The Scathing Atheist - 675: Lies of Commission Edition

Episode Date: February 19, 2026

In this week’s episode, Trump’s Religious liberty commission finds itself 1 for 3, Christian Nationalists gather in DC to break the first and second rule of Smite Club, and we’ll be joined by the Epstein File’s own Michael Marshall.---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 more from Marsh on Skeptics with a K and the Know Rogan Experience---Headlines:Trump’s religious liberty commission is not going awesome: https://apnews.com/article/trump-religious-liberty-commission-antisemtism-0cbdc1f1aa62286aa7688495555b0aa5 and https://www.friendlyatheist.com/p/trumps-religious-liberty-commissionMyPillow founder Mike Lindell spent majority of campaign funds buying his own book: https://julieroys.com/mypillow-founder-mike-lindell-spent-majority-campaign-funds-buying-his-own-book/GOP lawmaker asks God to cleanse government of non-believers at Christian Nationalist event: https://www.friendlyatheist.com/p/gop-lawmaker-asks-god-to-cleanse

Warning, by the time I finish this sentence, this podcast will already have started using words like fuck. This week's episode of The Skating Atheist is brought to you by Oraframes and by the new concussion Emporium for Christians that want to chase those doubts out of their brain the hard way, Bonk of America. And now, the scathing atheist.

It's... Oh, shit. Wait, this isn't the No Rogan experience. This is, again, and I can assure you, we did in fact evolve from filthy monkey men. It's Thursday. It's February 19th. And it's Prevent Plagiarism Day. That's right, people.

Keep it bad and original. Please, please. I'm no illusions. I'm Eli Bosnick. I'm Heathenwright. And from Isobo Lovito's New Jersey. And our Michigan and Waycross, Georgia. This is the scathing atheist.

On this week's episode, Trump's Religious Liberty Commission gets one out of three. Christian nationalists gather in D.C. to break the first and second rule of Smite Club. And Michael Marshall will be here to hope you've forgotten that he was in the Epstein Piles. At first, the diatribe. You ever tell one of them random, inconsequential lies that you immediately get stuck in? Like, somebody will ask you, have you ever seen such and such a movie, and your mouth will just go yes, even though you haven't? And then you're like, why don't fuck did I just lie about that? But you're kind of stuck with a lie now because otherwise you have to say,

sorry, I was just now lying to you. And then they would be like, why the fuck would you lie to me about whether you've seen a movie? And more importantly, how can we ever repair this breach of trust in our relationship now that I know that you would lie to me about something as inconsequential as whether you've seen the shape of water? I'm convinced that that's like how a lot of religion happens. So let me give you this from my own experience and see if you can map it onto yours. As I've mentioned before, when I was a teenager, I got into like New Age Wiccah type shit. Me and a couple of buddies got a hold of a book on modern witchcraft. And since the satanic panic had primed us to believe that we were always just one errant spell casting away from unleashing the powers of hell on the town around us, we were constantly trying to summon ourselves a demon.

Now, unfortunately, Ray Buckland's complete book of witchcraft doesn't have a lot about demons summoning. But we kept digging around and it turns out that if you're willing to pay to read some bullshit, somebody is willing to be paid to write. it down for you. So we managed to scrounge up a couple of different resources that gave us a couple of confident demon recipes. Now, if you've never dealt with any of this new agey shit, I should tell you here that the people who write these books on witchcraft generally know better than to just say, you know, do steps one through six and then the demon will appear and ask you what you want them to do.

Because obviously, then you'd just be able to say, no, this doesn't work. Instead, you have to empower your magical weapons. You have to consecrate your ritual robe. You have to imbue yourself with the power of the elements. and even then you have to hit a pretty specific lunar window to affect a really good demon summoning. Now, of course, when you finally jump through all these various hoops and you manage to wrangle all the people to the right place

at the right time and you do the spell, nothing fucking happens because it's all nonsense. But by then you put a lot of effort into the nothing, and it's really tempting to pretend it wasn't nothing, right? Because the other option is admitting that you're all a bunch of fucking idiots. So maybe somebody throws out a quick lot. A little lie.

There's something like, well, I know I felt something. Or maybe they'll take the blame, right? Like, oh, well, I think I might have fucked up the visualization, guys, so that at least there's some reason beyond everybody's collective idiocy that excuses the entire and glaring lack of consequences for this week's long effort. And maybe somebody else backs up that first lie with a second lie. Maybe you try again a few weeks later and now you feel like the lie has to be a little bit bigger, right?

But eventually, you reach a point where somebody makes one, of those concrete type lies. Somebody says, I saw the demon that time. Now, maybe that person actually saw a demon, despite the fact that those things don't exist. Maybe they convinced themselves that some trick of light was a demon, but far more likely, they just fucking lied. They knew that everybody had been doing a bunch of lie in the whole time. So they took the next logical step.

They yes and did the bit. And they made some kind of absolute claim. And from that point on, they were kind of trapped in a world where they had to to continue to pretend that they saw a demon or admit they were just making shit up. And despite all of our pretences about the importance of honesty, pretty much every goddamn one of us has lied at some point for no greater reason than to not seem like the only asshole in the room that hasn't seen shape of water, right? So that fucking shit happens.

But now, let's fast forward a year or two or five in the future. Let's say that not everybody who was in that summoning circle knew that everybody who claimed to have seen or felt results was just playing along. and let's say that that person is genuinely seeking the truth, maybe even starting to doubt they're deeply held in longstanding belief that summoning demons is even possible. But they can't get past that hump because, of course, their very good friend who was in the summoning circle

saw the demon that one time and swore to it on multiple occasions, even gave very awkward details when they were pressed to provide them. I mean, it's not a firsthand account. It's not a personal experience, but it's really fucking close. It's a secondhand account from somebody you trust, somebody who might be a dear friend

of years and years, somebody that you shared secrets with, somebody that you would trust with anything, and that person is just locked into a fucking lie of the moment that got away from them. I'm not exactly sure what the Christian equivalent of this is, but I know a lot of Christian traditions

involve bringing a bunch of people together, especially young people, encouraging them to have unverifiable, but very much personal experience, with God and then shower the people who play along with attention and praise. And I just, I feel like there's a certain point where if you make a lie rewarding enough to tell, that's its own form of dishonesty. They're talking about your Jesus. May interrupt this broadcast and bring you a special news bulletin.

Joining me for headlines tonight of the gold and silver to my bronze, Heath Enright and Eli Bostic fellas. Are you ready to test your medal? Team USA women's hockey team. I'm gold medal calling it now. Oh, yes. Or you'd be Canada 5-0 in the prelims. Oh, yeah, and then that, whatever the thing's happening in tomorrow.

Yes, yes. The real question is whether they're going to give up a second goal at all in the Olympics. We'll see. Curling. You want to try that one again, Ealing? Curling. Another quick touch.

All right, so while Eli fails to get that joke, we're going to pause for a word from this week's sponsor, aura frames. Stephanie, thanks for submitting your note from your astrologer about why you were not able to complete your homework. While I understand that entering the year of the firehorse is a difficult time, the assignment was due well before the Chinese New Year, and I'm afraid

I can't. Hey, what are you doing there? Oh, I was just responding to some emails from my students. Yeah, it seems tough and weird. It is, it is. But you know what gets me through? A spectacularly high dose of antidepressants? Well, yeah, but also this. A picture frame? Not just any picture frame, Heath. It's an aura frame. I keep it right here on my desk, and whenever I get bummed, I've got thousands of pictures of the people I love to cheer me up.

See, that's you, me, and Iana in Australia. Okay, well, that actually sounds great. It is. Oroframes have free unlimited storage, so I can pack it as full of as many photos as I want. Plus, if you're giving it as a gift, you could set it up inside the box, so all someone has to do is plug it in and enjoy.

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That's a URAFrames.com promo code scaling. Support the show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply. All right, buddy. Thanks. Hey, when you're done, come finish up the podcast. Sure.

Hey, question. Should I give a student partial credit for submitting the tears they wept instead of their homework? I feel like, yeah? That was my thought too. Yeah. All right.

And now back to the headlines. In our lead story tonight, back in May of last year, Donald Trump created a religious liberty commission and gave it two jobs. Pretend Joe Biden was persecuting Christians and pretend that Donald Trump was doing something about it.

They're set to present a report this summer on just how persecuted America's Christians are and in the meantime, they've been vaguely tasked with advising the administration on matters of religious liberty. And that commission is filled with such luminaries as Texas lieutenant governor Dan Patrick, invisible boob molester Ben Carson, Christian grifter extraordinaire Paula White. White Kane, Noah.

She's a married woman now. The website doesn't say anything about no Paula White Kane. Since 2015, I think she's married to that guy. She just started using the name. I don't know. Yeah, well, not on their, not on their website. She didn't. Not on their major offense.

All right. also Archbishop of the Mordor diocese Timothy Dolan, evangelical Nepo baby Franklin Graham, thumb with a face sharpied onto a Dr. Phil desperately unfunny guy who thinks he can make up for that by talking in a humor cadence, Eric Metaxus, and Miss California pageant winner who got her 15 minutes of fame by hijacking a pageant Mike to espouse homophobia,

Carrie Pre-Gene Bowler. And believe it or not, podcast listener, she's going to be the crazy one this week. Well, craziest, yes. Okay, and Eric Metaxus, he's back in the... Oh, yeah. Anything? I don't know.

I missed him, though. Like, half the things he ever said in his movies ended with, like, I said repeating my punchline. He needs like a soundboard to walk around with him to get some rim shots. That would do it. Doesn't make any sense. Some of the greatest comedians in history have used soundboards. So, okay, so, but here's the thing. Even if all they're supposed to do is produce a piece of preordained propaganda,

a government commission is still an official thing. and there are laws about what they can and can't do. In fact, there's this whole thing called the Federal Advisory Committee Act of 1972, or fucka, that sets out a very basic set of rules precisely so that a president can't just stock a commission full of his cronies. So a coalition representing a number of non-Christian nationalist faith alignments just sued the shit out of the government for violating pretty much every provision of that act. Yeah, the complaint just says, stop doing a watergate.

Basically, yes. Whereas you're doing a Watergate fucking stop. Yeah. So to be clear, of the 13 members of the commission, 12 are Christian. The other one is a very conservative rabbi who doesn't get invited to the after party. Diversity. Yeah, right, right. And not only are those other 12 all Christian, but they're all the same basic flavor of Christian.

I mean, there's a couple of fucking Catholics or whatever, but they're all far-right Christian nationalists that reject church-state separation. There is precisely one political view represented by this group. On top of that, they don't even pretend to any form of objectivity. They've held most of their meetings at the infamously corrupt and far-right museum of the Bible in D.C. And they've opened and closed those meetings with explicitly Christian prayers. Yeah, that's when the Jewish guy practices is bongo. I'll take five.

When Ross Douthit or whatever Catholic guy they have, if that's your token DEI voice of reason, you're doing a water game. You're doing a lot of water and it's worse. It's Timothy fucking Dolan. Guys, they got bad news. We couldn't get Ross. Yes, right. So now obviously, FACA has requirements that advisory commissions represent a diverse array of belief.

So the interfaith alliance, Muslims for progressive values, the Sikh American legal defense and education fund, and Hindus for human rights suit. And while this lack of diversity is the main allegation in the complaint, it's far from the only one. They're also violating a ton of transparency rules. FACA requires that these commissions give meeting agendas in advance and make all the material they plan to introduce into those meetings available to people, right?

So they have to provide transcripts of their meetings, they have to provide drafts of the reports that they're working on, they have to provide any studies they plan to cite, any witnesses that they plan to call or cite in the study, any documents relevant to their work. They've done none of that shit. All they've done, in terms of transparency anyway, is put video of their meeting on YouTube

and some of those videos are edited. Okay, guys, we got to meet that requirement. Ross, you want to do like a TikTok dance? Bye, guys. And while it remains to be seen how this lawsuit is going to shake out, it probably won't help that on the one occasion that this commission has been called upon to actually do something other than propaganda,

they failed so bad they had to fire people. So, okay, so one of the big internal debates going on within the MAGA world right now is about anti-Semitism. There's one camp that's saying, hey, guys, people are bringing anti-Semitic conspiracy theories into our rhetoric and stirring up hate crimes against Jewish people. And the other camp is saying, yes, they are. It's a tricky argument. Yeah. So fascist bootlicker who still occasionally manages a solid zinger Scott Dillon, CEO of the Babylon B,

trying to raise awareness of that anti-Semitic creep in their midst by testifying about it to said commission. at which point that former Miss California I was talking about proved his point so thoroughly that even the commission at the end of it agreed that she had to fucking go. Yeah, she was like, thank you for these softballs, Scott. As you can see, I've caught them and now I'm lighting the fuse on this giant cartoon bomb. Yes.

That I'm just holding. This is my talent portion. So basically Dylan is saying, Hey, a lot of the legitimate criticism of Israel has been used to smuggle in these century old anti-Semitic tropes. And Pre-Jean Bowler was like, but they are poisoning the Welsh. They are. I have had a good authority from one Candice Owens. And I think we can all agree that there's nothing anti-Semitic about Candice Owens.

To which Dylan is like, well, she literally said her enemies belonged to the synagogue of Satan at one point. That's just one. example, to which preachyed Bowler said, but they do, though, they do belong to that synagogue. And then she literally read a passage from the Bible about how the Jews killed Jesus. Yikes. That was her attempt at gotcha. She was like, I'm sorry.

Are you saying, seeing the Jews killed Jesus is anti-Semitic? And he was like, yeah. Yeah, that is. I am, though. I'm saying they're good at killing, though. That's a compliment. If Candace Owens didn't have ninja powers, which she does, she'd already be dead too because of Massad. I read it in a

don't worry about it. I saw it in a video. YouTube series. I read it in a subtitle to a video that I was watching. Now, so for their part, the commission did remove her from their ranks in the wake of all of this shit, but she's fighting it,

arguing that only Trump can have her removed. And at the point of this recording anyway, Trump hasn't said shit. So I would expect nothing to change in the long term, but if anything does, we'll follow up. if there's any comfort to these darkest of times, it's that Donald Trump, who is 100% lying about liking these people, has to occasionally get a phone call where they're like,

hey, man, will you tear a badge off of Miss California and put her backwards on a horse out of town? She keeps showing up to meet him. We put together this insane coalition. We don't know what the fuck to do. Next up in headlines in Red Pillowed News. Fantastic. There's a lot going on in Minnesota recently,

and they might just need the insight of a Christian pillow guy to figure it out. That's why political outsider and claw machine insider, Mike Lindell is running for governor, hoping to win the GOP primary coming up in August. And he stole a bunch of campaign money to buy his own book. Amazing. That's about the time he was expecting. Amazing.

He officially started his campaign on December 11th of, 2025, he immediately started scamming donation money and he got caught within 60 days, probably less. But apparently it's not technically illegal because Mike Lindell's book, his memoirs, entitled What Are the Odds from Crack Addict to CEO? With the final of its three sections titled Jesus might just be a really amazing campaign business card that's kind of, thick, but it's a legitimate campaign expense technically. Did it feel weird for you guys to file taxes this year? I kept looking at our accountant and being like,

so we're just, we're doing it like normal. Did you guys file taxes to see? Why are we acting like there are rules? Okay, look, I get that politicians are all crooks or whatever, but they're supposed to be at least good crooks, right? If you get caught with your crookery inside two fucking months, you're obviously not gubernatorial material, right? Exactly.

or you really, really are. We'll see. And a big thanks to Kagan for sending us a link to Scathing News at gmail.com. Kegan was the first of many, which includes an elaborate series of alerts I have about Mike Lindell's name appearing anywhere on the internet. Kegan gets,

I'm going to say, Kegan gets the pride of being faster than the information super highway. Okay, but to be fair, I saw it in our inbox first and I didn't steal it from you. so I should get to ride in Kegan's Information Super Highway sidecar or something. There you go.

Fair enough. So here's what we learned about Lindell's campaign spending. This is from the Roy's report. This is a Christian news publication. Lindel raised about $356,000 so far. It's insane. And yeah, that is insane. And if that counts towards his personal wealth,

which it clearly does in Mike's head, his net worth went all the way up. to still negative like $3 billion. Yeah. Oh, yeah. It doesn't make a dent. Most of that is for defaming Dominion voting systems and Smartmatic to the tune of billions in legal judgments and pending legal judgments, but also hundreds of millions more

to individuals who got defamed or won a bet about a spreadsheet of Lorham Ipsum packet data or people who operate payday loan stores in strip malls that Lindel. hard from recently. Well, in order to deal with all that debt, Mike figured a best-selling book. I just do the trick. So he tried to jumpstart the buzz by spending $187,000 of campaign money

to buy about 30,000 copies of his own book with money getting paid directly to his for-profit company. Which means he values the story of his life at $6.23. That's all right. Now, okay, in fairness, that's wholesale. That's wholesale. Retail?

We don't know because nobody who ever buy that shit. Overall, the book represents 68% of his total campaign spending. Amazing. Okay, but given how leaky his brain is at this point, it also kind of counts as debate prep material to tell him the story of his life. Oh, yeah, that's true. All right, so I'm going to make a bold statement here. people who gave money to the Mike Lindell for governor campaign are undefraudable.

Yeah. Right? There's just there is no way to misappropriate money that was earmarked for that purpose. That is correct. The other big component, by the way, of Lindel's campaign spending is a truck wrap, seriously. Is it a nice one? It is not a nice one. He couldn't afford a truck itself.

so he's renting an RV, which only cost about $2,000 so far as a rental, but he did buy a wrap for it for $26,000 on a rental, to be clear. The rap is a, it's a big decal of Mike himself on the side of his rented RV, and he's waving an American flag. And when I say RV, that's kind of misleading. Based on the photo I saw in the article, we're talking about. talking about, I think, an ice cream truck, like an old reused ice cream truck. And not like a good old ice cream truck. No. No. But one

that does still play turkey in the straw. Yeah. This is much closer to fucking Snowball Pete's trunk go ice than one of the legitimate ones you would sell drugs out of it. Yeah. But that joke is mostly for April Poff, for our favorite listener, April Puff, who literally bought her snow cones out of some guy named Snowball Pete's trunk when she was a kid. I just want to throw that up. the entire world to know. The fact that she survived. That was a drug dealer

who also sold you one thing once in a while. I bet that drug dealer was like, honey, you got to pack this. Because the kid is going to be upset. She doesn't want whatever drugs we have in 1902. Modnam? So just in case I know what's curious, the primary on the Democratic side

looks like a race between current Senator Amy Klobuchar. or Bill Gates Jr. Huh. Now, okay, I know what you're thinking, but Bill, it's just a guy. As far as I can tell, he is not related to the Microsoft guy from the Epstein files, but he goes by that name. Yes, and it is because of that name that he is going to lose. I'm not just because of that.

Yeah, that's not exactly what. It doesn't help. He's a former pastor who's running on a platform of centrism in the primary. with Klobuchar. He's medium about the situation in Minnesota. Oh. And he likes the way he looks based on the photo. Podcast listener, Heath has included a photo of this gentleman in our notes.

And if I ever need an emergency, like sign language photo of wait till my father hears about this, I will be using Bill Gates Jr.'s headshot. He's got that weird look like when a childhood actor grows up, but you still only see the child when you look at him because that's how you've always known him, but he's just that, he's just that all by itself. It's weird. He's the child in there. He's got the arms crossed though. He forgot to star

in like, different folks. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so if Lindell wins the GOP primary, that's going to be his competition. By which I mean Amy Klobuchar and definitely not William Gatis the second or whatever

the fuck he's really called. I almost want to donate to Lindel's primary. Right. Right? Maybe we send him 30,000 copies of Noah's diatribes to give out on the trail. Oh, there you go. Yeah. Say how that works for you. Please, Amy, I know you're

a real grown-up. Please debate Mike Linton. It's really hard out here. If he wins the primary, she will. No, because she could just be like, that guy's a piece of shit. He's a club machine. I'm not going to talk to him. Exactly reason. And that's probably what a grown-up should do, but she should also just

be like, I brought these fact cards from those. things you can buy at Barnes & Noble, third grade edition. If you get any of them right, I'll concede the race now. And finally tonight, in Through a Different

Clean's News. The Family Research Council gathered at the Museum of the Bible last week for a national gathering for prayer and repentance. Fun. Sounds like a fun squad. Yes. Cool hang. Worst Blunt rotation ever.

And if you're wondering what they're repenting for, it is not being an SPLC listed hate group or hosting their event in a museum that bought fake ancient Bibles from terrorists. No, that's just museums mostly. Yeah, that's just museums, but they're repenting for allowing people who disagree with them to be in the government. So we're going to talk about it. Okay, so as passive aggressive and silly as it is to pray for repentance for like us existing, it does sort of cancel out our need to repent. in their mythology, right? So we could just be like,

no, no, the Family Research Council took care of us the other night, so we're good. Yeah, they repented for being too slow on the seven mountains mandate. They have to take over all the key sectors of society in that mandate. And number six, as we all know,

is podcasting. So yeah, we're probably covered. We're the third bowl that gets poured out, I believe. Right. So first up, big thanks to hem at Meta over at the friendly atheist for sending us this story to scathing news at gmail. There are some who would say I'm merely signed up for Hemet's email list over at the friendly atheist.com. But if I was just a subscriber, would I have my very own restraining order?

And it's digital. It's digital, by the way. Eli is not allowed within three hyperlinks of Hemet at this point. It's crazy. It's true. It's true. Be aware of that. So this event was a parade of bat shittery.

Texas Representative Randy Weber insisted that marriage was ruined because the gays have, quote, trampled on what God called holy ratrimony, end quote. And speaker of the house, Mike Johnson showed up to lie about the country being founded on Christianity with his ahistorical hypeman, David and Tim Barton. Wow. God. What do you even aspire to when the family business is being wrong? Right. And you're going into, do you aspire to be wronger or like more convincing? the same amount of wrong? I think the answer is yes.

And it's called Republican hype man. Yeah. You hype it louder, I guess. You'd be wrong louder. Yeah, yeah, that's it. But that's not all. Leader of a different hate group, Tony Perkins spoke as well,

along with Tennessee Congresswoman Diana Harshberger, who had this to say, quote, I pray for our President Lord that you would draw him into a powerful relationship with you, Father. Thank you for his source. servant's heart, God. I pray that you would anoint him with the Holy Spirit, God.

The power of the Holy Spirit, Lord, let the president feel you in every area of his life. Yeah, they let you do that when you're famous. And with every decision he makes, God, let him know that you strengthen him. Father, he needs you. Our nation

needs you, God. I pray for Congress, Lord, that would give us wisdom and discernment in all that we do, God. I pray... Pass the blunt. I pray that you would order our steps and give us divine appointments, Lord, to share the gospel of Jesus Christ. And God, I pray that you would put godly people

in places of authority and take those people out of those places that are not godly, Lord. Wow. And quote. Okay, so first of all, I just want to point out like if this was like Dave that she was talking about and she just kept saying Dave as often as she said God, that would be fucking weird.

like David is often as she said, Lord. The other thing, too, though, that we can't, like, I don't want to escape past too quickly is that she closes on and please smite my enemies, right? That's actually where we are now. A list of grievances and smiting the enemies. And especially that fucking barista who said, latte for Jodd is great.

That wasn't funny. Everyone knows it's a hard G. I had to go back in order a different one. Jesus, really? That's not even how Jay, works. Yes. Latte for assbagger. Now, if you're wondering why Harshberger had such nice things to say about Donald Trump, it's probably because he pardoned her husband for healthcare fraud back in November.

Huh. Quote, in 2013, Robert Harshberger, Jr., a licensed pharmacist at the time, pleaded guilty to healthcare fraud and distributing a misbranded drug. In this case, kidney medications, some of which came from China that were not approved for the purpose by the Food and Drug Administration. Mr. Harshberger was sentenced in 2013 to four years in prison in order to pay more than $848,000 in restitution, as well as a $25,000 fine and $425,000 in forfeiture. Oh, come on. Who doesn't have a spare kidney? This is excessive.

Hey, I got an idea. Maybe no more pardons. Maybe we stop having magical crime. erasing powers for the God King. I don't see how this is good. Yeah. Yeah, gonna have to put his name on the board next to crossing out the rule. But pharmaceutical fraud aside, it's worth acknowledging just how insane Harsh Barger's comments are. She's literally asking God at a hate-sponsored event at a Lime Museum to remove

everyone who isn't her religion from office. Yep. And look, I know it's easy in the age of Trump's insanity for that. to feel like just a footnote, but it does in fact matter. And I've actually got some good news for you, podcast listener. You can fight back against Harshberger. Atheist YouTuber, and therefore I assume ardent listener to our fan,

Christy Burke is running against Harshberger in the upcoming election. So if you live in Harshberger's district and you'd like to be represented by someone who, I don't know, doesn't publicly wish away your existence, vote for Christy. And with a reminder, that her campaign would probably insist on that Eli's endorsement was entirely unsolicited. We're going to wrap up the headlines for the night.

Heath, Eli, thanks as always. And when we come back, the accent-based perception of the average IQ on this podcast will bump up a couple notches. You know things have gotten bad in your life when a guy in the Epstein Files can talk shit about you, and we're going to learn the latest name to earn that dubious honor as we welcome the Epstein Files' very own Michael Marshall back for a segment called who's woo. Well, I'm loving that that's who I am now.

I'm loving that that epithet that I'm never going to escape. This is forever. Someone's starting to miss the jokes about multiple oscarosis. Oh, how the turntables have turned. I did something with homeopathy. It was really important Epstein files. Epstein files. So look, when it comes to who's woo, sometimes it's hard to decide whether someone is,

is definitively woo enough to make the very top table. You know, there are those figures who've been so fundamental to the field of pseudoscience for so long and with such an impact that they are unquestionably A-leaders. And today, we are going to roll out the red carpet for some real Wu royalty, because today we're going to talk about Eric von Danigan. Oh, okay. If Whose Woo had a People magazine, he'd be our Jennifer Aniston. Just like every time he gains two pounds, he's on the cover. Eric Anton Paul von Danigan was born in April 1935 in the city of Zuffingen, Switzerland.

He was raised Catholic and attended the Saint-Michel International Catholic School in Freiburg, though the theological upbringing didn't quite take because while he was at school, he rejected the Bible, deciding instead to spend his time reading about astronomy and nurturing his nascent belief in UFOs and flying saucers. Okay, cool. Just like Barack Obama. That's what they say. All right, so he didn't reject bullshit. He just rejected stuffy bullshit.

That's a good start, at least. It's on the way. It's on the way. And if the theology side didn't stick, the more practical aspects of a biblical education certainly didn't take either. Because at the age of 19, he was arrested for having done one of like the 10 things the Bible specifically says not to do,

which led to him receiving a four-month suspended prison sentence, the theft. Okay, unrelated. but it's weird that only two of the 11-10 commandments are things that we would bother to make a law against. Exactly. Stop coveting my ass. Yeah, and loads of legal stuff aren't in the Ten Commandments. It's funny, that morality.

So once his sentence for that has expired, he moved to Egypt to work in a hotel where he immediately involved himself in a jewelry scheme that saw himself a nine-month prison sentence for fraud and for embezzlement. Sitting in a jail for the second time. What do you mean there's a legal way to do fraud? I think jewelry is a jewelry scheme.

Like the whole thing is a scheme. And there isn't really a more accurate nor a more telling way to put this other than, while committing fraud in Egypt, Van Dannikin had what he describes as an intense vision leading to his first foray into writing. Penning for a magazine, Hatten Unse, for half from Bissok oustem veltram. Way too good. Which in English is, were our ancestors,

visited by extraterrestrials. Terrified of Marsh now. So that piece was swiftly elongated into the book that would really make his name internationally. Chariot of the gods. A book that was just asking questions, right in the title. Okay, I feel like the asking questions as a pejorative gets overused, but this is one of those times when it's definitely justified.

Like, God chariot? Rancorous. Nope, no, not taking questions on it. these things. First published in 1968, the book, complete with its upwards inflection title, posited that many artifacts and ancient structures around the world were actually signs not of the creativity and ingenuity of our ancestors, but evidence of visitation throughout history by technologically advanced beings from outer space. Look, look, it's either this, or we ascribe agency to brown people. Do you want to ascribe agency to brown people?

No. And according to von Danigan, the pyramids weren't feats of architecture from a reasonably sophisticated human culture along the green and verdant banks of the Nile in Africa, but they were instead created by little green men from the stars. And the Moewe stone statues of the Easter Island weren't actually remarkable evidence of the creativity and artistic abilities of the Rappanoi people because they were products of a higher stoneworking proficiency than those primitive islander people could ever have been capable of producing. So the book was just filled with these kinds of proclamations, and it would go on to be incredibly influential, too. Okay, it seems like a weird flex by the aliens in this theory.

They travel across the galaxy with space travel that they invented. They get here, and they're like, hey, check out these triangles. We're really good. Do you guys figure stacking yet? Let me show you guys. Guys, should we tell them about germs? Nah, let's do the big heads. Let's do the big heads.

You know all on the right over here, I was like, let's do big heads. You imagine how embarrassed those aliens are going to be when they come back and we show them like laser etching and taflon and they're like, fuck, man, we never got really bond. Stacking bricks. Will you come back to our planet with us? This shit seems way nicer. Yeah, we only got as far as stacking bricks in the shape that naturally bricks stack into if you don't do in which work to make them a different shape.

You've no idea how heavy our ships are. That isn't to say that publishing Charity of the Gods was smooth sailing, because the book was actually initially turned down from multiple publishers. And it was only eventually accepted once the publisher insisted that it was properly edited by Wilhelm Roggersdorf. And by edited, I mean comprehensively rewritten. And by Wilhelm Roggersdorf, I mean the pen name of Uttz Utterman. And by Uttz Uttemann, I mean the former editor of the official Nazi party newspaper

Volkisha Bielbachter, because Utterman is listed by Wikipedia as a Nazi bestselling author. And there it is. We got to rank the races so fast, so fast right away. If you're an editor for the Nazi's official newspaper, does that make you a grammar, Nazi? I think it does. Yeah. Like, apparently by 19.

Europe still hadn't learned the lesson about following books written by imprisoned Nazis, because Chariot of the Gods went on to become a major bestseller. By 1974, it had sold 5 million copies, and the latest figures that I could find have it topping 70 million copies worldwide in total. And the hype around this book, it got so great that German magazine Despigel declared the phenomenon Danikaitis. Yeah, I got Dankitis from too much Riz once. I was forced to unskibbity myself in a self-induced honk shoe.

Okay. So the Ida's suffix means something swelled up to a greater degree than is healthy. So I feel like they nailed it with the terminology. Yeah, absolutely. Along the way, the book would lose its interrogative title, taking on a far more declarative tone without the unnecessary speculative punctuation in the title. Worldwide sales success had clearly given Von Daniken

the self-assuredness that he'd been missing during his career as a convicted thief and fraudster, apparently. So all of that said, the first and most famous book, that came out in March, 1968. And in November 1968, Van Danigand's celebrated its huge success by getting arrested again, this time for falsifying records at the hotel he was managing at the time, and also for faking credit references that he'd used in order to take out lawns of more than $130,000 over the course of a decade. and that was money that he claims he used to fund the travel that was required to research the book. And that was an argument. The court did not accept as sufficient for the fraud, especially when he tried to plead that he should have the charges annulled,

given he had no malicious intent when committing the fraud. And also that the owners ought to have been on the financial institutions to check whether he'd been lying or not. Cool. The Eli Bosnick story. Yeah, true. The financial crisis of 2008 story. Really? Yeah.

God, if you don't want me to cry. Crime, make it harder is a bold defense, though. You got to admire that, I guess. It really is. It wasn't malicious when he was lying to get money. That was benevolent lying to get money. Because he was doing the book. He was making a book out of.

Sure. Yeah. For the people. In February 1970, he was found guilty of repeated and sustained embezzlement fraud and forgery, which it was said to be to fund his playboy lifestyle. And so he served a year of his 30-month sentence before being released. Okay.

Marshall, I'm looking at a paper. picture of this guy, and even in the 1970s, he seems to be living a more po-boy lifestyle than a play-line lifestyle. Oh, that's such a good sandwich. Also, that point about using the money to fund the travel that he required to research this bestseller book, that

also doesn't quite hold water because there were allegations that his research had been largely desk-based in that he'd read other people's books and then plagiarized them. In particular, DeSpegel reported in 1969 on some clear similarities between

the revelations within Charite of the Gods, and the works of French author Robert Charot, particularly his 1963 book, 100,000 years of man's unknown history. So the similarity between the books, they were so stark that Charot's publishers contacted Von Danikin in 1968, leading to subsequent printings of Charity of the gods, without the question mark, containing citations to Charot in the bibliography. And that said, others have pointed out that both Charot's work and von Danigan's work seemed to owe an awful lot to the Morning of the Magicians,

which was written by French authors Louis Pauvels and Jacques Berger in 1960. So it's hard to say exactly what happened or where the repeated and sustained embezzler fraudster and forger came by his revelations about the history of humanity. But it's kind of be frustrating for him, right?

When you've plagiarized your book from published works and publishers are going, no, I don't think this is publishable. And you can't know what, obviously it is, because I stole it. They already did from a real book. You've ruined them. Also, just want to throw this out there.

If Morning of the Magicians isn't about coming down to breakfast to explain to your mom that she has to knock before coming into your room because you agreed that you pay rent by taking out the trash, then it should change its title. I'll see that right now. Regardless of where this information came from, Van Danagan's Star was on the rise. And even if he found much of his insight in the works of other authors, it was unquestionably he who kick-started the crane.

of attributing artefacts and monuments around the world, not to the local residents, most of whom were lacking in the kind of ingenuity, technological capability, and downright caucacity to pull off something as magnificent as these things. So instead, to ancient beings from beyond the stars. Over his life, he offered 24 books, including 1970s Return to the Stars,

72's Gods from Outer Space, 73's, the Gold of the Gods, 75's Miracle of the Gods, 76es in search of ancient gods, 77's according to the evidence and 1980s signs of the gods. Yeah, the great thing about writing books for idiots is that you can keep just saying the same shit

and be confident that they didn't get it the first time. They're going to know that you're saying the same shit again. David I Gambit, yeah. I was going to say, I remain surprised that we didn't run into a passage in everything you need to know that was just la la la, la, nobody's reading this, not even my editor, filling pages, la, la, la. handed in a bunch of homework in high school with that as a test, a lot of it got through.

Really? Fine. Van Danikin, he was also the author of several comic books based on his research, and his various books were turned into the 1970s documentary's Charity of the Gods and Message of the Gods, the latter of which was narrated by William Shatner, while the former was edited into a TV documentary in search of ancient astronauts, which kickstarted the In Search of Series of Documentation. as famously hoped by Leonard Nimoy. Okay, so publishing your science research in the Justice League Science Journal doesn't

sound great, but a narration by Shatner is a good play. Like, if I hear Shatner being like, inject your lungs with pure daylight and horse, dewormer. Like, I'm way more likely to buy whatever you sell. Also, big shout out to Marsh for finding out what we'll be watching. Next time he's on gam. Two Birds Won Stone this week long. Really appreciate it.

Vendanagan's work was foundational to the creation of shores like ancient aliens on the History Channel, which became a vehicle for the crazy-haired memetic inspiration, Giorgio A. Sucalos. And if that had been all he gave us,

he would have earned his place in history. Oh, yeah. Oh, and a quick side note on other extensions of the Vandanagan brand. In 2003, he opened mystery park, which was a Swiss theme park dedicated to his own personal interpretation of ancient archaeology, with zones that were themed around, his misinterpretation of sites like the Great Pyramid of Giza, Stonehenge, and Peru's Nazca lines. And a leading Swiss scientist was

quoted in several newspapers, calling it a cultural Chernobyl. It was too rad. It was a compliment, actually, if you think about it. It's too hot for TV. It's great for a podcast. A lot of good things going on there. So sadly, in 2006, Mystery Park closed due to financial difficulties, having attracted only a fraction of its projected goal of 500,000 visitors

per year. And critics have just pointed out that the contents of Van Danikin's work just doesn't have the kind of in-person interest that he thought a theme park could sustain. Ah, that's fucking nuts. He's usually so good at interpreting data. He should try like a

landlocked boat with water dogs in it. I was going to say those visitors were in fucking Ken Ham's imagination. That's where they were. And look, this certainly wasn't the only example of Van Danigan's talent for exaggeration and invention. Because his entire career was just dogged by people far more qualified than he was, pointing out where and how his work was the product of false interpretation, fabrication, an outright fraud. And look, I know what you're thinking.

What? The guy who stole all that money and jewelry and stuff surely not. First this guy, then Marshes in the Epstein files. Who can you trust? There were notable rebuttals, including the 1972 book Crash Go the Chariots by Clifford Wilson, and Ronald Story's 1976 book, The Space Gods, revealed. And much of the criticism rests on the fact that when von Danikin reviewed images and artifacts from ancient civilizations, he just made no effort to understand how they were actually made or why they were made.

So when he stumbles across a picture of a complex pattern, of lines in the desert, his 20th century eyes see an aircraft landing strip, rather than the contemporary cultural depictions of birds, animals, and mythical thickers that they actually were. Just lines. Yeah. No, they're drawings, they're drawings of stuff. And the thing is, he also saw the drawings being too precise to have been done by these

savages at ground level, dismissing the culture's grasp of things like mathematics and measuring, which is how they did it. They drew it first, and then they used scale to scale it up to a massive massive massive massive drawing, because they knew their way around maths and how to measure stuff. And coincidentally, that was a leap that he'd make wherever lines like those would appear in Peru and Saudi Arabia and the Aral Sea are among indigenous Australian societies. This guy's just doing the ink block test, alien runway with ink, alien runway with ink, and, oh, fucking my mom on the alien runway.

Guys, just like, I showed you the same line three times. That's what I showed you. Yep. And on a similar note, when Van Danikin came across, you know, 3,000-year-old hieroglyphics, what he sees are helicopters and submarines. And that's because he never bothered to talk to anyone who could read the hieroglyphs to point out

that that helicopter, for example, is just the inscription for Ramsey's the second and Setti the first overlaid. Okay, but Sets. come on. Interesting. But surely he at least wondered why they were so bad at drawing helicopters.

Okay. Marsh, you're telling me, with the tiny selection of everything ever drawn, written, carved, or inscribed, he was able to find pictures that look this kind of like something. Pasha, I say. Pasha! What my point is Pasha.

Yeah, exactly. Okay, I see a helicopter. If I'm being honest, saw that, I'd be like, oh, that's weird. There's a helicopter in there. Yeah, because you can't read hieroglyphs, and neither can I. And that's why that looks a bit like a helicopter until someone says... Am I fucking my mom in that helicopter right there? There are those who have understandably accused Vantanagan's writing as being based in a form

of white European supremacy. Ha! And that it's the achievements of non-white civilizations that his work primarily looks to depict as alien in origin. And yes, his defenders will point to his claim that Stonehenge was also built using more advanced know-how than we got the stone from over there and we moved it to over here. And therefore, he can't possibly be racist actually because he took that one from white people. But notably, well, he did.

They're near Bristol. They're very much south. Well, they're closer to Wales than anything else. Welsh people. Yeah, exactly. I think the stones were from Wales, actually, from a quarry in Wales. But notably, while he attributed the relatively primitive site of Stonehenge to aliens, the Greeks and the Romans got to keep the credit for all of the wonders of their civilizations,

all the stuff that they produced. Weird. So while Van Daniken tells us that the 2000-year-old Nazca Lines in Peru form such impressive images when viewed from the air that they can only have been drawn by ancient aliens as some kind of landing strip, he doesn't, for example, question at all how the Greek mathematician Aristotanese was able, 2,000 years ago, to measure the circumference of the Earth to a 97% accuracy. That's fine. Okay, yeah, that is fine.

But Arabic numerals with no help from the aliens come. The very first positive number is clearly a landing strip. What do we talk about? Sorry, Marsh, question, question. What if we don't believe in either? Then do we get to be wrong without being canceled? Because me and Heath want to do that one if that one's still open. I think it very much depends what your third runway is, what your third option is there.

It heavily depends on that. We will get back to you. We'll get back to you. Keith, bring it in. It's Welsh. It's well. Okay. We have an answer for you, Marsh. Let's speak after recording. I'm mostly Welsh. I'm allowed. Okay. Yeah. You're mostly Welsh in that way that Americans are mostly something other than American. Yeah, you're right.

Every few people having lost. I'm 117. Hey, have you ever been to Wales? Yes. Oh, okay. Well, there you go. Yeah. I have never been to Trinidad and Tobago where my dad claims we have an ancestor as well. Oh, don't, don't make, don't read that claim. Especially if you like run for Congress or Senate or something. Right. I was going to say, yeah.

That goes badly for people. What I will say is, if the aim was to avoid Van Danikin's work being deemed racially dinged, someone should have told his 1979 book Signs of the Gods, which includes these questions. The evolutionists say that man descended from monkeys, yet who's ever seen a white monkey? Right. Or a dark ape with such curly hair as such as the black race has. And also the question, was the problem?

was the black race a failure and did the extraterrestrials change the genetic cord by gene surgery and then program a white or a yellow race? Wharf? Like the fucking aliens are just looking at our ancestors going look guys, these motherfuckers are never going to learn to poker like this. It's just never going to happen. Okay, elsewhere in the same book, he gives us this, quote, I'm not a racialist yet.

Well, there you go. One of the earliest, it's a good start. Some of my best friends are in. But it's not a racist, but this isn't, I'm not a racialist. I'm not a racialist yet. That's what he gives us. It's not racist, but it's racialist yet. I'm not a racialist, yet my thirst for knowledge enables me to ignore the taboo on asking

racial questions, brackets that existed in 1960, close brackets, simply because it is untimely and dangerous. Why are we like we are? Once this basic question is accepted, we cannot and should not avoid the explosive sequel. Is there a chosen race? unquote. My God. At which point,

I will remind you what his editor and co-author spent the 1940s doing. Yeah. Okay, Marsha, I swear I didn't read ahead when I was joking about ranking the races earlier. I did not read ahead.

Yeah. Also, I think we're underusing the just-asking question thing as a majority. Okay, my favorite part about that quote is that he knew the word for what he is is racist,

so he just made up a new word to not embrace. He was like, I'm not a race somatic. And look, I wouldn't normally be this comfortable highlighting someone's oddly close working relationship with a former Nazi

or accusing them of racism or pointing out just how many times in their life they were charged with fraud and how those times overlapped extremely neatly with the period in which they discovered that everything we thought we knew about history was false. But I'm very happy to level those accusations against Van Danigan for a few reasons.

Firstly, he more than anyone else laid the groundwork in the second half of the 20th century for the dismissal of the achievements of non-white cultures. And he did it hand in hand with somebody who'd been pretty committed to spending the first half of the 20th century doing something quite similar. And really, without Eric Van Danigan, there'd be no one like Graham Hancock or his ilk at all. Well, also, the fact that he had to couch his racist shit in, I know it's culturally unacceptable to say this stuff in the 1970s. 70s, pretty ironclad defense

if you did have to defend this shit in court. I'm just saying. Also, Marsh, I hate to criticize, but I think you should be more comfortable telling us when someone's editor was in charge of a Nazi magazine. What aren't you telling us about Dr. Alice, Marsh? I mean... You can ask her the next time she's on gam.

That's what I'll say. You can bring that up with the next time she's on gam. But secondly, the reason why I have no problem with saying he was very comfortable, collaborating with Nazis all the time. Eric Van Danden can die just last month. So now it's perfectly fine to say whatever I think about him, without worrying that he might hear this and then try to sue me in the English court. You can't libel the dead after all. But what you can do is find where they're

buried and make up shit about whatever's carved onto their headstone just to see how they like it. My face fits my head just fine and don't start dating the catch fucker. That's on somebody's headstone. Oh. And thirdly, I'm still a little salty about the fact that Eric Van Danigan was one of the first ever guests to agree to be interviewed on Be Reasonable when I launched the shore with Haley Stevens in January 2013, only for him to then spend more than a decade ducking me. Ha! First, by having his assistant tell me, quote, Mr. von Danikin doesn't exist in the morning, so it would have to be after 2pm Swiss time, unquote. Okay, he's fine. Then by blaming his tour schedule for it being so hard for us to be able to line up a date and a time,

and then, when we got through that, insisting he doesn't do Skype interviews, so I'll I'll have to call his landline. And then when I agreed to that, he insisted, actually it needs to be a face-to-face next time in London. Oh, but I'm not going to be in London anytime soon. Feel free to drop in next time you're in Switzerland. And then, eventually, most recently, by dying. Okay.

Marsh, you know what this calls for. The first, Be Reasonable, Say-on. And look, while death at the age of 90 might have spared him from ever being a guest on Be Reasonable, it will absolutely not prevent me from adding him to the hall of infamy that is who's woo. All right. You can still have him on Be Reasonable.

Yeah, right. I feel like you still have easier to get than ever. We've contacted the dead on Be Reasonable before. That has happened with a guest. It went very badly for them, incredibly badly. Yeah, it did. Eli did that episode with Phyllis Schlafly that one time. Yeah, there you go.

All right, well, take that man who defrauded his way into riches with only the mildest of punishments in his 90 successful years of bilking money from the unsuspecting. And don't worry, Marshall will pay back to meet out more punishment in the future. Between now and then, be sure to check him out on the skeptics with a K and the no-rogan experience. Marsh, thanks as always. Ah, thank you. Before we abandon you to the vicissitudes of an uncaring universe, once again, I want to remind you that if you were listening to the Patreon version of this episode, there would have been three more headlines.

In almost every episode of this show, there's at least one extra headline for the patrons because we like them at least one headline better than everybody else. Anyway, that's all the blast movie we've got for you tonight, but we'll be back in 10,022 minutes with more. If you can't wait that long, be on look out for a brand new episode of our sister show, The Skeptocrat, debuting at 7am Eastern on Monday, an even newer episode of our sister show's hot friend God-offel movies, debuting at 7 Eastern on Tuesday,

and an even newer episode of our half-sister show citation needed, debuting at noon Eastern on Wednesday. Obviously, I'm ethically bound to thank Heath Enright for being my bestie, lucid illusions for being my even bettery, Eli Bostic for pioneering the term worsty and doing a great fucking job of it. I also want to thank Michael Marshall one more time

and remind you that if you'll check the links on the show notes you will find, his podcast as well. I also want to thank, again, for providing this week's Farnsworth quote, yet another voice reminding you if you haven't already to check out the No Rogan experience. But most of all, of course, I want to thank this week's sassiest citizens. Dan, Jillian, Ada, David, Jason, Jonathan, Dan and Holly, Matthew, Andrew, Angie, Joe, and Jen. Dan, Jillian, Ada, and David, who are so hot, lava, has to wear a special suit to be around him. Jason, Jonathan, Dan, and Holly, and Mithy, who are so bright I had to put on sunglasses to read their name.

and Andrew Angie Joe and Jen, whose voices are so sexy that when they sang down in Whoville, it wasn't the Grinch's heart that grew three sizes that day. Sorry, I probably should have saved that compliment for the Christmas season, but it occurred to me now, God damn it. Together, these 12 people, couples, and unpronounceable combinations of the goth letters helps pave the way for another episode this week by giving us money. Not everybody has the money it takes to do that, but if you do, you can make a per episode donation of Patreon.com slash gaming a atheist.

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