The Scathing Atheist - 683: Rope a Pope Edition

Episode Date: April 16, 2026

In this week’s episode, Donald Trump gets THIS close to saying he won the papal election too, we meet a bigotry-based puppet act almost as obnoxious as Jeff Dunham, and Ross Douthat will devote six whole pages to the problem of evil.---To make a per episode donation at Patreon.com, click here: http://www.patreon.com/ScathingAtheistGet your ticket to see Noah live in Cincinnati here: https://www.sethandrews.com/cincinnatiTo 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/---Headlines:Trump feuds with Pope: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/04/13/us/trump-news and https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-pope-leo-what-they-said-c9a721a132f1941eaebc139e1213937dhttps://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2026/04/11/anthropic-christians-claude-morals/Nuns caring for cancer patients challenge NY LGBT law forcing them to 'violate' beliefs on sex: https://www.christianpost.com/news/nuns-challenge-new-york-lgbt-law-they-say-violates-their-faith.htmlNewsmax reports that aliens are too androgynous and never pee standing up: https://www.wonkette.com/p/newsmax-guy-why-do-we-never-see-aliensTrump shares image of himself as Jesus: https://www.politico.com/news/2026/04/13/trump-social-media-jesus-image-deleted-00869061National puppetry group faces backlash for platforming anti-LGBTQ Christian puppetry grouphttps://www.friendlyatheist.com/p/national-puppetry-group-faces-backlash

Winning, this week's episode contains fuck. This week's episode of The Skathing Atheist is brought to you by the relentless nature of resistance to authoritarianism and the relentless nature of dick jokes, but mostly the first one. And now, the Skaithing Atheist. Hello, I am a Midwestern school-based mental health therapist with a name just unique enough to be easily identifiable, despite my inclination to refer to the world we live in

as actual fucking hell, I can assure you we did, in fact, evolve from filthy monkey people. It's Thursday. It's April 16th. And it's national Ask an Atheist Day. And I'm going to need a definition of chucking before I weigh in with an answer, I think. I'm no illusions. I'm Eli Bosnick. I'm Heathenright.

And from Rogers, Stones, New Jersey, and Auburn, Michigan, and Wake Cross, Georgia. This is the skating atheist. On this week's episode, Donald Trump gets... It's close to saying he won the papal election as well. We meet a bigotry-based puppet act, almost as obnoxious as Jeff Dunham. And Ross dealt that it'll devote six whole pages to the problem of evil. But first, the diatribe. Among the bog of cluster fucks that surrounds Donald Trump,

the one that I've had the most fun watching in the perverse sense that we use the word fun this far into the apocalypse, has been his religious liberty commission. This is, of course, the group that he tasked with finding evidence that the Biden administration and Democrats more broadly are out for your Jesus. And it's been a hot fucking mess since its inception, which is why it is with a heavy heart that I tell you that they held their final public meeting on Monday. You probably didn't see a lot about this on your newsfeed or on TV or anything, partly because the rantings of a predetermined kangaroo commission isn't particularly newsworthy,

and partly because it came right in the middle of Trump tweeting out pictures of himself as Jesus and asking the Pope if he wanted to take this outside. We'll talk more about that shit in the headlines. But suffice to say, Trump's boosters didn't really want people thinking about him and religion just then any more than they had to. But they had their final meeting anyway. Doesn't mean they've disbanded. They've still got to present their report, which is due next month.

And I, for one, am already organizing a reading party. We don't know exactly what will be in the report, of course. But we got hints of it when Trump told them what they needed to find before he even announced who was going to be on the commission. But we were further reminded of those hints by the testimony during the meeting. In its closing moments, commission chair and lieutenant governor of Texas,

Dan Patrick claimed, quote, today's capstone hearing of President Trump's Religious Liberty Commission contained more powerful testimony and discussion about how people of religion are under assault by the secular left, end quote. And the chief instigator of that oppression is secular leftist Thomas Jefferson.

Patrick continued, quote, It's time to set the record straight. There is no such thing as separation of church and state in the Constitution. For too long, the anti-God left has used this phrase to suppress people of religion in our country, end quote. Now, that claim would come as a surprise to the drafters of the Constitution and the ratifiers of the Constitution and the whole multi-century corpus of constitutional law. But, yeah, the argument de jour seems to be that church state separation is a violation, of church-state separation. We talked about a similar antitotology

out of Florida's AG last week. But the argument seems to be something like this. The new interpretation of freedom of religion is that religious people are free to do any goddamn thing they want, and one of those things that they want is government establishment. So obviously, Thomas Jefferson wasn't as good at interpreting the Constitution as Dan Patrick and this whole separation church of state shit. That was never meant to be there at all.

and he's not limiting that message to the members of the commission and the weird masochists like me who are watching along, by the way, he also wants to take his message to the masses, or I'm sorry, mandate his message to the masses. At one point he asked one of the speakers, if we should put up posters in school next to all the OSHA signs and shit that say, quote, the separation of church and state is the biggest lie

that's been told in America since our founding, end quote. And, of course, the speaker agreed, because that's what you do on this fucking commission. you agree with Dan Patrick or you get the boot. Just ask Kerry pre-Jean Bowler. She'd have plenty of time to answer. What with all the commission meetings, she's not needed for?

But they won't just be recommending new indoctrination posters in the break room. They also suggest that Trump have his IRS fine churches that violate the Johnson Amendment so that they can sue and the the Democrats on the high court can do away with that rule altogether. That's, of course, the never enforced rule that says clergy members can't endorse political candidates and maintain their taxes have status. So look forward to Republicans even further capturing evangelical Christianity. But the main thrust of the meeting and the commission itself throughout all of its hearings,

and no doubt the report that they're going to produce next month, is that when the Constitution said the government couldn't establish a religion, it meant a specific religion. The government can, in their predetermined opinion, promote religion itself. And since Christianity is the one with the most buildings and stuff, they should probably start there. In an effort to justify that, we heard from a big, named Robert Barron. Yes, his name is one fucking letter away from Robert Barron,

describing a few of the negative implications of rising rates of atheism. Quote, that's dangerous for our democracy because people start forgetting. They don't hear about the story of the Good Samaritan. They don't hear about the Ten Commandments. They don't hear about the beatitudes. That affects our democracy. It's not just a religious problem, end quote. Wherever could atheists learn about morals.

So yeah, it's easy to miss when you're fighting for your rights on every fucking front. But it's worth reminding ourselves every once in a while that the federal government currently has a commission impaneled to discuss what should be done about the atheist question. They're talking about your Jesus. May interrupt this broadcast and bring you a special news bulletin. Joining me for headlines tonight are the apples and bananas of this podcast. He then write Neelai Bosnick fellas. Orange, you glad it's time for headlines. Of course.

It's okay. I'll do my best to be appealing. Okay, I appreciate you going even easier than me. In our lead story tonight, we keep thinking there's nothing left that he could do that would shock us.

And then he tries to strong arm the Pope. It's going to go great, buddy. Keep trying. Yeah. And look, even if you're not shocked by the fact that he thought it'd be a shame if something happened to this here, our diocese's gambit was either acceptable

or likely to succeed. You should at least be shocked that I'm opening the headlines, taking the Pope's side on something. Strange bed, fellas. Right, yeah. But apparently Trump thought that the path towards broader international acceptance of his foreign policy was picking a fight with the Pope. And it's not gone great for him so far. You come from Bobby from Chicago?

Get the fuck out of year. Yeah, it's a crazy time. Trump has me agreeing with the Pope, Marjorie Taylor Green, and, Tucker Carlson all at the same time. Sometimes Joe Rogan even, but not really out of context. I love myself a good nuance. But this is too far. This feels crazy.

Yeah, no, this feels like there's about to be accusations. I'm aligned with, I think, the neo-Nazi party of Germany, at least in the sense that they disliked Donald Trump's thing. Like, it's crazy. Tim, can you pull that clip of just, Tim, of heat saying, I'm aligned with a new. Okay, thank you. I'm using it for a thing. So quick thanks to Carl for being the first to send this to us at Scathing News at gmail.com.

And another quick thanks to the glorious timing of Trump picking a fight with the Pope at the exact same time that J.D. Vance is trying to promote a book about what a great Catholic he is. His journey to Catholicism. His publishers probably considering moving up the release date to get ahead of his excommunication and I love that for them. It's just like, after all, who loved the Lord more than Judah? Am I right, fellow Catholics?

Yeah, he died. Sonheim? No. Okay, I'm going to explain it. You know how we all forbid our wives from skydiving, obviously? But they were going to not skydive already. Because they definitely don't regret marrying us, and that wouldn't be the thrill of, you know, being in the sky for a few say.

That's how being Catholic works, right? Yeah, that's dumb. So, yeah, so. Go to the neck. This spat between the world's two most prolific child rapist protectors began when the Pope realized that he couldn't say anything at all about morality without directly challenging a Trump policy. So after months of pushing back against Trump in Avermore direct ways, the Pentagon summoned a papal nuncio for a quick tongue lashing.

Now, the reporting on this meeting has been disputed by both the Vatican and the Pentagon. So take it with a grain of salt, but unnamed sources have told multiple outlets that during the meeting, the Pentagon basically just stiff-armed the Vatican and said, quote, the United States has the military power to do whatever it wants, and that the church, quote, better take it side, end quote. Don't make us hair drop J.D. in there. He's got a pretty big deal radius if he's just there.

Well, it's almost that bad, right? They reportedly brought up the Avignon papacy in which a French army deposed and eventually killed the sitting pope and called dibs on being the leaders of Catholicism. Yeah. Pope's like, yeah, no, you're definitely the first king who was pretty sure he was. was going to overthrow the punk once and for all.

Oh, however will I deal with this new situation in history? Now, I should be clear that while the language of the meeting has been disputed, the substance hasn't, right? The Pentagon called the Vatican ambassador in and told them to get on board with all their Jesus base murder already. And that was before they launched a pretty like literal fucking crusade in Iran, but to Vatican's refusal to buckle under pressure and Leo's increasingly direct, of Trump ultimately led Trump this past Sunday to post a lengthy social media screed,

wherein he lambasted the pontiff for being weak on crime, weak on nuclear weapons, and a captive of the radical left. We're on crime, though? And nuclear weapons. Yeah. He also implies that, well, you should use the crook to catch some crooks, right? Week on the least of these. So he also implies that they only made Leo Pope because.

they liked Trump so much and he was also American. Okay, I wasn't going to say this because I didn't want to hurt his feelings. They offered me the job first tonight. Okay. I didn't want to do it.

We should make it clear that attacking Pope's is not new for Trump. You know, the media is acting like it is, but Trump frequently lashed out at Pope Francis with wolves. The two clash constantly over Trump's immigration policies and eventually it got so bad that Trump sent J.D. Vance out to kill him.

And also, when he and Francis met for a photo op, the pope managed an expression more pained and dower than the face of Christ on his crucifix. But I guess it's different when it's a white pope. Yeah. Meanwhile, Trump looks like the time my toddler was pretty sure he was meeting Winnie the Pooh at Disney. Yeah, right.

You see this fucking guy? Also, I definitely didn't just shit myself. I'm smiling. This is not a shit smile. This is a happy regular. Normal relief. But yeah, so Trump, latest direct on their infallible representative of Christ on Earth drew a bit of a muted

disapproval from Catholic corners. The president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops released a statement, quote, expressing disappointment over the tone of the remarks, end quote. Oh, the tone. Yeah. It's like a tepid Yelp review. Like, war crime was just okay. 2.5 stars.

Would have been three if my Oreo Madness had showed up a little bit. Well, speaking of Yelp, John Yop, head of a conservative organization called Catholics for Catholics, went so far as to say he, quote, was saddened and disheartened, end quote. But of course, the worst take was reserved for Bill Donahue, as ever,

who both sides the issue by wishing Trump had been more mature about it, but conceded that the Pope really shouldn't have been talking shit about his awesome war. You wrote four blogs about Mom Donnie marching in the St. Patty's Day parade, you fucking chicken shit. Right.

And in utter nonsense news, last week, I related the story of an adorable group of octogenarian nuns whose shenanigans were the perfect fodder for a heartwarming comedy that your mother sends you a page-long text about

watching with your stepdad, but it's worth remembering that nuns, for the most part, are the psychotic products of patriarchy, using the twisted version of power that they can grasp to lord their beliefs over anyone and everyone that they can. And since those beliefs led them to dress like penguins

and lock themselves in an unheated castle full of mean grandmas, they're almost always not super cash money. No. And we got yet another example of that this week as a group of nuns in New York State are suing for the right to be bigots to the dying cancer patients in their care. Woof. Also, hey, when they catch you having gay sex, where do they aim the ruler?

Ooh, good question. The moose knuckle. I'm pretty sure that's the moose knuckle again. Yeah. So first off... That's the dick shape. It's a dick shape. Oh, they know. They know. They're on YouTube now. They know. So first off, big thanks to Sarah for being the first to send us this story to scathing news at gmail.com. If you send us atheist news to scathing news at gmail.com, you can comfort yourself with the knowledge that you have delayed the day where we have to become right-wing. edge lords in our search for content. You are all that stands between

us and the Jewish question. Oh God. What? Scathing News at gmail.com. So, the sisterhood of the traveling what's in your pants in question is the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne who operate Rosary Hill home, a 42-bed facility providing free care to terminally ill

cancer patients nearing the end of life. And, as I said, they are suing the state of New York because they would like to remind the dying people they are taking care of exactly where they're headed based on who they fucked when they were younger. Yeah, think of it as like as pre-held. Exactly, yeah.

Yeah, keep doing hate crimes to people who know they're about to die. I love that plan for you. Bigots. Now, the good news, and there is good news here, is that this is actually a case of pre-bigotry, unlike so many of the stories we report on in this show, the nuns in question are actually not bigots yet. They are, though. It hasn't been tested.

It has. It has. There's not a... Retracted. However, they did receive a letter, alerting the sisters of their obligation to comply with New York's LGBTQ long-term care facility residence bill of rights,

which, among other atheist commandments, requires the religious sisters to assign the patient's rooms based on their chosen gender identity instead of their birth sex. quote, even over the opposition of the roommate, end quote. Oh, well, I do love this for dying transphodes. But that's not all.

The dastardly declaration also requires them to use a patient's chosen pronouns, even when the patient isn't present. The law also mandates that long-term care facilities must ensure their staff undergo, according to the lawsuit, cultural competency training, indoctrinating them into the practices. and in gender ideology. Oh, my fucking. I feel the way you phrase your objection

is plenty of justification for the law to exist, though, right? The use of indoctrinating there. It's so much projecting. That's what you do. We just, like, talk about things. You indoctrinate, yeah. But don't worry, big at nuns.

You can do all things through they, them who strengthens you. You'll be fun. So, as I said, the nuns in question, and filed a complaint in district court for the Southern District of New York, claiming that the state is threatening to shut them down unless they violate their Catholic faith, saying, quote, the implications are so much greater than whether to utter the words he or she. Indeed, to demand that a Catholic deny another's sex is to require him or her to affirm another's

religious worldview, end quote. Oh, next thing you know, they're going to make you serve Muslims. Oh, can you imagine? So yeah, neither the state of New York nor the governor's office has chosen to comment on the lawsuit, but I can read between the lines of their statement and offer this little anecdote. Fuck those nuns. Fuck the nuns in their bigot faces. If you're more concerned about whether or not you're allowed to dead name a patient dying of cancer,

who you're in charge of taking care of than you are their like health and well-being, you shouldn't be allowed to watch over a plastic fern. I hope you lose your lawsuit and then Mamdani bulldozes your fucking facility to make room for a gay ass playground. That's a playground for ass play. It's only gay. No straight people. I hope it happens while you're all still inside. Okay.

All right then. Next up in headlines in Alfa, Alpha News. That's really good. And that's actually really good. Alien, Life Form Alpha. In Alfa News. how come aliens are never manly men when we see him in the movies? That was the very important question on the mind of Newsmax host Rob Finnerdy last week.

Journalism team was brainstorming story ideas. Really, you know, newsmaxing it up. Yes, they do. And it turns out everything that's happening right now of any consequence is a giant pile of embarrassment for the Republican Party. Sure. Yeah. Well, that wasn't going to work out for their ownership of Maga Loll.

loyalists, like the Qatari royal family, for example. So they landed on a segment called the Feminization of America, as evidenced by the non-masculine portrayal of aliens from fiction. What? Why, if that alien fucked my wife in front of me, I would barely come. I mean, dude, there are plenty of manly aliens. They're just the bad guys or yandu. Yeah.

So quick background on Rob Finner. In case anyone's not keeping their finger on the pulse of Newsmax anchors like I am. I am not. Thank you. He's a white guy in his 40s. Not a great start. Gross. We're gross.

And he went to Fairfield University in Connecticut, a Catholic university. And a friend of mine who went there at the same time told me that Finnerdy shat himself on a very regular basis. And there was a song about it. Yeah. Is that true? Maybe. I don't know.

Probably. I'm sure the Newsmax fact-checking team is all over. Yeah, right, right. Also, this is definitely real. Finnerty killed a pedestrian while drunk driving in 2008. Wow. Oh. Guarantee shit himself that time.

And probably a song. And in 2022, he complained about the American Girl doll company becoming wokeified. I remember that was a response to his visit to their flagship store in New York City and Rockefeller Center. during which he claims it was impossible to find a doll that resembled his daughter, a, quote, cute little six-year-old white girl. So here's the thing. All three of us worked in a famous toy store, actually right down the street from Rockefeller Center.

And that store had a whole section of these dolls. I feel like you guys can back me up on this. If white guy Rob Finnerty couldn't find a doll resembling his daughter, that's a crazy looking daughter. It would have to be. In my head, he took a wrong turn and was just desperately rooting through the stife bears being like,

I'm telling you, she's way less hairy than this. Meanwhile, I'm wondering why this dude so desperately needed a doll that looked like a specific six-year-old he had in mind. You know, I don't trust his excuse. So here's what Rob had to say last week during his broadcast.

Quote, whether you believe in them or not, everybody's heard about beings from another planet. And the descriptions are almost always the same. They're smaller, big eyes, big heads, weak, stringy little arms, pale, no gender. And usually they're feminine and they always look the same. You've never seen an alien peeing standing up in a movie or like yucking it up with his alien buddies. That's never happened.

Because you just never stop and think about how really. Recently, Walter Cronkite was on the air. I'm sorry. Wait. So it was so short. So first of all, they've got no gender and are feminine within six words of each other. Yep. Also, I've never seen an alien piss sitting down in a movie either, Rob.

The fuck movies. Are you watching, man? Yeah, you're watching weird movies. You've got weird reasons to be at the United States. Who is that senator that was just like, TikTok is all ladies taking their clothes off? Yes, exactly. I get it. You're not a cat. You just dress like a cat. It's fine. I'm not a cat. So you're probably wondering at this point, is there a connection between non-binary fictional aliens and the Empire State Building?

That was my next question, yes. And no, not at all. Not at all. Weird that you'd bring it up. But Rob Finnerdy is very stupid and he thinks there is a connection. Oh, okay. Also, also he doesn't know what that building is. You'll see what I mean. Rob shows an image of that famous photo showing construction workers eating lunch while they're sitting on a steel beam. And he says, quote, for some reason, the lines between gender are always blurred with aliens. And then you think about what's happening here, back on Earth, right now on the left, where masculinity is being erased. And somehow, in less than 100 years, we went from this right here, men being men, when that was accepted, these are the men who are the men who are.

who built the Empire State Building, asterisk, to this, a man in a very fragile state, also in a building. End quote. So, okay, two important details. One, that photo was staged for PR. Workers didn't normally eat lunch on a beam because they're not going to dump. And two, it was a PR photo for Rockefeller Center, not the Empire State Building. Yeah. Also, the aliens don't have gender because they're...

because they're naked in the movie. If E.T.'s Dick had been out, then that's what the movie would have been about, Rob. It's about this now. But, you know, like, tying manliness to dangerous working conditions is interesting. I've been wondering how long it was going to take him to roll out the whole OSHA is woke campaign, but I think we're getting there. We're getting there.

Okay, so there's good news and bad news in there. The good news outlets like Newsmax have nothing of subsist. because polls are looking really bad for Republicans and Democrats are winning special elections like the Wisconsin Supreme Court again. And fascist lunatics like Victor Orban are losing elections too. Indeed. And, you know, with Orban, mostly because everything J.D. Vance ever touches tends to die the next day. Once again.

But the bad news, we're going to keep getting plenty of these things, of hateful flailing like the story from Rob Finnerty. Republican propaganda mills know it's going badly, and they're going back to the well with the only plan they know drumming up bigotry like this stupid shit. But maybe, just maybe, some of the idiots who voted for Trump finally noticed their alleged alpha dog. He just posted a giant panicky screed with a list of enemies and petty grievances followed by, I could get them on my side anytime I want to. But when they call, I don't return their calls because I'm too busy. You know, power moves like that from the Alpha dog. And in I Am the Alpha, I am the Iota news. Fantastic.

Thank you. They stood by him when he made family separation and national policy, even though they claimed to put family values over all things. They stood by him when he made his whole campaign about hating immigrants, even though their book's most consistent message is not to do that. They stood by him when he was cast as a golden idol. even though that is literally their holy book's example of what to not stand by. They stood by him through public bribes, relentless self-sabotage, unprecedented corruption,

homicidal foreign policy, homicidal domestic policy, and historical incompetence. But damn it, tweeting out a picture of himself in Jesus's signature costume was a bridge too far. Okay, a leopard ate my face, and I lost my health insurance, so I can't really do anything about the face. It all happens. But my culturally appropriated white Jesus is not your prom dress, Donald Trump. Right. Yes. That's a crazy line. I know we're supposed

to be welcoming anybody who jumps off the Trump train, but at this point I just kind of feel like Noah pulling the plank up onto the arc. Yeah. Right. I'm glad you guys changed your mind, but maybe you just drown with correct opinions. Or you can hop on. We've got a couple

of leopards. You can meet them. a fun couple. Now, I want to be clear that if a team of history's greatest cartoons were locked into a room until they could create the most blasphemously over the top image a president could possibly share about himself, it would not have been worse than this one. Right. But it wouldn't have been as insane. Like, even if you've seen the pick, you probably didn't realize how fucking nuts it is unless you look deep into it like a goddamn magic eye. It's, so it's got, you've that Trump in the red buddy Christ robs is the central image. Everybody saw that.

He's got his right hand over this guy. He's touching the forehead of a hospital patient, presumably healing him. And in his left hand, he holds a ball of holy light. Now, this is all surrounded by people looking at him reverently clockwise from the top right. We've got a soldier, a nurse, a Karen and prayer, and coach Dave Dobinmeyer's self-image. Yeah. Osmandias would look at this picture and be like, it's a little much. Yep.

Yeah. Sure would. What's going on in this? picture. I think my favorite detail is the bottom right corner. Somebody's given the hospital patient an over-the-blanket heage, like for sure. There's just a mysterious hand reaching in right on the crotch. There's definitely at least a dick pat going on right there. Yeah, right. Maybe that's why smiling. Maybe the healing has nothing to do with that. So, but that's just scratching the surface of the weirdness in the background. So we've got an American flag. We got Lady Liberty. There's the Lincoln

Memorial fireworks, endless throngs of admirers, two bald eagles, three fighter jets that don't seem to all be on the same page formation-wise. They're not. An absolutely baffling series of shadowy images in the clouds coming out of the light above him that seems to me to include four dead Marines and a winged humanoid with three horns. He told Sarah she could be in the picture. I wore my shredder costume from teenage mutant ninja turtles. She wore her sweater costume. It's awesome. You said.

I also like that the two eagles are about to bong heads. They're definitely not looking at each other, but they're going to run into each other. Oh, yeah. So, yeah. So in between posts about how soft on crime the Pope was, Trump shared the image that you'd used to explain delusions of grandeur to a deaf, illiterate person. And even the people who jerk off in their mega hats to their other mega hats were like, well, that's a little much, man. Pass me my third maga hat, don't worry about why.

Yeah, right. So the Daily employer called it outrageous blasphemy, professional transphobe and disputed pro pre-ante penultimate swimmer Riley game set of the image, quote, God shall not be mocked, end quote, which, yeah, like our whole fucking careers would beg to differ. But still, a lot of people were pissed out about it. So many, in fact, that he ultimately buckled and deleted the tweet.

Okay, and to be fair, Riley is just mad that the picture reminds us that there are people with small enough foreheads to fit under a human hand. So that was doubly hard for her. Now, of course, Trump vehemently denies that he did anything wrong because that would require admitting he did anything wrong. So his cover story is that he didn't realize the picture depicted him as Jesus. Quote, I thought it was me as a doctor and had to do with the Red Cross. So just a stupid lie. Well, because you know how doctors wear red robes and carry balls of light that they apply to patients' foreheads when everyone prays reverently enough? It's like that.

Remember when me and the two Muslim guys touched the big light ball and I got those magical powers from it from the big light ball? Yeah, yeah. I thought everybody knew about that. I thought that's what they did. You can just Google it. It's the first thing that comes up. And, of course, when he was confronted by the fact that he's no more a doctor than he is Jesus of Nazareth, he explained that he does make. people better, though.

Yeah. And a big handful is how they give him his ketamine at this point. So, you know. So, and I should, I should also, I should add that there's at least some rumors right now that he got stuck on the doctor excuse after somebody told him that this was a doctored image. Ah. Which I would like, look, maybe that's true. Maybe it's not.

But the fact that he, that's like a perfectly plausible explanation is a fantastic summary of where we are right now regardless. he's so funny if he's not in power. I think we should put some kind of bubble around him when he lose. And I know people want to make the world better, but I'd also like a show. Let's at least start an open mic night at the Hague, you know. We tell him he's still president while we do all the good stuff.

That's like we'd have to convince six people to have the show with none of the bad side. And finally tonight, Puppet Arms News. When you say something like religion ruins everything, you're often accused of being hyperbolic, ungenerous, and that you're ruining this baby's funeral. But the truth is, there's truly nothing that religion can't make worse. And we got our newest example of that yet again this week

when a national puppet convention got themselves in hot water after inviting Christian puppeteers who turned out to be bigot puppeteers. Hey, that's Pepe not Kermit. That's probably fine. Right. So first off, a big thanks to Hammett Mehta over at the friendly atheist blog for bringing this story to our attention. I have made several puppets of Hemet Meta over the years. Most in the subgenre of erotic effigy.

Morgan. But I have been informed by legal counsel that they are unwelcome on this or any program. Yep. But if you would like to see some samples of my work, you can send us Atheist News to Gathing News at e-mail.com, because no lawsuit can prevent me from sharing my art, Hammett, Meta. No lawsuit in the world. Okay, but a tap dancing audition on the other hand. I know, no, I know that's, I know that's mean, but I'm the one who has to deal with

the emails from Hemmint's lawyer, so God damn it, I'm going to be me. It's true. Right. So for those of you out of touch with the puppet scene. Well, first of all, push shaw. Yeah. So for that, that slim minority of you, March 22nd was World. Puppet Day. And the Puppeteers of America, a national nonprofit group that celebrates the art forum, organized a virtual event that included some brief talks and awards to celebrate. The problem was that one of the groups giving that presentation was the Fellowship of Christian Puppeteers. And as gay puppet enthusiasts were quick to point out, they're a bunch of homophobes. Okay. I want to believe

they don't have a P&V heterosex ed puppet show for kids. kids, but I'm genuinely not sure if that's true. And also, if they do, I would like to see it. I would like me, the adult to see it. We should do a damn mini on it at the very least. So, okay, so I'm not sure, Eli, if you mean gay puppet enthusiasts, in which case I am but an ally or gay puppet enthusiasts, in which case I could be chapter president. I'm going to leave that up to our audience, no illusions.

I'll leave that up to our audience. So according to the bylaws of the fellowship of Christian puppeteers, in order to the to be a member, one has to live a life of, quote, sexual purity by affirming God's standards. A, they're labeled. A, sexual relationships are limited exclusively to covenant marriage between a man and a woman. B, other forms of sexual relationships are forbidden to Christians, including adultery, fornication, sexual relationships between unmarried persons, same-sex relationships, and all forms of perversion. C, purity, oh, also includes resisting the temptation to lust by avoiding all forms of pornography and inappropriate contact and communication with the opposite sex.

This is a weird puppet show, man. It's a weird puppet bylaws. D, gender identity is not self-determined in that God created humanity, male and female, end quote, of the puppet bylaws. Also, they don't believe in abortion that's in there, but it's too many sentences. as well that abortion-based propaganda puppet show it was actually part of a project veritas video about i remember they're editing interesting yeah and their viewers also didn't realize that was fake yeah yeah i never realized they were failed until they come out that's important right so needless to say quite a few folks pointed out that inviting people who have a bigotry enshrinement in their bylaws is

not exactly welcoming and so old bigotry yeah Right. I labeled. And so the Puppeteers of America released one of those weird apologies that white people do when they get in trouble these days. You know the ones that sound

like the front of a college brochure that's written in the tone of someone who's surrounded by all the black vampires from sinners all of a sudden. What I'm saying is that the now times are awesome. So we're going to need you to go back through that apology draft

to remove all references to homie and my brother, if you would have meant. It's bizarre. Anyways, look, I'm glad the puppeteers of America did the right thing eventually. And you might be wondering, Eli, you were at one time a professional magician. Is there such a group amongst who practice Leger de Mont? And indeed, there are the brother of Christian magicians. And yes, they are bigots.

And yes, I own several of their members. pamphlets on how to do magic tricks about how Jesus died for your sins. You are welcome. I've seen two of them. Yeah. They're all over. I have them all over this room. And with a quick reminder that two thirds of us and Lucinda have been puppetized by awesome Canadians and Eli hasn't.

We're going to wrap up the headlines for the night. He's Eli. Thanks as always. And when we come back, Ross will find out if he made us Christian with this chapter. Sometimes we get accused on this show. of only looking at the very worst that Christianity has to offer, like Greg Locke, Jerry Falwell Jr. in the Bible. But when you critique Christian media for a living,

you quickly realize that it's all worst. They somehow managed to only have worst, which we're going to reinforce with another foray into Ross Douthits believe why everyone should be religious. So up to this point in the book, we've established that the supernatural is real, that the supernatural is God, and that the very best religions are the ones that are about 2,000 years old and rhyme with

Christianity. But Ross gets that we might still have a few objections, three of them to be exact. So he's going to tackle those. Yeah, I only had three. Right. No, exactly. He nails it. In chapter six, three stumbling blocks. And he opens by saying, so far I've been trying to present a case for religion that is more

empirical than moral. And I'm like, well, that is news to me, brother. Oh, it's the facty nature of your arguments that might be too much for us. Thank you, Russ. I appreciate this. This has been the logic for... Guirthy factuality. Apparently, yeah.

He's like, sure, without God, it's impossible to have morals, but that's not a good argument for God's existence. Okay, huge window into this lazy as fuck morality of religion. Ross, he can't even conceive of the idea that you can just not do evil stuff. Right. Like, no consequences. afterlife, just don't do that. He's, he's exactly the Pat and Oswald Skycake bit with the non-practicing celibate murder rapist dying and being furious when there's no eternal paradise at the end, like, being like,

I did not not rape and murder my whole life to not get rewarded with Skycake. Like, okay, like, I'll take some Skycake if they have it. Sure. Like, that's not why I'm not murder raping Ross. Right. Why are you not? Yeah, exactly. That's the question.

Now, he spends a lot of words to say, but even if you're convinced that there's a God, you're probably still worried about all the homophobia. Okay, guys, I was going to explain the cisterns full of baby skulls. I was just getting all the facts out of the way first. Okay, so now he's finally going to get around to dusting off the problem of evil as stumbling block number one. This subchapter is titled, Why Does God Allow So Many Wicked Things to Happen? Now, notice how the subtitle has already reduced his workload beyond reason, right?

Because it should be why does God allow wicked things to happen at all? Or even why does God do wicked things? But he's implying that there's a certain amount of wicked shit from an omnibenevolent omnipotent being this to be expected. Okay, if you know that God's not going to give eyeball cancer to your baby, God will never get away with a bluff when he's holding two seven off suit. He has to buy the blinds because the tournament is accelerating. It's accelerating the front.

Yeah. Sometimes God just doesn't have the cards. What are you going to do? Obviously. Now, he identifies the core text on Western Theodicy as the book of Job, which provides his first argument. What do you know about morals? So, yes, his opening bid is a moral equivocation about the Holocaust and baby cancer.

And I want to be clear, like, he's the one who brought up the Holocaust and baby cancer, right? Those are his examples, as in maybe the Holocaust and baby cancer aren't bad. They're just things that we disqualification. like, do you really want there to be six million more Jews around? That's, yeah. So, like, Ross, you started by mentioning the Holocaust and baby cancer created by God. And then you were like, let him cook. That's your argument.

And just a reminder about the story of Job, somehow God got roped into a bet with Satan. So, like, maybe don't open that polymarket account. count and then you don't have to torture a guy to win a bet with a demon. Sure. Okay. All right. But Ross would counter. Who are you to say the Holocaust is bad if you just evolved from some monkey somewhere?

Just so much fucking shenanigans. He says that atheism assumes a version of the very premise it ostensibly denies. And then he immediately does that himself. He argues that if you assume the existence of God, it's crazy then after doing that to make ethical judgments with nothing but, you know, your stupid atheist neurons. Right. Okay. To be clear, he's answering the moral question that he brought up about his worldview by demanding

we justify his misunderstanding of ours. Right. Right. Right. And then he's like, to distract us from that, he's like, and did you ever notice how it's only people in predominantly Christian cultures that obsess over how wrong Christianity is? Yeah, that's so weird. Also, have you ever noticed that all the geometry

protesters are non-Euclidean? That's such a... That's a solid point, Ross. Look, you can't have Mozart's Requiem without baby cancer. Oh, you would trade Mozart's Requiem for no baby cancer? Yeah, well, obviously, why would you not do that?

He's like, it's pretty weird for you to assume that you know better than the creator of the universe about, you know, the correct number of holocausts. You remember the first time an adult told you to you'd understand something when you were older, but you were already old enough to know that they were wrong.

That's what Ross's God is like. Yeah, a lot like that. And look, I want to remind everybody that he opened this chapter by talking about how moral religion makes you, right? How you need religion to make you moral. And then three fucking pages later, he's equivocating about the Holocaust. Yeah, this is where he does the fucking arsonist fireman argument, also known as the Iran.

He says that God is loving enough to hear. heal the baby cancer that he made sometimes. And when atheists are like, no, no, that's what we're saying. That's our argument. That's because we aren't looking from the perspective of eternity. From there at the eternity where apparently Ross was standing when he wrote this, the baby cancer actually checks out because of the perspective. Okay, hear me out.

What's the opposite of a baby dying? everybody living forever with God in heaven. This is a numbers game, people. We are. This is balance. Well, he brings up the freedom argument and he admits that it like rings hollow without admitting that there's probably a world where you could get like freedom of choice and no baby cancer.

Yeah, ignorance is strength. Freedom is Holocaust. I think I've heard that. Yeah, right. I don't like an author say that. Okay. So, but he goes, even if you are an atheist and you're right about the problem of evil, and I've given you no reason to think that you aren't,

you could still have a God that's either like, you know, weak or evil. Right? Like, he actually points that out. He's like, you know, you've only just proven this one type of God. I'm like, yeah, we've only proven every type of God that's being positive by a modern religion or it would be intellectually worthy of worship or recognition. That's all we've done with that one of our several hundred arguments. Maybe God is like Homer Fudd and he keeps getting tricked.

that wascly Satan into making bets on polymarket. Cool. Okay, but that's not in your book, Ross. Right. You have to like be Elmer Fuddin now. Yeah. And I would love that religion

as well as their hymns, right? They'd be like, Oh, Lord, you done fucked up again. Right? He also seems to be arguing that we have to debunk all 10,000 or so historical religions before we can actually be atheists.

Okay, fine, fine. There's not a teapot, but what about a saucer? Yeah. At one point he goes, but here's the thing, though, if God is evil, then nothing could be good,

so God can't be evil. And I'm like, dude, this is theological Calvin Ball. Okay, if God is good, nothing can be evil and stuff is. There you go. We're ahead Q to 12, man. Your move, Ross.

Also, you suck at this game. You're really bad at Calvin Ball. Yeah, if your beliefs sound like something that, Icatharius would say at the start of a platonic dialogue, I'm going to need you to read the second half of a platonic dialogue. Strength is all there is. So there's a point where he goes, and finally, at the beginning of his last problem,

and I laughed out loud, I'm like, finally, you're pretty much done now, huh? Oh, are you landing at your big coup de class here? In conclusion. Right, and he goes, his conclusion is like, if it's mean to preach the goodness of faith to suffering people, then it's also mean to preach the badness of faith to affluent people. Yeah.

If selfishness is bad for rich people, selflessness is bad for poor people. I'm an Alice in Wonderland character. Oh, man. He says you can't use suffering as a justification for your atheism, though, because the more people suffer, the less atheist they are. And I'm like, you know what, hey, that's at least a new one for me. It's a complete non-sequitur, but it's a new non-sequitur.

Creative. He actually stole that from Mother Teresa's journal. But we don't like her either, Ross. Okay, so just to be clear, happiness is leading to atheism. So God's fixing that. Yeah, right, right. That's what he's arguing. I'm going to worship that guy.

And with the evilness of God thus disproved, he turns to the evilness of churches with a subchapter are titled, why do religious institutions do so many wicked things? And he's like, he opens this one by going, like, you know, it's always inquisition this, inquisition, that. It's never nice wide-brimmed hat, signor. Right, yeah. No, his literal opening argument seems to be, well, okay, but what human institution doesn't occasionally have an inquisition?

Pogs. I think Pogs made it without an inquisition. No, there's never an inquisition. Sure. So, no, but he's like, you know, family. are corrupt sometimes and commerce is corrupt and government is corrupt. So should we do away with families and commerce and government because they're corrupt sometimes? And I'm like, well, those things are necessary, first of all.

Yeah. And also, if my family's main function was to cover up the rape and murder of children, I like to think that I would leave it, Ross. There you go. And those families and economies and governments were full of religion for pretty much the whole time that he's talking about. But it's not religion versus family, commerce, and government. It's religion versus humanism. Yes.

I almost got lost in that clever switcheroo he did there. Right. Wow. Good thing it caught it. So actual quote from the book, quote, there is no good evidence that religion has been a special source of violence in human history as compared to the entirely worldly and secular aims of conquest or resource control, end quote. So his argument, which is wrong, by the way, is,

we are no worse than territorial conquest when it comes to violence. Weird flex, but okay. Yes, look, we do claim to be in possession of perfect morality, but everybody's Stalin's it up every once in a while. Right, right. Yeah, obviously. And even the best example of an atheist bad guy, Stalin, was also in charge of defeating the Nazis.

You might remember them from doing the Holocaust, sanctioned by God so that we could have free will? Is that the argument from earlier? He argues here that actually, if you think about it, religion makes wars less violent. And according to the Encyclopedia of War, only 121 of the 1763 wars that they've got on record were primarily religious. Hey, man, why do you own the Encyclopedia of War? Shut up, Ezra. I just have it.

Okay, first of all, I think that number's wrong. I think so, too. But also, how many of those wars were atheist inquisitions? Yes, not, yeah. Get count. Check the back. Check under A. He legitimately points out at this point, he's like, you know,

religion is only responsible for 11 of the hundred worst atrocities of all time. Cool, man. That's literally his argument. When he was writing this down, you know he had to be like, God, I wish we did two less. Because like, less than 10% so much better than 11%. To answer your question,

nobody, I've caused less than 12% of the plumbing problems in my building. Somebody had asked that, right? Less than 12% were me. Yeah. So, but he's like, you know, he's like, yes, religion does inspire the occasional typing rebellion.

And then people won't shut up about it. But what about all the wars that didn't happen because of religion, huh? So many of my shits don't require a plumber. Like, like a good amount do not. It's a pretty high percentage. Anyway, double digits. So it's like, honestly, though, it's so weird, you know,

for a Catholic to get this deep into a discussion of the evils of churches without acknowledging child rape at any point. It's because he's busy talking about all the wars that the Pope. Stop? Yeah, right. Right.

But he concedes that like, you know, whenever religions have power, they do evil shit with it. But his solution is that you should maybe join one of those religions that doesn't have a lot of power. Okay. But only a few of you, because if there's too many, then it'll get power. Right. Yeah. We need to evenly sprinkle everyone across the religions. Also, this whole section just completely ignores the actual point.

Religion can justify whatever the fuck it wants in the moment. And big herds of idiots go along with it because they're in a faith thing. The inquisitions were led by Christian leaders and they were made of Christianity too. Like Stalin was atheist, but his dictatorship was made of fascism and communism. Right. Yes, exactly. And having entirely avoided the topic of the ongoing child sex abuse coverups, he wraps the discussion of the evils of churches and moves on to his final question of the chapter, why are traditional religion so hung up on sex?

Hey, Ross, you can pick what you talk about in your book. Right. Like, when you hit a really bad topic, you can just shut the fuck up. You don't even have to write, I'm shutting the fuck up right now about a topic that's bad for my thing. You just go, you start the next chapter. You just go. Yeah, there you go. So, now, he's like, first of all, every religion hates.

It's gay people. It's not just Christianity. What can I say? He's got himself there. Okay. He spends a whole paragraph on this. He starts by trying to claim that controlling one's desire in Buddhism is pretty similar to the direct call to murder gay people in the Bible and God's law against female orgasms,

which he's pretty sure is also part of Christianity. But then he gets to Hinduism and he's like, yeah, Hinduism definitely fucks. They do. And this reverse cowgirl thing sounds fucking cool. I don't really get how it works like geometrically. I would really like to try that. What was I talking? He goes, you could also, you could just join one of the minority of non-homophobic Christian congregations, right?

You could maybe support immorality indirectly instead. But he assures us basically, it's like it doesn't matter what your morals are, whether they conflict with this or that church, because churches will tell you anything you want to hear for 10% of your income. Some church out there, right? They're all like entirely malleable when it comes to ethical prerequisites,

which is just fucking nuts if they're right. Hey, guys, I know I spent the first three quarters of this book saying that the truth of my religion is as obvious as natural laws and should be treated with the same respect. But I have wiggle room on what sends you to hell. Let's discuss. Let's talk.

How do we? I get you out of here today with my religion. He goes, you know, become the change you want to see in the religious world. And I'm like, I already have, Ross. And then, like, his entire answer, well, he's going to come back to this, but his first answer to what about all the homophobia is, well, you could join a church that doesn't have that. Okay.

I want the one that doesn't have homophobia or you, you hippies. So now I'm kind of stuck in the middle, right? I don't know. He's the worst salesman ever. He's like, okay, you don't want a divine shit sandwich. Tell you what I'm going to do. Secret menu, nobody knows about this. Vegan shit sandwich.

Are you smiling? You are not smiling. Deconstructed shit salad also on the secret menu. What about that, huh? I can feel we're getting closer. We're getting closer here. I'm putting the deconstructed shit salad in your hand. So now, so he admits that this is pretty weak because, you know,

how could the church be right about it? important moral shit if they got sex so wrong. So his follow-up argument to that is, well, maybe the homophobic churches have a point, though. Shit salad is pretty good, actually. My feet are feeling better than usual. That's cool. Wait, are you still here?

What are you doing? So also, we have to point this out. He's describing sex with the florid language of somebody who doesn't want to admit that he always thought it was overrated. All the thrusting and weeping and screaming, why? Why does one of us have to be rough, Dutats? You know how it is. Hey, Ezra, Ezra, how should I describe sex in my book?

I was thinking the most sprawling intergenerational form of community? You think that's a good one? Don't do that, man. What? I'm doing it. So, this is your one for the afternoon. He's like, sure, we're fucking a lot of more nowadays, but what's so great about all this fucking anyway?

Heath until we cattle prodded him into marriage. Okay, I just want to be clear. That was an exact quote. He said sex was the most sprawling intergenerational force of community. That was him describing it for real. And that might not have been the dumbest description he had. So he's like, but you know, maybe all of this fucking is why people are fucking less. And I'm like, again, at least it's novel.

So, but ultimately, so in this little bit, he blamed sexual liberation for decreased marriages in cells, lower rates of childbirth, and higher suicide rates, because all of those things share now in common. Yeah, no, but go ahead and finish your thought, Ross. Consent leads to incels and that's bad? Is that what you were to say? Over here in atheism, we're calling that a win-win, the fact that consent leads to incels.

Right. Yeah, exactly. And with the kind of intellectual satisfaction that can only come from watching your opponent in an argument, endorse homophobia, second-guess the sexual revolution, and equivocate on the Holocaust. We're going to wrap things up for now, but we've still got two chapters left. So Ross will be back next month with even more of God-awful books. You guys going to dig?

Oh, I used my one. He's not going to answer. Before we tighten the bolts tonight, I want to remind you that I'm going to be live on stage with Seth Andrews in Cincinnati on July 11th. If you'd like to join us, check the show notes for links to buy tickets. Anyway, that's all the blessing we've got for you tonight. We'll be back in 10,000, 22 minutes with more. Can't wait that long be in look up for a brand new episode of our sister show The Skeptychette debuting at 7 a.m. Eastern on Monday, an even new episode of our sister-sill's hot friend

got-offal movies, debuting at 7 Eastern on Tuesday, and an even new episode of our half-sitial citation debuted, debuting at noon Eastern on Wednesday. Obviously, my soul would feel heavy if I neglected to thank Keith Enright and Eli Bosnick for being the best damn co-hosts, the co-hosts could have. I need to thank the lovely and talented Lucinda delusions who will be back with more misogyny soon. I want to thank the unnamed Farnsworth Quoter and not to quibble, but we could have evolved from Filthy Monkey Men into literal hell. So maybe it's not an either or after all. But most of all, of course, I want to thank this week's best people.

Kathy, Andrew, Tony and Kate, Tone, attack ratio digital, Salis, Ruther, X, Evan, Edward, and Ian. Kathy, Andrew, Tony, and Kate are so hot. They just have to get used to steamed up glasses. Tony attacks Salis and Erther, who are so persuasive, Vanna would just give them the vows for free. And Evan, Edward, and Ian, whose Cox would be happy to plow an alternate route through Oman, if anybody just asked.

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