factor's no prep, no mess meals. From breakfast to dinner and anything in between, Factor has easy, nutritious options to keep you fueled and feeling your best. I don't know Marsh, don't those meal delivery kits take forever to make?

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How does truffle butter filet mignon or garlic herb roasted barramundi sound? Mouthwatering, right? That is exactly how that sounds, Michael Marshall, but where can I sign up? Head to factormeals.com slash scathing 50 and use code scathing 50 to get 50% off your first box plus 20% off your next month while your subscription is active. Alright Marsh, thanks. So will you guys stop doing that with the chickens?

I mean at this point it's kind of out of spite for the Costco ban. Oh, see. It's about sending a message. Gotcha. Yeah. And now back to the headlines. In our lead story tonight, it takes a lot of determination and a really high grade shovel to find any good news in last week's election.

But it turns out that there actually is a little bit to be found. And we're gonna start with the fact that non-religious Americans at least actually voted right. Overwhelmingly, according to data from the Associated Press, 71% of non-religious Americans voted for Harris as an increase from 65% who voted for Biden in 2020. So for whatever it's worth, the United States of atheism is doing just fine.

Great. And speaking for the rest of the world, can that be who holds the nuclear cords? Please? Right. Yeah. Maybe we try one where those people are the only ones who are allowed to vote for an election. You know, it just makes things up a little bit. Yeah, right. So there were also a few non-religious folks running for office. And I say non-religious here because we're talking about people who self-identify all over the map. Very few of them actually wear the label atheist, but none of them wear the label of an organized

religion. There weren't many of them as a percentage, but between national and state congresses, at least 170 non-religious candidates were running for office. And we know that thanks to a spreadsheet maintained by Friend of the Show and Friendly Atheist at Large, Hemant Mehta and the American Humanist Association's Political Action Committee Center for Free Thought Equality PAC.

And admittedly that worksheet is gonna feel like a mistake when the purges begin, but right now it's very handy. Yeah, right. Okay. So how did those 170 candidates do? Well, medium, I guess. Best I can do. It's worth noting that some of these candidates, they never had a chance. They're running in deep red districts where otherwise the Republican would be

unopposed or they wanted to draw attention to specific issues. But 77 of them actually won or at least 77. Some of the a couple of the races are still too close to call at the time this recording. None of those wins were at the national level. There were seven people running at the national level. They all lost, but that does represent a modest increase from the last election cycle. In 2022, America elected 72 openly non-religious leaders at the state level or higher. This year, it's at least 77. Now that gain may not seem significant to you, but I should point out that prior to the 2016 election, that number was five.

Oh, okay. Yeah, 2016. That's rough. The non-religious caucus shouldn't be able to hold its meetings in the carpool lane on the way to work. Yeah, right. To put that in perspective, there are 77 members of Congress who are non-religious. There are 22 men named John. We're barely beating out the Johns. Too worse, folks. But we're not. Okay, so the saddest part is that you're looking at Johns in U.S. Congress. I had to cheat. Yeah, no. Our number there is zero. The Johns have to be 22 to nothing if

you added all the Johns and state houses and Senates that we would be dwarfed by them yeah yeah chat GBT broke that news to me while I was trying to write that joke it was like hey man you're really fucked you know that I was like shut up chat GBT radical optimism but tied with the Johns though, were the 22 members of the Congressional Free Thought Caucus on the ballot, that is those members of Congress who have openly signed on to a commitment to promote policy solutions based on reason and science and to defend the secular character of government. And when you get over the horror that of the 800 plus people running for Congress, only

22 of them were willing to commit to that upfront. You can find some solace there. Yes. Solace caveated by overwhelming horror is very much the 2024 motif. It is in it though. Yeah. So yeah. So 21 of the 22 won their races. That actually though marks the first time a member of the Free Thought Caucus failed to gain reelection. Now that's mostly a product of the fact that Congress people always get re-elected and only people in really safe districts generally sign up to a pledge with the word secular in it, rather than the popularity of the secular cause. Right, and like the rest of us, one of those people miscalculated the stupidity and evil of the American people. So, look, we're down around 5% of our willing

not to live in a theocracy club, but I think it's not the biggest hit we took. Right. So, so yeah, a few bright pearls among the mountains of shit. The idea of running for office without pledging allegiance to Jesus or any other God is at least that much closer to normal. And there's yet more data that you can win reelection despite being a member of the free thought caucus. That matters, right? A willingness for members of Congress to openly pledge to promote reason and science has never been more important.

Oh boy. And in Hellion Wheels news, over the last week or so, we've gotten a few emails from listeners asking us if we're going to keep doing our shows. If feeling the way we do, hopeless, disappointed, and angry, we might just throw in the towel. If it's going to be too hard to write jokes about the oncoming terrors. And look, I get it, but I've done a lot of thinking over the last week about what we can do, disabused of the disillusion of the majority and without the hope of being saved by systems. And my answer is twofold. Well,

first, I can show up every week to tell you listening to this podcast that you're not insane, because you're not. If you were the only person in the country who believed that trans rights are human rights and that religion is a destructive delusion with no place in civilization. If you were the only person in the world who thought those things, you'd still be right, and you deserve to be reminded of that. But second, and perhaps more importantly, I can help you laugh right in the faces of those horrors, right? They're not gonna kill us any slower for our obedience, but we can deny them the satisfaction of our terror. So with that, oh, by the way, I've got a diatribe two moment out of the way, and with apologies

to what I'm sure is Noah's far better written and more thoughtful diatribe earlier in the show, let's get that laughing party started with some of that face laughing I promised you. And I can think of no better start than the news in response to Tennessee State Legislature bill HB 2542, which allows students to miss one hour of school to practice religion. The Satanic Temple unveiled a brand new program called the Hellion Academy of Independent Learning, also known as HALE. Yeah. Yup. I guess when your opponents have no empathy, your only option is to victimize

them back. I mean, the only option that you won't just beep out at least. Yeah. No, that's fair. Yeah, exactly. I don't know. Last couple of weeks, I think we're getting a lot less beats than we do. Yeah.

I mean, the fact that I'm endorsing victimizing is really kind of a new thing. We're getting there. We're getting there, everybody. I'm just saying he still gets to appoint Supreme Court justices for a really long time. Not really long. Okay. Now, I should point out that Hale is voluntary and only for kids whose parents have signed them up for it.

As June Everett, National Campaign Director for the After School Satan Club, puts it, quote, the kiddos end up doing a lot of STEAM projects, a lot of community projects, art projects, projects based on science and learning about the way the world works." So you know what that means. What are the guys talking about? It's the newest, the greatest Christian freak out. Yeah, they can't have a bunch of kids knowing the way the world works. That doesn't fit with them.

I mean, the fact that they'd be attending a satanic class just to spite religious folk into obeying the law is in itself a pretty good lesson about how the world works. Exactly. Yeah. So, as you can imagine, Christians immediately lost their fucking minds over this, meaning the district had to release a statement on their Facebook page clarifying from behind their bunker quote Hail is and will at all times remain an independent entity as defined by state law and will remain an Independent entity that Bristol Tennessee schools neither supports nor endorses

Our school system respects the rights of parents to make decisions related to their children And we will leave it up to parents to determine if they want their children released from school." Yeah. In other words, you did this shit, right? But that's the thing, right? They're in favor of parental choice, just like they're pro-life. Good on the Satanic temple for making them admit it. Exactly. And with a statement like that and the coming Department of Truth under Minister

of Education, Kirk Cameron, I think what we must do is clear. We need to make hail a mandatory in school activity of Satan worship right along with all the classroom Trump Bibles people. We can get way better pricing on a bulk order of diatribes volume two. Hit us up! And in canter, bury bad news news, when it comes to criticizing religion, it's tempting to convince ourselves that they're not all the same. That they're extremists and fundamentalists, and then there are the sensible progressive moderates, and we shouldn't be tarring them all with the same brush. And then something comes along to reassure us that we don't actually need to revisit our budget for tar applicators,

because the one brush we have will do just fine, thank you very much. Case in point, the revelation this week that the Church of England, the tea and scones and let's all get along face of Protestantism, knowingly covered up for a serial child abuser for decades. Hmm. Well, that's not the cake Susie Izzard promised us they were offering at all, Marsh. That's very different. Yeah, I guess no matter how you feel about the alternative, I think we can all agree that Canterbury cream eggs are something the world can do without.

So here's the story. During the 70s and 80s, a Christian barrister called John Smith ran conservative evangelical holiday camps at Winchester College, which is an elite private school in the UK. And why would you have such a generic name if you weren't planning on getting up to some shit? Right? Exactly. And during that time, he used his position of authority to physically abuse more than 100 young boys, including physically beating them with canes, thousands of times each.

And the charity that he ran found out about the abuse in 1982 and produced a report on Smith that they released to the general public in 2016. What? Yeah. They've not really explained why it took them 34 years to publish their We Harbor the Prolific Monster report. I assume it's just that those old dot matrix printers just ran really, really slow. Sure.

Sure. And I think it's weird because if I discovered someone was physically abusing my son, you'd find out on the news that day because of all the blood. They tend to follow the trails. The blood would be all over. So while the report was busy not getting released, the church encouraged Smith to flee to Zimbabwe, where in 1984 he immediately set up an abusive evangelical summer camp for local Christian boys.

And he was arrested there in 1997, when one of his pupils was found dead in a swimming pool. But he was released after it was ruled by the police unlikely that he killed that child. And we've got to ask now, how unlikely was it given that he had a long and unpublished history of child abuse that the police at the time did not have access to? Yeah, telling that when they discovered his abuse, they decided he was unfit to be around white kids though, right? Yeah.

Weird. So it's worth pointing out that while he was doing all this, in his parallel career throughout all of his time, he was a barrister and he was the Christian morality crusader who worked closely with Mary Whitehouse, who was the UK equivalent to Phyllis Schlafly. Put down your shovel, Eli. He doesn't mean it that way. Let him speak for himself. No illusions.

So yeah, while Smith was in court arguing that gay people were a threat to our children, he was also sexually and physically abusing more than a hundred pupils at that time. Yeah, because every right-wing accusation is a confession. Yep. Hey, maybe they did steal the election. Spoilers for my next story, Eli. Sorry, sorry. So, Smith died in 2018 having never faced justice.

Oh. And he's got the Church of England to thank for the fact that he never faced justice. Because a recent investigation into how his crimes were covered up showed that when Justin Welby became the Archbishop of Canterbury in 2013, he was told everything about Smith, but he was also told at the time that the police had already been notified of Smith's crimes. And Wellby just accepted that. No further questions, no follow up at all. And look, I've no idea if he was lied to about the police being aware of it or not, but if

you get appointed to be the head of an organization that's already spent decades lying about and covering up a prolific child abuser, I feel it's on you to send that follow up personally. Right. Especially when you bear in mind that the more senior member of the Church of England, Welby is a member of the House of Lords and routinely met with everybody in power. So we're just meant to believe it like slipped his mind to ask someone about that serial child abuse case his organisation had been covering up.

Let's see. New stationary pens. I feel like I'm forgetting something for my new job. Oh, that's it. Nameplate on the door. Phew! Yeah. Right.

I'm sorry. Wait. So he's saying that the official story that he believed was that they told the police all about the abuse and they couldn't be bothered about it? They were like, well, past is the past. Yeah, he was always just waiting for something to happen. And so after initially refusing to resign, Welby finally did the semi-decent thing and quit as head of the church. And I say the semi-decent thing because the decent thing to do is tell the fucking police the

second you find out about the decades long coverup of the abuse of over 100 children. Right. Or, you know, feed yourself to fire ants as penance. But not even Marsh is that helpful, folks. So we've got the religious protect our precious children conservatives turning out to be the very monsters they accuse others of being, and the reasonable face of modern progressive religion being entirely complicit in covering up those heinous crimes. others, they accuse others of being, and the reasonable face of modern progressive religion being entirely complicit in covering up those heinous crimes in order to protect the brand.

So yeah, the next time there's some righteous tarring to be done, no need to spring for that second brush. And speaking of tarring, it's time for us to take a quick break and hand things over to my lovely wife, Lucinda. A man wrote in the Bible? A horse, which one? If it's a legitimate race. It is a slot, right? Cooking can be fun. take a quick break and hand things over to my lovely wife Lucinda. So I've been going for a week. Any misogynistic shit happen while I was away? Y'all, I'm gonna be honest with you. I sat down to do this today and I just couldn't. Because you see, step one in bringing you this segment is combing through the various news sources where you find the most misogyny. Sure, sometimes

we get great web stories in our inbox at scathingnews at gmail.com, but mostly I find them in the wild. I go to right-wing websites and left-wing watchdogs and I look for the kind of shit that matches what we talk about here. But right now, all those right-wing websites are gloating and all those left-wing watchdogs, and I look for the kind of shit that matches what we talk about here. But right now, all those right-wing websites are gloating, and all those left-wing watchdogs are talking about the gloating, and I just can't take it. America was given the choice between a well qualified, articulate, compassionate, intelligent woman, and a pampered, boorish, heartless idiot of a man, and they chose the second one. And it's a story every woman is familiar with because it's a story that every woman has lived through.

And even the parts of the media sphere that I can stomach at this point are already hard at work churning out that fog of denial. They're all going, gee, what could possibly account for so many people in so many demographics turning against the nominee that voted for Biden? Yeah, what possible difference could there be that would unite people across racial lines like that? And they'll tell me it can't be sexism because

Harris's support dropped among women too, as though women can't be sexist, as though anybody can be raised up in this patriarchal culture without internalizing some of its sexism. And of course, it wasn't just one woman on the ballot. We all were. Even when you set aside the fact that the man we elected is an adjudicated rapist who brags about sexually assaulting women and ran on a platform that promised to protect women whether they like it or not.

Because the biggest change Trump was able to wrest from America in his first term was repealing the right to abortion. It was his signature achievement. It was his Obamacare. And even though he kind of ran away from it down the stretch in the campaign, when you look at the people he's surrounding himself with and the people he's pandering to, there's no question that it gets worse from there. Take the way JD Vance and Elon Musk judge women by the size of their broods, for example. Vance gave a speech in 2021 about the problems with no-fault divorce where he strongly implied that women in abusive relationships should at least try to work things out first. Elon Musk has said multiple times that declining birth rates are going to lead to the collapse

of civilization. You couple that with the Christian ongoing effort to restrict access to contraception, and you have to be deluded not to think access to that is at risk. Look, Harris lost for a lot of reasons, and everybody seems to think her loss proves their point. But women all over this country lost along with her. And if you doubt me on that, I'm sure Trump's new, even more unhinged administration will be quick to prove my point for me. And I just want to add one thing before I wrap this up. A lot of people sent me emails and messages in the aftermath of the election expressing their fear and resentment and desperation.

And I was as overwhelmed as y'all were, so I didn't answer back to as many of those as I would have liked to. But I am proud that you felt safe to send me those thoughts. And I want to make sure that you know that I'll remain a safe place for them. And on that note, I'll wrap things up and hand you back over to Noah, Eli, and Marsh.

Thank you, Lucinda. And in stop the stop the steal news tonight. Idiots gonna idiot. So as sad as I was to see dingbats on the left peddling stolen election conspiracy theories in the wake of Trump's win, I wasn't at all surprised by it. But yeah, apparently there is a conspiracy theory taking root now that says that the Russians were able to manipulate vote totals in America because both Russians and US voting infrastructure

uses Starlink satellite services Which as a friend of mine who works in satellite technology put it isn't Significantly different than saying they could hack the election because both the Russians and the voting infrastructure use fiber optics Right. Yeah, look I hate the results of the election, but I think we can all agree that the solution is not for more people to believe untrue things, right? That's the problem in the first place. That's what got us. Well, or, and hear me out here, maybe you can offset their lies with your own lies and somehow kind of balance things back to reality like a...

Oh! ...a revol a window of partisan delusion. I like this. I like this. If nothing else, it's the plot of a great farce, right? So okay. So here's the bones of this, let's call it theory.

Starlink satellites were used to upload election data in swing states that were hit by Hurricane Helene. And I'm sold. This all sounds real. Right. You took longer than most. in swing states that were hit by Hurricane Helene. And I'm sold. This all sounds real. Right, you took longer than most. Musk owns Starlink and is a Trump supporter. Musk gives Russians access to Starlink

and they support Trump too. Ergo, Russians uploaded fake votes to push Trump over the top in those states. And as further, let's call it, evidence, right after these claims started to bubble to the surface, a Starlink satellite unexpectedly exploded in space. Which conspiracy theorists, of course, are claiming was done intentionally to destroy evidence.

Yeah, which is obviously super stupid, because satellites can just hover above the flat earth in the first place, right? They don't need to blow it up. Yeah, which is obviously super stupid because satellites can just hover above the flat earth in the first place, right? They don't need to blow it up. I mean, true, but it didn't spontaneously explode. It just got hit by the sun that was moving over the flutter to make somewhere else data. Exactly.

Right. As it so often does. Okay. It's a figure eight. Right. So we do not have room in this show to get into everything that's wrong with those claims. But suffice to say that everything is wrong with those claims. First of all, I don't think Starlink was even used to upload vote totals.

I couldn't find a single instance of that happening any fucking where. But also vote totals are encrypted when they're uploaded. Obviously, they would be end to end encrypted. Discrepancies between vote tabulations and transmitted results also would be noticed. So even if you did manage to slip some in, people would say, hey that's not the right fucking number. Tabulations are on machines that cannot be physically connected to the internet. That's an impossible thing and it's against the fucking law. Also, Trump won in swing states that weren't hit by

Helene and about the same rate he won in the ones that were. Also Starlink satellites explode all the fucking time. That's one of the big problems with the damn things. Yeah. Like if we cried conspiracy every time a machine built by Elon Musk caught fire, we'd never get any work done. Thank you.

Right. Right. And also even if they didn't, what you can't recover physical evidence from a fucking orbiting satellite, what are you going to go get it? Yeah. Today, where they were worried somebody from the fucking internet would go get it. Why don't they make the whole satellite out of the black box? Am I right? This is how I'm avoiding the election results is I'm a comedian in 1996.

If you want to join me. I appreciate the warning. I got some airline food. Do a blowjob joke. Quick go go. I got blowjob jokes. I got black guy voice. I got black guy voice.

You sure don't. You sure don't. So it's also look. Never let me have any fun. It's also it's really fucking stupid to start inventing conspiracy theories about Russians hacking the election through Starlink when we know for a verifiable goddamn fact that they were calling in bomb threats to Democratic strongholds and swing states on election day. That's a thing both sides fucking agree on.

So if anything, the conspiracy theories about Russians interfering in the election will distract from the fact that the Russians interfered in the goddamn election. Okay, but maybe the bomb threat that they kept calling in was the bomb on the Starlink satellite that they were about to blow up. Have you ever thought of that, Moa? I mean, look, I sympathize, right? One wants the two elections Russia has cost us in the last 20 years to have used tools other than tweets at your stupid grandma.

Yeah, but we'd say your stupid grandma is how they did it, people. Well, that's the other thing, right? They don't have to resort to that kind of shit. Now, look, I do want to be clear, though, before we move on from this story. This is not a both sides story. Right? A lot of people are going to try to pretend like it is because a lot of people have a lot riding on the both sides bullshit, right? It's how a ton of motherfuckers are sleeping at night after not voting after all. I hear killing yourself helps with that. Zero tossing and turning.

Yes, as I understand it. But let's be clear on a couple of important differences between what the left is doing here and what the right did in 2020. Most notably, the fact that among the supporters of the conspiracy theory is not Kamala Harris. Right? I feel confident saying in advance that she will not hold a fucking rally where she tries to use starlink conspiracy theories to interrupt the peaceful transfer of power. Oh, but that's a shame though. I really want this to lead to a really uninspired storming of the capital.

So people just walking around in there unenthusiastically like, I mean, I guess we do need to go shit on the speaker's desk, but I just wish Kamala had made a stronger case for it. A pulverizing case for it. He's screaming at me to light the desk on fire. I'm doing it, you know, a pulpit in case for it. He's screaming at me to light the desk on fire. I just, I'm doing it, man. I'm just, I didn't bring my good liner. All right. So, but another key difference is what we're doing right now, right?

Because our right wing analogs, the people on the opposite side of that fucking chart from the skeptic rat, spent the days after the election stoking this kind of shit rather than debunking it. Right? So even when we do mirror one another, it's important to remember we are not the same. Uh-uh. And in Hey Siri, play Ain't a Lingus News. This is just gonna give everyone who's driving a chance to fix their car

curse my name for a second. Okay, here we go. Hey, Siri, unsubscribe from Dear Old Dads. Oh, can't... Not funny, Marsh. If that works on just one person, you have halved my audience, sir. Halved, I say. Anyway, if you're like me, you spent this week thinking about revenge.

Fantasizing in a full- on fugue state about making your fellow Americans feel even one one hundredth as terrible as you feel right now. Wishing, which is totally legal, that someone would kill a truly breathtaking number of conservative Supreme Court justices while Joe Biden still gets to appoint their replacements. You know, that kind of thing. That's not as bad as it sounds sounds folks. Any number would be breathtaking. Yeah, I mean given how bad your country's got, even zero would be a bit of a shock if the numbers didn't. Yeah, exactly.

Really? But the good news is, the good news is, if you're gay, your revenge on Christian idiots is just existing. And there's no better group to prove that point than the percentage point of their name that is a one million moms. Eventually we're going to run out of ways to say magnitudinally challenged, but today is not that day. No it is not. No it is not. So what are the one million moms freaking out about these days? Well, mostly swearing. A quick perusal of their website shows no less than seven current campaigns about implied swearing in commercials.

They've also got a campaign about an AT&T ad, which implies parents looking at their new iPhone are fucking, and a complaint about a feminine health product you call your lady parts, as long as you take serious care of them with the number one doctor recommended PhD feminine health. I honestly don't know if they're mad at blueberry muffin lady parts or doctor recommended. Maybe they think number one is a reference to peeing. It's unclear. It is unclear. Yeah, I think it's seeing PhD and feminine in such close proximity.

That's what's throwing them because they still think the good Lord invented kitchens for all a learning a woman needs. Yeah, this is Jill Biden all over again. But these war on words are nothing at the affront they take at the existence of gay people. In their newest campaign, they say, quote, jewelry company Pandora, through its liberal advertising choices, is attempting to normalize the LGBTQ lifestyle. A recent Pandora commercial, Radiated, Initiated, Accepted, Expected, Be Love, includes a heterosexual

couple, sisters, and a lesbian couple hugging, singing singing and embracing one another Unfortunately Pandora blatantly throws homosexuality in the viewers face with the lesbian couple Okay, so no more than they do with the heterosexual couple But but I find it interesting that your first thought about lesbians is Having one thrown into your face Monica Yeah, I think someone's maybe a little curious as to what's inside Pandora's box there. Well done, sir. They continue, Pandora should avoid aiming to please a small percentage of consumers while pushing away conservative customers.

However, it seems that the company wants to clarify its stand on this controversial topic instead of remaining neutral in the culture war. Okay, every single statement we have ever read from Monica Cole on this show is some variation of, I'm mad about how insignificant I am. Yeah. She concludes, while there is concern about how this advertisement is pushing the LGBTQ agenda, it is also of great concern that this commercial is airing when children are likely to be watching."

End quote. So, you know, during times. So yeah, I guess my point is, if you're feeling blue these days, and who could blame you, just remember that your joy, your very existence, sends the people who hate you into an apoplectic rage. So take your girlfriend out for ice cream, knowing that somewhere, somehow, a one millionth of a mom is mad about it. BOWEN LAUGHS

And finally tonight, in Narka nonsense news, listeners may well know that as well as being Puzzle and the Thunderstorm's regular UK correspondent, I also have a full-time job working for a science charity. And a few years ago, working for that charity, I threatened to sue the Charity Commission in the UK, which is the regulator of charities for not really regulating charities. And if you want to know why I did that, you'd struggle to find a better illustration than Narcanon UK, the registered charity which helps people to quit their addiction to drugs by torturing them into an addiction to Scientology instead.

Yeah. They make you talk to a man over the age of 40 about Top Gun Maverick till you convert. The longest holdout has been 11 minutes. It was a long elevator Eli. So, but wait, but this does imply, right, that there might be some amount of drugs you can do with a person to cure them of Scientology, which means I have found my calling. This is your fucking chance Noah. Now no one gets a workshop at QED. I'm pretty sure that point about drugs is the reason L. Ron Hubbard hates psychiatrists. I think it's exactly the same reason.

Oh, you're right, actually. But according to a recent investigation by The Observer, which for anyone unfamiliar is The Guardian wearing its Sunday hat, Narcanon UK uses the methods of L. Ron Hubbard to help people break their drug addiction. And because the methods of L. Ron Hubbard range from completely useless to outright dangerous, it's way more often that the person breaks before the addiction. Yeah, if your methodology merits an Oscar-nominated performance in a Paul Thomas Anderson movie, it's probably not great health care. You know what I'm saying?

No. And because these are Scientologists, the answer to every possible question, and especially any question that's even vaguely psychological in nature, is always auditing. Which is why their solution to drug addiction is to put patients through grueling psychological drills like asking them the same question over and over and over for hours at a time, or getting them to point at the same object repetitively for five hours a day for weeks on end. It's like hanging out with your friend's toddler, except they call it medicine and charge you 15,000 pounds.

Paul Matz Actually 15,000 pounds is pretty cheap for a toddler. Jon Moffitt Yeah. So for those of you who don't know the history, I think it's worth pointing out that the origin of Scientology is L. Ron Hubbard saying, I invented a new form of psychotherapy and psychologists going, oh, we're regulated for patient safety and L. Ron saying, oh, I meant religion. I invented a new religion. I invented a religion. Yeah, 100%. And as one former patient explained, quote, you're helpless there and the only way out is blind submission or lose thousands of pounds. If I'd have had any concept of what the program actually was, I would have never signed up." And bear in mind, this is someone who is so addicted

to drugs that they saw professional help, or at least unprofessional help, but the thing that they wished they'd never started and never said yes to in the first place was Scientology. Steve McLaughlin Right. Yes. Well, yeah, because fucking cocaine only makes you think people are following you at least. And so you might wonder why addicts would turn to Scientology for help. And the answer really is twofold. But firstly, Narconon UK are a registered charity in the UK, and so they look completely

legitimate unless you're able to spot the warning signs, which people suffering from seek help levels of addiction are less likely to be able to spot. And then secondly, Narcanon actively hide those signs of Scientology until you've already signed up and signed away your life savings. When an undercover reporter at a Narcanon sales rep, if they're related to Scientology at all, the answer they were given was no. And that answer was a lie.

Okay, now Marsh, were given was no. And that answer was a lie. Okay. Now, Marsh, that's not fair because all you have to do is scroll to the very bottom of their About Us page to the ninth entry down where you'll see an off-center hyperlink that says L. Ron Hubbard. Complete and total transparency. Yes. No, and sure, if you click that link, it doesn't say the word Scientology anywhere or even directly admit that he's affiliated with their method.

But it does open by describing him as quote, among the most beloved humanitarians in the last hundred years, end quote. And only a Scientologist would say that. So there you go. There's your evidence right there. Transparent. Absolutely. Yeah.

I sent the screen cap that shows this to Heath because of the aunt centered quote and just said, hope you're having a bad vacation. And like this all might sound like the kind of thing that regulators would take seriously and there is a regulator specifically for substance misuse programs in the UK but only the ones that are proven to work and because Narconon is an alternative substance misuse plan the regulator won't touch it, which is why they literally just ignored 14 serious complaints over the course of four years about this. Well, maybe you should try the Scientology method and just call them about it with the

same complaint over and over again for five hours a day. That might work, yeah. So instead, complaints were made to the Charity Commission to investigate them under charity law, which they took nine months to decide that Narconon can carry on as long as they're more transparent about their links to Scientology, and as long as they're more prompt with their filing. So the pseudo-scientific treatment targeting vulnerable people and torturing them on behalf of a dangerous cult can carry on exactly as they are as long as they don't miss any paperwork

deadlines. And this is how I know there will always be plenty of work to keep me in my day job. Right. And with the sad realization that Marsh could have been describing the American election with that last description, we're going to wrap the headlines for the night. Eli, Marsh, thanks as always and or sometimes. G-Mongy. And when we come back, we'll have to call the Whambulance.

As hard as it might be to believe, given the recent election results, we are actually still winning the culture war. People are gay and trans and black lives do matter, no matter how many stupid people live in the state of Pennsylvania. And while they may not have been banished to the dustbin of history officially, privately more and more of these dinosaurs are meeting their fate at the hands of our great cultural meteor. And as they meltdown, we're gonna point and laugh at it in a new segment that we like to call dear

Webby I'll figure out how to say it later. So We'll maybe make a little intro or something like that get on that Morgan I'm kidding. So What have you got for us this week Eli? Alright Noah. Well, this comes to us from a sub stack titled parents with inconvenient truths about trans Truths About Trans or PIT. Not with that acronym's too pwetat. Okay, no one's with inconvenient truths about acronyms. And this post is called, How a Seemingly Innocent Gift Led to My Child Becoming Trans in scare quotes. Okay, did someone tell them about that puberty blocker advent calendar idea that I had? Because that was raised in confidence during our destroy western civilization AGM. Yes, obviously.

I don't think it's about that, man. You're the one now telling everybody about it. All right. It begins. In 2014, my son started to ask for the popular block building computer game known as Minecraft. Later that year my wife and I decided to get said game for him and he loved it. So yes, were three misgendering and counting in like what first two sentences? Buckle the fuck in. He constantly showed us his latest creations and buildings. Little did we know this seemingly innocent game was a gateway drug to cross-sex hormones, wrong gender pronouns, and a replaced name.

Much like a Minecraft video, I cannot wait to see how he's going to put all this together. Oh, that's funny. I was going to say much like a Minecraft video, I wish I never had to see this. It's because you're not hip and skibbity like us, Marsh. We're quite skibbity here on The Scaling Atheist. Not nearly skibbity with a K. Okay, continuing. You see, while it might seem like a healthy outlet for creative expression, Minecraft

is actually a very popular game among so-called trans-identifying children, again in scare quotes. The reason for this is because the game allows for expression of dangerous ideas and has little to no moderation being primarily single player. Okay, so the real reason it's popular with trans kids is because it's popular with all kids and trans kids are a subset of that group. But okay, whatever. Also it allows for expression of dangerous ideas. I mean, so does Lego if you arrange the blocks into the right letter. Sure. Damn danglish language. It allows for the expression of dangerous ideas. Gotta do

something about that. What we need is some kind of new speak. One of the most problematic parts of this horrible game is the ability for players to upload their own skin. And I was with him for a second. Can I say? I was right there with him, but don't worry. No, it's transphobic bullshit. Essentially, each player can create a character for themselves in a simple photo editing app, such as Photoshop. This means that the selection of characters is limited only by the player's imagination. And their Photoshop abilities, surely. Right, yeah. On the surface, this seems to be a positive of the game.

But it turns out that it is not Wait until he finds out that Super Mario Brothers 2 lets you play as a lady regardless of your genitals, right? Okay, he's gonna double down exactly on that now listen the unlimited customization Dangerously blurs the boundaries of gender It's a pixel art game. Everything is blurred. That's Minecraft. Yeah. And especially considering the predominantly young player base of Minecraft... Okay, average age of Minecraft player is 24, motherfucker.

Yeah. Can be very confusing in terms of gender. One of these confused young people is my son, now 21 years old, who, it turns out, had been using the default girl skin of Minecraft, often shown in marketing alongside a more fitting masculine character. While this is not concerning on its own, having done so since the age of 11 will surely have contributed to his gender confusion." Surely is the word that you went with? Plus, also if you're a block, where would your penis even go? Well, the argument is playing as a girl character made her kid trans. Like, yeah,

it's just like how every girl I knew growing up is now either a trans male or a hedgehog, depending on whether they say the Nintendo or Sega. That's true. He continues, However, this dangerous, confusing option is not the only element of Minecraft that contributed to my son's gender confusion. You see, while Minecraft is most often single player, or on large-scale mini-game type servers, essentially giant online arcades made in the block game, it can also be played in the traditional survival mode in multiplayer. While multiplayer games are an excellent way for kids to interact with each other, it can

also provide a way for them to communicate dangerous ideas without the guiding hands of their parents. Well, yeah, no, right. Again, Minecraft promotes transness much in the same way that telephones and the written word do. We should get rid of all of this shit. We need to get rid of it. Yeah, quick, get rid of kids' coloring pencils in case they draw something a bit gay while

you're at it. Yeah. You draw a cock on that self-portrait right now, son. You draw a cock on that right now. Ever technically minded, my son set up a multiplayer server to play with his boyfriend when they were 14 years old and just started dating. Unfortunately, due to Minecraft's neglectful failure to include any filters or safeguards against dangerous and confusing ideological statements, It served as a funnel for the two of them to encourage each other in their transition. Okay, what would he think the filters would look like?

What does he think they're capable of putting into the game that would untrans his kid? Yeah, okay, he doubles down though. I have to clarify. I am reading real quotes. of putting into the game that would untrans his kid. Yeah. Okay, he doubles down though. I have to clarify. I am reading real quotes. I'm not editorializing. Yes, that's right. My son's boyfriend is also gender confused.

What's worse is that these two, who are perhaps the worst possible people for each other. I'm going to throw in a nomination for the parent who wrote this to this to me Are engaged to be married in a lesbian wedding later this fall. I Of course was not invited heaven forbid. I try to save my son from his horrible confusion Okay, well who else is shocked that he wasn't invited anybody else? I know he was gonna do the ceremony the other boy I suspect is the reason that my son is so confused as to his gender. So not the game then? Not Minecraft at all? And if another confused youth with no malicious intent was able to confuse my son through

the game of Minecraft, imagine what maliciously intending adults can do to children whose parents are less vigilant about who their children are connecting with online. Not everyone has as much time for supervision as my wife and I had. And even then, we failed to save our son. Save your son? Jesus fucking Christ. But the best part is, because he's like, if only parents were harsher, like me, and I failed.

Yeah, it did work for me though, yeah. Fucking seatbelt broke. So this is a warning to parents to be very wary of Minecraft and other such online games without strict parental controls. Like anti-trans filters or something. Yeah, what then would that be? And if your child already has Minecraft, as it has become much more popular in the past few years,

be sure to check what skin they are using and to have a talk about the possible confusion that could arise from using one that does not align with their gender. There's no way that wouldn't be more confusing to the kid as to why you're bringing it up at that point. Yeah, show me that block man's with their gender. There's no way that wouldn't be more confusing to the kids as to why you're bringing it up in that part. Yeah, show me that block man's penis right now.

But also, there's so many games. Does he think that that's unique to Minecraft that you can play as different genders? Look, there's no way to contact his dad, but I would pay good Christian dollars to have him walk me through that talk that he thinks I should have.

Because my toddler's getting really into Super Mario and I just want to make sure I'm laying down... Princess Peach in Mario Kart. Yeah. I mean, someone at that substack does have the dad's email address. If you're willing to go to that length, you could find them. Exactly. Thank you.

I think so. Sincerely, a forgotten father. And a well-forgotten one at that. And with that, we're going to wrap things up, but a quick reminder that if you come across a blog post or op-ed that could use similar treatment, you can send your dear wabby ideas to scathingnews at gmail.com and put dear wabby in the subject line, mostly because I want to see how many different ways y'all spell it. how many different ways y'all spell it.

Before we tighten the lug nuts tonight, I want to let everybody know that I'm going to be participating in a fundraiser for the Secular Student Alliance on Saturday. They're going to be streaming all day. I'm going to be on from 9 to 10 p.m. Eastern time, I believe. Be sure to check our social media

for links for more information and to make sure I got my times right. Anyway, that's all the blasphemy we've got for you tonight But we're back in 10,000 22 minutes with more if you can't wait that long be on the lookout for a brand new episode For a sister show the skeptic rat debuting at 7 a.m Eastern on Monday and even newer episode of our sister shows hot friend god-awful movies debuting at 7 a.m Eastern on Tuesday and an even newer episode of a half sister so citation needed debuting at noon Eastern on Wednesday Obviously this wouldn't reach critical episode status if I neglected to thank Ethan, right? Who will be back next

week, by the way? This was a planned vacation for him in case you were worried that he was just wallowing in too much abject misery at the naked avarice of his fellow man to be on the show. He is doing this. He is wallowing like that. It's part of a planned vacation. It's a wallowing trip that he had planned. Also need to thank Eli Bosnik for wallowing alongside me this week. I want to thank the lovely, intelligent Lucinda Lujans for soldiering on. Also need to thank Michael Marshall for stepping into some mighty tall shoes this week. Be sure to check the show notes if you want to hear more from him on his show, Skeptics with a K and Be Reasonable. Also want to thank Bugs and BamBam from the BiblioRex podcast for providing this week's Farnsworth quote. You'll find a link to their

show on the show notes as well. But most of all, of course, I want to thank this week's best people. And look, I know sometimes I say, oh, I can't get through it in one breath. And then I do. This will not be one of those times. Nephthys, Liz, Chunkcat, Tibbon, Mary, Dustin, Roger, John, the human filter mechanic, Giraffery, Shannon, Martin, Justin, Philip, something stupid, Humeen, All2Humeen, Veronica, Sy, James, Lime green, Morpheus, Alejandro, non superstitious, little bit sticious, Crystal, RJ, Hog, Boblin, surviving Texas, Lilith, Jimmy, Doc, Ouija, Irregular, HistoryBuff, Jf, Natalie, Brightflow, Steel, Condor, Louise, David, Kirk, James, JP, Andy, Thomas, Mona, ComputerGeek, 2600, Cody, Ashley, Curry, Robert, Rick, John, Zach, CrimsonGhost,

Wanda, JunJune, Ana, Dwight, Paul, Drew, Timothy, Logan, HDQF, and Wesley, who are, and I genuinely mean this, the reason I can carry on doing this shit both financially and psychologically. Together these 60 sexy secularists secured our sacrilegious take on this suckfest this week by giving us money. Not everyone is the money it takes to give some to us, but if you do, you can make a per episode donation at patreon.com slash scathing atheist, 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 scathing atheist.com. And if you'd like to help, but you're saving all your money to get the fuck out of this shit whole country, you can 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 we're on blue sky now and our audio engineer is Morgan Clark who also wrote all the music that he was using this episode which was used with permission. If you have questions, comments or death rich, you'll find all the contact info on the contact page at skatingads.com. I feel like I slowed down.

You've been playing video games for stupid people. Yeah, Morgan, you should know I just admitted to Eli that I had just downloaded Call of Duty Black Ops 6 from Game Pass. So if you have any new nicknames for Noah that aren't the smart one, if you want to let us know. Workshop it. Maybe we could get him some boots to be the top one. I have a plaque. I have a fucking plaque. It says the smart one. No, I've never touched a Call of Duty. What I do know is when the UK went to lockdown, a lot of the white supremacists started an online

Call of Duty club where young lads who were looking to play online multiplayer games could play with the leader of Britain First and the leader of Patriotic Alternative and Tommy Robinson-esque figures and they were recruiting on Call of Duty specifically. Seems like the right place to go. Like from what I've seen so far. Wait, this is not a... What do we do about that? We can't think of that. Like there's no way we could think,

oh I better download Call of Duty so I can fight fascists who are trying to use it to recruit. And that's how you know you've never played video games with a trans girl, because trans women will beat your ass at Call of Duty every time. Universal. Universal. Universal.

I don't like to generalize, but they're all better at call of duty than me. Well then you, sure. The preceding podcast was a production of Puzzle and the Thunderstorm LLC, copyright 2024, all rights reserved.