The Scathing Atheist - 694: Bearing False Witnesses Edition

Episode Date: July 2, 2026

Come see us live in Washington, DC on August 14th!: https://www.atlasarts.org/events/god-awful-movies/In this week’s episode, Trump has one particular religion’s liberty in mind, JD Vance lies about hanging ten while couch surfing, and we can, in fact, get a witness.---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 Noah in Cincinnati: https://www.sethandrews.com/cincinnatiLearn more about the Ark Park protest here: https://www.facebook.com/events/ark-encounter/10th-anniversary-ark-encounter-protest/1591721388785519/Get your tickets to BAHACon here: https://bahacon.com/---Headlines:Religious Liberty Commission issues its final report: https://www.justice.gov/religious-liberty-commission/resourcesRun Hide Fight Infidels summary and trailer are here and they are glorious: https://www.avclub.com/jonathan-majors-daily-wire-movie-synopsisNew survey shows the majority of Americans favor teacher led prayer in schools: https://www.friendlyatheist.com/p/yikes-most-americans-now-supportFlorida proposes 50% sin tax for Only Fans: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/florida-gop-candidate-wants-50-sin-tax-onlyfans-creators-fight-cultural-degeneracyJD Vance and his disingenuous Catholicism very clearly detested by Usha Vance: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/usha-vance-stable-household-jd-vance-insult_n_6a3c43d7e4b0810d44254bde

Warning, this podcast is about to put the pro in profanity. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by Godawful Movies Live in Washington, D.C. on August 14th. Check the show notes for ticket information and go to godoffalphamoroslive.com. Godawful Movies in D.C. I'm sure that the reflecting pool will be all spiffed up by August. And now, the Scathing Atheist. This is Cerberus. And Cerberus.

And can't forget Cerberus. of Cerberistubs. Check out our voice acting and singing reels on YouTube. And on casting call club. And while I may be a single non-binary human pretending to be a three-headed dog from Greek mythology, and not a... Professor of Science, I can assure you

that we did in fact evolve from filthy monkey men. It's Thursday. It's July 2nd. And it's National Pickle Month. Yeah, and if you don't want your month, I guess I'll leave it. I have no illusions. I'm Milibon.

Nick on the U. Tenwright. And from Tyler, Adams, New Jersey, Annover, Michigan, and Waycross, Georgia. This is the scathing east. On this week's episode, Trump has one particular religion's liberty in mind. Jady Vance lies about hanging 10 while a couch surfing. And we can, in fact, get a witness.

But first, the doctor. Godless communists. Really? Why does everything have to be a reboot or a reboot? remake or a sequel these days. There's no creativity left in the world. And I bet this red scare will have nowhere near as good hats. But yeah, in case you missed it, this comes to us from his royal lowness schmuckal orange during a speech at a Faith and Freedom Coalition conference last Friday. A couple days earlier, a few Mamdani-backed Democratic socialist candidates won their

primaries in New York. And if there's one thing that scares Republicans more than New York, it's Democratic Socialists. And if there's one thing that scares him more than Democratic Socialists, Zoran Mamdani. So Trump saw this as like a trifective terror for the mag of blue hairs in his audience. So he reaches all the way back to the other phase of his life where he had to wear diapers and he yanks out the phrase godless communists. And by the way, godless communists, just the tip of the bullshit iceberg here. The entire speech was cribbed directly from the guy who gets a whole subway car to himself. During the course of his speech, he said that the godless leftist wanted to, and these are all direct quotes, completely destroy the traditional American way of life.

resume the transgender mutilation of children and restart the war on Christianity and churches. Notice the word restart there, right? Because in the fantasy land sold to him by his religious liberty commission before Trump took office, you could barely press two hands together in prayer before the Biden administration would come through and pry them apart. And as ever, the speech was replete with dehumanizing language after first insisting that he gets to declare who is and isn't a communist, regardless of how they describe their own political beliefs, he goes on to call those communist animals and very troubling people who hate our country and our people. But of course, the half of godless communists that really scares his audience was not

the communist part. So he leaned in and he told the conservative Christians he was talking to, quote, all communists are godless. They do not believe in God. Yeah, that's what that fucking means, man. He continues, these ruthless communists attack all. religions, but in particular Christianity. They always do. They're after Christianity more than any other religion. He adds, quote, they will close your churches in this country. They go communist and they're trying to. They will kill your people. And that's what they're about. They want to end religion. They have to end religion because their ideology doesn't work if you have strong religion. People like you that are so incredible and love our country so much and love God. And,

quote. And look, as prone as Trump is, a stream of consciousness speech babbling, or as he calls it, the weave, it might be tempting to dismiss this as like the outrage du jour before he moves on to insulting some other group of people tomorrow. But based on the elements of his speech that Speaker of the House and intergenerational porn buddy Mike Johnson echoed, it was clear that this represents a strategic shift that the Republicans are trying out for the midterms. They obviously love using Zora Mamdani as their new boogeyman. He's like if AOC was a Muslim. So they're trying to tar the entire Democratic Party by tying them to an incredibly successful mayor actually, but a brown one with a weird name that scares racists.

Now, you might be thinking that, you know, they would undercut their own bigotry by smearing the Muslim guy as godless, since it kind of has to be one or the other. But Mamdani for them exists in some sort of weird quantum bigotry superposition where he can be both atheist and Muslim at the same time, just like he can be a rat. radical progressive who wants to trans up your kids when you're not looking and he's trying to implement Sharia law. Yeah, but regardless of the contradictory bigotry, I think all the atheists in the room really need to sit up and take notice when godless becomes the smear of choice. Because of course, in Trump's telling inherent in godlessness is the need to come for the churches and declare war on Christianity and kill your people. after all, if America is founded on Judeo-Christian values, as they continuously claim that it is, then to be godless is to be anti-American.

It can be easy sometimes to forget that we're in their crosshairs, because let's face it, their crosshairs are pretty fucking crowded. But the national campaign strategy right now seems to be an emphasis on how godless the Democrats are. And a prerequisite to that is scaring people about the very concept of atheism, more than they already are in a moment. America. Look, we may not be the daily special yet, but we are on the fucking menu. And the instant it becomes a political advantage to them to turn their sights on us, we will have been the problem all along. They're talking about your Jesus. May it interrupt this broadcast and bring you a special news bulletin.

Joining me for headlines tonight of the Martin Bailey of this podcast, Ethan, Enright and Eli Bosnick. Fellas, are you ready to get defensive? I invented the concept of a question. So, no, no, you know what, it's fine. We'll just agree to a podcast. That's what we were all saying all along. Well, there you go. In our lead story tonight, Trump's so-called religious liberty commission finally got around to issuing its long away to report this week. And hold on to your seats.

It turns out that Christians are super duper persecuted in America. And the only way to remedy it is to get rid of church state separation. Because it turns out minority protections just get in there. the way if you're the majority. Do you think there was someone who suggested a homogeneity initiative and then had to spend an hour explaining that that wasn't a good thing for gay people so they gave it up? Guys, it just has homo and it's it's anti-DEI the thing I'm saying. It's homogeneity, exclusion, inequity, liberty. You want to do like an acronym for it? Oh, no. We can come up with one. So, Stephen Miller likes it. First of all, thanks to the many listeners who sent us this one at

scathing news at gmail.com. And a special thanks to Stormy who suggested the opening pun of in recommendatious news. Fantastic. Which is too good not to at least mention. But yeah, we've been following this idiotic snipe hunting team since its inception last May. And every time we've talked about it, we've had to list off the ridiculous list of scathing atheist regulars that make it up because it's literally impossible to take anything seriously once I tell you it involves Paula White, Dr. Phil, Eric Metaxus and Ben Johnson. Great blunt circle. Yeah, Rob Schneider and Ted Nugent were busy when it formed.

Otherwise, they would have for comedy purposes. We get David Spade. He's got to be available. How dare you? How dare you blemish the name of Spade? Right. Thank you. But despite having the collective intellectual capacity of warm Putin,

this group was tasked with providing the intellectual justification for the dismantling of church state separation. Just a cheese curd listening to this podcast. Wow. Wow. Bigot. So do cheddar. Gravy?

Did you hear that? So after a year plus of periodically getting together and collectively pretending that finding Christian colleges for violating laws as a form of persecution, they figured they had all the ammo they needed to reach the conclusion they started off with. So they typed up a nice, concise 224-page report. Oh, they really edited that down. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, they whittled it.

Nice and tight. And it was all about why the First Amendment, totally allow us for laws establishing religions as long as you're disrespectful about it. Yeah. You think about it. I think we can all agree the founding fathers would have been way more careful if they knew how Jewish everyone was going to turn out. I mean.

Right. Yeah, exactly. All right. Guys, if we all get, if we get like woke about stuff in the future, King George gets to take back over. We all agree that like that's what we're doing. We'll remember that, right? I'm going to make a post it, but we'll remember that that's what we meant.

Sticking on the back there. Yeah. We don't know. We're just, yeah, exactly. Now, I'll admit that I have not read through the entire 224-page report, but luckily for me, Commission Chair and Lieutenant Governor of Texas, Dan Patrick summarized it in an Oval Office Press conference where he claimed, quote, the separation of church and state is not into Constitution.

And from this day forward, if anyone says that to you, they have to point out exactly where you have violated the Constitution because you have not. And from this day forward, that phrase should have no power over the people of all faiths ever again in America, end quote. To which Trump added, quote, I'm awake, I'm awake, end quote. Okay. No, you weren't. Look, I know I've pointed this out before, but the truth is, the actual Donald Trump is way

closer in belief to us than these Christian not banks. And he's just a liar, yeah. Yeah. And the fact that he is constantly forced to spend a tremendous amount of time with assholes like Dan Patrick, it's not as well. good a punishment as he deserves, but it's almost. It's nice to know at least we get that. Yeah.

No, love is patient. Love is kind, Church of England. That's I, Corinthians. No, I got it. I was awake. I heard. And look, this has been a favorite talking point for evangelicals for a while. Because the words church state separation don't appear in the Constitution in that

fucking word, right? And because of that, they claim that the concept has no constitutional basis. This is an opinion shared by no serious student of constitutional. constitutional law in all of the history of America. But holy shit, does it appeal to the people who scream? Show me in the Constitution where it says, I can't use this coupon. And that's enough for the Trump administration. Yeah.

And a few Supreme Court justices who also no longer need to know anything about constitutional law. So show me where it says Christy Gnome cannot murder a golden retriever in the Constitution. Show me. Exactly. Right. Exactly. And it's a mother. So in the end, they offer 12.

concrete steps that they say that the administration should take, including requiring know-your-rights posters that lie to people about their rights, the creation of a religious liberty violation hotline for people being fired for being homophobes. Oh, please, oh, please, oh, please. Yeah, right, right. We are not going to abuse that like the turkey hotbed. We will know. You'll bite all your turkey safety information there. And also, they want us to say that we're super sorry to all the soldiers discharged for refusing to get COVID vaccines and of course they want us to repeal the Johnson Amendment. And I'd expect we're going to hear a lot about these recommendations as the midterms ramp up. So get ready for that. And in Run, Hide, Fight for Attention News, podcast listener, when there's an especially juicy

selection coming down the pipe for our sister show God awful mummies, I try to keep it a bit close to the best. I like that you get to open your podcast player in the morning and say, I didn't know that was out, but sometimes the lead-up to one of these releases is so God-awful unto itself that I am forced to do a bit of a teaser. Well, this week, we got a teaser and a plot summary. In a world. In a time. For the Daily Wires, School Shoot-em-Up sequel, Run, Hide, Fight, Infidels. So we're going to talk about it. And before we do, we should remind you that the production's anti-union safety standards or for pussy's stance made the production more dangerous than many actual school shootings.

True. That whole thing was overblown. Anyone on the cast of a Daily Wire movie is a crisis actor. We know that. Well, technically, yes. So they are actors in crisis for sure. For sure. Yeah.

And everyone involved in that movie deserves whatever happens. happens on that set. Sure do. Just Alex Jones outside of the set yelling that it's... I want the art director from a session to be like everyone was paid too much for this movie.

I want them to be paid less and treated worse. So first off, big thanks to Eyeball E&T for sending us this story to Scathing News at gmail.com. Ibell E&T thanks for sending us atheist news to scathing news at gmail.com.

I'm going to give you some advice that I think you need to hear. You need to focus. more on noses and throats, man. I know you don't want to call yourself throat E&T for obvious reasons. It's probably taken anyways. And I'm not sure if you're Jewish, but if you are,

I can also understand why nose E&T would be a problem for you. But what I'm saying is you need to brand more equally, scathing news at gmail.com. Well, unfortunately, Eli, as you may not be aware, the eyeball ants lost the nose ants many years ago. Oh, it's very sad. Right. So for those of you unaware, run-hide fight infidels is the latest attempt by the Daily Wire to get back some of that money there, hemorrhching.

Don't worry. They're losing so much money. It's the best. It's not going to work. No. In part, because they blew a tremendous amount of money on hiring all-time bag dropper Jonathan Majors, who, for those of you who haven't been following along, starred in Creed, was set to be Marvel's next big villain, but much like my six-year-old could not keep his hands to himself, quite. quiet hands Jonathan Majors. And so now his boss has Ben Shapiro. Well, at least you're staying in the comic book villain, Oeuvre. Just getting heckled in jail. Hey, it looks like Victor Timely over here is doing some time, guys.

There you go. I hope he gets arrested. So you remember also that the only news we've gotten about that movie so far is the footage of when Majors accidentally backed out through a glass siding door during shooting, hurting himself extremely badly. And then, when the staff on set

asked for safety measures to be put in place, the producer called them communists. Yeah, it turns out run, hide fight was also their policy for like OSHA inspectors too.

Yeah. Well, as I said, we got our summary of the upcoming film this week, and it is more glorious than we could have possibly hoped for. quote

exact quote when radical Islamic terrorists do the voice when radical Islamic terrorists hijack a liberal colleges pro-Palestine encampment to enforce barbaric

Sharia law on students and execute infidels in a makeshift caliphate a rag-tag band of red-blooded students they actually say rag-tag bands a rag-tag band of red-blooded students, a security

guard tired of Uncle Tom smears, and a Delta Force vet must arm up to save their clueless peers and keep America from surrendering to the enemy on its own soil.

What color do you do you suppose they think our blood is? They have some confusion there. Red, white, and blue. Okay, the makeshift caliphate is interesting. to me. I'm curious how that's going to go. Just like, guys, can we slap

together like a quick execution squad? Yeah, I don't know. It's just like ad hoc. There's a chore chart with like beating women and executing days and no one's filled in any of their circles. We're like a small startup. Everybody does everything. Yeah, exactly. But that's not all. As I said, we also

got a teaser. Podcast listener, I know we're YouTubers now, which is why we've secretly had Thomas Smith trying to survive in a grocery store for the last month for a million dollars. But it's so easy. I will describe this trailer to you anyways. It opens with a bunch of footage of the protests on campuses against the war in the Middle East,

mixed in with a bunch of real ISIS execution footage. Jesus. Why? Then it cuts to 9-11. What? Okay. I don't know why I'm asking about. More execution and war footage, a lot of which is actually from the war in Ukraine.

Then it cuts to the school play version of the Islamic State flag. that they made for this movie with the Caron Harper, Virginia present day. And I need to be clear, it's not, it's a scene from their movie and we watch people running away or dropping

to the ground while the call to Mecca plays. And then finally, Screen DoSkark and it hits us with coming soon or already here. Jesus fucking Christ. The tag line is

exactly four millimeters shy of Oogabuga. What the four? Elon Omar is coming from inside the house of representatives. Yeah. So, needless to say, we

are pumped to check that out over on God-Offa Mumies. Here's hoping Daily Wire doesn't go out of business before this thing can see the light of day. I'm guessing that question will be the most suspense associated with the film. And in warning demographic content news, in one of the most terrifying pieces of demographic news I've heard since learning that one out of every 342 million Americans is Jerry Falwell Jr.

We learned from a recent Pew survey that the majority of Americans now favor teacher-led prayers in school and not by a little. The majority? Like 53% say that teachers should be able to lead students in prayer as long as the students aren't required to participate. And another 8% think they should be allowed to be required to pray along. So a full 61 per fucking cent are okay with this shit. Barely over a third got the answer right. Okay. Was there like a follow-up option of I'm okay with it if students are allowed to heckle?

Because if that was an option, I'm going to fucking fund that shit. Okay. Okay. The funding you just mentioned that actually works out great because I just started the church of interruption. And our sincerely hell prayers are done by making a smoothie in a very loud blender. And you actually have to do the prayer right after you hear somebody else start a different religion's prayer.

Oh, it's like an amen thing. Yeah. And if you don't have a blender, the prayer goes like this. It's like, mm-mm-mm-mm-me-me-ha-me-ha-ma. Yeah, that's you. You should hear the tabernacle choir do that one. It is beautiful. Yeah, that's great.

So these numbers are clearly the byproduct of a decades-long misinformation campaign from the Christian right, where they've pretended that kids aren't allowed to pray in schools, right? Which has never been the fucking case anywhere, with the exception of maybe yelling prayers in the middle of math class. Every kid has always been allowed to pray in every school in America as long as they're Christian. But this whole notion that ever since they took the prayers out of school, this shit or that shit, has always been meant to, obscure the fact that all that was taken away was the right of a teacher to lead students in prayer. And any Christian that's okay with that idea only got there because they haven't considered how fucking nuts their kids' third grade teacher might be about their religion or how equally nuts to themselves but in a different nuts direction. Yeah. And this is made all the more bizarre

because as any teacher will tell you, very few parents trust their children's teachers to teach. Like, oh, I'm sorry, you've got thoughts on how new math is bullshit, but you're going to trust me with Timmy's eternal soul? Yeah. Pick a lane. Right. No child left behind. There it is. So you're saucy, you saucy little minks.

But the numbers on coerced prayer because there's no fucking way for a teacher to lead their students in prayer without coercing them to pray aren't the only terrifying aspect of this survey. A strong majority also favored allowing coaches in public schools to lead their students in prayer, and a full 50% supported displaying the 10 commandments in classrooms with only 48% opposed. I guess the other 2% were okay with some of the commandments and not others. I don't know. I think the coveting ones are bullshit. I want my kid to close one eye when he's looking at the list. And if you want a clear indication of just how badly secularists are losing this cultural battle,

I should point out that only 59% of the religiously unaffiliated people that they surveyed opposed teacher-led prayers in schools. And I think that at least most of those people would be familiar with, you know, Muslims and Jews and stuff. So if anything, it's a great reminder of just how much the world needs atheist podcasters. Exactly. Patreon.com forward slash scathing atheist, everybody. Smooth. And in Mindful of your Sin,

In-tax news. Nice. When you're running to be the governor of Florida, there are a lot of factors to consider. You should kill yourself. That and... What percentage of your pie charts should be Disney-branded? Should you appeal to the alligator vote?

How slowly should you say three-syllable words in hopes of reaching your future constituents? Well, or as they like to say, Constituas. Stick with two. Yeah. Two max. Well, one gubernatorial candidate

is taking a different tack as he's promised to levy a 50% syntax on only fans, creators. Yeah. Yeah, the only thing they hate more than porn is female empowerment and this is both. Wow.

A Republican is doing this. That really spits in the face of trickle down economics. Right? I think that's fucked up. That's the name of my only fans. Oh, nice. Okay. It's in a face of true. I like it. It's very sophisticated. It is. It's very tasteful. It's not saying. I don't know why I like. I don't know why I'm a journey.

It's raw. It's salty. It's really bad. All the way down. Right. So first off, a big thanks to the Ann that didn't marry Heath for sending us this story to scathingynews at gmail.com. And for sending us atheist news to scathingynews at gmail.com. You have been granted free access for 30 days to are only fans for just $1.99. And don't worry, it's not, it's not one of those invites where all the pictures are just like us hanging out with our cats and then you get a bunch of DMs offering to buy the good stuff. No, you can and will see our holes. Scaling News at Gmail.com.

This is not the first time I've had to tell you that you're not allowed to offer to show contributors your holes on the air, Eli. But I'm a YouTuber now. What are we doing? Why did we buy cameras? nod for my holes. If I've said it once. So, the gubernatorial hopeful in question is James Fishback. He looks like if you tried to make Nick Kroll in the Dark Souls character creator. He looks like he's auditioning for the Mr. Men's Mr. disappointment character.

For Inside Out 3, I'm pretty sure his character is, yeah, he's me. Meh, yes, truly meh. Anyways, James is a Latin Catholic. who cares deeply about sexual propriety. Apropos of nothing, I would like to read a direct passage word for word from Wikipedia.com about him.

Is it all about sexual propriety? We'll see. Quote, in 2022, the Broward County School District cut ties with fishback in his organization, Incubate Debain, following allegations that he sexually groomed a 16-year-old girl employed by Incubate Dispac.

debate. There is. Fishback was 27 at the time. The allegations led to the resignation of an incubate debate board member. Fishback threatened the parents who made the allegation with legal action. Fishback and the employee moved in together in spring of 2023 after she turned 18 and were briefly engaged in 2024 before publicly breaking up. Fishback has denied any inappropriate contact prior to the employees reaching the age of consent, a denial which she disputes. Oh, wow. End exact quote.

So I'm starting to think, guys, that this tiths being Catholic doesn't really care about sexual impropriety towards children. It might be. Might be. Yeah. So that guy is super concerned

with people consensually selling their bodies. And I kid it. You have to be 18 to be on only fans. Must be a real ick for him. Ageism if you think about it. Granny. Right. So, as I said at the start, he has proposed what he is calling a 50% syntax on those performers, telling Fox News, quote, young women once aspired to be devoted mothers, doctors, lawyers, and nurses.

Today, young women are told by an online platform called OnlyFans that it's morally right to sell nude photos of themselves to strangers on the internet. Yeah. I will not tolerate this cultural degeneracy as Florida's next Republican governor, end quote. Does he think that the ladies on only fans aren't also mothers and nurses and shit? Yeah, right. Because I've seen them in their little nurse hats and everything. It's true. They do.

Yeah. Spitting in the face of trickle-down economics has plenty of mothers and lawyers. There you go. And lots of stuff. Lawmen. A lot of impersonators of Elizabeth Warren on there. It's a whole thing. Yeah.

They're all different people. It's not just me and then. It's not just me and Ann. You'd have to subscribe to find out. I'll tell you that. Or is it? Now, you might be asking yourself, okay, Eli,

but how much does fishback possibly think he's going to raise with his syntax from the state of Florida? Well, the answer to that is $200 million. Really? Yeah, the entire cancer research budget of the state

in only fan syntax alone. Now, of course, with that much cash coming in, what might wonder what fishback plans do you? it for, well, according to him, it would go to crisis pregnancy centers. I guess he's not watching a lot of solo content. But he also told podcaster Joel Webbin this week that it would go to a quote,

first of its kind mental health czar for men in particular, because men have been told for far too long that they are guilty of masculinity, that they are guilty for all of society's ills. I am not going to stand for that slanderous lie. We aren't in a sane world until intentionally talking to Joel Webb and is disqualifying for higher office by itself regardless of what you said. Yeah. Yeah. So the good news is that the polls are not looking good for fishback.

Right now he's losing to Byron Donald's by at least 30 points in literally every poll that I could find. Because he's a socialist who's trying to tax everything. Floridians hate that. but this is Florida and it's Florida in 2026 is America so what I'm saying people is don't hold your breath

or do or just hold your breath and finally tonight in Devon Intervention News okay your opening puns are on fire today that's what should be on the only fans we got to put the puns behind the paywall

JD we censor him out JD all your loved ones are here. Please take a seat. We're going to do an inter-revention. No, don't sit on the couch. Don't sit on the couch. Sit on the chair. So nobody likes J.D. Vance. I'll start right there. Correct. He is just preternaturally unlikable. It's impressive. He was already fucking couches and working for Peter Thiel as a venture capitalist tech bro and fucking couches, fucking couches. Not a good start. And then he became a Catholic. got worse. And then he became a Republican senator. It's like an evil recipe in a cauldron was

happening. And then he found a way, I don't know how he did it, he found a way to order donuts face punchably. Like that was everybody's reaction to watching him order donuts, including me. I was like, must punch face. I have to punch his face. It was so bad. You just had to name donuts. Well, somehow, a person decided to marry him along the way and have kids with him. Then, all of a sudden, he became the vice president, and that person, Usha Vance, was the second lady. And ever since, I'm assuming for the sake of the kids, she's been doing heroic work to not visibly hate JD. But it looks like her game face might have fallen away a little bit recently. We got a beautiful critique of his opportunistic religion during an interview with Usha.

And then we got a video just, it was so good. It's showing just abject repulsion at a little bit of physical contact with J.D. Vance. It's the best. Yeah. I mean, to be fair to her, I feel like when they had the branding conversation about him pivoting to politics, he didn't mention how often he'd be criticizing the state of her immortal soul. So this is on him, right? Yeah. It is interesting, though, to reflect on how much Republicans hate

actual religious convictions, right? Like, when they told George Bush Sr. that he could boost his numbers by becoming an evangelical, he said, yeah, but like, I actually believe in my religion. And they were like, well, fuck, then you're useless, right? And Republicans hated. His son, on the other hand, he's like, yeah, which everyone gets me the most votes. now watch his draft. Yeah, it worked pretty well for him. So true, it's so key troved it's so good, though.

Before we get to the Ushah part of this, I just want to set the scene a little bit more. J.D. Vance is doing so very badly, especially recently. It's almost like, I don't know, it's like he made some sort of Faustian bargain that's leading to mystical consequences. It's crazy. Also, he killed the Pope with his personality last year. So J.D. might actually have. have Mephistophiles and God working together to fuck with him. And that's fun for us. You kneel behind him hands and knees on the fools and I'll. So J.D. got caught lying about the size

of his foot penis and wearing clown shoes from Flauchime that Donald Trump gave him. He tried to touch a trophy for like a second and it immediately exploded on national television. And we recently learned about a dinner conversation in which Rupert Murdoch said that J.D. had way less political talent than Marco Rubio. It's been a rough stretch for Jan Stans Vance. Yeah, that he had the potential to maybe be as good as Marco. The only silver lining in regime change was just how often Trump went out of his way to humiliate J.D. Vance, right? That was the only thing that kept giving me life as I read through that book. stunning theme. So that's the backdrop. And then Ushivance gave her honest opinion about J.D.'s

religious conversion to Catholicism, which she was doing an interview and she got a question about JD's new book that chronicles his amazing faith journey. Sounds like a banger. We'll be reading it very, very soon. Very excited. No and I, sorry, Noah and I'll be reading it very soon. Eli will be on the 7th. Yeah, it's going to be like the Bible and the Quran and the Book of Mormon. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And all the other ones.

Yeah. The other ones that we did. I read a little of that Harvard one. Together. And I helped. So at one point, at one point in the book, Jady says that he'd love for Usha to convert to Catholicism. So the question for the second lady in the interview was, has your husband's journey of faith affected your own? and her answer was just dripping with shade from in between the lines.

She said, quote, I grew up in a Hindu household that was a very stable household. I've not felt the same need to seek something different like he has. So I think the journey has been more in our relationship. Yeah, I had a dad, so I didn't need to replace mine with a sky daddy. Next question. I am not flailing around desperately to secure myself to any goddamn thing that will pretend to like me. for asking, though. All right.

Everybody raise your hand if your family is broken. Oh, JD, that's just you? Okay, cool. And that brings us to video evidence of the reaction from Ushah Vance when J.D., her husband, tries to make a very small amount

of physical contact. That reaction, by the way, was recoil. So Ushah has a podcast called Storytime with the Second Lady. and she invited J.D. for a guest appearance. Notably, by the way, they're sitting in two separate chairs and not any sort of couch or love seat or anything like that. So she welcomes him to the show and he reaches over to pat her on the knee while saying, good to see ya.

And so insane all around, the words, the behaviors, everything. But he almost missed with the knee pat. because Usha flinches away from his hand. And like not just with her leg that he was going for. Her head flinches away too. Just instinctually like, so she does catch herself pretty quickly. It's a quick little moment.

And then she snaps back to the fake smile for the show. But it is unmistakable in this tiny little moment. It's truly quick, but it's a full recoil and a shutter. And then like right back to fit. Her nose pulls in somehow during this. Yeah. And he, importantly, stops, right? He recognizes the revulsion mid-knee pat and pauses as if he's going to say,

you set off camera, I could pat your knee. And then they both continue. Their bat, why didn't they do a second take? Right. It's not a lot. We do that here. Who in the studio didn't go, you guys want to do that without the little.

vomit. That's a cut. That's a cut. For sure, a cut. Stop going. Stop. Obviously. Obviously. And with that reminder that no matter how much more power, they accrue, at least you are capable of knowing, love and affection in your life. We're going to wrap up the headlines there. Heathie light. Thanks, as always. And when we come back, we'll get his story. Hey, podcast listener. As you may already know, thanks to the generosity of our patrons during our matrion fundraiser this year, we're going to be doing a gone off a movie's live show on Friday, August 14th, our nation's capital at the beautiful Atlas Performing Arts Center. And with that mind, it's very important.

We remind you to not do a J6. That's right, Heath. Got off a movies live will be roasting some of the worst cinema has ever had to offer, along with all the visual on-stage shenanigans that you've been waiting for. And for the high rollers, you can get a VIP ticket, the meet and greet after the show on Friday, or a platinum ticket with all that VIP stuff, plus a full night of fun on Saturday. A night of fun that I'll remind you again will not be a J6.

So head on over to got off of movies live.com or check the link in the show notes to buy your tickets. But act fast. Those VIP and platinum tickets are already selling out. Got Offa movies live August 14th in Washington, D.C. We're not going to do it January 6th. Wink. We said no talking.

I didn't talk. I winked. You said wink. Audio medium. America's early and near total embrace of the free market extends beyond economics all the way to his take on religion. And once charlatans realized they were legally allowed to just make up their own faith, they turn the United States of America into the most fertile ground for new gods since Gununggagop, which we're going to talk about in another installment of American gods. Oh, I forgot about this segment.

Yeah, yeah, I think that's because we only did it once. believe in 2018. Was it? 2018. Yeah, I think you were off on that episode, actually. But I've been meaning to get back to it. For eight years. I haven't been meaning that hard.

So tell us, Eli, what American-born religion are we going to be talking about today? Well, apparently you're going to make me wait even more than eight years for Scientologists. So instead, we're going to be talking about the Jehovah's Witnesses. Do you have a minute to learn about the Jehovah's Witnesses? podcastist. Cut to listeners instinctively slamming the door on our podcast.

So the story of the Jehovah's Witnesses, or as I will mostly refer to them from here on out, the J-dubs, began with a guy named Charles Taze, don't tase me,

bro, Russell. In 1869, he came into contact with Adventism, which you'll remember from episode 282's American God segment, nailed it.

They're all tied together, same universe. Charles was the son of a Pennsylvania Haberdasher, and he looked in every picture ever made of him like the kind of guy that would have a pocket watch and a talking mouse for a friend

that he would talk to in an oddly formal manner and call Mr. Mouse. He'd be great at the front door of F.A.O. Schwartz. Yeah. Yeah. In this photo, which Noah has included in our notes, he looks like he's thinking, should I mention that this religion

shouldn't end in two old ladies standing out on a street corner by a magazine rack full of Jesus pamphlets. It's probably fine, right? I'm worried some atheist guy he's going to take the chocolates or the raspberries that we're giving out, then immediately walk away

when the nice people ask him about Jesus. You know, it's fine. That's not going to happen. There's not going to happen. He wouldn't do that. Russell was taken with the apocalyptic preaching that was all the rage back then, so he teamed up with a publisher

named Nelson H. Barber. But the two of them had a falling out over doctrinal differences and schismed in 1879. Get used to that shit. Caliente. But after this schism, he began publishing Zion's Watchtower and Herald of Christ's presence, which upon realizing how much time it took to set typeface in 1870, he shortened to the Watchtower.

By 1884, he'd legally incorporated the Zion's Watchtower Tract Society with himself as president. The WT? No, too short. I've gone too far. I felt it. I felt it. Now, everybody who was anybody in the distributing hysterical religious literature business at the time had to have a predicted apocalypse date. And it was tricky, right? Because the date had to be close enough to instill a sense of urgency in your followers, but far enough away that you had time to, you know, really get them used to you being in charge when the date rolled around and nothing happened.

Yeah, it's another Goldilocks zone thing. We have to get it just right. Yeah. So Russell and Barber, they settled on 19. as the end of what they called the genteel times. And even after the two split, Russell maintained his conviction that the rapture was going to happen

in that year. Oh, man, can you imagine Huffling meeting up with your ex-co-profit during the rapture? I see you're being stolen up to heaven as well. Cool.

Yes. Yes, stop floating next to me. Float over away. I don't control this. I don't control this. I think I'm going a little faster than you. You're breathing so loud. To this point, followers of Russell were known as Bible students, and their budding cult was called the Bible student movement.

And they would spend the rest of Russell's life desperately warning everybody of Christ's impending return in 1914. But inevitably, 1914 rolled around. And well, I'm sure Russell's prediction looked pretty spot on as World War I was settling in. As you might recall from history class, the world did not end in that year at the hand of Jesus. his fiery sword. So Russell promptly reinterpreted his prophecy and said that Jesus actually did come back on the year that he predicted, but he did so invisibly.

I shit you not. No, that was his backtrack. Yes. Michigan J. Jesus was his story? Yeah. That's amazing.

Jesus is like a shy cat. Oh, yeah. Right? You just, you missed him. But when people come, he hides.

Yep. And, but you know what? You might see him out of the corner of your eye when you first come in the door before he notices you. Okay. I do love the idea of Jesus Christ. Like if this actually happened, his dumb lie, Jesus Christ comes back. He's got the flaming sword, big, dramatic thing.

And nobody's paying attention to him. Yeah. And then he's like, fuck, am I? Am I on mute? Yeah, am I on invisible? I'm going to go back in like at least 200 years. I don't know. I'm going to hop off and hop back on again.

I'll hop off and hop back on again. I'm going to shut my computer off and then I'll turn it back on again. So now this was a bridge too far for even a lot of his followers. And most of the people left him at this point. But to stem the bleeding, he did promise that people who were alive in 1914 would still be alive to see the final battle of Armageddon. And you know what? He's not quite wrong about that yet. There are a couple of 112 plus year olds out there keeping the dream alive.

But Russell sure is hell is not among them. Mel Brooks, as he would die a couple of years later. Barber, the rival, immediately starts typing a pamphlet. Well, well, well. Looks like somebody forgot to carry the two or whatever. I don't know. Now, at this point, the organization is too big and it's making too much money to die. So after Russell's death in 1916, the Watchtower Society, as it was known by then,

elected a dude named Joseph Franklin Rutherford as their new president. his leadership was immediately contested by everybody and everybody's schismed all over the place. Three quarters of the group would break off to form a fuckload of different groups, including, but not limited to the concordant publishing concern, the Dawn Bible Student Association, the Eagle Society, the Elijah. Those guys won. Yep, no, they did. They did.

The Elijah Voice Movement, the Layman's House missionary movement, the Pastoral Bible Institute, and the Stand Fast Movement. Yeah, Eagle kicked ass. Yeah, absolutely. But Rutherford finished to hold on to the original group and its Brooklyn headquarters. Guys, I'm really mad about the Eagle Society. They're like, I don't know what our name is. Anybody know a bird that can, like, beat up an eagle?

Because I want to, like, double eagle or a house. Oh, my God. Can you imagine if they had gone before your group and you're about to announce that you're called the Layman's Home Missionary Movement? You're whispering to everybody. Guys, guys, guys, guys. The Piper. There's a bad. The viper.

The viper tiger. Fucking, fuck sex, fuck, Eagle Claw. Fuck. Fucking sex fuck. Damn it.

Now, during the war, Dick Craig, we got to do a vote. We got to do a vote. Now, during the war, we do a son.

I'm going to push through. Now, during the war, a lot of leaders, group would end up in jail for violating the espionage act by not liking war, but their convictions would be summarily overturned in the relative post-war sanity. So once he got out of jail, Rutherford put the Watchtower Society in overdrive. He started a magazine called The Golden Age, which has since been renamed Awake with an exclamation mark. So the publication is yelling at you

right away. I'm up. Yeah, right? Well, this is also where they began the emphasis on door-to-door preaching that they're still known for today. And believe it or not, they used to be even more annoying. Back in the 1920s, they had sound cars and people with portable phonographs that would go around blasting Rutherford's sermons out onto unsuspecting ears everywhere. Honestly, that would work way better on me than a horn ride. I'm getting out of your way. Just a J.W. Cusack standing outside my window holding up the boom box.

Blast and Jesus come back. I'm listening. Yeah. I'm checking it out. Right. I'm saying hi to him at least. Right. Come back to the bed. Yeah, of course. So by the time Rutherford was done with it, the group had undergone a sort of theological ship of Theseus situation where pretty much all of Russell's original teachings were jettisoned in favor of Rutherford's. But it took Rutherford a while to get the hang of predicting far enough away apocalypses. Right. So he originally said that God would destroy churches wholesale and church members by the millions in 1918. He took the helm in 1917. Too fast. No, it's terrible. It's terrible. Too fast. And then he said that all the earthly governments would be destroyed by 1920. Still too fast. Yeah. Well, he eventually backed that up to 1925, which is apparently a popular year that a lot of doomsday preachers were converging on in sort of a 2012 preview.

When the world failed to end that year, too, though, he said it was all a test from God, actually, and the four-fifths of the congregation that left at that point had failed to test. I actually love how much smaller we are now. It's so much easier to get a table. Yeah, right, right. Our spot is room for activities, right? Look at these kicks I'm doing, caps. Strathing them out. So, space.

By 1931, Rutherford had changed the theology enough that he figured it was time to change the name as well. Terradactal society. No. So at a convention in Columbus that year, he formally proposed changing the name of the group to the Jehovah's Witnesses. And since dozens of other groups were using some derivation of the Bible student name, and since their existing name was now associated with at least four or failed apocalypse predictions, they gave him the thumbs up. Yeah. Also, he was their prophet. Yeah. It would have been weird if they were like, hey, hey, love the suggestion.

Stick to the God stuff, though. We're going to handle the names. Just use the thing Stormy wrote in the subject line. Yeah, it was just your own thing. After you fumbled so hard to Eagle Society, we just prefer. Now, by now, Rutherford had already turned against Christmas. And I want to linger on that for a second, okay? Because today we just think of that as one of those weird fucked up things about Chathubs.

But there was literally a moment in their history when their spiritual leader looked at all the Christmas joy on the faces of all the little boys and girls and said, well, that's enough of that bullshit. Right. This was literally a religion. that was founded for all intents and purposes by the fucking Grinch. Okay. This guy's heart would not grow three sizes. Yes. Yeah.

Act one Grinch. He is terrifying. He looks like he's about to beat up Santa Claus and shoot a fucking reindeer. He does. Yeah. Kill a child too and an elf. And that is the worst comb over. It's so bad.

Okay. So over the next 10 years, Rutherford would go on a tyrannical rampage. He got rid of the system of elected leaders that had governed the church until then and he made it entirely top down. It was during this time that he declared J. Dubs would no longer salute the flag, stand for the national anthem, or serve in the military. He also outlawed crosses and crucifix,

but not because they were idols or anything like that, but rather because Rutherford decided that Jesus actually got killed on a tree, which we can only assume he did not drag through town. He's just walking through town holding tree beards hand, like, thanks for doing this.

I'll tell him to avoid your eyes and stuff. Right. Yeah. This is an interesting canon that Jesus died on a tree. Yeah. Like a bridge to terribithias. I guess. Yeah. That was the original draft of Bridge to Terribithia.

Yeah. Corny and the Barbarian, he eats the vulture. Now, I should note that through this same time period, this fanatical cult was instrumental in several lawsuits that would help secure the secular rights that we used to have before we let Trump back into the White House. Their refusal to stand for the anthem and salute the flag and all that shit led to a bunch of J-dubs getting expelled from schools and the resultant lawsuits ended up in a Supreme Court ruling that continues to protect our right not to pledge allegiance to this day until this iteration of the court

gets a crack at it. The J-dubs were also at the center of an earlier suit that challenged the law against going door-to-door to annoy people on Sundays. Yeah. This year, a bunch of daydubs in New Jersey got in trouble for using Ride to the Polls websites to trick people into talking to them about Jesus. were using that so they could proselytize. And they were being like, oh, you know what? I actually don't vote. But while we're here, what I'm saying is they've always been the worst. Yep, still are.

Yeah. I want to know what else they'll do if I let them preach to me. Because I'd like, make me some offers. I would love to do this experiment. You take me to the grocery store, right? But it wasn't just the American government that was sick and tired of these fuckers. By the 1940s, the group had branched out internationally. And they did suffer some legit persecution through this period and in and out of the

United States. They had the distinction of being the first Christian denomination that Hitler started putting in concentration camps, for example. But according to the Wikipedia article, I used as the main source for this bit, the SCOTUS decision that upheld their right to sit for the pledge, quote, prompted a wave of violence against U.S. witnesses, mostly in small towns and rural areas where they were beaten, castrated, tard, and feathered, and in some cases, killed, end quote. Oh, you guys are getting out the tar and feathers. Um, yeah, that sucks. too, I guess. Well, if they do that after the castration, I mean.

Just spray paint on the face. Jehovah's witness me. Is it? I love it. So Rutherford died in 1942, and the organization passed to a dude named Nathan Homer Knorr, who basically took Rutherford's model and injected it with steroids. The group would swell from a bit over 100,000 members to over 2 million under his leadership.

This is also when the witnesses would ban blood transfusions, medium rare cheeseburgers, and birthday parties. Nor would also be the one that instituted the group's emphasis on shunning and disfellowship as a means of control. Okay, we got rid of birthdays and Christmas.

How about you can't think puppies are cute and you got to give the silent treatment to your loved ones. That's got to get rid of the rest of them, right? One more, we're leaving the microwave with two seconds. We're not pressing clear. leaving it on the two seconds.

Everybody's doing that so that we're likable. So we're the worst. See, you're married to my wife. Yeah, right. Yeah, mine too. Rutherford B., whatever the fuck your name is. So, Nora would also take the J-Dubs back to their deep roots by reinstituting the policy of making hilariously wrong rapture predictions.

The year they zeroed in on at this point was 1975, as in their words, the appropriate time for God to act. I wonder what they're thinking, because they've done this before. And then they're like, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah, this time. This, I got, I figured out a new math. I figured out a new one. Right. I'm going to nail this.

Well, what they've learned is that, you know, you can add, you know, 100,000 or 400,000 members and lose 80% of that. And that's still a gain overall, right? Mm-hmm. So by 1971, the Watchtower was once again counseling its readers to ignore all the obligations in far-flung imaginary years like 1975, promising that 1975 would definitely mark the end, probably. Because, like, they, actually, they knew enough to have.

their bets this time. So going into it, they were like, okay, if it doesn't happen in 1975, though, it'll be within a few years of that. You have to give us two years to come up with no bullshit. Yeah. Well, that'd be you said, they did, they gave it like an actual date. They gave the end times the exact date of September 5th of 1975, too. Let me finish. Give or take. I quit my job. What? I quit my job. No, a lot of them did, though. A lot of them did. We're going to miss Eli's birthday. That's bad. And surgeries and stuff that they needed because, you know, why bother? So in keeping with Russell's tradition of dying two years after your failed apocalypse prediction,

nor died in 1977, the group carried on more or less unchanged from there. Though they did noticeably abandon the people alive in 1914 would witness Armageddon teaching in 1995. But with the exception of that, a lot of infighting, a lot of resultant schisms, not much a note happens from there. Because once you've got yourself a self-disciplining, well-oiled machine of deception, money for you, why would you fuck with that? Yeah, so what we're saying is we need our Patreon to start

self-disciplining. Yeah, patrons. And be well-oiled. Yeah, that would be helpful too. Oil up and start shunning. For sure. Also, drive some people to the polls in November. Like, seriously, do that one.

And get lost, depending on how the conversation goes with the random people in the car. Oh, no, this clip. Witness me? So today the religion claims... So today the religion claims 9.2 million members in 119,652 congregations scattered over 241 nations and territories. Notably, that does not include Russia, where the group is banned from operating, along

with any other religion that isn't so sure about killing for the state. They've also been banned or otherwise restricted from operating in 29 other countries, the same issue, which sucks because as near as I can tell, it's literally the only thing about the group that isn't evil. Yeah, except for when they did it in World War II. Yeah. But that was a broken clock is wrong twice a day situation. You know what I'm saying?

Something like that, yeah. You got lucky fighting the Nazis that time. Yeah. We haven't done it since. I'll say that. Yeah, right. Right. So yeah, so J. Dubbs suck, but they've been instrumental in securing religious freedoms and

expanding the rights of free speech all over the world. Plus, they're not hogging up any of the good. blood from the rest of us. So I guess it's a compliment sandwich now, and that means that we can wrap up this installment of American God. Before we seat back down to the water table, I want to remind everybody to get their tickets to Godawful Movies Live in D.C.

at got awful movies live.com. The platinum night tickets will sell out fast, so if you want one of those, you should grab it immediately. Check the show notes for more information about that. Anyway, that's all the blast movie we've got for you tonight. We'll be back in 10,022 minutes with more. If you can't wait that long, be on a lookout for a brand new episode. of our sister-so's hot friend, Godloful boobbies,

debuting at 7 Eastern on Tuesday, and an even newer episode of our half-sisteroles citation needed, debuting at noon-eastern on Wednesday. Obviously, I can't call it a show, if I neglect to thank Heath Enright for being sour, loose indolusions for being sweet, and Eli Bostic for being... Umami?

No, probably not that. He's vegan. Anyway, I also want to thank Cerberus for writing this week's Farnsworth quote. They did not include a link in their email, and there's a lot of Cerberus-related stuff on YouTube, so I couldn't find them exactly, but be on the lookout. Most of all, of course,

I want to thank this week's most marvelous mammals, Edward's suffocalyps, Kevin Metallic Hydrogen, and Jose, who are so hot you have to put on sunscreen to fuck them. Together, these five people, calipses, and exotic phases of matter, join forces to make the world have more us in it by giving us money. Not everybody has the foresighted it takes to give us money, but if you do, you can make a per-episode donation at patreon.com slash scathing atheists, whereby you don't only access to an extended every version of every episode, or you can make a one-time donation by clicking on the one-time by clicking on the one-time by clicking on the one-time by giving us a five-star review, 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 an only music that was used in this episode, which was used with permission. If you have

questions, comments or death threats, and find all the contact info on the contact page at scathingaadies.com. There's nothing that Anna Kendrick can't do. All right, here we go. 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.