The Scathing Atheist - 689: Circling the Drain Edition

Episode Date: May 28, 2026

In this week’s episode, the Pope gets around to calling slavery “our bad,” a Christian apostle hopes to follow in the footsteps of Arnold Schwarzenegger, and we’ll pull the plug on James Drain’s miracle.---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/---Headlines:Pope Leo apologizes for Vatican’s role in slavery: https://apnews.com/article/pope-apologizes-slavery-role-holy-see-vatican-78df993c5604eb098b19f255b89b3155BoardGameGeek fires veteran advertising manager for rejecting campaign due to firsthand experiences of demonic possession: https://boardgamewire.com/index.php/2026/05/20/boardgamegeek-fires-veteran-advertising-manager-for-rejecting-campaign-due-to-firsthand-experiences-of-demonic-possession/https://gamefound.com/en/projects/dukes-of-nukes-gaming/possess-me-satanA secretive Christian sect is pressuring members to purge their pets: https://www.friendlyatheist.com/p/a-secretive-christian-sect-is-pressuringArkansas group rejected woman's land purchase due to jewish ancestry, black husband: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/arkansas-group-rejects-womans-land-offer-over-race-and-religionlawsuit_n_6a0f3492e4b084c012e3c251https://www.cnn.com/2026/05/20/us/arkansas-return-to-the-land-discrimination-lawsuitChé Ahn says drug users must choose between Christian rehab or Bible lessons in prison: https://www.friendlyatheist.com/p/che-ahn-says-drug-users-must-choose---This Week in Misogyny:PA court finds reproductive autonomy protected by state ERA: https://feminist.org/news/pennsylvania-court-recognizes-reproductive-autonomy-under-state-equal-rights-amendment/OK Senate unanimously prohibits child marriage: https://oksenate.gov/press-releases/senate-unanimously-approves-hamilton-bill-prohibit-underage-marriageNC law would classify abortion as first degree murder: https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/north-carolina-bill-abortion-murder-1798733

Warning, we've got people working overtime at the FUP Factory for this episode. That's a factory where they make profanity, not a factory where they fuck. This week's episode of The Skating Atheist is brought to you by The Last Generation that Ever grew up in an America where there'd never been a cage match on the White House lawn. And now, the Scaving Atheist. Back in college, I stumbled on a video by a guy named Tiersoo who ranks animals as if it's all one giant video game. from his channel I discovered crossovers with Legal Eagle, which eventually landed me on opening arguments. Opening arguments did crossovers with a little show called God-awful movies, and they were the ones that gave me permission to admit to myself that it was okay not to be Catholic anymore and to laugh about it.

So I guess what I mean to say is that we did evolve from some filthy, casual, pub-stomping, D-tier monkey men. It's Thursday. It's May 28th. And it's American Cheese Month. I am celebrating. I have no illusions. A heart. I'm Eli Bostic.

I'm Keithanwright. And from Shaquille O'Neill's, New Jersey, Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Waycross, Georgia. This is the skating atheist. On this week's episode, the Pope gets around to calling slavery our bad. A Christian apostle hopes to follow in the footsteps of Arnold Schwarzenegger. And we'll pull the plug on James Drain's miracle.

But first, the diatri. Have you ever seen one of those medieval paintings of baby Jesus? If not, if you don't know what I'm talking about, you've got to look this shit up. If you're driving, you need to pull over the fucking car on the interstate and Google medieval baby Jesus paintings. And what you're going to see when you get there are a bunch of paintings of a 46-year-old baby with a receding hairline. I have to admit, I was unfamiliar with this shit until earlier this year. my sister and I, we have birthdays that are really close together. So on my 50th and her 51st, we took a trip to New York City together. Well, she's an art teacher with the masters in art history.

So obviously we had to hit up a few of the big apples fine art museums along the way. And it's there at the Met that I first encounter this amazing, bizarre, sacrilegious-ass-looking phenomenon. Now, luckily, my sister was there to explain it to me. So apparently the dominant theology of the day, which was way more dominant back then than now, said that, that Jesus was never really a baby, so to speak, right? I guess the thought of the Savior of humanity shitting all over himself and sucking on his mom's tits didn't sit well with the prudery of the day. So the idea was that Jesus was just born a full-grown man.

I mean, he was babysized, of course, because he still needed to escape from that vagina. But under this theory, he apparently just crawled out and immediately started asking Joseph about the NASDAQ and the baseball scores. Right. It was late December, so probably the football scores. They called this concept the homunculus or little man. The idea was that Jesus was perfect, so he had to always be the same because Jesus minus

bladder control wouldn't be perfect. Now, of course, the way that they depict this artistically is to just draw a tiny little balding dude with adult proportions standing next to Mary like the opening scene of giantess porn. It was even common to give Jesus this receding hairline because that symbolized wisdom, according to a bunch of guys with receding hairlines, it ended up bleeding into other art as well since Jesus was the subject of virtually every painting

of an infant for centuries. This just sort of became the standard way to depict kids as many adults. And I guess it didn't hurt, right? Because now the painters don't have to learn how to do a whole new kind of human to make their paintings work. Now, this started to change in the high renaissance

when Europe was like, hey, what if everything was just better? The first inklings of a middle class were arising around that time, and they had the money to commission paintings of their families, but they weren't super wealthy elitists who knew the artistic conventions of the day. So when they saw these creepy-ass man babies, they were like, why do you make my kid look weird? I'm not paying for this shit.

So the whole process started to move in reverse. Painters had to learn how to paint regular babies anyway, so they started giving baby Jesus the soft cherubic look that we give him today, which means the idea of Jesus is this permanent and unchanging thing changed. You know, one of the most interesting paths to atheism is through Christian history. I've met a lot of people who only started to doubt Jesus when they realized that the various interpretations of Jesus throughout history and across the world are so fucking different that they might as well be different gods. You know, there's the warrior Jesus of early Norse Christianization. There's the Buddhist prophet Jesus along the Silk Road.

There's the creepy male pattern baldness, medieval painting Jesus. there's his polar opposite in 13th century Ethiopia, where Jesus was depicted as eternally youthful. And of course, Jesus takes on the skin tone and racial features of whatever group is depicting him over time. One of the favorite defenses of Christianity from the sophisticated apologists is this argument from antiquity, right? It's where Ross Douthan has basically been living

in the later chapters of his book. If Christianity wasn't true, if it wasn't reaching down to something deep and fundamental to human nature, why would it still be here after all these years? Ignore Hinduism, it doesn't count for the purposes of this example. But of course, this is only relevant if the religion is mostly unchanging throughout that period. Otherwise, it's just the name Christianity that lasted for so long, which is a testament not to foundational truth, but to marketing prowess.

And marketing was a lot easier when you got to burn everybody who used brand to X at the stake. If something is foundational to their faith as who and what Jesus is, changes, with the region in the century, how can there be any truth value to it at all? I mean, it would be one thing if Christians had been refining their shared understanding of Jesus over time, but instead they've just been diverging more and more, exactly the way that you see with culturally dependent things like myths and languages and fashions and exactly like you don't see with things that are dependent on reality. They're talking about your Jesus.

I interrupt this broadcast and bring you a special news bulletin. joining me for headlines tonight are the bait and switch of this podcast. Heath Enright and Eli Bosnick, fellas, are you ready to lure the people in? Okay. Am I often dressed up as a girl bunny? Yes, I am. And it's for, it's this. It's for the thing you said just now. That's fine. Exactly. Yeah. And Switch implies that eventually someone will do what I say ever again. And those odds are not looking good, no illusions. I'd hate to make a liar out of you. No, that's fair. And folks, if you're sick and damn tired of him, hearing me talk about Matrion. Good news. It's almost over. Once again, we've asked our listeners

to keep this show going through a rocky economy, and once again, you've come through in droves, but there are still a few amazing goals left, like a behind-the-scenes Patreon-only livestream of a scatheast episode, never done that before. See the never-before-seen shit that Eli says that I have to cut out of the show, but only if we can get enough new or upgrading patrons by midnight Eastern time on May 31st. If you deny Heath his secular tacular, he will never forgive you podcast listener. Well, first he'll say that we didn't say we wouldn't do a secular tacular if we didn't hit the goal.

But then we don't let him do that. Then he won't forgive you. Or us. And with that out of the way. But we didn't say that. In our lead story tonight, I want a bar as low as the fucking popes. Right. Like two popes ago, the dude got a pass because he was only involved in the child sex abuse

cover up, not the abuse itself. The last Pope got a fucking week's worth of glowing press when he asked who he was to judge gay people while continuing to actively stand in the way of their rights and equality. And Pope Bag of Donuts is in the midst of a media orgasm over the fact that he publicly admitted that slavery was bad. Yeah. And I have to assume he was saying that privately for a while. Probably, yeah. Workshop in the bit and finally let a public statement out about that after he workshopped it. Also, by the way, in terms of the bar, Ratzinger or Benedict, he was only in Hitler youth.

Right, exactly. Yeah, he was in Nazi club. He dropped out when the war was over. Now, here's the crux of his apology. Quote, it is impossible not to feel deep sorrow when contemplating the immense suffering and humiliation endured by so many in stark contrast to their immeasurable dignity as persons infinitely loved by the Lord. That's not why.

For this, in the name of the church, I sincerely ask for. pardon, end quote. Now, I want you to keep in mind, as you hear those words, that the entire foundation of chattel slavery was concocted out of a pair of papal bulls that gave the Portuguese the right to permanently enslave all non-Christians and then expanded that right. The whole doctrine of discovery that was used to justify colonialism for centuries was based on those two papal bulls. Past popes owned fucking slaves, the Jesuit order enslaved people by the thousand. The Vatican didn't get around to condemning slavery until 1888. The U.S. Civil War ended in 1865 for reference. And for that, he's offering like a 160 year old. Oh, yeah, no, our bad,

our bad. Hope's just circling a pro-slavery passage in the Bible in red pen. Reward? No, stet, stett. Yeah. But say our bad, y'all from a balcony. Sure. Bro, right it from a balcony. Also, just before we get to pass tensi about the Pope's slaves, I'll remind you that there are a literal army of nuns in Vatican City, literally none of whom hold a position of power whatsoever. So, you know.

Yeah. But despite the tepid nature of the apology, it's being hailed as a, quote, monumental step towards the kind of essential truth-telling and reparation that many Catholics have prayed and worked to witness, end quote. That's according to a historian quoted in the Association, press piece about this. And honestly, given how hesitant

the Vatican has been to acknowledge its role at all, I guess this is a monumental step, right? That's not a compliment

to them. The closest they've come in the past is to apologize for the actions of certain Catholics vis-a-vis slavery, but that's more

of a condemnation of where they were than a commendation of where they are, right? Yeah, and where they are is being pretty sure they have significant

amounts of followers now. in 2026, who needed to hear a statement from the Pope in order to resolve their like, nuanced ideas about slavery? And they were like, I guess I'll go with that. And look, all that being said, I also applaud Leo for engaging with this shit, right? The fact that the Vatican hasn't done it yet is plenty to dismiss them as a moral force in the world. But that doesn't mean it doesn't matter.

I would much rather he spent his time focused on the terrible crimes against Africans that the Vatican is current. perpetrating with their ongoing war against condoms and common sense AIDS policies. But something's better than nothing, I guess. And since nothing is moral compared to most of the shit the papacy does, I guess I'm going to offer them a conditional kudos. Kudos, Pope. Yeah. Nice.

And in Settlers of Satan. Oh, nice. For all the satanic board game perverts out there. And that's pretty much all of us, all of us here in the whole audience. We have big news about board games and demons. And it all went down at board game geek, one of the biggest online forums in this important cultural space, where many of us have been temporarily banned for aggressively posting as White Hat loophole hackers who exposed the egregious lack of clearly spelled out rules in the rulebook for certain games because you have to spell it out.

Keith, we talked about this when you said we're going to do this story. Sorry, I don't want to get banned again. calming down. An advertising manager at BGG refused to run an ad for a new game that's coming out because the ad was way too graphic in its description of demonic possession. And that manager has personal experience with this very serious condition called demonic possession, which is, of course, nothing to be trifled with. So, yeah, he got fired for not doing his fucking job,

a.k.a. anti-Christian persecution by BGG. That is what the Supreme Court will call it. Yes. Look, we've all got our board game bugaboos. This guy thinks that board games about demons are real. Noah thinks it's impossible to win pandemic. Okay. I will accept that it's beatable, but the fact that you don't actually have to get rid of all the disease cubes to win is hidden in the rule books and also ridiculous. Maybe I'm just not willing to sacrifice as many meples as you, and Marshar.

Maybe I don't consider it winning when there's still disease out all over the board. I had a very simple solution that I think everyone should have been open to. COVID. Shows up and it gave a pandemic

with Ivermectin. And a big thanks to James for sending us a link to Skathing News at gmail.com. James gets to exercise Eli Bosnick one time. Just, you know, choose wisely if you want to do that

and bring lots of disinfectant if you do choose to do it. Yeah. And if I smell so much as a hint of an E in the middle of that exercise, James, I will heart attack right away on you. X or socks. X or size. Got it. Okay.

Careful. All right. So the advertising manager in question was with the company for almost 20 years. And apparently his troubled history of demon possession was never a problem during that span until now. His name is Chad Krizen Krizan and he sounds like a demon. He sounds like an actual demon like a looks maxing demon. Yeah, a looks maxing demon who did not

think of a person name before he got sent to Earth. He was like Oh me, I'm Chad Christian. What? It's Russian. Oh Russian Krizan? Is that Russian for Christian? That's my name. Got it. Normal guy. I hate demons. I'll tell you that right now. So the game in question is a mafia-style group deduction game called Possess Me Satan,

in which one player is secretly Satan, the Prince of Darkness, and the other players try to figure that out in time. It's Eli. Eli's Satan. Yeah, I'm fair. So in order to suss out the demon, players have to perform exorcisms on each other. But here's the thing. If you try to exercise a person who has no.

demons inside, they will die. Because that's how it works. Yeah, just like real life. Well, yeah, no, don't worry. They will make a homicidely sympathetic movie about you with Tom Wilkinson. They will. That's true. Yeah.

They definitely will. So Chad Crizzan got a request from Falling Whale Games to buy some ads to promote the game. And he emailed back to say that he could not in good conscience approve the ads because, quote, the thought of displaying this subject matter makes me sick to my stomach, end quote. And just for reference, I put a couple images of that subject matter in the notes, the artwork from the game. Personally, I did not become sick to my stomach, but you know, your nausea may vary. Yeah, I know that people on YouTube can see this right now because I'm covering myself with it, but these are the most

cartoony, harmless images you could possibly imagine. He might as well have rejected a Scrooge McDuck cartoon because of his views on wealth inequality. Yeah, or for not having pants. Also, I don't think like makes Chad six to his stomach is the standard for accepting ads at board game. No, it should not be. It is not. It is not. So we know about this because falling well game,

got an email from a crazy person that said they can't advertise on account of their cartoon images invoking evil demon magic. So Falling Whale immediately posted the emails online. And even Christian people were like, Chad, fucking oof man, you're making us look stupid.

I mean, we are, but some of us weigh less than you. You're making us look stupid. And here's a bit more from the email exchange. Chad said, quote, I've been sitting on this one and praying about what to do. Pray only. As a follower of Jesus, I routinely help people.

Oh, is that what you're? I routinely help people suffering from demonic oppression. No. And more occasionally, possession. Oh, okay. A lot of people don't know about possession, light, but actually most of them are. I'm going to point that out too.

Oppression demon is just when they sort of contribute to a cycle of wealth inequality. They're actually pretty great at that. There's actually nuance to it. Don't worry about it. And he continues, it's absolutely devastating the damage he does to people's lives. In my opinion, he wrote IMO.

IMO, the responsible thing to do would be to pull the entire project, as there are way emphasized more people that suffer this than you could possibly imagine, putting on a good face, usually enabled by dissociation, but suffering terribly behind the scenes, end quote, from his actual email.

Chad, let me be the first to open this space to share your many stories of the demonic possessions that you have been witnessed to. Don't you worry about what Noah and Heath will be saying while you talk. They will be muted on the Zoom call. So you just tell those stories.

You speak your truths. Just rap, Chad. Okay, but again, even if he's right, and demonic possession is a real fucking thing, he's not. But like, like in the universe where he is,

Eli just brought up a extremely popular game called Pandemic. Right? But your motherfuckers suffer from those too. And you advertise all 20 or so a pandemic, sequel, spinoffs, and campaign variations.

So go fuck yourself. Well, again, good news. Board Game Geek fired Chad immediately. So that was good. And they posted an official statement about how he's a fucking idiot who doesn't represent the company philosophy. And even better, the fundraising campaign for Possess Me Satan is still going for a few more weeks.

And it looks like they're doing quite well. Thanks to Chad and the extra attention. I bought a copy. Nice. Yeah, check it out if you're interested. It sounds like a great game that we will be, Eli already did get and we'll be using it for Platon nights at future live shows. Very possibly. Might even do a live show in our.

nation's capital coming up and see if we can exercise a few demons along the way or summon some helpful ones either way yeah we're open to it by the way satan if you're listening and we know you are first of all big fan second of all i know my soul isn't worth that much but you don't even have to kill him i just like a bad case of the runs and he got somebody i'm just i'm open i'm open make me an offer and in doggone it news a christian cult in australia reminded him its members this week about a strict no dogs or cats policy, which has caused some members to euthanize or abandon their furry friends entirely because for all to talk about how atheists lack a firm moral grounding,

these idiots will literally kill a puppy if their counsel of old white guys tells them to. Okay, it's morally correct to have these people mauled and eaten by dogs, I would say. But yeah, I do appreciate the help with our job, I guess. Because like, sure. Here we are every week trying to explain how religion is bad. And they're bulldozing a teen center full of puppies actually doing some of it. Right. Can we stop with the religion stuff?

Are we done? Is this not enough? Right. They show it over and over again. Look, religion doesn't impart morality. It tells motherfuckers what to do. Sometimes that shit's moral. Right.

But obviously it doesn't have to be to work. Yeah. More often than not, it seems like it's not working out that way. Yeah. Right. So the cult in question is the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church, a faction of the exclusive brethren, a religious cult who listeners might be familiar with for being the basis of the Netflix show Unchosen about a woman who escapes that cult. They've had a no pets policy for a while, but it went ignored because dogs are the best and God isn't real. Well, apparently a dog bit someone close to one of the church elders this week, which meant they sent. out a bitchy, massive text that reads in part, quote, there are reports of some brethren having reverted to owning pets, including dogs and other animals.

Oh, well, thank you for narrowing down what you meant by pets. Thanks. Got it. Which practice has been clearly spoken against in ministry. Every household should be freshly exercised to ensure the standard represented in the great men and their ministries is carried forward and maintained. from the universal elderhood, end quote. It occurs to us that dogs are

pretty amazing at sniffing out terrible people and they bit one of us. So everyone needs to go ahead and eliminate all dogs, the management. That's what just happened. Yeah. And of course, like I said at the beginning, this is a story about religion, which means everyone

did the most extreme and evil thing possible. A report in the Australian publication, The Age, followed up with several members who immediately abandoned or murdered. their pets. And look, I'm not going to go into the details here, but I do want to read you this fucking bat-shit quote that someone offered on purpose to a newspaper they knew they were speaking to. Quote, a Melbourne woman put down her cats three years ago when the edict was mentioned in

passing at a meeting. According to three members in NSW in the 2000s, and ex-members said brethren asked farmers to shoot their dogs for them. Fear of getting caught flouting the the rules means it's kept secret, said one member. Though my father has always enjoyed shooting cats, end quote. We actually reached out to Christy Nome, but we got an auto reply that said, oh, oh, oh, but she's unemployed. I think she's lying about that office. I don't know.

Anyway, I'm going to shoot my cat now. Sorry, guys, I will be back in 21 to 26 hours each way. Exactly. Right. So unlike when they just, you know, enslave people. and limit the experience of their single precious existence. The cult actually got some pushback about the kitten murdering they were doing,

so they've since leased a statement to clarify their policy. Quote, Oh, good. The small number of church members who have pets may be minded to rehome them with a willing neighbor or colleague or via working with their local animal shelter. We are aware of untrue and distressing online commentary,

which has misconstrued this, as members of the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church being told to euthanize their pets. We're also aware of the true bits where people did euthanize their pets. The church would never condone cruelty to any living creature, and this position is being strongly reinforced to our congregation. We have the utmost respect for all of God's creations. If a member of our church was ever cruel to animals, we would want the matter to be dealt with by the appropriate authorities, end quote.

Great. So turn yourselves in, right? And I'll be the appropriate authority waiting outside the Alpa factory ready to go. Oh, there you go. Just look for the tall guy. One last thing about this story, and I can't believe I have to say this, this is not the first time this church has gotten in trouble for killing their pets. What? They actually went through this exact same scandal back in 1966.

with multiple outlets reporting that they murdered household pets in front of children and that several members were instructed to kill their guide dogs. Jesus Christ. Okay, all right. I know this is insensitive to say, but the idea of a blind guy trying to stab his guide dog to death is funny, though, right? It is funny. It's a comedy premise.

The dog's just leading him away each time. Opposite side. Yep, you almost got me. Good, Chris. My left. The point is this. And podcast, sister, there has never been a more important time

for you to subscribe to our channel on YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram. She's trying to get away. Because I am holding my bug, Marjorie Taylor Bosnick, right now. I think it's Marjorie Terrell.

God himself, if he were to descend from heaven and tell me to choose between her and sitting by side in heaven, I would choose match. Same 10 out of 10 times. Oh, yeah. All right. Well, I think we all need a break-to-tell match.

What a pretty girl she is. So we're going to hand things over to my lovely wife, Lucinda. She took a pretty girl. Okay, her. Oh, what a blap. Look at that blap. It's permanent. It's epic.

It's all right. I'm going to put her back to sleep. She was a seat-bar. A man wrote the Bible. A whore is what she wanted. If it's a legitimate rape. It's a slut, right? Cooking can be fine. Hey!

I'm glad of a man. This week in massages. How about I just ease you into the bad news this week? I've actually got a couple stories to start off that represent positive steps in the right direction. So I'm going to use those to lull you into a false sense of security before we get to the one I most want to talk about today. So let's start off in Pennsylvania, where a court recently found that reproductive rights were protected by the state's equal rights amendment. So not only does that protect it from future incursion by the rising tide of Trumpian conservatism in the state, it also invalidates an existing restriction on abortion funding.

See in 1982, Pennsylvania passed a law called the Abortion Control Act, which is pretty obviously evil just from the name. But this law put a strict ban on using Medicaid funds for abortion care as part of the nationwide effort to starve abortion providers of funds in the 80s. Well, abortion providers in the state argued that the law violated the Equal Rights Amendment since it unduly affected people based on their sex. And unlike its big brother in D.C., the Pennsylvania state constitution wasn't scared away from passing the ERA by hysterics about public bathrooms. So it actually predates the Women Control Act or whatever it was called. Now, this was a Commonwealth court's ruling so it can and will be appealed to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

but that court has a five to two liberal majority, so it might just be safe on a pill. And if you didn't guess that the next state in our tour of good news for women was going to come from Oklahoma, I can hardly blame you. But I'm happy to report that the Oklahoma Senate unanimously passed the brand new law against child marriage that they don't yet have. We've talked about these laws in general and this one in particular before, but I'm happy to report that it's going swimmingly.

There were no Oklahoma senators willing to go on the record against 18 as the age of consent. Okay. So you're ready for the good news portion to end? Good, because I have to finish the Oklahoma story by pointing out that Oklahoma would only be the 18th state to completely outlaw child marriage. And then the news has to get even worse when we go to North Carolina. So this is the story of House Bill 1232, which was introduced by two Republicans earlier this month. And it would amend the North Carolina Constitution to declare that zygote are full-fledged human beings and that aborting them would be considered first degree murder.

And in case you're not super familiar with which degree of murder is which, the bill spells out specifically that they're talking about the kind of murder that would justify homicide to prevent. So yeah, North Carolina Republicans want to empower Bubba to murder abortion doctors and pregnant people who decide not to have babies is where we are as a country. And I know that this is just a proposal and I'm sure it's dead on arrival, but this is a signal of where these people want to go. And whether or not they can get there, the simple fact that they want to go there at all should be plenty enough to scare you. And now that you're properly scared, I'll hand you back over to Noah, Heath, and Eli. Thank you, Lucinda. Next up in headlines in putting the Arkansas in our Klansoffal.

Our Klan's awful. There's a literal whites only, Christians only real estate development in Arkansas. I'm not talking about just Arkansas, the state, but I understand the confusion. It's a very intentional community that I'm talking about of about 160 acres inside the larger place called Arkansas. Arkansas with similar values. And this community has existed for a while somehow. And they were pretty certain they were not going to be sued. Well, they got sued because of a new law from 1968 that says you can't do that. Also, there's another new law from 1866 that says you can't do that. And also a new amendment called the 14th that was ratified in 1868. Can't do that.

I can see why the lawsuit took so long to come through, though. I mean, if you win, you have to live in Arkansas. Right. No, that's an impediment. Honestly, I'm genuinely terrified with the thought that this Supreme Court could get their hands on interpreting the 14th Amendment. Yeah, they shouldn't be allowed to discuss that. I'm not going to spoil how this is going to go, but I, Clarence Thomas, am recusing myself from this case. Yeah. So, lawsuit got filed last week, and apparently it was, you know,

TIL situation for the only clans development company. Today I learned, this is illegal. They're called Return to the Land, by the way, but mine was much better, only plans. The plaintiff is Michelle Walker, who applied to buy some land in the community, and the process involved answering questions about the race and religion of her family when she applied to buy the land. She's white and Christian, but she has Jewish ancestry on one side of the family. It's her mother's side, so it's the real Jewish.

And her husband is black and their kids are biracial. Well, those were all problems for the cland owners and her application was denied. So lawsuit. The application also, by the way, included questions about Walker's views on immigration, transgenderism is the word they used, and segregation just as a concept. I feel like the application usually answers that last question, right? Unless the town has like a kick-ass post office or something. It's really good schools.

I feel like they should get to sue all the people that already live there too. Right? Like everybody who went through that process and didn't sue every fucking buddy around them should be on the list. You needed to have already sued a long time ago. Yes. Correct. So the defendants are Return to the Land. It's Ozarks chapter.

Apparently they have other chapters too. And it's five officers. lead officer is their president, Eric Orwell. And he's a neo-Nazi idiot. So he thought it would be a good idea to speak with journalists to explain his very defensible position on this. Oh, go real good for him. Go great.

Yeah, it went great. It went great. He told CNN, quote, You have to be someone who identifies with European heritage and ancestry. You have to celebrate traditional European values. And we get those values from our religious documents within Christianity, within Norse paganism. We view Jewish origins

as having their roots in the near east, and so they wouldn't fall under the category of European heritage. End quote. It's not about race, y'all. It's religious discrimination. Hey, I was just walking by. I'm the judge for your case. Do you want me to declare you guys the losers

now, or do you want to go inside? Do you want to go inside? I just will do it inside. So Eric also added, again, we value our heritage, not just because that's our race and we're all about skin color. So not just that. Cool. Cool. It's not just that.

Continuing. But also because we care about traditional European music and art and European history. Yeah. It's about the... I like those harpsichord to plink, punkety-pokes. Artistic thing. Yeah. All right.

So, okay, okay. It isn't just about race. It's also. Yeah. It's not just that. That's his defensible position. Mostly the plink plunks. He chose to say to a journalist.

So you might be wondering why Michelle Walker and her family have any desire to live in a neo-Nazi cabots in mud fuck Arkansas or whatever it is. I was wondering about that. But okay, that's not the point, though. That's not the point. Hopefully they'll win the lawsuit and make sure that return to the land doesn't continue its plan to set up shop in other places like Pennsylvania, for example. Apparently, the Pennsylvania State House heard about that plan, and they passed a bill to block the creation of whites-only housing communities in Pennsylvania.

That was last month they did that. And the vote was 101 to 100 in the Pennsylvania House. Truly insane that they needed a new law for that. But here we are. And they just barely passed it. It's not about race, guys. The next person who tells me, I'm overreacting about an election, gets taxidermied, okay? Jesus fucking Christ.

Yeah. Well, even if shitty places find a way to bring back whites only segregation in their communities, and I'm sure they're going to try, I'm guessing the interest in return to the land specifically and their real estate isn't going to be that high. The photo I saw showing a lot from the Arkansas chapter, it looks bleak. like, really, like, post-apocalypse, zombie movie bleak. Yeah. There's like a random wood palette.

There's a bunch of rubble. There's a pile of jerry cans. It's really sad. One being, they're not even a good neo-Nazi cabots. They suck. No. Now, if I was running from a killer down a dirt road and I saw this house, I'd keep running. I'd be like, man, we'd do another mile and a half, right, Michael?

Come on. Well, guys, nice neighborhoods already keep black people out. The fact that a shitty neighborhood is doing it is, that's the only thing that's new about this news story. I hope people misinterpret the way you ended that story and just be like, what the fuck? No, it's really racist. And finally tonight in On Brand News.

Our listeners outside of the Golden State might not be aware, but California is getting its very own dose of Christian crazy. as part of their gubernatorial race this year in the form of self-described Christian apostle, Che on. Oh, on brand. That's good. On brand. That's all that. Thank you. Thank you.

You got there. And this week, he announced that when he gets elected, drug addicts will go to Christian rehab or be sent to prison, where they will also be forced to be Christian. Oh, cool. And

much like many other Christian prophecies from apostles, the result is going to be, and slash a, nothing, because he's not going to be on the ballot. And he's known that since he missed a deadline in March. He's just lying. And spoilers.

Also, it wouldn't matter if he was on the ballot. It would not. That also wouldn't matter. Right. So, first off, big thanks to Hemet Meta over at the Friendly Atheist blog for bringing this story to our attention. It was my hope that now that Hemet and us are both on TikTok, a dance collab would have happened.

but his restraining order still stubbornly remains in place. And if you don't have a restraining order against me and you promise not to get one, you can email us atheist news at scathing news at gmail.com. You can email us one way that there's no way in hell we're cutting ourselves off from as broad a source of collaborators as everyone with a restraining order against Eli Bosnick. No, no rule.

What can I say? I'm a huger. I love to hug. Naked. Sicky. So before we dive into the meat of the matter, let's talk about Che. Che is one of the leaders of the new Apostolic Reformation,

a movement with numerous apostles who aimed to take over the country through the Seven Mountains mandate, an idea that Christians must take dominion over all the spheres of influence in society. There's seven. There's seven of them. His harvest international ministries

with more than 25,000 affiliated ministries and organizations in over 65 nations, was created to fulfill. that mission. Well, so far it seems like they just do sketchy cover-up stuff. When right-wing Christian podcaster and accidental correspondent for our program, Mike Winger, did a video this year about Bethel Church's prophets who were using magic tricks to fake their Jesus powers,

Che was cited as someone who was part of the cover-up culture there. Okay, but maybe I am on the ballot to check your wallet. Nothing. But still, where did the wallet come down? Okay, so look, I'm not normally one to encourage church cover-ups, but I feel like the Bethel Church could really just be doing a lot more in that department, right?

I mean, the fact that I know about the grave laying, for example, is proof of that. Big proof. Big proof, yeah. But like I said, this week, he was still making campaign promises, specifically about his interpretation of Prop 36, a well-intentioned but not super successful change to California's drug laws from last year. Quote, and so what I'm going to do is,

I'm going to give them the option. I'm going to enforce Prop 36. Make it a felony again if you're a drug pusher. And I'm going to give them an option to go into treatment. And if they don't go to treatment, and I'm going to make it a Christian treatment. Hey, hey, just relax, decide on your idea before you start your sentence. There you go ahead.

I'm going to make it a faith-based treatment, not a Christian, but a faith-based because all the nonprofit organizations that are helping the homeless, they can't preach the gospel because it's separation of church. It is terrible. But the ones that are effective are people like Dream Center with Matthew Barnett. God, this sentence is sweating. This is all one sweat sentence, young. My friend.

And they're really seeing kids come off the streets getting not only delivered and healed up, but they're learning job skills to go back and be productive. End quote. Oh my God. Did his political speech just have an affiliate link in it? What the fuck is happening? Smash that like, like subscribe. Smash it.

Don't forget to smash that like button. But what if you don't want to go to the Dream Center with Chey's personal friend, Matthew Barnett? I'm so glad you asked. He concludes, quote, and if they don't want to go to these treatment centers, I'm going to put them back in prison. Simple as that. And my prison's going to be reformed

because we're going to preach the gospel in prison. I'm going to have, you know, prison fellowship come in and preach. So it's going to be a detox, but also the gospel is going to be presented to them, end quote. Okay. So just to be clear, God's official drug policy is to, well, invent heroin, let people get addicted to heroin, and then teach them about the gospel from inside of prison

by coordinating with an apostle who's not on the ballot. Yeah, God's plan is to fail at doing that. To fail to do that thing. So as Heath Tees, totally spoiling my story, by the way, God did not give Che the power of paperwork. He forgot to file his tax returns so that he could run for office. And he will not appear on the ballot in this upcoming election. But don't worry, he's telling his followers to write him in for the election.

And if by some chance he gets outpaced by other write-in candidates like Joe Mama and Mickey Mouse, he's already promised last week at America's Big 250 to run again in four years. Please, big Steve Hilton fans, write in Che on instead of voting for the top Republican in that primary. I don't know who that is. With a few guaranteed news stories in the bank for 2030, now I suppose we can wrap up the headlines for the week. Keith, Eli, thanks as always. Too much.

And when we come back, I'll be able to see still. Hey, podcast listener, I know we have a lot of fun here during Matrion begging you for money in silly ways, but here in our last week of the fundraiser, we want to extend a heartfelt thank you to everyone who stepped up to give. Goals and prizes aside,

you keep our show going. You're the reason we can do what we love for a living, and we are so very grateful. So whether or not you helped out this month by adding a pledge, upping your pledge, or just telling a friend about the show, we are grateful for you,

and we are honored to be able to do this job. We'll do it for as long as you let us. And remember, all our patrons can join us for a Patreon-only live stream on May 31st at 8 p.m., with songs, fun, and a whole lot more. Once again, from all of us that puzzling a thunderstorm.

Guys, guys, shut up, shut up, whatever you're saying. I managed to talk five-ish, the talking $5 bill, into an ad spot. He's going to do a song and everything. Thank you? Thanks. Heath, you got to give him your car. There it is. That's the rule.

And that's fine. At the same time that modern technology has proven that miracles don't exist with the ubiquity of cameras and verifiable medical records, not pointing to them, the same technology has allowed claims of those disproven miracles to spread faster and wider than ever before, which we're going to examine again in this installment of the devil's advocates. So tell us, Heath, what miraculous intervention are we going to be intervening on today? Today, we're going to look into the claims of James Drain, a blind man whose sight was

miraculously restored when he got back. tithized in 2023. Oh, yeah, I've seen this guy on Facebook. Yeah, they're right above the AI pictures, Grandma generated of all her hobbies and her pets. Yeah, exactly. Not in reputable sources, exactly. His story has been making the rounds since 2023,

and it's recently seen a bit of a resurgence. So here's the story as it's typically told. This is taken from a copied and pasted Facebook post that's impossible to really source, but there are some variation on approximately this. Quote, James Drain was permanently blind from optic nerve damage after a traumatic injury.

Doctors confirmed no light perception and no medical path back to sight. Years later, he encountered the gospel and chose baptism. As he came up out of the water, he began to see shapes, then faces. Within minutes, his sight reached, turned fully. What makes this testimony extraordinary is medical documentation. His blindness and

optic nerve damage were on record. After the baptism, doctors confirmed restoration with no natural explanation. Jesus still heals today. Eyes opened in faith, see his power. His was, of course, capitalized. If anyone is in Christ, He is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come. Second Corinthians 517. Well, that sounds pretty darn convincing.

Sure, the fuck does. Scientific. And what makes that post remarkable, other than the complete lack of commas that I had to add to make it even remotely readable, is that not only is it bullshit, but it's not even the right bullshit. This is the story that's being shared

all over social media, but it's contradicted by James Drain's publicly available testimony, which of course is also bullshit. Yeah, I love when liars online are like, and what makes this story so true is the signed statements from over a thousand doctors that I'm lying about existing. Fuck. Yeah. Okay, so let me break that claim down one sentence at a time. I'll start with.

James Drain was permanently blind from optic nerve damage after a traumatic. injury. So first of all, if the man can see now, he wasn't permanently blind, mostly because of how the word, fucking permanently works. What if that was our only argument and that was the answer to the segment? All right, before we wrap up the signals and then? Idiot. Yeah, done. But according to James's testimony, he was partially blind and not from a traumatic injury. He had multiple sclerosis, and he worked with chemicals that cause blindness. And even within his six-minute video testimony, he can't seem to decide which of those things caused his blindness.

This telling the story also undercuts the fact that, again, according to Drain's testimony, he'd been losing his eyesight for eight years. Many of the posts about James will be a little bit more specific and say he was blinded by chemical exposure. And this is clearly meant to leave the impression that there was. was a single traumatic event that caused him to be blind. Because, of course, a single catastrophic event isn't the kind of thing that can naturally reverse itself, but a gradual degradation of eyesight very much is.

According to James, his MS made him susceptible to vision loss and working in a factory where he was exposed to a lot of methanol damaged his vision, which would suggest that restoring his vision could have been as simple as no longer being around those chemicals. Okay, so wait, so was he blind blind or legally blind? He says he had no vision in his left eye and about 40% vision in his right eye. So legally blind, but he had limited vision. Okay, so we're already down to like 80% of a miracle. Yeah, right.

We've already lost 20% and we've done one sentence. So moving on to the second one. Yeah, we're at a fucking sleepy Tom. Here's that second sentence. doctors confirmed no light perception and no medical path back to sight. So we've already bunked the no light perception thing. Again, he recorded a six-minute video where he freely admits that he had at least some light perception.

That video is where 100% of the claims come from. But the rest of that sentence is also very silly. It's like when people say that doctors gave them six months to live. Because no, they didn't. doctor says that. No doctor says you have exactly six months to live. They say your condition has an 80% mortality rate at six months. So it's possible that a doctor said something like there's no known medical intervention that can restore your site, but it's wildly unlikely that some doctor told him nothing in medicine or science will ever make you see again. It's impossible. If you start to see again,

I'll fucking blind you myself. I hate you. I'm right. I'm. I'm your doctor. Okay, so sorry, wait. If this isn't part of James' claims, where is the information about what his doctor said coming from? Oh, that would be Facebook's asshole. There's nothing in his testimony or his public remarks to back that up. So let's get back to the post. The next sentence is, years later, encountered the gospel and chose baptism.

Okay. I'm willing to grant this one. I mean, I find it hard to believe that a middle-aged American just encountered the gospel of this guy, Jesus Christ in 2023. But whatever. That's one of those things Christians say so they can become a Christian when they're already a Christian. I'm going to let that one go. So here's the next two sentences after that. As he came up out of the water, he began to see shapes, then faces within minutes, his sight returned fully.

Okay. Okay, look, this doesn't really matter. but again, that's not even what he claims. He says the first thing he saw was lights, and he was surprised he could make out individual lights instead of just seeing a single mass. But you can't admit that without admitting you actually had partial eyesight to begin with.

So the miracle narrative has to just invent new shit for him to see first. Yeah, also, weird that God did a miracle that looks exactly like a natural healing thing, right? Well, he can't be able to. miracle too fast or he'll pull something? What's the situation there? But then we get to the crux of the lie.

It said, what makes this testimony extraordinary is medical documentation. His blindness and optic nerve damage were on record. And okay, while I'm sure medical records do exist about this guy's eyesight, none of them has ever been made public. Oh. At no point, has James Drain ever released any documentation to back up his claims, which would be incredibly easy to do if he wanted to. So this is all just based on his claims?

100%. And that doesn't just put it in the realm of unverified. If they back up his claims, those documents provide one of the most compelling pieces of evidence for God's intervention in the modern world. Sure. James has openly said that he thinks Jesus healed him so that his story could inspire other people and lead them to Christ Jesus. So there's literally no reason to withhold the documentation unless it completely undercuts the claims. Okay, look, if anyone wants us to walk by face and not by sight, it's James, okay? You understand.

So, okay, wait, so I'm assuming the following sentence about how baffled the doctors were is also just an unevanced claim. As with literally everything in this story, we've got nothing to go on but James' claims, most of which are contradicted in the vast majority of social media posts about this. Okay. So do you think he's just making this shit up or what? I mean, it doesn't really matter what I think. Hey, hey, it matters to me. Okay.

Thank you. I feel seen by you. That was a nice little thing. Here's the facts. The facts are this is a claim that lots of people have made in the past. There are plenty of examples of people who made this claim being later proven to be liars. and there's zero examples of people who made this claim later being proven to be telling the truth. So odds are against him.

But even if you're inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt, which shouldn't be, there's still a version of the story where he's not lying and Jesus is not doing mystical optometry in fucking Claussen, Michigan. Over the course of his six-minute video testimony, James is pretty unclear about the nature of his visual problems. entirely possible he did have a spontaneous remission that coincided with his baptism. Or maybe his vision had been getting better for a while and it wasn't until his baptism that he really noticed. Or maybe there was a psychosomatic aspect to his vision problems. There are documented cases of people with very poor vision getting better without an identifiable cause. And those cases aren't exclusive to Christians or the newly baptized.

Sure. All that being said, the fact that he's not putting his medical. record out there for examination pretty much relieves us from any obligation to give him the benefit of the doubt. There's only three reasons I can think of why he'd be keeping those hidden. The most likely is they undercut the claims and show his vision wasn't as bad. Then as he lets on, isn't as good now as he lets on or was already improving before the baptism. The second is there just are no medical records and he made his vision problems up entirely. That seems less than likely because there are other friends and family attesting to him having limited vision.

And lies with multiple liars are harder to pull off for three years and counting. Yeah, especially Christian ones. I mean, their perfect book that God wrote for them has enough contradictions to get it thrown out as a witness in a court of law. Sure. So, yeah. And the third possibility, of course, is that James made a deal with Satan after he talked about the miraculous healing.

And now, as a committed minion of the devil, he doesn't want to make things too easy on Jesus by proving the Son of God's miraculous abilities in optometry. But to be honest, I don't think I have the theological chops to assign a percentage to that last one. Yeah, sure, sure. All right. So I guess the only question left to ask is, how miraculous is it? That's not how this bid ends. No, I know. I haven't come up with a good closer.

for this one yet. Okay. Well, not miraculous at all. Not even a little. All right. Yeah, I'll keep workshopping it. And perhaps I'll have something better to debut on the next installment of The Devil's Advocates.

You got Deviled. Before we sign the painting tonight, I want to remind all the patrons to look for a special link to our Patreon-only live stream this Sunday. It starts at 8 p.m. Eastern. It goes until 10 p.m. unless I can talk to guys into going later, and we have some genuinely really exciting stuff to announce.

Anyway, that's all the blasphemy we've got for you tonight, we'll be back in 10,022 minutes with more. If you can't wait that long, being to look up for a brand-new episode of our sister-shall's hot friend God off a movie day, being at 7 Eastern on Tuesday, and an even newer episode of our half-smercial citation date a day, being at noon Eastern on Wednesday. Obviously, I can't shut the fuck up until I thank Heath Enright for not

shutting the fuck up. Eli, for not fucking up the shut, and loose indilusions for being awesome and no combination of those words at all. I'm not even going to touch that. I also want to thank Robert for writing this week's Farnsworth quote. It's crazy how ranking, Animals can be the catalyst that leads you away from God, and hard to imagine how that would be possible if he existed.

But most of all, of course, I want to thank this week's best people. Mark William, Lilith, 210, Sam, Michael, Lon, Ken, Al's, Maddie, Amanda, John, and Seattle, Steve, other Michael Grim Trigger, Aurelia, Damon, Cosmos, Ruler of Chaos, Hunter of Pigeons, Mal Peyton, Mary Kay, Casey, Sarah, Croncasaurus, Magnus, Sparkling, Clean Monkey Man, Pugin, Nick, Justin, Major Bonie, Elsa, and Mandy, who are almost too big to all. fit in my mouth at once, but only almost. Together, these 32 people, gods, contemporary dinosaurs, and monkey men who doth protest too much helped push us towards the good stuff when it came to Matrion goals this week by giving

us money. Not everybody has the money it takes to give us some, but if you do, you can make a per-episode donation at patreon.com slash scaling a atheist, where I'm going to early access to an extended ad-a-version of every episode, or you can make a one-time donation by clicking on the donate button on the right side of the homepage at scalingadet.com. And if you'd like to help but not with money, you can also help a ton by leaving the five our review, telling a friend about the show, and following us on social media. And speaking of social media, Tim Robertson handles that for us and our audio engineer is

Morgan Kirk, who also wrote all the music that was used in this episode, which was used with permission. If you have questions, comments, or death, I should find all the contact to him on the contact page at scanning atheist.com. The point is this. And podcast listener, there has never been. The point is this. And podcast listener, she's so funny.

Do you want to put your headphones on? Look at that fucking tongue. She's so sleepy. Oh, she should have the headphone. Well, you, someone should. She's going to love this. Why are they sticky? They're so sticky.

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