The Scathing Atheist - 691: 31 Flavors Edition

Episode Date: June 11, 2026

In this week’s episode, Pete Hegseth whittles down America’s list of real religions, we lament the shutdown of the storied Riverstone Christian Academy in the strip mall behind the Staples, and we’ll get to know Don Ford biblically. Again.---To make a per episode donation at Patreon.com, click here: http://www.patreon.com/ScathingAtheistTo buy our book, click here: https://www.amazon.com/Outbreak-Crisis-Religion-Ruined-Pandemic/dp/B08L2HSVS8/If you see a news story you think we might be interested in, you can send it here: [e-mail] check out our sister show, The Skepticrat, click here: https://audioboom.com/channel/the-skepticratTo check out our sister show’s hot friend, God Awful Movies, click here: https://audioboom.com/channel/god-awful-moviesTo check out our half-sister show, Citation Needed, click here: http://citationpod.com/To check out our sister show’s sister show, D and D minus, click here: https://danddminus.libsyn.com/Report instances of harassment or abuse connected to this show to the Creator Accountability Network here: https://creatoraccountabilitynetwork.org/---Guest Links:Get tickets to see Seth and Noah in Cincinnati! https://www.sethandrews.com/cincinnatiLearn moe about SkeptiCal Con here: https://www.skepticalcon.com/---Headlines:Pete Hegseth shrinks military's recognized religions list, erasing atheists and Humanists: https://www.friendlyatheist.com/p/pete-hegseth-shrinks-militarys-recognizedAndhttps://www.sltrib.com/religion/2026/06/06/lds-church-left-off-defense/ and https://atheists.org/news/federal-policy/american-atheists-demands-answers-from-pentagon-following-removal-of-faith-belief-codes/Under guise of fighting anti-Catholic bias, Kash Patel fires FBI analysts who kept us safe: https://www.friendlyatheist.com/p/under-guise-of-fighting-anti-catholicPriest Who Said Aliens Were Demons Removed as Exorcist for Washington: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/04/us/catholic-exorcist-demon-ufo.htmlMyPillow site gets hacked, Lindell lies, and he loses GOP endorsement for MN governor:https://www.wonkette.com/p/mypillow-guys-gubernatorial-dreamsColorado’s ‘first public Christian school’ closes permanently: https://www.denverpost.com/2026/06/03/colorado-public-christian-school-closed/---This Week in Misogyny:TPUSA tradwife-con claims feminism is anti-woman: https://religionnews.com/2026/06/08/at-tpusas-womens-summit-christian-influencers-say-feminism-threatens-motherhood/SBC amends constitution to be more explicitly sexist: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/religion/article/sbc-female-pastors-vote-22299028.phpCatholics challenge Illinois employment law on religious grounds: https://www.ncregister.com/cna/illinois-diocese-asks-court-to-block-law-requiring-it-to-hire-nonbelievers

Warning, this podcast has more profanity than a barefooted Lego factory. This week's episode of The Skathing Atheist is brought to you by The Fact that Trump hasn't fucked up bad enough to take out the power grid yet. And now, the Skathing Atheist. Hello, this is Bill Patterson, aka Alex Skepttec. Host of Skepperty, a quiz show that will be featured at this year's Skeptical Conference in July, Skepticalcon.com. Please join us for this online conference on science and science and science.

skepticism, brought to you by Northern California skeptics organizations, and presenting many thoughtful and interesting speakers, all of whom did, in fact, evolve from filthy monkey men and women. It's Thursday. It's June 11th. And it's Pride Month. Yeah, just in time for Trump's gay birthday. I'm no illusions. I'm Milibosnik. I'm Ethan Wright. And from Andy Kim's, New Jersey, Ann Arbor, Michigan, and way across Georgia. This is the scavenist. On this week's episode, Pete Hegzeth widdles down America's list of real religions. We lament the shutdown of the storied Riversstone Christian Academy in the strip mall behind the staples in Colorado. And we'll get to know Don Ford Bibliquith again.

But first, the Diet Trow. If there are two things, I think we can all agree on about the Southern Baptist Convention, is that it's too damn woke and it takes sexual abuse too damn seriously. was the campaign pitch for Willie Rice, who used that pitch to catapult himself into the group's highest office? Now, to be clear, Willie's closest competitor in the race,

South Carolina pastor Josh Powell, agreed that the ongoing sexual abuse cover-up scandal was overblown, was a hoax, in fact, but he was still better in a number of meaningful ways beyond just not being a grown-ass man who goes by Willie. What are you, a fucking eccentric,

chocolatier get a grown-up name. But of course, he had also staked at a position far to the right of the already terrifyingly conservative pal. His whole candidacy revolved around the idea that the SBC had been, in his words, caught in a cultural riptide and straying too much from biblical principles in their effort to be more socially acceptable. Now, keep in mind that at the same meeting where they elected him, they also suspended the normal rules for constitutional amendment so that they could kick out any churches that allowed women to preach on Sundays. And he his argument was that that group was too woke. It's worth taking a step back here and asking what that really means, right?

Because woke has just turned into this sort of catch-all charge amongst conservatives to the point where it's easy from our perspective to just treat it like he's saying cooties, right? Willie Rice argued that the SBC had too much cooties and he was going to get rid of them. But given how virulently bigoted the Southern Baptist Convention is, you really do have to stop and consider what they could possibly be doing. doing that Willie Rice considers too woke, right? It's certainly not their progressive views on LGBTQ rights. There's been no movement whatsoever to bring the SBC in line with the cultural

majority when it comes to that issue. And as the aforementioned constitutional amendment demonstrates, they certainly aren't getting with the 21st century on women's rights. Hell, they're not even getting with the 20th century. And sure, there have been a few tepid moves towards future accountability when it comes to sexual abuse, but opposition to that. That was carved out as a separate issue that both the major candidates agreed on. So what does that leave us? Well, it's probably worth pointing out that among Willie Rice's biggest supporters for the presidency was one William Wolfe. You might remember this former Trump staffer from his lamentation about the national swarthiness in a YouTube video where he said, quote,

I want my children to grow up in a country where they're not minorities. I want my boys to grow up in a country where they don't look like they are the foreigners here, end quote. In other words, when you whittle it down from the original 14 words, I want America to be whiter. Wolf even came up in a debate between Rice and Powell before the vote. Powell made some pusillanimous aside about how some of Rice's supporters, quote, say some pretty intense stuff online, end quote, that's his feckless terminology for calls for genocide.

And Rice's response was to say that they needed to unify their group by listening to everyone, even the Nazi extremists who call for a permanent white majority, even through the Nazis abone by saying that sometimes people who say hard things online have a point. In his effort to sound conciliatory, he said, quote, unity is not telling people to hush. It's listening. It's sitting down and saying, tell me why you're bothered, end quote. So yeah, the right thing to do is ask why you're bothered by your children growing up around people of color.

Really dig into it rather than abandoning. biblical principles in order to be more palatable to the anti-racist culture. That is what the nation's largest organization for the nation's largest denomination of the nation's largest religion just voted on. Keep in mind that the Southern Baptist Convention was founded on racism. That's what the Southern is doing in the name, even though they represent Baptist churches all over the country. The group founded on bigotry to protect its bigotry just voted to be more bigoted and the vote

wasn't even close. They're talking about your Jesus. May interrupt his broadcast and bring you a special news bulletin. Joining me for headlines tonight on the nitrous and oxide of this podcast, Heath Enright and Eli Bosnickfellas. Are you ready to make the people laugh? Wow, wow, wow. And I did destroy Kanye West's career.

So this all makes sense. It's all tracks. Well, I'm sure he'd agree with that. Yeah. In our lead story tonight, there's nothing the Trump administration likes more than less information. Kind of their bread and butter. Well, that and bigotry.

And this week, they found a way to combine less information and bigotry by whittling the Pentagon's list of recognized religions in the military town from 211 to 31. Groups that failed to make the new cut included atheists, humanists, pagans, wikins, and Unitarian Universalists,

which account for about 5% of Americans before you even add in the other 175 missing faiths. Guys, we're failing at another war. We're fucking up the whole world economy. Is there any way we could pair down this list of religion words? I feel like that could do it.

I think it's because the prayers are too spread out. I'm telling you if we can focus up the prayers. So the justification for the move was that Pete Hagsith is a Christian nationalist who wants to restart their crusades and knows that'll be harder if there are non-Christians in the army. But he can't just come out and say that. He has to hide that and the tattoos on his body. So the official justification is that this will make the job of the chaplains easier. Because you know how having less information at the start makes your job easier?

It's like that. Guys, there's lots of mines in the Strait of Hermuz. I said the thing earlier. I don't feel like anybody gave a real answer. So the Strait of Ramos, minds. The warlocks are dealing with this giant spellbook and all these rules. Can we switch from D&D 3.3.3.3. 5 and go to like 5E, 3.5 is bloated. Maybe lasers and feelings? I don't know.

Solve it. Idiots. So the new list consists of agnostics, Baha'i, Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, no religion, other religion, and 22 forms of Christianity. Or 21, if you don't count Mormon as a form of Christianity, which the list doesn't. Aw, they got so mad. Well, yeah, yeah. So when the first version of the list came out, all the various forms of were listed as Christian hyphen denomination. They say Christian hyphen Catholic, Christian hyphen Methodist, Christian hyphen Presbyterian, except Mormons who were just listed after all the Christians. And when Mormons complained about this, rather than admitting Mormonism into the officially

recognized list of Christianity's, they just took out the pre-hyphen Christian altogether. It's Jesus Christ Church of Latter-day Saints, Christian, the Mormons. Please say out the whole thing. The whole thing. Or else it's a slur. And it's like Dr. Jill Biden, fuck off. Be a medical doctor. Don't lie to us also.

Liar. And I think I speak for all of us when I say that I can't believe they let the, I'm not sure if there are unicorns. So I'm not going to take a position agnostic to keep their spot. Right. And we really. The cowards get to keep their spot. Yeah. And of course, the idiot right is just eating this shit up because they can sell it as ants.

I won't. right? What were all these silly religions doing there to begin with? I ain't never met no troth or assat true. And why does Baha have an apostrophe in it? What are they hiding? What are they behind? Yeah, right? Yeah. And the official line keeps acting like they were streamlining things and that somehow having fewer faiths to deal with was going to make chaplain's jobs easier. Like they had to devote equal time to each category or whatever. In his announcement, Hagseth made a big deal about how, you know, there are 11 categories nobody ever uses even. So what?

Do they go bad like milk? Yes, exactly. Right. Like you don't have to like put new ones in once to date. Yeah. An unused category cause everyone precisely nothing. But trying to change the religious identification of half the fucking military sure as hell will. This whole thing is a logistical nightmare that is going to cost a bunch of money, require a mountain of paperwork and accomplish nothing but making minorities feel less.

welcome in the military, which is, of course, the point. Yeah. Quick reminder, we spent about $3 billion a year housing old fighter jets we can never use again. But hey, good thing we cut through that fat of the Unitarian Universalists. Yeah, yeah. But just because there are no atheist in the Army now doesn't mean there's no army in the atheist, friend of the show and more of a thymaster than anything Suzanne Summers ever hawked, Jeffrey T. Blackwell.

legal director of American atheists, filed a FOIA request, you're manning any documents related to this change, which... I like that the canon is about his thighs now. It's kind of building. Yeah, right, right. He's good. Yeah, no, it's getting together. Jeff's thighs.

We're going to create an entire, like, Voltron of atheism eventually, yeah. It's not just his fee. And look, a FOIA request, that might not sound like much, but there are procedures that moves like this are required to go through, right? And something tells me that Pete didn't consult with the Armed Forces Chaplain board along the way or anything. So hopefully we'll have more to report on this one in the near future. And in Cash Tag Blessed News, we have a story about Cash Patel and his very sincerely held religious faith.

And I'm pretty sure he's planning to see Charlie Kirk in Belhalla. So I'm assuming he's an old Norse polytheist. But also he's very concerned about Catholic people and all the persecution they face in the United States right now. So in Cash's capacity as still somehow the FBI director, he fired a team of five intelligence

analysts last week. They were the people responsible for catching a domestic terrorist before that terrorist was able to carry out violent attacks using the giant collection of bombs and weapons they found in his house. Sounds like a good thing.

The FBI did. But the terrorist was Catholic. And part of the investigation happened at or adjacent to a church. So that was persecution. They had to be fired. Okay. I told you guys, only if they look like me. Just look at me.

And if the guy looks like me, you can impress them. And, listen, if you think Heath has not gone to the added trouble of holding down the shift button and hitting four, rather than hitting the S where his left ring finger already was when he wrote out the cash in Cash Patel, you underestimate his commitment. commitment to the bit. I set up a macro on the keyboard to define the replace for Zah. Having a keyboard shortcut for that is actually worse, not better. Yeah.

For our job, it's important. If we were in a legal proceeding and our winning depended on Heath not using the money sign in Cash Patel's name, we would lose as a hand in hand. Yeah, no. If I just, if I type Cash Patel regular, AI clip he pops up and he's like, really? You're not doing it. Come on. Commit to the bit, asshole.

You didn't want to talk about the poodle room guy? Yeah. And a big thanks to HemetMetna for covering the story at the friendly atheist. So this whole thing is connected to Donald Trump's federal snipe hunting squad, also known as the task force to eradicate anti-Christian bias. We talked about their so-called findings last month, detailing all the fucking snipes they invented. It was like 600-page.

of invented snipes. That report includes a different report from 2003 by the House Judiciary Committee entitled, the FBI's breach of religious freedom, the weaponization of law enforcement against Catholic Americans. And just for context, that committee was led by GOP congressman

and Ohio State Pedophile helper, sorry, assistant Ohio State pedophile helper, Jimothy Jordan. Yes, that's, time they had to make the baseball coach teach economics for a semester of congressmen. Yeah. So that report claimed the FBI was infiltrating Catholic churches, implying this was some sort of giant operation with spies inside every organization with the word Catholic in it. Now, personally, I'd love that. That's probably a really good idea.

Right? It's not what happened at all. No. Jim Jordan's committee was basing their allegation on a few leaked documents. There were just basic internal paperwork at the time. the FBI. For example, one of the analysts who caught the terrorist had to fill out an operation report and noted that a terrorist might have extremism that's rooted in religion. And even though that's just so very obvious manifestly true, that led to an official admonishment at the time from the FBI higher-ups. More importantly, that same analyst actually dismissed the idea in the same paperwork and explained how the FBI was tracking this terrorist well before he joined a Catholic church. So that's irrelevant.

Hey, boss, the director just sent out a memo that says terrorists are on base if they go to church now. How we handle in that? That's what we've done. That's really what happened though. Yeah. So here's what actually happened. In 2019, the FBI started tracking the terrorist guy. Reminder, the president in 2019 was Donald Trump. So the terrorist is unnamed in the documents. We're going to call him Kyle for our purposes. Almost certainly his real name. Very likely.

So Kyle gets arrested for other stuff, not the terrorism he was planning. And while he's in jail, the FBI learns about so many details from his phone conversations, details about the terrorism he's going to do. Apparently Kyle thought he was on like a private confidential phone line from jail. He'd get on the phone from jail with his family members and his friends and be like, hang up, private conversation jail people hang up. And the prison people running the phones were like, okay, no problem. Click.

And then he had the conversations. Kyle would talk about getting guns and bombs for doing the crimes he wanted to do. Oh. He also said that he was going to quote, make total war against the satanic occultist government and the Zionist devil-worshipping bankers who control it. Yeah, and Cash Patel read that and was like, and we have to respect those beliefs, everybody.

That's what America's about, okay? Yeah. I have to say, satanic occultist, devil-worshipping Zionist sounds theologically cacophonist. A lot going on there. And a good band. And you got to run a bank at the same time. Yeah, that's a lot.

So Kyle gets released from prison in 2021, not clear why. It seems like you would keep him there. he immediately starts posting Nazi stuff and planning some terrorism. Huh. Among his intended targets are people who are pro-choice, Jewish, LGBTQ, and children with special needs. And you'll be shocked to learn that he joins an old-timey Catholic church at this moment, too. The church isn't officially affiliated with the Vatican, but they're all about, quote,

traditional Catholic theology and liturgy. Yeah, traditional, not like this newfang. papacy. Woke Pope, yeah. And Kyle describes himself on social media as a, quote, radical traditional, rad trad, Catholic, clerical

fascist. Lots of us just say, we just say Catholic to make it easier, but like whatever. He did it complicated. And Kyle starts recruiting people in that church to help him carry out an attack. So the FBI sends an undercover agent to investigate.

and it's very clear that Kyle's an imminent threat. The FBI gets a warrant to search his home and they find a ton of weapons and explosives and other terrorist accessories, so Kyle gets arrested again. Well, the alleged persecution happened when the FBI spoke to people in the church because they were in contact with a literal terrorist

and maybe being recruited in some cases. And of course, the paperwork had anti-Catholic bigotry phrases like rad trad Catholic fascist. That was actually a big part of the right-wing media narrative and the grounds for firing used by Cash Patel, even though that phrase was a direct quote from the Catholic terrorist about himself. Yeah, so if you wonder what the folks of the FBI are doing this weekend,

they're doing a fine number place for terrorists with passionate patriots so they can keep their health insurance. It's a weird week. Yeah, it's weird week. Yeah, so the people who got illegally fired are lawyered up, and it looks like they'll be very correctly suing Cash Patel and the FBI for wrongful termination. So that's good. But regardless of how the lawsuit turns out, we're all going to pay for it. Yeah. In two different ways, actually. One, when fucking idiots in the government get sued, we all have to pay for the defense

lawyers and the judge and the whole proceeding and, you know, the amount at the end if they lose. And two, even if cash loses, these people getting fired in the first place, it's going to have a chilling effect on the persecution of Christian terrorists. And we need more of that, not less. I would like them being persecuted a lot more. Yeah, no, Al-Qaeda is seriously looking into adding a Catholic branch at this point. That cannot be a good sign. No, no, it's not. And in Looney in the sky with Demons News.

Oh, that's amazing. Nice. Not mine. No, I figured. It's amazing. Yeah, we know. It's not yours. So it turns out there are things you can do to lose your job at the Catholic Church.

Now, don't worry. It's not homophobia, transphobia, fundamentally altering the American healthcare system to match your theocratic worldview or, heaven forbid, fucking a kid. But if you say that the demons you're in charge of getting rid of our aliens, you are out on your ass. And that's exactly what happened to Washington's chief exorcist this week. So we're going to talk about it. Okay, but was he good at exorcisms? Right.

Yeah, it should be on the merits, right? Yeah. Let's measure units of skill in exorcism inside. Exactly. Extracurricular. So first off, big thanks to Gregory for being the first to send us this story, along with that excellent pun to scathing news at gmail.com. I want to give a shout out to Ed as well,

who also sent us the story with the suggested title of, your mother sucks cocks on Mars. Nice, different direction. Look, I can't promise if you send us atheist news to Scathing News at gmail.com, you'll come up with headlines as good as Gregory and Ed just did, but I can promise

our undying love and affection. Scathing News at gmail.com. Like, Ed might have just been talking shit about your mom, Eli. We better not, Ed. We'd been a Hopkins award winner. Right. So the ousted clergyman in question is Stephen Rosetti, an ordained priest and psychologist who serves as an exorcist for the Archdiocese of Washington.

He also leads the St. Michael Center for Spiritual Renewal, an institution in Washington, that ministers to people, quote, in need of healing and deliverance. Cool. Right, because St. Michael is the patron saint of those facing danger, like soldiers, police, mariners, sick people, and grocers. Huh. I look this up, grocers. Weird.

Yeah. Hey, can we oust him from psychologist for having been an exorcist? I would like that. I would like that. That seems like an important disqualifier, doesn't it? Now, you might be wondering why he was weighing in on aliens in the first place. Well, like most things the Catholic Church does, it's about covering up child rape. You see, the president of the United States was extremely good friends with Jeffrey Epstein.

And he's been doing pretty much. everything he can to distract from that fact the last couple of years, including promising to release all the secret government information on aliens. And then Ivanka called the other day being like, hey, Dad, hope the Epstein thing is like blowing over, whatever. I'm buying an island for billionaires, by the way. Now, the problem is Catholics don't believe in aliens. It's pretty hard to visit Earth from other galaxies with a firmament in the way. Yeah. Right. So many prominent Catholics, including our vice president, J.D. Vance, have weighed in with the possibility that these UFOs are actually demons, not aliens.

Hey, J.D., maybe fucking stay in your lane. Maybe shut up and dribble and leave the demon stuff to experts like the Pope, really. Yeah. So as you can imagine, this has caused quite a stir among the pretend playing professions of the world. As well as the rational people who are watching their vice president opine on whether one fictional being is a different fictional being. Maybe elves are really fairies, y'all. Exactly. We need the identify spell, damn it.

Next time one of us levels up, we've got to get it. Are we still doing 3.5? Yeah, we're still doing 3.5. In America, we're definitely still doing 3.1. We're not even on Pathfinder. So we haven't seen a crossover like this since Friends and Seinfeld both did the matching blackout episode. I think we can all agree. That was the best.

That was good. We are so old. 90s. Anyways, Rosetti spoke about the conflict in a YouTube interview last week, saying, quote, one exorcist told me he thought that this person was possessed by aliens. Aliens. If there are aliens, don't possess people. That's nonsense.

Again, it's demons trying to hide and trying to manipulate and disguise themselves, end quote. The other bit would be silly. Come on. Adding that, quote, many. if not most of these UFO sightings are, in fact, demons. They can do things we can't do, end quote. Okay, so to be clear, the demons were traversing the astral plane heading to Washington, D.C., and they were like, wait, wait, people are going to notice us probably.

We better dress up as aliens and get a flying saucer so that we blend in. Right, we wouldn't want to draw any attention to ourselves. Exactly. Well, as I said, Stephen Rossetti needed to stay in his very slightly different bullshit lane. So Robert McElroy, the Archbishop of Washington, announced Wednesday that he had removed Monsignor Rosetti as an exorcist for the Archdiocese and ended the affiliation between the Archdiocese and the institution he had, saying, quote, statements made by Monsignor Rosetti linking UFOs to demonic presence and the Center's recent use of social. media gravely undermined the church's very precise teaching on the devil, demons, and exorcism. Hey, Stephen, Louing over this like so many times. You can't break into every sketch and yell, freeze demon alien, men in black.

You're, it does, it fucks up the whole thing. You're out of the improv troupe. Also, it is our professional opinion that there is no way Goku could beat up Superman. That's silly. You're fired. You're fired. So yeah, congratulations to Monsignor Rossetti again on discovering the one thing you can say in the Catholic Church that's apparently crazier than demon possession. Not the demons are real, not that demons are everywhere, not that demons are disguising themselves as UFOs.

No, the crazy part was admitting that UFOs might exist at all. Turns out Catholic Church is perfectly willing to believe in hell. It's just outer space they're skeptical of. Clearly. Clearly. All right, well, I've got a lure doc to adjust now, so I guess we're going to take a quick break and hand things over to my lovely wife, Lucinda. The doc's mostly about Jeff's thighs. A man wrote the Bible. A whore is what you want. If it's a legitimate race, it's a slut, right? Cooking can be fine. Hey, I'm glad of a man. This week in massage. The biggest story in America when it comes to religion right now is the way that women are leaving the church in droves.

But of course, most Christians don't realize this because that would require paying attention to women or thinking they're important. But at least some Christian leaders are starting to take notice, which is what led to the closest thing to hell for me personally that's ever been assembled. A Turning Points USA Women's Leadership Summit in Texas. This was the brainchild of Erica Kirk, known for her perforated ex-husband and her propensity for mourning with pizzazz. She opened the event with a speech about how feminism is coming for your babies and forcing you to go to work instead of being a baby factory. God intended. Religious news services quotes one attendee saying, quote, ultimately, my goal is to become a mother and a wife, end quote. And I'm like, yeah, it's a good thing nobody's trying to take away your ability to make your own decisions vis-a-vis motherhood and the ability to marry the person you love.

That sure would suck. But at the same time, Erica Kirk is making this futile gesture to connect with modern women, the entire rest of Christianity is pushing in the other direction. Noah already mentioned this in the diatri, but I wanted to flag it again here. The Southern Baptist Convention voted this week on a rule change that would amend their constitution to deny membership to any church that has a female pastor or allows women to preach on Sundays. Now, there's a rule in place that requires a full year to pass between the introduction of a proposed amendment and the vote on that amendment. But in this instance, they waived that rule because disgorge of penisless preaching was too dangerous to ignore for an entire calendar. To pass, the measure required to,

two-thirds support, but there was never any question that it would get there. In the end, they cleared that hurdle with room to spare. 75% of them voted to keep the rules from the little rascals hideout in place. And it's not just the Baptist trying to reinforce that message about the inferiority of women. The diocese in Springfield, Illinois is suing in an effort to block a state law called the Human Rights Act. The law, or at least the part of it that the diocese is pissed off about, prohibits employers from disciplining or refusing to hire employees for having abortions. Now, because religious leaders are constitutionally incapable of telling the truth about shit,

they're pretending that the law does all kinds of shit that it doesn't do. What it does is borrow them from firing an employee for having an abortion. But they can't admit that that's all it is and hope to retain public sympathy. So look for your religious relatives convinced that the law forces Catholic churches to hire Satanus, priest, or some such shit. Anyway, so yeah, misogyny stays alive and well in Christianity. and if nothing else, it means I've got job security. So with that promise, I'll wrap things up and hand you back over to Noah, Heath, and Eli. Thank you, Lucinda.

Next up in headlines in Pillow Fight, Fight, Fight, Fight News. Despite getting an endorsement from Donald Trump in a bid to become the governor of Minnesota, Mike Lindell. He's having a really bad time, you guys. Oh, good. Still. The Halcy on days of being on Kimmel from inside of claw machine are over. That was the peak for Lindell. And he used to be worth about $300 million.

Now his net worth is about negative $4 billion, thanks to a failing Christian pillow company, and a series of legal judgments against him. Well, he tried to dig out of the hole by running for governor, but he was not able to get the official endorsement from the Minnesota Republican Party last week. And then to make things even worse, Mypillow.com got hacked. Lindell tried to claim it never happened. And then he got caught very obviously lying. Okay. I don't want to be a pedant, Keith,

but to say Mike Lindell got caught lying implies he ever stopped getting caught lying. And I'm not sure I can get behind that linguistically. Sure, sure. Honestly, at this point, we have had to invent so many new categories of failure. Right. We have to create subterranean levels of failure

to accommodate this man's sense. downfall. It's impressive. Like, honestly, like, when he lost everything by getting addicted to crack, that might have been the high point of his life. Yeah, crack's fun for a while. Yeah. A lot of people in me and Heath's hometown got addicted to crack.

It happens to the best of us. The glory days were fantastic. Yeah, right. No, that's a pretty average, yeah. And big thanks to Robin Pinocchio for covering the story at Wanket. So I'll start with the endorsement in the governor's race. The Minnesota GOP held its convention last week, and Lindell was quickly voted out of the contest. Instead of a failing pillow salesman or the Speaker of the Minnesota House, Republicans chose instead Kendall Qualls, a former health care executive.

They're hoping he's going to be more relatable to the voters. Sure. And speaking of relatable, they kicked off the convention with a moment of silence to honor George Floyd. killer Derek Chauvin For real Fucking horrible And then they were like And because it's June

We're gonna open with a prayer Led by the guys who killed Matthew Shepard Yeah wow Come on out fellas And also fuck them for doing it But also fuck them for like making me excitedly Google is Derek Chauvin dead? He's not by the way

He's still alive He wishes he was dead though That's cool I bet he does I do like that And following the convention, you'll be shocked to learn that Mike Lindell said the election of the convention thingy was stolen. Oh, really? No.

By the Minnesota Republican Party. Lindell immediately disputed the results because they used an electronic voting system instead of, you know, good old-fashioned paper ballots, his favorite thing. In fairness, whatever electronic system they used was it just wasn't working. It was like a tragic farce the whole time of old people. arguing about like putting all the machines on channel three like a VCR to get it. Seriously, they spent hours. All the voting machines are blinking 12. They spent so long arguing about several rounds of voting with officials yelling about how like

around seemed wrong, but it seems wrong, but that one still counts or like partially counts or somebody called timeout or interference and there's a do-over. It was like backyard wiffleball with little kids. It was rough. And Lindell told reporters. quote, why would they not want paper ballots? It's a hidden agenda. And it's either some of them are a personal agenda.

Some of them, I believe, are afraid. They're afraid because, you know, the powers that be, or whatever's behind it. At this point, I feel like Mike Lindell spouts conspiracy the way an actor from the 70s says his catchphrase at Comic-Con, right? He's just like, yeah, yeah, yeah, Jews did it. Take a fucking picture. Sign says no more than one man.

Chavez's ghost fucking fucking. They are the powers that be, Mike. Are you saying that there's a shadowy, the shadowy cabal is controlled by a shadowyer cabal? That's just a lot of moving parts. Just have the one. Yeah. Cabal's all the way down.

So that brings us to the hacking. A ransomware group called Play, recently hacked into Mypillo.com, and they posted a public announcement saying they got private and personal confidential data. clients, documents, budget, payroll, IDs, taxes, finance information, etc. Lindell responded by both denying it and explaining how the thing he denied was an attack by his political enemies.

According to Lindel, quote, this is another hit job by outside sources because I'm running for governor. I guarantee it. We do not have any breaches in our data at all. End quote. And then hackers immediately published about 10 gigs of internal data. Well, obviously they would. You invited them to do that.

You dared them to do that. He sure did. Yeah, 10 gigs spanning from 2011 to 2026. And that included business dealings with Trump Media. My Pillow was dealing with Trump media. They made a payment to Lara Trump, Eric's wife, and a payment to Jones Free Speech Systems. And yes, that is Alex Jones.

That's the parent company of Info Wars, which used to be Alex Jones's thing. It gets published and Mike Lendell's like, that looks nothing like the data I bought that proves the election was fake. It has letters and numbers. You can read it. Okay, you know, when he first read

that they'd been hacked and there was like data that had been stolen, the first thing he did is rushed upstairs and checked under his mattress to make sure that his physical pages of packet data were still there. I caught him. Don't worry, Susan.

All right. And just one other detail. This is so very important. There does exist here on God's Green Earth. A Mike Lindell song. A fan song. It's made by one of his adoring fans and also probably with lots of help from AI. And it is breathtaking.

It sounds like Mike's having a delusional episode about playing shirtless volleyball in slow motion in 1986. That's like the musical vibes of it. I'll give you a few of my favorite lyrics. Please. It starts with Mike the pillow guy, saving Minnesota's pride, can't squelch freedom,

persecutions tied. And from there, the song describes Democrats as the enemies of God. Okay, fair enough. And then... But what do they rhyme it with? And then

Mike Lendell has a rock and bod. They weren't that clever. No. Fuck you, Todd. Closer. So from there, the guitar builds to a big moment. And then we get the hook, which, as we all know, brings you back. It says,

my guy is here with a pillow and a plan. Paper ballots flying across the land. Jesus Christ. Perfect. I think what I love best about that is that someone who is a fan of Mike Lindell, of all people, saw the subterranean decimation of his business and livelihood and thought, He needs a theme song. Hey, you know how I bet I could get a signed pillar?

So Liddle claims he doesn't care about the endorsement and he's running anyway. Oh, great news. If he ends up on the ballot in November, he'll be losing to Amy Klobuchar. Yep. But we get to watch that happen. We get to watch him losing along the way. He's the gift that keeps on giving. Yeah.

Silver lining. Yeah. The gift that keeps on losing. Amazing. And finally tonight. And you can learn to God spell somewhere else news. Regular listeners to the show know that here on The Skaving Atheist and his two equally important friends,

we've been following the story of, of Riverstone Academy, Colorado's first public Christian stool for a while now. Well, it looks like their long and illustrious journey has come to an end with health code violations and a lawsuit settlement. So, you know, Christian business as usual. Yeah. Yeah. Christian public schools are a lot like a TGI Fridays with E. coli in the kitchen. I've always said that.

It's very similar. At this point, if you subtract out all the bigotry, religion is just a subcategory of ways to abuse children. Yeah, yeah. I mean, if you keep the bigotry in there, I guess it's also. You have to for a lot of it. Yeah. So first off, a big thanks to Preston for being the first to send us this story to scathing news

at Gmail.com, along with the excellent puns. Preston sent us so many great options for the headlines. It kind of felt like you were trying to steal my job there, Preston. But because you send atheist news to scathing news at gmail.com, I forgive you, Preston. I forgive you. But also, like, feel free to attach a rest of it. to me next time, you know. Hey. Can you tap dance?

So for those of you who are new around here, first of all, welcome. I'm the heart and soul of the podcast. But Riverstone Academy has been a farce of epic proportions since its inception. When the school was announced, it was done proudly as Colorado's first Christian public school. And then when someone with amazing thighs pointed out how illegal that was, they'd change their story to say that it was just a public school that happened to be Christian. I'm having a public meltdown and I just happened to be at a Wendy's. That's not my fault.

You should make this a different. Move the Wendy's, make it public. Switching from Christian school to school Christian is nothing. You have done nothing, guys. But then it was revealed that the entire school was actually just a hoax created by the SBLC-listed hate group of the Alliance Defending Freedom, hoping to sue the state when they were stopped from creating the school in order to get themselves in front of the Supreme Court. Well, that never happened.

Alliance Defending Freedom dropped their suit in May, which meant Riverstone was stuck holding the bag of trying to be an actual school map. It was basically, it was the educational equivalent of the movie Blackbird. It was amazing. Correct. Yes. And since they're Christian con men, not educators, they did a, terrible job of being a fake school. Their first location had to be closed in January due to health and safety concerns.

Then they moved to, I shit you not, a temporary undisclosed location while they waited for a special permit to use their original unsafe location. Reminder, fire inspectors found the school building to be such a hazard that an active patrol had to just walk around the school building and monitor the fucking bags of gasoline or whatever they had in there. Just a rotating like centuries. Yep.

But it gets better. That special permit, that never came. So it's not clear what happened. Either they stayed in their Christian education layer, a secret place, or they just stopped doing the school entirely. We don't know. whatever they were doing, they did not satisfy their special education requirements and were sued by one of the families at the school over it who they had to pay a $20,000 settlement to.

Someone involved in this at some point, turned to somebody else and said, who knew being a school was going to be a whole big thing, right? Yes. Okay. But here's the thing. It gets even better. After all that terrible failure, right before the legislative session ended, Colorado lawmakers passed a pair of amendments that would make Riverstone Academy illegal for entirely non-religious reasons. So the two amendments, one bars co-ops like the one that authorized Riverstone from starting schools or programs outside their member school districts, and the other bars school districts are co-ops from having brick-and-mortar schools that are entirely run by contractors. So even if they had gotten their shit together and won their Supreme Court case for their invisible Jesus oppression.

And they would have. They wouldn't have had standing to actually open their school, which is why they announced this week that they'll be winding down their operation once the school year has ended. Oh. Okay. No more teaching lies to kids inside a fire bomb from now on. Okay. Well, starting at the end of the year.

Yeah, right. That was your one. And then the rest of the year is the rest of your one. Got to let them graduate. Yeah. And look, the fact that this scam was ever even attempted is deeply depressing, right? The kids who were used as props in this political play were denied an education in an unsafe fire hazard behind a staples. And that's terrible.

I think there's a dispensary right there too. Yeah, there is a dispensary right there, which is very funny. But at the very least, the scam failed. And in 2026, that's about as close to good news as we can ask for. Okay. If a strip mall loses a Christian school and gets back their abandoned building in their strip mall with faulty wiring, and that's an improvement to the strip mall, your thing is dumb and you shouldn't be allowed to have religions. Yeah. And I guess that means we're going to wrap up the headlines on what passes for an up note these days.

Heath, Eli, thanks as always. Jumaji. And when we come back, Eli will tell me who's been in that box the whole time. Who's in the box? What's in a box? And the beach was really lovely. Oh, that sounds like it. Yeah.

I bought a box of frosted mini-weets for my hotel room on my vacation. Cool men. I mean, mini-weets are nice, yeah. Are you ready for Bible Peace Theater? You mean the part of the show where we act out the Bible so our listeners don't have to read it? We sure are. Yeah, where were we? Oh, hey Don, when did you get here?

Oh, I'm covering for the Candy Man while he's on paternity. leave, so he just said my name three times in a mirror. Oh, that's nice. I'll message him on Facebook. A boy or girl? Bees. Right. So where were we in the Bible? A second Timothy. Oh, nice. And did Paul write this one? Eh. Eh? So there's a lot of evidence that Timothy just sort of generally speaking isn't written by Paul, but the second one is very emotional, very personal, and also contains a bunch of stuff that's referenced by other epistles. Oh, okay. So like if there is a real epistle to Timothy, it's this one and then the other ones ripped it off? Yeah, exactly. It's weird how pretty much the only biblical verification we have at this point is how bitchy and personal something is, right? That is weird. Yes, it is.

All right, everyone, gather rounds. Of course, Master. We are here. Okay. Timothy, are you ready for my letter to you? Of course, Paul. Let's do it. Okay. dearest Timothy. Nice. You guys hear that? Dearest. It's so wonderful. I remember the last time I saw you. You cried.

Um, what? And not like a normal chill. This is an emotional moment crying. No, you lost your shit crying. I don't know that I would say. I lost. Double snot, revulets. Straight down the nose, right into the mouth.

You were a mess. That kind of crying that makes everyone around you go, wow, this person really needs to get it together. You know, this is not about the situation. We can move on. I think we can move on. Anyways, I remember your mother and your grandmother. They were so pure in their faith.

It's true. They were. And you were pure in your face. After, I put my hands on you. He put his hands on you. Not. A lot. No, it was a lot.

Like, all over him. Top to bottom. You know how you read about, like, people in the military using a tooth. brush to clean stuff, that's how I laid my hands on Timothy, to give him his faith. Very vivid. It is. But that is no matter, for I am a teacher of Gentiles.

It is my job. Many have turned on me like Fegelis and Hermogenes, who, you'll recall, I said, had been given to the devil in my last letter. Of course, my lord, yeah, you mentioned that. Fuck those guys. Get no, got it. But, oh, you know who was cool? Own a phosphorus.

for he off refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chain. Did you wear one of those? I mean, he is Italian. No, guys, I mean being in jail. We thought it was like a jersey thing. Yeah, no, I got what you meant. The situation, right? Sure.

Do you remember the situation? I do. I wonder what happened to that guy. Nothing great, I bet. Probably not. Heed my words of wisdom and follow them. We will be. Paul. Shun profane and vain babblings. Like, for example, just off the top of my head,

Hymaninus and Philatelis. Wait, are those the same guys from before? Nope, no different P&H names, different ones. That's confusing. Hymakitus and flightless. Way different. Say the resurrection of the dead has already happened, but it hasn't. So a bunch of people lost their faith, and that's on them. Those guys, they really blew it. Got it. Go. I hate them so much. Okay. Listen to me, for now I shall tell you of the last of days. Yes, master, tell us to the last days. Yes, men shall be lovers of their own selves. Covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient

to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affections, truth breakers, false accusers, false accusers, inconsistent, fierce, despisers of those that are good. Wow. Yes. And in the end times, women will learn stuff. Sorry, they'll learn stuff? Yeah, you know, stupid women stuff. Think about diverse lusts.

Oh, like Greek guys. Yes. Mm-hmm. Yep. And maybe Mexicans, too. Got it. Mexicans. Know that in the end times, there will be many who deceive the people, like Jonnais and Jean-Bray.

Sorry, who? There's a lot of pairs of enemies this week. They are in pairs. It's really weird, yeah. Um, guys, you're telling me you've never heard of Jean-A and Jambre. They were the magicians. Okay, hold on a second. Is Eli had a character right now? No, no, they're the magicians who had a magic battle with most. Do you mean like

1,200 years ago? Yeah, yeah, those magicians. Does the Torah say their names? No. So your reference for deceptive person is two unnamed magicians from more than a thousand years ago. Yeah, when I'm writing this more than a thousand years ago.

Yeah, they did the trick with the duck. It was really good. You know, the art form is really memorable to a lot of people. Okay, now. Now he's breaking character. He's definitely breaking him. Off-putting.

Let's see. Well, DeMoss left me to go to Thessalonica and Alexander. I know I already talked about him twice, but he really sucks. I'm sorry, Paul? Yeah, Apostle guy. What's up? I just kind of, I wanted to point out that we're on the final chapter

of what you've already admitted probably our last ever letter to your dear friend Timothy. And literally all you've done is list your enemies. No, no, no, no, I have. You have. You have it. It's kind of like when someone tells you that all their exes are crazy. Yes.

Oh, my God. All my exes are crazy. Or the expression about how when everyone you meet is an asshole. Right. I don't know. I don't know what you're talking about now. Okay. So, you know, if you're going through life and you mean an asshole,

then you just met one asshole. But then if everyone you meet is an asshole, then... Then God saith unto me, they are all assholes, and he shall smite them. Yep, yeah, nailed it. Nice. Write that down. No. And that is Second Timothy.

Wow, this is, that was weird. Fairy. So what's next? Titus. Oh, okay. This is at least a short one, right? What's this about? Okay, so this is another one that was definitely not written by Paul,

someone using Paul's name to clarify the rules of being a bishop. I see. So less an epistle from an apostle and more a church newsletter. Right. Yeah, and everyone who disagrees is going to hell. Yeah, like I said, church newsletter. Dear Titus, I've put you in charge of Crete. I'm not going to lie to you.

This will be no easy task because, as we all know, All Cretans are liars. Wait, I've heard that before. The Cretans or Liars thing? Yeah. I didn't know that was from the Bible. It's not. It's called the Epaminides Paradox.

It's like an ancient joke about self-referential logic. Oh, I don't get it. Well, Epimedes is a Cretan, so if you said it, is it still true? Got it. So the Bible, like, stole that? Well, I didn't really steal it. The modern epistles that weren't written by Paul are pretty reference heavy. It would kind of be known from the time, you know, like calling the New York the big apple.

You're not ripping that off. Or making a joke about the traffic. Sure. So Paul starts his letter to Titus with like local crowdwork. Yeah. Oh, okay. Hey, fun fact, the Epimedity's paradox actually isn't really a paradox because it's It says that Cretans are liars, but not always lying.

So not actually a paradox. Cool. Yeah, it is cool. Yes, that was a fun fact. You're welcome. Anyways, to start off, if you want to be a bishop, you can only have one wife, and you can't have unruly children. Okay, what if your children started unruly, but now they're good?

Oh, oh, or what if they're considered bad by those? weird, strict parents in your hometown, but, you know, normal people think they're fine. Yeah, yeah. Or what if the parents suck? And so the kids are considered unruly for rebelling, but everyone kind of gets it, you know? No, no, none of that stuff. Just the one wife and the normal, normal kids. Oh, sure, says the guy with the secret thorn. Okay, whatever. I forgot about that. It's a gay thorn, right? It is a gay thorn. Big gay thorn.

Let's see. Say, say, obey your mask. Women obey your husbands. Ooh, oh, ignore all foolish genealogies. I'm sorry, foolish genealogies? Do you mean the ones where it tells you how close you are to being related to, like, the queen or king? Because those are actually kind of fun. I like those. Yeah, no, I agree.

I like those, too. You know, I'm actually, this is a fun fact. I'm actually related to Blackbeard. Oh, I'm Charlemagne. No, no. None of you were related to famous people. This is what I'm talking about. though, yeah. Are you sure you don't mean

the genealogies that disprove the familial line of Jesus? I mean, yeah, those. And that's Titus. Okay. What's next? Philemon. Let me guess. Slaves obey your masters, and he didn't

actually write it. Actually, no to both. Philamon is almost certainly written by Paul. It's one of the most historically based books of the Bible that we have. Really? How do we know that? Because he was asking a favor of a guy who very much existed. Huh. I'll be damned.

Dear And Archipa, and Archipus, first of all, how are you? Hey, hey, before I get to this letter,

before I say anything, you guys are the best. Love you, guys. And hey, you know who else loves you? God? Hey,

and Jesus. It's a little thick boss. Right. Okay. Anyways, while I've been in here, I met Onusismus, and he's just, well, he's really fantastic, isn't he? Thank you, baby. So good. Only not while I'm writing.

Oh, sorry about that. Anyways, I was hoping, as a personal favor to me, like the conduit of Jesus or whatever, when this naughty boy gets out, would you give him his freedom? I mean, I would obviously love to just keep him. here with me forever, wouldn't I? Oh, I bet you would. Super uncomfortable. Timothy, be quiet and keep writing. Just really wish we had like HR situation in here.

Any ways you were writing, anything he owes you, consider it paid by me, and anything he's done wrong, you consider it forgiven by me, so that I may refresh my bowels in the Lord. Sorry, what? So, first you take a water bottle, right? You know what? I'm just going to write down what he said. No, it's easy. No, just writing down exactly what he said. That's it. Okay.

We're done. And that's going to do it for tonight. We'll be back with more of Paul's spam folder on the next installment of Bible Peace, Before we coax the show back into its layer this week, I want to remind you to come see me in Cincinnati next month. I'll be appearing on stage with friend of the show, Seth Andrews, for a three-hour event on July at 11th. The following afternoon, there's a protest near the entry. to Ken Ham's Arkberg, so come and make a weekend of it. You'll find more info in the show notes.

Anyway, that's all the blasphemy we've got for you tonight, but we'll be back in 10,020 to minutes with more. If you can't wait that long, I'd be to look out for a brand new episode of our sister show, The Skeptocrat, debuting at 7am Eastern on Monday, and even newer episode of our sister-so, god-offel movies, debuting at 7-N-Eastern on Tuesday, and an even newer episode of our half-sert-sitian-needed

debuting at noon-eastern on Wednesday. One of these days I'm going to pronounce all of those words. Obviously, I can't cue the music until I thank Heath Enright for being the spinach dip that brings him in. Eli Bosick for being the dessert that makes him leave happy and lucinda illusions for being the service with a smile that keeps him coming back. Now, did I forget to thank Don Ford, Voice of Fantasy and Adventure? Or is he the main course? You decide.

Oh, I also want to thank Bill for providing this week's Farnsworth quote, learn more about scepticow and Skepperty by checking the show notes as well. But most of all, of course, I want to thank this week's sexiest simians, James Sam, Tigloth Pilezer, the third, Travis, Sean, Mark, Tyler, Alex, Harold, William, Wolfgard, 64, B, and Wieners of the World. James Sam Tiglith and Travis, who are so hot thermometers around them, say continued on next thermometer, Sean Mark Alex and Harold, who used titanium condoms for everybody's protection, and William Wolfgard B and Wieners, who are so bright, Yahweh would have to shield his eyes from them if he existed, which he doesn't. Together, these 12 people, hymenoptera, unions of sex organs and or hot dogs, and mighty historical conquerors, kept the Matrion spirit alive in June by giving us money. Not everybody has the money it takes to do that, but if you do, you can make a per episode,

donation at patreon.com slash scaling athias, whereby you'll learn early access to an extended ad-free version of every episode, or you can make a one-time donation by clicking on the donate button on the right side of the homepage at scanningadias.com. And if you'd like to help, but your money's too inflated to send through the internet tubes, you can also help a ton by leaving a five-star review, telling a friend about the show and following us on social media. And speaking of social media, Tim Robertson handles that for us, and our audio engineer is Morgan Clark, who also were all the music that was used in this episode, which was used with permission. If you have questions, comments or death threats, you find all the contact info on the

contact page at scanningadius.com. The jealous, said. I'm a John and Janine. Genie, jeanines, who you'll recall, I say. Homogenes, this is an easy one. This content is scanned credentialed, which means you can report instances of harassment, abuse, or other harm to their hotline at 61724945 or on their website at creator accountability network.org. This podcast is a production of Puzzle and a Thunderstorm LLC and was created without

the use of generative AI. Its contents may not be used for AI training. Copyright 2026. All rights reserved.