The Scathing Atheist - 674: Measle Memory Edition

Episode Date: February 12, 2026

In this week’s episode, measles put the skibidi in Ohio, TP-USA tries to get more young Republicans by airing Kid Rock against Bad Bunny, and Ross Douthat will enter the “don’t answer yet” phase of his Christianity sales pitch.---To make a per episode donation at Patreon.com, click here: http://www.patreon.com/ScathingAtheistTo 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] check out our sister show, The Skepticrat, click here: https://audioboom.com/channel/the-skepticratTo check out our sister show’s hot friend, God Awful Movies, click here: https://audioboom.com/channel/god-awful-moviesTo 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/Report instances of harassment or abuse connected to this show to the Creator Accountability Network here: https://creatoraccountabilitynetwork.org/---Guest Links:Check out the book “For You Have Sinned” here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1543997406?ref=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cso_cp_apin_dp_W839BDQYJJR9GWBXGC13---Headlines:RFK Jr. has succeeded in bringing back measles: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/09/well/dr-mehmet-oz-measles-vaccine.html, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5727570/, https://www.cdc.gov/measles/data-research/index.html and https://www.npr.org/2026/02/08/nx-s1-5705972/measles-march-for-life-dc-reagan-national-union-station-metro Donald Trumps speech at the national prayer breakfasthttps://rollcall.com/factbase/trump/transcript/donald-trump-remarks-national-prayer-breakfast-capitol-february-5-2026/One Million Moms is mad about a margarine ad with Gordon Ramsey: https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2026/02/conservative-christian-group-disgusted-by-gordon-ramsays-funny-new-margarine-ad/The "He Gets Us" campaign has a PR problem no Super Bowl ad can solve: https://www.friendlyatheist.com/p/the-he-gets-us-campaign-has-a-prMalaysian Minister says work stress can make you gay: https://www.bangkokpost.com/world/3186750/malaysian-minister-claims-work-stress-can-turn-people-gayTPUSA tries to compete with Bad Bunny and airs preachy 'All-American Halftime Show':https://www.christianpost.com/news/3-highlights-from-tpusas-all-american-halftime-show.htmlAnd yes, Kid Rock was there with some gospel: https://www.christianpost.com/news/kid-rock-shares-gospel-message-during-tpusa-halftime-show.html

Warning, this week's episode is not safe for work. So quit. Fuck that job anyway. They don't love you like we do. This week's episode of The Skating Atheist is brought to you by the Vatican's new brand of authentic papal incense, Pope Perri. Pope Peri. It can even make dangerous bullshit past the smell test. And now, the Scathing Atheist.

This is Clifford Edwards, voice actor and author of the book, For You Have Sinned. A sweet story about a serial killer who kills pedophile priests. The fact that pedophile priests still exist proves that We did in fact evolve from filthy monkey men and women It's Thursday It's February 12th And it's flannel day Sometimes you want to wear what it feels like

Being allergic to cats Right? Yeah I'm no illusions I'm Eli Bosnick I'm Heathenwright And from Steve Tish's New Jersey And our Michigan and Wakeross, Georgia This is the scathing east

Of this week's episode, Measles puts the skibbity back in Ohio. T.PUSA tries to get more young Republicans by airing Kid Rock against Bad Bunny. And Ross Douthit will enter the don't answer yet phase of his Christianity sales pitch. But first, the Diet Trow. If you'd never met the internet, you might think it would be impossible to get angry about direct evidence of the sitting president's involvement with a pedophile ring incorrectly. But you've met the internet. So you know. So there's a lot of damning evidence about a lot of powerful people in the three million Epstein-related documents recently released by the Department of Justice.

We did a whole story about it on this week's skeptocrat if you want to check that out. But there are also a lot of things that aren't in it. Like, for example, evidence that Epstein and Trump were part of a baby-eating cabal of Satan worshippers that used Wayfair to sell Russian children to Bill Gates. But that has not stopped those rumors from circuit. right alongside the real shit online with at least as much fervency and visibility. And of course, this is the oldest trick on the Internet, isn't it? It used to be the powerful people could just suppress damning documents about themselves if they didn't like them, right?

They could use lawsuits and court injunctions to keep the reach of damaging documents and information minimal. But by the 90s, the Internet had taken that shit away. The Internet's anonymity made it possible to distribute shit so widely that nothing could get rid of it once it came out. So the tactic de jour became flooding the zone with more outlandish accusations than the reality based upon fake or even absent sources in the hopes that once those were shown to be fraudulent, the casual observer would assume that all the accusations were fraudulent.

So if the leaked document showed that you cheated on a math test, the successful strategy wasn't to spread a rumor that you didn't cheat on the math test. It was to spread a rumor that you cheated on the math test by sacrificing a baby to the old gods in exchange for the gift of foresight. So to be clear, the files show that the nation's most notorious child rapists had close ties to not only Trump, but many of the most influential people in his inner circle. It had loads of evidence that Trump knew about and approved of Epstein's raping children. And, like, I mean, that's stuff we already knew, right? But even after a transparent, months-long effort to scrub Trump from those files, they further cement the certainty that Trump turned a blind,

die to the child rape at best. And nothing with Trump has ever been at best. This is by far the most damning thing that we have ever known about a sitting president. I mean, like, fucking war crimes. Yes, a lot of war crimes from pretty much all of them. But in terms of like the shit that our perverse system considers criminal, this is the most conventionally evil thing we've ever known about a sitting president. conventionally, that is, in terms of the conventions of that president's day.

Look, I know I'm couching this in a lot of caveats here, but that's because our country is filled with genocidal slave owners and shit. But the end result of all that specificity is that we're talking about the single most damning release of information about a sitting president in the 237 year history of that office. So as his loyal opposition, the only possible way we could really fuck this up would be if we started sharing claims that he ate babies or was part of a satanic cabal or the documents proved the Illuminati was real or we shared photos that turned out to be AI generated or quotes that turned out to be fabricated or accusations that were in the document file under fucking

crazy shit one anonymous caller one time said all of which I've seen in the last 48 hours. This is not just a be a good skeptic moment, right? This is a don't help the pedophile enabling probable pedophile, rapist, fascist, felon, get away with it moment. The Epstein case is something that people have more or less rallied around in both parties, and it's one of those areas we're polling most consistently shows Trump is weak. And letting supporters publicly win an argument about it with something as easy as that's actually a fake photograph is unforgivable in a moment like that. And sure, you might argue that none of this will ultimately matter

because no amount of evidence will lead to accountability for Trump from either his supporters or the legal system. And that may be true, but that doesn't mean that you should sacrifice your integrity to help in that effort. The last thing we want to do

is help make the true depravity of what he did seem mild in comparison to something. They're talking about your Jesus. May interrupt this broadcast and bring you a special news bulletin. Joining me for headlines tonight are the Legolas at Gimley to Maya Aragorn

Heath Enright and Eli Bosnick fellas. Are you ready to fellowship? Okay, I do look like a magical Zach Morris from Save That's what I was just thinking. And my ass. Sorry, I've only seen the porn parody. Oh, okay. I assume it's the same.

Saved by the Bell. Well, and yes to both. And since everybody needs a second now to look up that porn parody, it's time to take a quick break for a word from this week's first response. You know what? You know what? You know what? Fuck that.

Our listeners have put up with two goddamn many ads already this week, and I'm taking a stand against them. We're tearing that up and going, straight to the headlines. So, no, ads scheduled this week. Shut up. You're fucking up. You're fucking up. You should kill Mr. Peanut for fun anyways.

Oh, I like it. Yeah. In our lead story tonight. I don't know. Unrelated to anything. I ever, right. Right. Yeah. Remember, ISIS sought his head off? Yeah. Yeah. That's how it is. How it went down. That was in the Super Bowl? I was you got to watch the commercials. I'm telling you, man. In our lead story tonight.

It's doing a lot of cocaine. When Trump and his accolites, I'm leaving that in. When Trump and his accolites, about making America great again, it's clearly an ever so slightly disguised call to return to the time of segregationism and male dominance where a guy like Donald Trump could still buy his way into an Ivy League school. And while they're still struggling to bring back the Caucasian cultural dominance of the 50s that they're after, at least they've managed to bring back its measles. In fact, by February 2nd, the year 2026 had already seen more cases of measles in the U.S.

than we saw in any full year from 2001 to 2015. And keep in mind, those years contain a 2014 outbreak in Amish country, at least severe enough for us to talk about it on this show. We had all the other years with that beat by January 11th. Guys, is that the measles map or the electoral map that we're like... You know what? It doesn't matter. Maha, ma-ha, whatever, crushing it is what's happening. We're in an apple or something.

Crushing something, yeah. So quick reminder for those of those of us, who grew up in an era where you could treat measles with the kind of historical curiosity you reserved for typhoid fever and the summer complaint. Measles is a highly infectious disease that can cause permanent brain damage, deafness, blindness, and death. Yeah. And the summer complaint is when you share an air conditioner with a Jewish person.

Well, that's what it is now. It used to be something more serious. So last year... Oh, I'm serious. Three people... You turn that down to 70 or I'm shit. So three people died from it. in the U.S. last year out of 2,276 confirmed cases,

and most importantly, it's a disease that was declared eradicated from the United States in 2000. But it's been fucking eradicated now or re-radicated. We don't even have a word for, we're so stupid, we've moved beyond the known lexicon. Cated, plagued. And while that may not be, you know, primarily because the guy run in our Department of Health and Human Services intentionally swims in sewage, it's for the same reason. that he's running it. Okay.

When the hero of your health movement is a 72-year-old yoked-up guy on steroids dripping with sewage, wearing jeans at the gym, sounding like a fucking Geiger counter when he talks, maybe ask more questions.

Revisit your life choices. Fill in. But here's the thing. The question about the measles resurgence as causes usually stop short, in my opinion, because there's both a why and a how component here. The why is where the public conversation usually focuses.

Vaccine denialism, loss in faith of expertise, distrust of the medical establishment. But we also need to talk about the how, right? Because the way that we got rid of this shit in 2000 was through vaccine requirements in schools. There's no legal mechanism to force people to get vaccinated in this country, but we can make it a requirement to receive certain government services. And very few places have actually lifted those vaccine requirements. but what has changed, of course,

is the ease and frequency with which people get religious exemptions to those requirements. Exemptions that are protected by law in pretty much all circumstances. Yeah, based on the gospel of epidemiology. Yeah, that they unearthed for the first time during the COVID pandemic, exactly, yeah.

Pretty sure I read that book. If you're anti-vax and your argument starts with that you read something, I already know your line. Yeah, right. Now, so bringing back crippling and deadly childhood diseases at least does have a way of focusing people's attention, insufficiency, I'll grant, but at least some people are starting to realize that the opposite of not having this disease anymore is having this disease anymore, right?

It's led at least one lawmaker in South Carolina, which is kind of ground zero for the most severe current outbreak, to call for an end to religious vaccine exemptions altogether, which fucking kudos to him, right? But I guarantee the Supreme Court would choose Christian legal exemptions over not blinding children with old-timey diseases any day of the week. Basic freedoms of blinding children. Yeah, exactly, right. It also, this is also forced TV doctor and current head of the Centers for Medicare and

Medicaid services, Mehmet Oz, to issue a full-throated call for measles vaccinations. Because, well, we can't get that shit out of our fucking health secretary. Stop making me agree with Dr. Oz. Thank you. Absolutely not. Right. Guys, RFK is really fucking us over. We need to turn to the bash.

reason and medical responsibility that is. Mehmet. Who doesn't say vegetables, he says crudite. Now, of course, all that being said, I feel like this story would be biased if I didn't at least offer up some pro-measels points. Like, for example, the fact that one of the super spreader events behind the most recent outbreak seems to have been the March for Life. Come on.

Okay, that's funny. Right? That's a great bit. An annual anti-abortion protest in D.C. That brings together America's least vaccinated people to scream about how they really care about the survival of babies. So at least the measles seem to have a sense of humor, I guess. Yeah, solid, solid bit.

And in Eggs Being a Dick News. Okay, that's good. That's really fucking good. Thank you. Thank you. It's that time of year when our nation's leaders put aside their differences and sit down to the one thing they can all agree on violating the First Amendment at a prayer breakfast.

And while when a Democrat is in office, we're often treated to a speech from the president about how we're not so different after all to a room full of people who regularly call him or her the Antichrist, when Trump is the president, he's going to talk about whatever the fuck he wants to. As opposed to those other times when he stays on message. Yeah. Okay, Obama wore a brown suit

and he was near a fly that one. It's just too many quenceses. That's true. That's true. Now, this speech is just over 50 minutes long and genuinely, I feel like we could have gotten a full episode of God-awful movies out of this thing. Oh, fuck you for even putting that in the ether, motherfucker. Jesus.

How do you clean ether? But for now, I'll give you just the hits from the genuinely hilarious to the deeply terrifying. So Trump didn't let a little thing like the Faith Unity Breakfast get in the way of talking tremendous amounts of shit for most of his speech. He constantly referred to the press at the event as the fake news and took the time to call out plenty of enemies by name,

saying of libertarian-leaning Thomas Massey, quote, we have one guy, he's an automatic no, no matter what, if we did welfare refund, if we did the greatest thing in the history for religion, no matter what we did, no matter how good it is, greatest tax cuts in... What? We just did the greatest tax guts in history. He voted against. He voted no matter what we do.

This moron, no matter what it is. We could pull them all together, I think. Mike, what would you say the top five things? Name them. We'll put them in one bill and we'll put them before. We'll get 100% vote except for this guy named Thomas Massey. There's something wrong with him. We call him Rand Paul Jr., you know?

It's like they just vote no. They love voting no. They think it's good politically. This guy's polling in about 90. Okay, Massey won the general election in 2024 to get his seat with 99.6 vote. But yes, Donald Trump, please get one of your lackeys to win the primary next time. That sounds great. It's not good, but we have great support.

We have great support for religion. Okay, so my favorite part of that quote is how there's like there's a point there where he just clearly can't even think of like what a universally accepted good bill would look like. Right? He's trying to tag Mike Johnson in because he doesn't even know what he's supposed to fucking want. And from his black hole of depravity, you can't even say something obvious like a bill to cure cancer because you can't see it from there. Right. And from the Republican black hole of depravity in general, you're not even allowed to use feed all the children or anything like that. So he's got nothing to fucking. It's a religion thing that is good. I got this welfare reformed theocracy.

And you like that. You like religion. It says religion on the poster I'm staring at. But what about democratic religious people, you ask? Are there any of those? According to Donald Trump? No. Huh.

Quote, not too many presidents have done too much for religion. I want to tell you that. Certainly modern day. Certainly modern day presidents, they didn't. They bailed out on you. They bailed out. They want to be neutral. They want to be neutral or against.

You know, the Democrats are against, I don't know how personal. of faith can vote for a Democrat. I really don't. And I know we have some here today and I don't know why they're here because they certainly don't give us their vote. Pancakes, man. Yeah, right, right. No, it's really telling how terrible his views are that his hyperbolic bullshit is always my wet dream. Right? Like, oh, a Democratic Party that's against religion. Oh, he's still my beating heart. Yeah. So then Trump talked about how smart he and Pete Higgs-eth are, how people arrest American soldiers for being too good at war.

Sure. It's exact quote. How he won the popular vote in 2020. How badly Biden did in Afghanistan. At least I think he was talking about Joe Biden at that point. Never actually said his name and he's in the middle of doing a rhetorical bit where he's talking to Pete Hags-up. So it's hard to tell. So I'm like, Pete, wait, did you just open a signal chat on your foot?

Ah, that's vomit. Ah, buddy. You're going to hold your hair. What was that talking about? He's genuinely, he's so close to turning to the nearest person to him and saying, like, okay, so here, you be Pete. You be Pete. You be Pete. Have four more than your Pete.

So then he talked about ISIS and how he knocked out ISIS in three weeks because they attack Christians. And Christians are his favorite. Here's the quote, we knocked the hell out of them the other day in Nigeria because they were killing Christians. The other day was Christmas of last year, to be clear. You know about that? They were killing Christians. you can't do that. When Christians come under attack,

they know they're going to be attacked violently and viciously by President Trump. I know it's not a nice thing to say, but that's the way it is. So we're also delighted to welcome visiting leaders and dignitaries from more than 110 countries. So?

Okay. I love when he gets back to his teleprompter. It makes no sense. Yeah, exactly. All right. So anytime Christians are under attack by somebody other than ICE, right, then other than that, he'll be there to defend him.

Good to know. Right. We'll be there to defend you. Strongest terms. Table four, you could go in the buffet now. It's your turn. And, of course, no national prayer breakfast would be complete without shitting on the Johnson Amendment.

Quote, we worked hard on getting rid of the Johnson Amendment. It's gone as far as you can say anything you want. Now, if you do say something bad about Trump, I will change my mind and I will have. I will have your tax-exempt status immediately revoked. But then I'll give you a pardon if you get in trouble. George Santos gets it. George, right?

He gets it. And look, I know when Trump's Gestapo are literally murdering people in the streets, the shit he talks about at a national prayer breakfast can feel a little small potatoes. But even that thing about revoking tax-exempt status at the end, it's very obviously a joke, but it's worth remembering that if a Democratic president had said, just fucking any of this. It would be the news cycle

until we lost the next election. And in what's the only thing better than the Patriots losing news? It's the auto ads. That's right. Super Bowl 60 LX happened over the weekend

and it was perfect. New England Patriots who cheated so much forever lost. And they're owned by Donald Trump's good friend. Robert Kraft, not the mac and cheese guy, different craft. So it's always fun when Robert Kraft loses its stuff. And okay, yes, the owner of my New York Giants was recently revealed to have something

in common with Michael Marshall in the latest Tron show of Epstein Files. But that's neither here nor there. Here's what matters. The Patriots lost. Bad Bunny was amazing at halftime. Donald Trump and a whole bunch of bigots lost their minds about an obscure language called Spanish or something and a Christian group

spent way too much money on a stupid ad for Jesus. It was a great little Sunday. No, it was. Yeah, no. The best part of the game was watching Conservatives live tweet, their reaction meltdowns during the halftime show

that they promised us they weren't going to watch. Yeah, look, I say this with an open heart. There is no belief that I hold that would make me pretend to like Kid Rock. Yes. Fair. Okay, so also there was one other very important moment I haven't mentioned yet. During the biggest American sporting event of the year,

one million moms had a freak out about margarine. And a big thanks to Chris for sending us a link to scathing news at gmail.com. Chris gets 50 yard line seats front row to our next big stadium event. So here's the scoop on the margarine. The brand, I can't believe it's not butter, had a 45-second ad during the game, and it featured celebrity chef Gordon Ramsey using a plant-based Anna.

What are the guys talking about? It's the newest, the greatest Christian freak out. That's right. A vegan spread is destroying the Christian fabric of American society. During the ad, Chef Ramsey was yelling some of his typical naughty words and getting bleaked. In response, that one lady who represents one million started a boycott petition.

That petition has about 10,000 signatures. She's got about 1% of her squad. And we got an official statement of grievance that said, quote, I can't believe it's not but her executives. Do not care about what children hear. Everyone knows kids repeat what they hear. And quote, to be clear, that would be bleeps.

They are in bleeps. This is what happened to R2D2. people. Is that what we want to put our children at the risk of? Yeah. Okay. But now I really want to cut of Star Wars where R2D2 is just like, fucking Cox the entire time. Where's that release, George? Get on it. All right. Well, profane margarine wasn't the only divisive issue during the ads. We also had a spot telling Pam Bondi to do her fucking job regarding the Epstein files. Apparently that's controversial. We needed an ad for that. We had Michael Tyson.

Mike Tyson the Boxer representing the health of the nation and telling us to switch from ice cream to apples and carrots. A genius idea from RFK Jr. that nobody had considered, I guess. We also got another spot for He Gets Us. Sure did. Oh, good. That's the campaign started in 2022 by the Servant Christian Foundation, a group funded by secret rich people.

They spent $16 million for one. minute this year. They've spent about $700 million overall on this campaign. The first iteration explained how Jesus Christ was all about skibbitty-rizz six, seven. Like, seriously, it was almost Steve Bichemmy sneaking into a high school undercover. Like literally, skateboards were a big focus in that first one. They were. Yeah. Big focus. The next year, they showed a pastor washing the feet of a not-sissette white person and Christians lost their gulf. goddamn minds. And one of those Christian people

who lost his mind was Charles Kirk. So that was fun. That dude just keeps losing body parts above his shoulders, I'll tell you. Yeah. Well, it's not like he could give it a full throat an endorsement. That's where he got shot. By the furry.

There's a hole there. Classic. Well, he's dead. This year, the He Gets Us team decided to retool the message again. They identified overconsumption in American culture as a problem. Okay, fine. But somehow they landed on Jesus being the answer. It was just a big montage starting with what appears to be Jean-Beney

in a room of expensive dolls. And I was like, okay, commercial, I'm listening. What are you going to do now? But then after showing a bunch of what they believe to be the excesses of modern American life, it just ends with a woman hiking. pretty sure we could touch grass without Jesus Christ, our Lord, and Savior. But no, we can't. Apparently, we need their specific religion for that.

The final frame says, there's more to life than more. What if Jesus shows us how to find it? Look, look, you give 10% of your income to us. Well, right there, you're doing 10% less consumerism. So we have solved 10% of the problem. Look, we're accumulating all the wealth at the top because then just one guy will have to worry about fitting a camel through the eye of a needle. The rest of us, you just slip right through.

You're welcome. Well, bottom line, this is the most important thing. The Pats lost. They did, man, yes. I got to watch the game with my old friend from college, a big Patriots fan who grew up in Massachusetts. And his partner, who cares about football, not at all, was going buck wild every time the Seahawks did something good,

which was most of the game. Oh, they kept doing good things, yeah. Dancing on the table, yelling vague football words and taunting him the whole time. It was truly a delightful experience. Second in voting for MVP. That dude was 27 of 43 with two interceptions and a sub 80 quarterback rating. God, one million moms should be offended about that. Look, if we tell them sacks are involved, they'll get on board.

Yes, good point. Sick sacks he took two, yeah. And in Work to your twerk news tonight, despite the fact that the three of us are all straight, I think we can all agree that there are some pretty big advantages to being gay. A broader range of culturally acceptable fashion choices. Better taste in music on average. The occasional penis gently inserted inside you. A lot of good stuff there, right?

All pros. So if, like me, you've always kind of wished that you were gay but couldn't get over the hump of not being attracted to people of your own gender, I've got good news for you, because according to Malaysian Minister for Religious Affairs, Zulkifli Hassan, you can turn gay just from suffering from too much work stress. A hypothesis disproved entirely by the fact that no illusions didn't end that paragraph with honey. True. Now, so unfortunately, Hassan didn't offer this up in the form of helpful advice like I just did,

but rather as abject bigotry. During a televised interview, Hassan said that there are four factors that influence being gay, and surprisingly none of them are being attracted to people of the same gender issue. Instead, he listed excessive work-related stress, social pressure, sexual experiences, and insufficient religious observance. Though I feel like the inclusion of excessive and insufficient presupposes that you aren't trying to turn yourself gay through all of your work and atheism. Okay, so there's this one barista. Never mind, same building against my office.

Work-related stress and the other three, I said. Yep, that's how it happened. Now, of course, at this point, you're probably wondering about the mechanism of how work stress can lead to gay sex. Well, don't worry. Hassan offered up some details. You see, when you become exhausted from overwork,

stress comes to dominate both the mind and the mental state. That's true. And then you turn gay. Oh, turn gay. Yeah, I feel like he's missing something between steps two and three there, but this is what he's given us to work with. Okay, there's lots of gay sex in the walk-in cooler at TGI Fridays, in my experience.

This is all tracks so far. All right. I will point out that gay sex is the least lazy sex there is, right? Like, if straight men had to doosh their butts with a water bottle to fuck ladies, humans would have died out a thousand generations ago. A thousand. Sometimes we do that. So needless to say,

Oh, you shouldn't. There was a bit of backlash to these states. from the LGBTQ plus community and other people who practice basic humanity, although some Malaysians seem to be embracing Hassan's hypothesis and demanding a national week off unless the whole country turns gay. Now, Hassan himself couldn't be reached for comment

because, of course, due to all this newfound national attention, he is at severe risk for, you know, Dick Suckery, and he was determined to get his eight hours. Okay, wait, Heath, does this mean we can get Noah to take a full vacation? by threatening to fuck him if he doesn't because the lady at the creator accountability network said the exact opposite thing

and now I have two different answers. Do the shitting hostage thing again. Thank you. That's why you use the water bottle. Forke no less those. And finally tonight in putting the TP in shit news.

Fantastic. It was the way about turning point USA and they're very sad. Super Bowl halftime alternative. show. T.P. USA was already in a snit about their cult leader being M. I.A. for some reason. And then they heard about the Super Bowl halftime show featuring Bad Bunny, a Puerto Rican guy, Puerto Rican. And that

is un-American. So they made their own show with no strippers and no drugs at all. In order to compete with the... No cocaine. In order to compete with the single biggest television event in the country. They put together a tribute to a dead guy, by which I mean kid rock. And also some speeches about Charlie Kirk and some gospel preaching. Ooh. It was called the All-American halftime show.

And it aired on several platforms like their Rumble channel. And as my social media feeds have delighted in telling me ever since, it had less than half the viewership of the puppy bowl. It had less than half the viewership of Kid Rock's family Honestly those tributes to Charlie were so moving I just wanted to ball with the ball Well here's the thing According to the metrics from TPUSA

They got about 5 million viewers They're lying though So that's the thing there's that I got 50 million We just beat it We just beat it by a lot Order of magazine. But regardless of the number,

some amount of people got to see performances by the renowned theologian, the Bah with a bah guy, Kid Rock. But don't answer yet. They also had Lee Bryce. Right? And Gabby Barrett and the Brantley Gilbert. Oh.

I'll give you a second to calm down. The event started with a little speech. It ended with this one's for you, Charlie, at the end of the speech. And apparently this one was the national anthem because that was next. So they did the national anthem for Charlie Gar. Wait, so they think the problem with the football game is that there aren't enough national anthems in it? What if someone comes late? They don't get to celebrate our nation.

Charlie never would have stood for that. Because of the blood loss. Lee Bryce, remember I mentioned him before, he was there. he took the stage and he said, Charlie gave people microphones so they could say what was on their mind. This is what's on mine. And everyone got to hear iconic hits

like hard to love and drinking class, not glass, but class. But it didn't get super lit until we heard from the man himself. The musical acts were broken up by crowd pleasers like a clip of Charlie Kirk giving a talk about the Goldilocks zone for Christian hate speech on campus

and also Charlie Kirk giving another talk about the Papa Bear zone for Christian hate speech on campus. Right, yeah. Oh, got so much of this thing played like they were trying to make Erica Kirk's fireworks things seem somber compared to something. Yeah, come on, y'all, our glitter's on fire and we can't make people faces either, right? It's harder than you think is our point. Sure, but what about Pete

Hegseth, you might ask. Don't worry, he did a video address. He was part of his thing. A cameo from Pete, you say. Indeed. He said, quote, from the War Department. Stop trying to make War Department happen, man. Please don't interrupt.

Podcast. We salute Turning Point USA, and every American who believes freedom is worth defending. For two and a half centuries, Americans have answered that call on farms and factory floors, shipyards and labs and cockpits and foxholes in every uniform our nation has worn. Freedom is not automatic. So I hope you're enjoying this game.

Happy Freedom to 50. The things really matter. God bless our warriors. God bless our great republic. Except fucking Puerto Rico, which is un-American. And that guy at the airport who cut me off. The pilot.

All right, well, that brings us to Robert Ritchie, who, a.k.a. 55-year-old kid rock. Mr. Rock. Yeah, Mr. Rock. He did a cover. It was his own special rendition of Till You Can't by Cody Johnson. And Mr. Rock explained his inspirational, religious moment that led to this, saying, quote, you know, he starts things like Eli.

He doesn't know how to like just start his sentence. so he has to say, you know, first. How dare you call me out like this, sir? You know, I woke on a Sunday morning, all alone, stuck in my head. And in that moment, something or someone spoke to me. They said there was still a verse that still needed to be written for this song, and to get up and write it down. And here's the new lyrics he wrote.

And make sure you imagine these words along with that amazing music you already know. from whoever the fuck I said earlier. Kid Rock. Cody Johnson. There it is. That guy we knew in third grade. I can still see it in the notes. This is Lee Bryce, whatever, whoever it was.

Kid Rock. Gamlet Himley. Rascal Heston. Gintznerff. Smer. Kahn. Kid Rock. He decided to write a new set of lyrics.

He took out his fucking quill in parchment and he wrote, there's a book that's, sitting in your house somewhere that could use some dusting off. There's a man that died for all our sins hanging from the cross. We got A-B for the Rhymes scheme so far.

You can give your life to Jesus and he'll give you a second chance till you can't. Till you can't. Hey on. So it's A-B-C-D rhyming. Yes. Yeah.

Hey, guys, you remember that time and a very successful and currently relevant celebrity made a very public turn towards Christianity. Yeah, me neither. I don't remember. His name was Scott Adams, Noah. Pay attention. National treasure. All right.

Well, if you're keeping score at home, that's Bad Bunny 1 and 1. T.P. USA 0. 5 million. And also, Donald Trump got boomer mad. Oh, yeah. He posted a rant on Truth Social that was truly, it was almost exactly the jockey impression we did while we were watching the game.

Trump posted a slap in the face to the country. Nobody understands a word this guy is saying. I mean, nobody around you. He lives in Mar-a-Lago. I wonder where he thinks that. Anyway, most importantly, bottom line, the Patriots lost. Great. It was a great bucket for America.

And with a quick reminder that the Patriots now own the record for most Super Bowl losses by any team, all to themselves. We're going to wrap up the headlines for the night. Heath, Eli, thanks, as always. Pat's lost. And when we come back, the Patriots fans want to stop screaming about how they're also tied for the most Super Bowl wins, though. Damn it. Nobody else with the 12 of them. Bringing up old shit.

Nobody cares. They don't listen to podcasts. I see you're cheating now at all the time. Imagine having the capability of listening to a podcast and remaining a Patriots fan. When I was a kid, I was made to read books I didn't want to read a lot, and so in rebellion, sometimes I would fake reading by imagining a little dude running across the top of the letters. That way, my eyes still tracked as though I was reading, but I didn't have to imbibe any of the unwanted information. And that's a habit I found myself accidentally returning to as we prepared for this installment of

God-awful books. So, as you'll recall, we already proved that the supernatural exists because, how else would heat come from an overheating electrical device? And we also proved that God exists because, okay, but how did the flashpaper get there? Yeah, that was a big one. Yeah, that was chapters one through three. And then in chapter four, which we just finished, we learned that if we make up our own bullshit, it won't be as good as the bullshit that's been made up over thousands of years.

Yeah. And if you'll remember, my counterproposal was that I think my five-year-old could draft a better Bible for a handful of peanut butter teething craft. Okay, so I might actually join the Church of Max, right? Like, it would be all fucking marble runs in Calvin and Hobbs. That'd be sweet. Right? Anyway, so now that we know that we should choose from the established religions,

we need to narrow it down to the faith that he's actually trying to sell us. In Chapter 5, big faiths and big divisions. And speaking of big divisions, we're going to be chopping this one and a half, so we're only going to cover the first half of this chapter on today's show. Yeah, I cut to Noah gently poking the second half of this chapter into Carl the Pug of Pagachekekorn's mouth. Come on, man, I need this. It's the Kindle version. And now we start up by learning that

Ross Douthits' parents were eating health food before it was cool. They used to eat family dinner at a crystal shop. Everything about this guy is fucking insufferable. If we were playing Word Association and you said Crystal Shop in Middletown, Connecticut, I'd say, Ross Douthit's guilty pleasure. That's definitely what you're talking.

Dear, pass the salt. No, the ground up one. Yeah, but the Crystal Shop bookstore was his way of saying, you know, all the religions. But he said that, you know, there was all of the religions were there. Basically, it was everything except, you know, of course, there were no filthy atheists. Yeah, you can hear Ross be very torn on this.

He's like, yeah, I like the magical crucifixes. And, you know, obviously I like the lack of the dirty fucking atheists in the store where I also eat a lot. But then he's like, no regard for doctrinal conceiv. Consistency, though, at the Crystal Store bookstore, whatever. Yeah, it's funny because, like, he addresses the arrogance of thinking that just one of the earth's, like, 8,000 religions is right. But he'll just reject it out of hand. Yeah. Look, I know it's crazy, but the stripper really does like me.

Like, I know there's usually they don't. They love their work. Now, I genuinely think the only book that Ross Delt read on atheism in preparation for this was the guy. God delusion, though. Right? Because I genuinely believe that all of his references to what atheists think come from that fucking book. It's like he heard you say that.

And right after a Dawkins quote, he's like, and David Hume. Well, yes. I read one of his sentences. And we get another quote making the same very reasonable claim this time from Hume, the idea that most religions are rejecting all the other ones. And it's all part of this weirdly sexual experience for. 13-year-old Ross, when he discovered, you know, the sirens call of religious non-monogamy New Age bookstore.

Yeah, that's not the only non-monogamy that was on order, Ross. The store burned incense because they were clapping 50 to 70-year-old cheeks on the rag in that booth your family ate dinner. They were. Clapping cheeks, Ross. They were. And then he offers up his version of the, all the other faiths are just doing my religion incorrectly argument in a subchapter called true faiths and true-ish faiths, where he basically

opens with like, yeah, but how would the Hindus even know what Jesus is saying? They don't speak English. How can Americans enjoy bad bunny or any opera ever? Right. Yeah. It's why we got to close down the Kennedy Center. He's like, well, you know, if you think about it, you know, not all the religions have to be just entirely wrong for mine to be right.

some of them could be people that are just accidentally worshipping demons from my religion. It's not that they're raw, it's not that they're fake, it's just that they're evil. That's an actual argument he has. Sounds exactly like a Satanist argument. Interesting.

He's like, well, but no, but look, you could be a Hindu, for example, right, who believes in a lot of gods and think Jehovah is just one of the many gods. And I'm like, no, the fuck you can't. Right? The very nature of Jehovah does not allow for that. That's a fucking married

bachelor proposition. And even if that was possible, that would mean you're a Hindu person who gets, you know, medium Jehovah Magic, which Ross is also going to be rejecting as cosmically wrong, to be clear. Yeah. Come on. Just try

Jehovah, just to see how it feels. Well, so, but then he also, he's trying to couch the very real racism of, like, you know, maybe pre-Christian Africans were just tricked into worshipping Satan's minions by saying, well, like, I mean, maybe my God is a Hindu demon. Can you imagine?

But seriously, the Browns are easily tricked by the Prince of Darkness, and it is our obligation to help them. Right, right. Or maybe the Hindu secretly recognizes that his religion is just an imperfect version of my religion and actually thinks that the monotheist has it right.

I mean, yeah, but probably not, man. You were joking about it. married bachelor, but he literally says the sincere polytheist might also be a kind of monotheist. That's the exact quote. Interesting. And then he tries to explain what the fuck that would mean. And he lands on

you can be like a Voltron Hindu. Which is really, it's really just a confused Christian. So many arms. You know, you can put so many arms on that lion. So lions on there. No, but he's like, he's like, he's Like, early Christians had, you know,

they had, this is the actual quotes, like early Christians had varying interpretations of the Greco-Roman polytheism. They were seeking to display. So I'm like, well, yeah, mostly it was burn it alive, though. Yeah. So just to be clear, the real God wanted the Greeks and Romans to convert to Christianity. But he went with like a sly, coquettish game of warmer cold. Yes, right.

And the burning people alive was warmer. Yeah, to be clear. So, but he's like, well, they could be worshipping angels instead of demons, right? So, like, maybe their God is just like, assistant to the regional God. If you aren't picturing Sarah Huckabee Sanders as Vishnu, you're probably new around here, but you are missing out. Aren't you, though? A different fast food in each arm. What up?

I'm the destroyer world. So much cheese. I have eight cheese plates. Get away from me. So he also, he ultimately. names the maybe you're all just doing my religion wrong defense, the Emmeth principle. He names us after a character in Narnia, just in case you weren't thinking about comparing him to C.S. Lewis for a minute. I guess in the book, Emmeth worshipped a vulture demon, but he got

into heaven anyway because he was a pretty swell fella, which is not at all how Christianity works according to any Christian denomination. Yeah, he's describing other religions like, you know, the mentalists who just guesses a card and has a really cool act, one in three. 52 times. Like a pagan worshipping Zeus might say a Christian spell by accident once in a while. Like, you know, maybe

Hey, Zeus counts. A magical breastplate of righteousness during a battle. And they're like, oh. There you go. Okay. That was a freebie. Maybe God dresses up as other gods

for Halloween sometimes. You know, you don't know. He doesn't say he doesn't. He's like, look, I'm not saying Muslims go to heaven or anything. They do. They do not go to heaven. Sorry, just to clarify from earlier,

if you survived the battle because of the breastplate we gave you, you still go to a lake of fire for all eternity when you die, but it's kind of cool, right? You used to hang out with Peter a little longer while he takes it off. He was just like, yeah, sorry about this.

There's also, there's a moment where he's like, you know, now this argument works best if you start off assuming that all of religion isn't bullshit. I'm like, that is literally the thing that you're trying to prove in your stupid fucking book, right? So all arguments for your side

are going to work better if we assume that your site is correct beforehand, yes. Yeah, not for the first time I thought to myself, this book should have been a postcard. Oh, yeah, there you go. Wouldn't have filled up a whole email after all. But he's like, okay, so, but how do you pick the right one? Well, it's probably best to start with the biggest religion

since obviously that's the most convincing one. And that's how we know that happy birthday is the greatest piece of music of all time. And given how fast is, Islam is taking up their market share, you might want to be careful with that, Ross. Yeah. Right, right. So, but then he introduces us to our religion semi-finalists with a subchapter called

The Case for Big Religions. Real quote. It's ripping off all the other offers this week. Yeah, right. He says, quote, if this sounds like an argument that the more popular, enduring, and successful world religions are more likely than others to be true, yes, that's exactly what I'm arguing, end quote. It does sound like that.

Yeah. Yeah, right. The fact that his is the most popular enduring and successful, that's surely just a coincidence as to why he thinks that, though, right? Also, I know you're cheating at the enduring test by calling Christianity Jews 2.0, but for the record, Ross, we don't call you Jews 2.0. So we're going to go ahead and take enduring back. I'm sure Ross is going to convert to Islam in like 2050 when they get bigger.

To be intellectually consistent. Yes. Oh, God, is it that soon? I hope I'm alive. that's going to be so fucking funny. That will be funny, yeah. Now, he's like, now, of course, I guess all religions started unpopular,

unenduring, and unsuccessful. So, well, fuck, this can't be right. Time out. Time out. To respect the timeout. I'm thinking about more rules during my book that I'm typing. Yes.

He's like, okay, hey, hey, new rule, new rule that I just thought of. Religions get, you know, fucking like two general. to get popular and then you're out, right? That's fair. You don't want some fucking Johnny come lately, religion is what I'm saying.

Yeah, you want a religion with a bunch of well-kept records about how your guy is lying? Because that's how you get Mormonism, everybody, okay? Do you want Mormonism? Yeah, this was another panic rule that he made. He's think-typing about the truest religion. And he says, the truest faith in the year 2034 could be a handful of disciples in a barn

outside of Toledo, which is a crazy example. But then he realizes that Christianity was just some guy in a barn at first. And he's like, and, and no late comers. And you have to get billions of people pretty quick, or the truth doesn't count for your thing. Nurse Ratchet over here. He suggests he's like, well, let's, you got to start with the big fucking four, right? Because it's going to be one of those.

So that's Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, or Buddhist. Sorry Judaism. You're out. He says, those are the four. Maybe you want to just start, you know, you just go alphabetically starting with BV or something like that. He goes, actually, you know, all of these four religions, they converge on a lot of shit. They actually agree on a bunch of stuff. And I'm like, no, the fuck they don't.

Right. I'm sorry, those four religions, they converge on like six pieces of a priori morality. That's it. Yeah. And only if you ignore the parts. of Christianity that's like, hey, please ignore that a priority morality shit. It's Jesus.

Jesus is what matters. Hey, humanism converges with pretty much all the a priori morality. But they didn't file the right paperwork. Johnny Caledley. Ross made a rule about the rules. About that. Yeah.

So but then. You got to be touching the outside of the barn in Toledo. He starts this like anemic list of similarities, right? after I'd written my note about the A priori morality and he's like oh and I'm like oh yeah no you got to say they also share homophobia man I guess there's also that

yeah it's like he heard me mention humanism and he has to put a a cap on peace love and understanding he's like hold on hold on we also have the right bigotry and also

also demons we have demon blocking everybody we got you earlier we got the best demon Everyone's got a wha. If we call everything a demon. And the Goldilocks zone of bigotry. And he's like, well, you know, all four of the major religions, they all believe in the reality of hell. And I'm like, no, the fuck they don't.

Last week's game is a reminder that not even all the Christians believe in hell. Yeah. Also, Buddhist hell is way more like dungeon crawler Carl than it is Christianity. Yeah, right. Unless you're about to open the Church of Princess Donuts, this argument is not helping you, Ross. Oh, you made a subset of our listeners so happy just now. Right?

So he's like the most likely explanation from why these four religions spread so much is because they were the truest, right? I mean, people were and currently are literally murdered into believing all four of those religions. Yeah, you're full of shit. Those religions spread like, you know, Walmart, Facebook, Amazon. Yeah. They had good luck early in their area. They got entrenchment, critical mass, near monopoly in their area, regulatory capture, and then go fuck yourself, you have to do this.

The major religions are all textbook in shittification. Really? Exactly. Yeah. Then he goes, oh, God, this part's so awful. He's like, you know, we all started with a common tribal religion. And I'm like, what a fucking gross dismissal of all tribal face, right? They are so much more diverse than the big four that he's focused on.

Right. And what's so funny is that Ross is constantly dressing his opinions up in this overly flowerly sort of like, like Saturday crossword language, but his takes would make Bubba at the gas and sip blush, right? Forthwith, we all started with the Oogabuga religion. So he goes, the common tribal faith, quote, treats divinity as an intensely eminent force, manifest in local deities, nature spirits,

the ghost of your ancestors, your own spirit, and the collective spirit of the tribe, end quote. That's so many different fucking things that he's now trying to pack into a single universal faith, like he only wants to make one trip in from the fucking grocery store. Yeah, and also crazy and accurate if your source is anything other than the fucking Flintstones.

There's also that. Yeah, he's just casually racisming here. He's regurgitating the primal, like, moral justification for colonization. Right? Given these simple tribal folks a more sophisticated religion. He's like, he says, as religions grew, local gods, This is a quote. As religions grew, local gods were subordinated to bigger gods, end quote. Read, colonizers forced their religion on indigenous peoples.

Yeah. Yeah, I have no idea why, but he goes into a detailed description of how religion that lands on the big four just happened to evolve into something that got better and better at controlling large groups of people and getting their money. Huh. But that's what we're saying, Ross, that's our argument. In Ross's insane version of that narrative, Catholic God wanted more people. So he had a choice between setting up centuries of persecution and tyranny and kid fucking as it turned out. Or doing, you know, one good magic trick that everybody could see. And God went with the first thing with the first thing.

Because that's the one that you named first and I was already committed to it. He even claims that the goals of like higher religion are greater than the goals of those. stupid fucking African people. I'm sorry, but does your God even kill the whole world at the end of his book and also kind of towards the beginning? No. Sure, I say. How many

genocides do you have? Aim higher. Also, he's doing that thing that idiots do where they pretend that what happened was inevitable because it happened, which means that in his telling, science just naturally grew out of Christianity, rather than fought its way out of Christianity

on pain of death. It's every hedge fund manager who got lucky early on explaining how whatever up or down or stay the same they guessed is prophetic wisdom and they're a genius. But as long as we're on the subject of religion and science, even if we don't count anything before Christ just because to be nice to Ross, even then most of early math and science got invented by Muslim people while most of Christianity was having splash fights in mud pits and dying of plagues. Right. Yeah. Ah, man, imposing colonizer religions on indigenous people sure did set them free, though. You know, spiritually speaking, not so much physically. But now they're physically free and they're saved. So worth it.

I'm a New York Times columnist. We took up the Christian man's burden and relieved your burdens. You're welcome, tribe people. Seriously, that's almost an exact quote. It's so close to a fucking quote. He says burden just like that. Yeah. Now, of course, we secularists tend to look at it, it being the evolution of religions,

as like a disenchantment, right? And he's saying this because he's trying to sign a step to reality, which is to say that we see that as you have to prove it to larger and more skeptical groups of people, your claims get less and less grandiose and less and less testable. Yeah. And he's describing the big innovation of large-scale religions as letting people, stop focusing on crazy magical claims and live their lives with human agency. Yeah.

But then right before fucking hearing it, he explains how Christianity gives you just the one crazy magical claim. So it's nice, it's easy to manage. It's like a reverse mortgage. Yeah. It's consolidating all your spiritual debt. Exactly. Yeah.

He goes, but my view is that my religion was right all along and everybody was just moving towards that the whole. time. And I'm like, well, yeah, man, we know that. Yeah. When you interpret all of history as leading up to handsome genius Eli Bosnick, the Holocaust was an unfortunate, but necessary sacrifice.

Right, which is where we're going to end. So, like, he's hard at work. He's narrowed down all of our faith possibilities from about 8,000 to 4, unless you count all the mutually exclusive denominations as different faiths, in which case we're still really in the hundred somewhere. But regardless, we'll get back to whittling away

on the next installment of God Awful Books. Oh, man, I wonder what's going to happen in the second half of this chapter. Which religion will be right? Which one do you think he's going to land on, huh? Before we're reduced to a whispering memory, I want to remind everybody that it's very nearly too late to do anything for Valentine's Day. It's not going to at least seem very last minute. Anyway, that's all the best may we've got for you tonight.

We'll be back in 10,022 minutes with more. If you can't wait that long, be on long. look up for a brand new episode of our sister shows hot friend God Offaful movies, debuting at 7am Eastern on Tuesday and an even new episode of our half-sertial citation debuting at noon Eastern on Wednesday. Obviously, I need to thank Heath Enright for always being a pal, Eli Bosnick for always being a bro, lucind illusions for always being the light of my life, even when she's coming off a dental work, which is what she's doing at the moment, which is why she wasn't here this week, but she'll probably be back next week. I also want to thank Cliff Edwards

for providing this week's Farnsworth quote, haven't read the book, but the plot sounds promising. He's also got the kind of voice that seems like it should be telling you how mitochondria work, and he narrates the audio book. So be sure check the show. Show notes for that. But most of all, of course, I want to thank this week's best bipeds. Richard, Jeremy, Garrett, B, Jordan, Alex, Jha, Bach, Choi, advises, more drugs, more bikes, and B, Snickle Dumpur, Ezra, and Daniel. Richard, Jeremy, and Garrett, whose erections would have been happy to get those astronauts to the moon if they just asked. B, Jordan, Alex, and Jha, who are so awesome bags of chips, add them to the end when trying

to express how all that something is. And Snickle Ezra and Daniel, who are so vast, they make the ocean nervous. Together, these 10 people, letter, statements of desire, and whatever snickled dumper is came together to this week to give us money. Not everybody did that, but if you'd like to nudge it that much closer to everybody, you can make a per-episode donation at patreon.com slash scathing atheist, whereby you'll earn early access to extended ad-free version of every episode, or you can make a one-time donation by clicking on the donate button on the right side of the homepage at scathingatheist.com. And if you'd like to help but not in a money kind of way, you can also help a ton by leaving a five-star review, telling a friend about the show and following us on social media. And speaking of social media, Tim Robertson handles that for us and our audio-interest, or as Morgan Clark will also roll the music that was used in this episode, which was used with permission.

If you have questions, comments, or death, or to find all the contact info on the contact page at scaling aadies.com. So it's what I should have to be a little more gay, but let me start over again now since most of the best. Yeah, that's true. It's been me less gay. Hurtful. I'm reporting you to Cannes. All right, here we go. This content is scanned credentialed, which means you can report instances of harassment, abuse, or other harm.

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