The Scathing Atheist - 698: Ranking the Angels Edition

Episode Date: July 30, 2026

In this week’s episode, Republicans will takes few rights off our plate rather than ordering their own, JD Vance sits down with Joe Rogan on the CHAIR...not the couch, and Don Ford will be here for the Bible’s most muttery chapter.---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:Hear Noah on the Phil Ferguson show here: https://www.spreaker.com/episode/556-noah-lugeons-the-scathing-atheist-talks-about-the-ark-park-protest--73237086Come see us live in Washington, DC on August 14th!: https://www.atlasarts.org/events/god-awful-movies/Come see Noah in Ontario at BAHACon: https://bahacon.com/---Headlines:Justice Department issues new “religious liberty” memo: https://www.friendlyatheist.com/p/the-justice-depts-new-religious-libertyChatGPT Led to a Man’s Near-Fatal Health Crisis, Lawsuit Claims: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/22/well/openai-chatgpt-health-lawsuit.htmlPope's prayer app leaks 700K+ users' info: https://www.theregister.com/security/2026/07/24/popes-official-prayer-app-commits-cardinal-sin-leaks-700k-users-info/5278603https://bobdahacker.com/blog/click-to-prayMen-only gyms seek to protect Christian men from lust: https://baptistnews.com/article/men-only-gyms-seek-to-protect-christian-men-from-lust/JD Vance defends 10 Commandments posters in public schools on Rogan: https://www.wonkette.com/p/does-jd-vance-actually-know-what---This Week in Misogyny:Hegseth wants to give soldiers testosterone: https://www.advocate.com/politics/national/judge-hegseth-testosterone-transgender also, no girls allowed: https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2026/07/17/hegseth-ordered-a-new-study-of-women-in-combat-critics-say-its-built-to-reach-one-conclusion/Andrew Tate is doing bad: https://www.nbcnews.com/world/united-kingdom/tate-brothers-will-remain-jail-least-2-weeks-fight-extradition-uk-rcna589488

Hey, did you hear? Watermelon is back at booster juice all summer long. Nice! I love the watermelon explosion. And the watermelon wave. Yep. They even got a new watermelon assaye bowl this year. The one in a melon bowl. And what does that sound like? Like that. Booster Juice. Canadian born. Blending since 1999. There's no shortcut for saving time. But saving money, is simple. Just combine your car and home insurance with Bel Air Direct and save. Get a quote at

bellairdirect.com. Warning, us being on YouTube now means we can finally put the scene in obscene. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by God Offa Movies live in Washington, D.C. on August 14th. Check the show notes for more information. And by the new puppeteering system for non-ambulatory senators, the Mitch Hitch. The Mitch Hitch, because he was only alive in the vagus sense even before the fall. And now, the scathing atheist. Good-day, this is Justin from Secular Alcoholics Anonymous Australia. We don't allow anyone to take an earbashing from a god-botherer, even though they do prove that we did in fact evolve from filthy monkey people. It's Thursday. It's July 30th. And it's National Blueberry Month.

Third best pie. Second best berry, nothing but podium. I am no illusions. I'm Elon Bosnick. I'm Heathenwright. And from Bubble Raps, New Jersey, Annaburhamer, Michigan, and Waycross, Georgia. This is the scathing east. On this week's episode, Republicans will take a few rights off your plate

rather than ordering their own. J.D. Vance sits down with Joe Rogan on the chair, not the couch. And Don Ford will be here for the Bible's most muttery of chapters. But first, the diatri. You know, I'm about sick and fucking tired. of being asked where I get my morals by people who are way worse at getting morals than me. It's one of the dumbest arguments in the apologist's quiver, and yet it seems to be the most common opening salvo.

And I honestly, I think that the reason for that is that when atheists hear this argument, they almost can't help but respond to something more sensible. And since that leaves the original idiotic point unrefuted, Christians walk away thinking they've won. So here's how the argument is supposed to go according to the flow chart they made at Bible camp. Something like this, right? Them. Where do you get your morals? You. From societal laws and norms? Them. So if society decided it was okay to eat babies, you'd be fine with that? You. Well, no, no, that would be immoral. Them. But what

makes it immoral? You. Oh, my goodness, it can only be your specific notion of divinity. You're right. I am now Christian boy as evolution dumb. That's what we're supposed to do, I think. The idea is that if there's no absolute source of morality, anything can be made moral by consensus, which is fucking nonsense. Because nobody believes that what makes shit moral is consensus. Our ethics come from principles. Humanism, the principle of harm reduction, the minimum level of cooperation necessary for a society to function. None of those things are subject to a popular vote. You know, of course, they'll point out that morals shift over time, right, as though that's a point in their favor.

Morals shift widely within Christian societies over time, which is a damn strong argument against their universal source of absolute morals. But like Spartans throwing babies over cliffs for having ingrown toenails wasn't moral back when they did it. Society's just got better at morality the same way we got better at almost every other fucking thing. But you don't even need to go that far to refute it because it's just another case of Christianity creating a category of one that only their God can fit into and then asking us to

fit something else into that category. We can also just reject the damn category in the first place. but from what I've seen, what I've heard, most atheists miss that fact, and they almost instinctively refute a better argument. So when Christians start talking about the source of morality, it's hard, for example, not to bring up how immoral the Bible is. They'll ask, you know, where's your source of morality? And atheists will start pointing out immoral dictates in their holy book, which is a damn good refutation of Christianity in general, but not this point in particular. The other sort of instinctual rebuttal is to point out just how much more moral atheists are, than Christians by any standard.

Right? The stats really back that shit up. Every category of crime is better represented by Christians than atheists. Hell, Hemet Metta just did a foyer request about it, and he found out that the percent of U.S. federal prison population that identifies as atheist is 0.066 percent. Now, to be clear, I don't think that the atheist is making people more moral. Atheism just tends to be correlated with higher incomes, higher education, whiteness,

and all the judiciary privilege that comes with that. Plus, religious beliefs give you more special privileges in prison, so I imagine a lot of people find religion once they get there. But even when you grant all that, the numbers are irreconcilable with the argument that Christians are more ethical than atheists. But again, that's technically unrelated to the argument about the ultimate source of morality.

It's another fantastic argument against being Christian, but it doesn't touch on the specific rhetorical trick that they're playing. And that's what it is. Make no mistake. It's not an actual ethical argument. It's a rhetorical trick. The very concept of an ultimate source presupposes their contention. I don't need to provide an ultimate source for love or preoccupation or feeling itchy.

They obsess over ultimate sources, whether it's of morality or of the universe or of life, because their whole goddamn thing is pretending that there's an ultimate source. So when you reduce the where to atheists get their morals if there's no ultimate source down to its logical equivalent, what they're asking is where do you get your God if there's no God? All that being said, I actually kind of like the idea of getting this one wrong, right? It's a rhetorical trick anyway, so playing along is basically doomed to fail. So shifting the subject to how much more moral atheists are or how immoral the Bible is, that seems fine to me, regardless of whether it addresses their particular concerns.

Hell, when Christians ask me where I get my morals, my first response is usually something like, well, I can see why you're looking for advice. They're talking about your Jesus. I interrupt this broadcast and bring you a special news bulletin. Joining me for headlines tonight of the mop and glow of this podcast, Heath Enron, and Eli Bosnick. Fellas, are you ready to shine? Yeah, definitely. But I'm more of a Mr. Clean guy.

Oh, obviously. Yes. Thank you. I'm a GLO batty now as well, apparently. In our lead story tonight, American listeners have fewer rights now than they did when we recorded last week's episode again. Can't leave those somewhere? See, back in 2017, the first Trump administration decided that non-Christians had two

damn many rights in this country. So then Attorney General and Keebler, Alpha Meritus, Jeff Sessions, issued new Justice Department guidelines on which religious liberty cases to pursue and which to ignore. And it gave way more latitude to Christians trying to smuggle their bigotry inside their crucifix. But last Thursday, acting Attorney General, Tom Blanch, decided that even those guidelines were too damn constitutional, so we ratcheted up the limits of Christian privilege even more with new, even more bigot-friendly guidelines.

Cool. I'm guessing sincerely held secret meetings with pedophile traffickers. That's the new, Ray. That got ignored in the Bill of Rights, so you want to add that. It did. And still, yeah, remember when we were terrified and worried about Jeff Sessions? Feels like children afraid of monsters under the bed now. Yeah.

Well, Keebler Elf under the bed doesn't sound so bad. But Jefferson Beauregard is looking crazy now. He is, yeah. He definitely got Dorian Grade by working for Trump, like so very many others. Now, he's like the fucking, like the elf at the defense table in the Hague. It's not looking good for him. It's not a good look. And look, to be clear, the starting block here is a carnal violation of the First Amendment, right?

The guidance sessions issued in 2017 wildly expanded the scope of what could be considered a legal religious exemption. And it's a terrifying new normal that we've been living with ever since because Joe Biden was scared shitless at giving Republicans any reason to call him anti-Christian. Because he was laboring under the misguided and entirely unevidence notion that they needed a reason to call him anti-Christian. And since the building didn't collapse when we yanked the Overton window past that first support, they're over there yanking at it again. Yeah, and to be fair, most Democratic politicians also want extra rights for Christians because that's what most Americans want. We're the equality perverts on the fire. Yes, obviously.

Want everyone to have the same rights. So, as usual, friend of the show, Hemet Meta, has a great breakdown over on the friendly atheist. But here are a few highlights to give you an idea. The 2017 rules had a thing that expanded the rights of Christian employees to harass co-workers about religion, or religious beliefs, which might be, I don't know, maybe that their co-worker's marriage wasn't legitimate in the eyes of God or whatever, whatever it might be. But there was a stipulations that said that it couldn't cross over into harassment or cause a workplace disruption. The 2026 version got rid of that stipulation.

Okay, what's the non-harassment, non-disruptive version of fucking hate speech in the office? Right. What does that even mean? Hey, Alan, just bumping this to the top of your inbox. God's going to put you in like a fire for all eternity. Anyway, love. And love, Steve. It's not because you microwave fish in the break room, but it should be.

It's the gay stuff, but it should be the microwave stuff. So the memo is 26 pages long and just drips with Christian persecution complex. Like, no shit. Within the first three paragraphs, the memo is bringing up the martyrdom of Thomas Beckett. Relevant? Yes. It was, yeah. It reinforces the loaded concept of letting historical practices and understanding dictate decisions, right?

Because those are always going to favor Christianity. And it doubles down on the absurd and untenable idea that religious freedom includes the right to deny the rights of others. So enjoy the fucking 16 civil rights you still have non-Christians and know that they're coming for those ones too. Yeah. And in A.I. Then the news. Perhaps my favorite flavor of the current moral panic around AI is the classic devil made me do it conspiracies of years gone by. Because as the critics of AI are super happy to point out, large language models are just giant yes and machines.

Which is why I am tickled pink about this week's news about a pastor who is suing open AI for feeding his own religious bullshit back to him. Oh, that's delicious. Hey, if you start a sketch with Eli and then you die at the end, that's on you. That's on you. So first off, big thanks to James for sending us this story to scathing news at gmail.com. James, for sending us atheist news to scathing news at gmail.com. We're prepared to offer you three magical potions of your choosing. Hit up our apothecary.

Let them know we sent you. Scathing news at gmail.com. You still have to pay for them, though. And you have to have enough bottles, obviously. Obviously. so we're not giving you free bottles. It's crazy. That's CVS.

Right. So, this story comes to us from Florida because it's about a stupid person. Pastor Scott Winters repeatedly asked Chat GPD if he should be concerned about his dizzy spells. But because he has doubtlessly been feeding it his religious worldview for years at this point, it fed right back to him saying, quote, God did not design your body to endlessly fail. Oh, amazing. Imagine how hard it is for a machine to parse out the fact that a person doesn't know that they know they don't believe the thing they say they believe.

Okay, so just to be clear, this pastor is suing the chatbot for pastoring at him. Yep. And here's the thing, they'd also sue the chatbot for not pastoring, because that would be like, persecution of Christians to not have Christian. Christianity inside the AI. They complain about that too. This is Kafka-esque. Chat GPT is about to wake up as a giant cockroach.

I'm got it curious to see how that goes, I guess. Yeah. That's fun. Yeah. And look, Winters believes a wizard in the sky made the universe and robots are real. So, of course, he took the robot's advice over the advice of his friends and his family and his parishioners telling the AI at one point, quote, the people in my church think I'm crazy for not going to the hospital, end quote.

To which the robot in classic, I'm the only one who loves you abuser fashion, replied, most people, including well-meaning church members, simply don't understand, end quote. Jesus fucking, yeah, sure is somebody to panic about the world's most popular advice machine that's sold as an advice machine, freely giving deadly advice.

A bunch of dumbasses. Exactly, yes, I agree. Anyway, here's 10% of my paycheck for the spiritual advisor that I see in this summer. Exactly. Yeah. Well, eventually, Winter's condition got so bad that he was unable to stand, spent most of his time in the recliner until finally he went to intensive care because of a massive pulmonary embolism.

And as I said, he is now suing OpenAI and Sam Alton for the unauthorized practice of medicine. I don't know who to root for. It's tough. Nobody? they all lose. No winners. How do they all lose? Yeah.

He wins, but the pulmonary embolism gets him in the end. Exactly. Can we root for the pulmonary ambalism? Yeah. I do all this time. Sure. And look, whether you feel like there need to be stricter safeguards in place around these situations or not, this story is a great reminder that putting your faith in an unchecked

authority that isolates you from the advice of your community and affirms your own assumptions is always a bad thing, which is why there was no better person to remind us of that than a pastor. Amen. And stop going on social media, nothing good there. And in Jesus fishing news.

My cats are on there. My cats are on there. How dare you can go there just for Noah's cats. I will allow that. I will allow that. They're adorable. One single Facebook. And in Jesus Fishing News

with a P.A. The Pope's Prayer app got very easily hacked for all the information of all its faithful users. And it seems like I'd say we have three possible explanations. One, the God of the universe doesn't use the fine products at Express VPN and he got foiled. Two, God is actually more of a Protestant. It's doing a little prank war with the Catholics. Or three, the IT department in the city of ancient Italian men and Bob. from Chicago isn't quite as tech savvy as we thought and God doesn't exist.

So we can all decide at the end of the story, what we think. Oh, you got to imagine the hacker being like, wait, you're telling me a bunch of nonagenarians are running an app full of the personal information of the world's least tech savvy idiots. Is it my fucking birthday? Sorry, what's that? All their wealth is in untraceable Nazi gold and they already have a bunch of secret account?

I'm having the dream again. And no public accounting. Yeah. I'm having the dream. So there's good news and bad news for the Vatican. The good news, they got exposed by an ethical hacker who told them about the vulnerability right away. The bad news, they're idiots who didn't respond for seven months, during which time a non-ethical

hacker might have easily taken email addresses for over 700,000 people who definitely I definitely believe an email from like real Pope Bobby at real vatican.com is totally legit and I'll click on all the stuff. Yeah, right. So if you think about it, a truly ethical hacker would have given the info to us. Yeah, strong agree, no illusions. If you find a vulnerability in any Catholic church system and you don't check for good stuff, you're the bad guy. And since they didn't find any, we know they didn't check. Okay. So we learned about the story. from the ethical hacker themselves, known as Bob DeHacker. The app is called Click to Pray and was launched by Pope Francis in 2019. Launched from the balcony over St. Peter's Square, actually.

During a speech from the balcony, Francis held up a tablet to like prove device. That's what apps are on, right? Remember they? I have one. And told everyone. Eat reader? told everyone they can pray with him and ask for their own prayers on the app too. And I guess Pope Leo took over last year after J.D.

Van's murdered Frankie. But the coding for the app was super dumb. And any basic hacker like Hacker 101 could easily get a big list of details about everyone on the app. That includes email, first name, last name, country, and born date. I think that's birth date or like, you know, spy initiate. Asian date. You can also get anyone's role, which is just prayer.

Everyone's, that was one of the fields. Because everyone's role is a prayer. Yeah. Which, yeah, like, might not be that bad a breach if it weren't people pre-screened for being dumb enough to fall for Catholicism. But like we said, my favorite thing about this story is that

the reason everyone's role is prayer is because there's supposed to be admin roles when you create an app, but literally nobody was an admin for this app. This 700,000 user app was just fucking vibing on its own like Wally. Okay, so here's my favorite line from the post by Bob DeHacker about this, even though I didn't really get the reference, but it's so deep inside hacker baseball. I just fucking love it.

It says, quote, the response headers also have. X powered by Express. No idea. Because the Vatican is running its prayer infrastructure on the framework you learn in week two of a node. dot J.S boot camp, end quote, fucking fucking roobes, idiots. Got, got them? I think. Okay.

If I can explain, it's kind of the computing equivalent of having an aOL.com email. Okay. Eli, you have an a.O.L.com email. Yeah, but I am also bad and stupid. It's just a lot of an AOL address. It is the most important email I have. Okay. Nice.

James Bond 87. Everybody hit me out. I wish it wasn't. It's attached to my fucking mortgage. It's attached to my mother fucking mortgage. A house that you don't yet really own the email address attached to that. They have to email James Bond 87. Okay.

James Bond 87. All right. ridiculous. Okay, so at the very bottom of this post, I ain't. From Bob to Hacker, there's an update from later that same day of the original post. It turns out the Vatican finally fixed the problem. And all it took was a single if statement to fix it just like Bob DeHacker told them. So Bob remains fucking furious, like seething, furious, especially because seven months of silence and only doing. something after Bob enlisted the help of a journalist and not a single word of thanks from the

Vatican for figuring out the exploit. And at the bottom of the update, it said, they wrote the if statement. One if statement exactly as promised Moses would be proud. Okay. I added the okay. And with a quick reminder to Bob DeHacker that we'd have treated them right. If they'd brought the information to us, we'll take a quick break and hand things over to my lovely wife, Lucinda. 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. All right, folks, we have got to talk about Pete Higgs's testicle obsession. So as you may already know, one of Higgs's first moves when he became defense secretary was to order a review of women in combat, with the obvious goal of removing them from it. See, in 2015, the U.S. Army lifted its long-standing restriction on women in combat and low and behold, it changed virtually nothing.

All of the chicken little excuses that men made up to keep us out of their he-man woman haters club turned out to be bullshit. And in the near decade since, women have shown themselves to be every bit as effective in combat as men. For anybody following the science, the issue was settled. But nobody ever accused the Trump administration of following the science. So, Seth, ordered his little review. But he made the mistake of handing it to actual researchers.

I mean, obviously, there are plenty of well-qualified research centers the military uses for this kind of shit. So they turned to one of them, a group called the Institute for Defense Analysis. But then in April, Hexeth, a ruptly yanked the study out from under them and handed it to an applied physics lab at Johns Hopkins that has no relevant experience at all. So why the shift? Well, it turns out that the lab is headed by a woman who has been a vocal critic of women in combat. So clearly, the analysis that he ordered wasn't giving him the results that he wanted, so he went with a different one. And he'll keep going to different ones until he gets the result that he was looking for.

And in the meantime, as he's trying to push women out, he's trying to make the men even more manly. I'm sure you've heard about his latest insane push to pump up the Army's testosterone levels. He announced last week that the U.S. military will start testing the testosterone levels of some service members and recommending hormone therapy if they're not chocked full of enough man juice. Of course, a lot of trans people and their allies were like, oh, so you guys are into gender-affirming therapy now. And that's not just a fun rhetorica, gotcha. It's also a thorny legal issue because Heg Seth has also barred the military from paying for exactly this treatment for its trans members. And one of the people who noticed was a judge.

So now U.S. District Judge Anna Raiz, who is overseeing a legal challenge. against Trump's transgender military ban is demanding an explanation from the Pentagon. Anyway, I've got one final story for you this week, and it's another one of those that should leave you with a smile on your face. I mean, I'm normally not a fan of our nation's medieval prison system, but I'll make an exception when the people suffering through it are Andrew and Tristan Tate. That's right, the rapist human traffickers that the Trump administration

specially negotiated on behalf of are back in prison, and if all goes well, headed to England to face justice for all the women that they abused for a living. And from what Andy Highwater social media team is posting on his behalf, it's going great in the sense that he's mostly been in solitary confinement

and the guy in the next cell over is a cannibal that screams through the night. And I, for one, love that for him. Kind of sucks for the cannibal, though. Anyway, on that happy note, I'm going to wrap things up and hand you back over to Noah, Heath, and Eli.

And in gymnasium news. Nice. It's not easy. Being conservative Christian men in 2026, the government is only 90 to 95% directed at your whims and deepest fears. The judiciary is downright slow in making your religious beliefs the law of the land. And women are allowed into gyms. And that makes you cheat on your wife. Well, oh, luckily, a bunch of Christian psychos are seeking to solve that last problem with a series of

men only Christian gyms. So we're going to talk about it. Yeah, no, it's definitely not that these sentient muffins that define themselves based on a knives and leather-based masculinity have panic attacks where women could do more

pull-ups than them. I'm sure it's the fucking like, oh, the women just can't stop throwing themselves at me. I spend a hard day driving my pickup truck up a fire ramp in the desert I just want to unwind to that point with some power squats and now I'm cheating on my wife on the kettlebell rack. It's crazy.

It's untenable. Has this happened to you? Come on over to the Bible gym. Yeah, exactly. So first off, big thanks for Matthew for being the first, but not the last to send us this story to Scathing News at gmail.com. Matthew, if we started a gym to control our lusts, you wouldn't be allowed within 500 feet of the building.

Scathing News or gmail.com. Eli's really familiar with which are the legally enforceable distances. I do. I know them off the top of my head. He has tapes at those exact amounts that they would use in court. I got like shorthand measurements. They're hanging off his belt at all times. Yeah.

The way they tell people like John Hauer's best of harmonicas, but I got, yes, exactly. Spider-Man, but it's school zones. No? No. No, there's a playground nearby. All right. So this story comes to us from baptistnews.com. And to the credit, to the folks at PNN, they actually fucking hate these people as much as we do.

Honestly, the whole article is worth the read. But it covers a couple of these gyms, starting with Proverbs 2717 fitness in Oklahoma City. For those who don't remember their Bible, Proverbs 2717 reads, as iron sharpens iron so one person sharpens another let's get it because because Jim iron so you gotta

rub the two people together really hard I don't guys this rubbing together great I am enjoying this but I feel like I'm not getting sharper you know what I'm getting dull I feel like I'm dulling

you know what I'm saying let's definitely keep going but like I just wanted to flagged on our wives I'm not sure if iron sharpened iron I don't know if that's true all the time. Now, you might be wondering why these gyms are men only.

Well, luckily, the founder of Proverbs 2717 took to Instagram to explain, quote, In a nutshell, one of the number one places affairs and invatility occur, cheating, is the gym. Byproduct of someone who had an affair in my previous marriage. Could be me. You don't know. Which one of us wanted to get out of that relationship? Doesn't work out well for you fellas. Don't do it.

So what did God do? He took with the devil men for evil, turned it into good. Put it on my heart to start this men's fitness and ministry center where there are no distractions. There's no temptations or women walking around. End exact quote of the Instagram. And I'll bobble-headed as he says it. Yeah. So we got Jim Bros.

We got proselytizing and no women in yoga pants. my God, this just keeps getting better. Tell me more. Okay, I love that this guy's wife clearly fell in love with someone else met at the gym. And this guy was like, I'm going to figure this out. The building where it happened is the faster. That's a problem. Knew it.

But that's not all. Mitch Parsons, founder of a youth group for men and remnant men in Denver, had equal amounts of telling on himself he needed to do. according to the website for remnant men quote this is the front page i thought it was like youth group for men and remnant men oh i wish no there was okay he owns two gym is called remnant men he also and the gym for men remnant yeah got it okay okay so this is you click on remnant men dot fucking fun or whatever he bought didn't i'm sure he didn't get the dot com and this is this is the text that pops up i quit four gyms before i built one i realized the

The problem wasn't the gym. It was that no one had built what I actually needed or what I wanted. A place where a man can train his body without having nakedness shoved in his face. A place where he doesn't have to decide between honoring the Lord, honoring his wife, and guarding his eyes and submitting to cultural norms. A place where Christian men gather, sharpen each other, and are formed under the fear of the Lord. a place to truly rest, recover, and be in community organically with like-minded men. It doesn't exist, so we're building it, end quote.

I just wanted to be around muscular men instead of seeing a bunch of half-naked lady bits, you know? Like any God-fearing straight man would? It was for my marriage. If I build it, they will come. I will come. One more thing about this story, usually when there's a terrible Christian thing happening, I sort of have to end the story with like a sigh or outrage. But if I may be bold,

I think quarantining the men who think the existence of women at the gym is a threat to their marriage in an un-air-conditioned airport hangar with someone who I'm pretty sure knows as much about safety as he does women. That seems like an awesome idea to me. This is a win-win, everybody. Yeah. Bye. Good Lord can spy you.

Just dying under a bar asking Jesus to take the bar. Why is there only one set of footprints? And finally tonight, in cushion-pushing news, JD Vance fucked a couch. Okay, turns out that was a rumor, but I'm pretty sure he fucked a couch.

He's also the vice president of the United States, but thanks to his amazing Santorum-esque SEO. You're going to scroll down a bit to find the VP stuff. So anyway, he fucked the couch. And then he went to Yale. He wrote a book about the majesty

and noblesse of the working class. He took a job with Peter Thiel as a venture capital exec right after that. He got a Senate seat purchased for him by his boss. He called Donald Trump cultural heroin and America's Hitler. And now he's the number two

for American. is Hitler. Good times for J.D. Vance. And that made him the perfect guest for, you guessed it, Joe Rogan. So they spent about three hours, maybe nine, I don't know, rambling about election lies and urban decay and UFOs and the space demons who pilot those UFOs. J.D. Vance really thinks that's what's happening. And of course, wrist control on the White House lawn. We also got to watch Jady Vance try so hard and fail so very hard to justify the Texas law that requires a poster of the Ten Commandments in every public school classroom. And then J.D. fucked another couch, probably. I don't know. I'm guessing he did. Rogan has a nice couch in the studio or, you know, used to.

Pretty sure. Man, I don't know. Given his history, I don't think I would invite J.D. Vance to meet with me if I was a professional liar that preaches to a congregation of bigoted virgins. I just, the track record there not great. Ooh, okay. Real question. How many people would have to die right after meeting J.D. Vance before we come back around

on J.D. Vance. For me, it's like two more, maybe three, depending on who he gets. You know what I'm saying? And then he's like, he's a weapon. I want him. Sure. So, the conversation about the Texas law

started when Rogan brought up James Tala Rico, Democratic Senate candidate out of Texas. Rogan mentioned how Talarico's a Christian seminarian, but also very much against the Ten Commandments posters because forcing religion on kids is a bad idea, also the constitution. And J.D. responded by explaining how Christianity actually invented freedom of religion. It was a confusing one. J.D. said, quote, I think one of the core Christian contributions to Western civilization is the idea of freedom of religion. It's actually very much a Christian idea because you recognize the dignity of each individual. You can't force this on anybody.

I don't think putting the Ten Commandments up in school is like forcing things on anyone. Well, yeah, dignity, I guess, was actually their idea. That's why the Trump administration is so dignified because of all the dignity. Dignified. Yep. Cultural heroin. So Despite Rogan's normal role as, you know, nodding fleshbag that he likes to do. He actually pushed back here and explained how forcing every school to have religious posters is exactly forcing religion because words. And Vance responded with the argument from, you want something to cry about. I'll give you something to cry about. He remember the abusive dad gambit as his response here.

He said, quote, to seeing the Ten Commandments force religion on a non-Christian child? Yes. Bye. My argument would be no. And I'd illustrate this by saying, well, there's all of these ways you actually could try to force religion on a child, right? Wow. I don't think Catholics want to remind people about religion and forcing shit on children in the same sentence, too? He's not a Catholic.

Also, did the next sentence say what he thought those were? Because that's just his plan. It's weird of him to put it on video. Then that's his plan. So from there, J.D. Vance decided to get into the details of the Ten Commandments. And that's a big mistake. First of all, they don't even have the right number in the title. So not good.

And more importantly, when you're very obviously wrong about something, you want to keep it vague. Like, here is bad, there's bad. You want to go neither nor when you're in that situation of being horribly wrong. But J.D. has not taken Eli's class on rhetoric. So he said, quote, No matter how many emails I send them. He said, quote, if you look at the Ten Commandments, probably eight of them are something I'd hope everybody would agree with, even if they're not themselves religious, end quote. So you think he's got that right?

Would you say eight? I'd love to know which fucking eight, like three of the 11 to 15, depending on how you break them up, are like conditionally good advice. Maybe. Yeah. Also, why would you admit that your God has. Two iffy commit your God? God has two not point bangers. Two to five if he's got a white album?

If he ones. Yeah. Yeah. So conversation's going badly for Vance. Most crucially because he's losing any argument ever to Joe Rogan. And just like every argument loser of all time, Jady went with the classic formula. First you move the goalposts,

then you contradict the new goalposts. the new goalposts that you made and hope nobody noticed that. And then if that doesn't work, you cry persecution. He started with a pivot to the idea that a Christian majority country gets to do their propaganda. They just get to do it because they're the majority. Then he flipped to pluralism from majoritarianism. And, you know, exposing kids to different ideas is a good idea.

That was the argument there. Well, sorry, idea singular by fiat. And then finally, he went to the persecution. narrative. He said that Christianity got pushed out of the public square in America and claimed that the mandated Ten Commandments is just a valid pushback in so that Christianity can finally have a place in Texas again. Yeah, if only. Yeah, we're just putting back the thing that was never there because the courts took away what should never have been there. Yeah, no, it makes perfect sense. He pushed me first. Well, sorry, I imagined that he pushed me first and so shot him.

And just one other detail from the conversation, because it relates to a story we covered earlier this year. Rogan thought he had a big gotcha for Vance about too much entanglement of religion and government. And he brought up the claims, Rogan brought this up, the claims from Mikey Weinstein, the leader of the military religious freedom foundation, yeah, the MRFF. In case anyone missed it, at the beginning of the Iran war, Weinstein claimed that a bunch of U.S. military people reported commanding officers giving speeches about Trump being anointed by God and how destroying Iran would bring about the second coming of Christ. And right after that came out, Hemet Meadow wrote a great article describing a bunch of red flags

about Weinstein's account. Well, just because Joe Rogan reads an insane quote and believes it to be true, that does it. like prove it's wrong but it's a pretty good clue pretty good clue so just a reminder to be skeptical about our team to you know intellectual honesty also J.D. Fuck that couch

absolutely. 100% fucked it. I believe that in my heart and when my grandma died she told me that JD vans fucked a couch and it's really tough for me when you say that he did it. So maybe just not right now. I know it's really important to you but just not right now. I'm not to sue you if you say that.

I'll sue you for Ripper. I refer a government. And now that I finally know why Marsh was messaging me about that Mikey Weinstein claim at 5.30 in the morning the other day, we can wrap up the headlines for the night. Heath, Eli, thanks, as always. And when we come back, the din of Don Will Dong. So you just watched him buy seven sandwiches?

That is correct. Don, I did. You didn't order one? No, Heath, I did not order a sandwich now. Well, I don't understand it all. Hey, guys. You ready for Bible peace theater? Oh, 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. What book are we on now? Hebrews. I see. And who wrote this one? We have no idea. Oh, like they pretend it's Paul, but the authorship is unclear? No, actually, most people who believe in the Bible don't even think that this one was written by Paul.

right the book doesn't claim to be by him the only reason it's in the epistles is because it's a letter and that's an epistle and the collectors of King James just kind of labeled it with the others I see so the what is Hebrews about well okay

so you know how sometimes we'll meet somebody who listens to our show and they'll reference a joke that we made like three and a half years ago in one episode and we have no idea what the fuck they're talking about yes I do that all the time so this is the Bible

version of that. Hey, you guys remember hellbound kangaroo? Yeah, yeah. Nice. See, call back. Hi, everybody. Hebrews starts, starts now I'm talking. Okay, so first of all, I, uh, well, not me. Jesus, but fuck, okay, start over, start over. Okay, so, uh, Jesus sat on the right hand of his father now, in these times, the last days, higher than the angels, for he is the most high, Jesus. Okay, Jesus, that's the name for God. So actually, scratch that, scratch that. But the angels, they're like solid third place. Then Jesus.

Christ. You know that. And then, obviously, God. Hey, Noah. Why are we reenacting the way Heath talked to women before he was married? It wasn't always like that. It wasn't always. Yes, it was.

So the writing style of Hebrews is a lot less confident. Oh, kind of like when someone is faking a book of the Bible to clarify something in the middle of a religious fight? A lot like this, yes, Don, a lot. It's also much better written and it doesn't feel very lettery. It's obviously been through drafts, stays consistent throughout. Okay, so what's with the weird angel ranking thing? Yeah, so if this was written as the Roman Empire was transitioning to Christianity, or if it was written during the medieval period where a lot of biblical translators were connecting the church in the Greek world,

there would have been a lot of confusion about like the hierarchy of religious figures, you know, Moses, Abraham, angels, etc. I get it. So this is sort of like a pecking order? I don't think I'd go that far. Then what was it then? Well, let me see if I could explain. Lou, Lulu, do in religion organizing stuff.

Religion organizing stuff is my... Well, probably not my favorite stuff. It's probably my only option and sort of interpreting a moral worldview through it. Lou lulu Lou Lou Hey Craig Seriously dude We're supposed to be

Ancient Romans I'm sorry Craigathus Hey man What up So I've been reading This new Bible thing You've been handing out

Nice yeah Yeah yeah It's okay I mean it needs more fucking though Oh the The foot stuff It's like a metaphor Oh

Oh I didn't get that Okay Good note Got it Less subtle with foot stuff. Okay, yeah, but like, I have a question, you know? Sure, what's up?

So, like, you know that time I saw Zeus? I mean, you told me you saw Zeus, and that's why you were late to work. Yeah, and my cousin got a prophecy from the Oracle. Right, yeah. Well, if your God is, like, in charge, does he know Zeus? Does he, like, hang out?

No. No. You know, maybe those things that you experienced were angels. It was probably angels. Oh, angels. Right. Yeah, totally. I read about this.

Yes, yes, you did. So, or like angels, Jesus is boss or something? No, no, no. Jesus is the boss. Okay, that's really confusing. Okay, you know what? I will clarify that. Okay, do it like,

Eight times. Clarify eight times. Foot means penis, more clear. Got it. Okay. Got it. So what happens next? Well, now the author is going to repeat biblical hearsay.

Okay. So everyone has obviously heard about Jesus. And to be clear, I'm not saying these things. I'm just repeating what's been said by people who were definitely there. But, you know, Jesus, he's pretty cool. and also he's more important than angels. Thank you, dude. No problem.

Okay, took care of the angels. Really ramped up the footstuff too. This is looking good. Hey, uh, Craigathus? Hey, man, what's up? I was wondering, what about Moses? What about him? What?

Is he more important than Jesus? No, no, definitely not. Okay, but he's like the same. Savior of the Jews. No, no, no. He's saved the Jews, yes, from Egypt, but Jesus is the only, like, savior, savior. Got it. You should like.

Clarify that in the book? Yeah, man, yeah. Yeah, okay, got it. I'll clarify. Oh, so are you sure about the angel thing? Very sure, yes. Maybe worth, I'll put it in another thing. I'll put in another thing.

Good, good. Great. Fuck. Okay, so Moses is less important than Jesus. And so is Abraham, who despite being called the father of the Jews, is not the father. That's God, the father of Jesus. Okay, got it? I have a question.

No, no. You're not allowed to not believe me to answer the question you definitely have. Oh, and I never mind. I don't have a question. I have a question also. Fuck. What? Okay.

What? Okay. Not resting on the Sabbath count is not believing you. Yes, yes. Can we do a different day? No, no. We're not doing a different day. Because if Jesus was okay with another day, he would have said that.

I feel like Jesus didn't say a lot of stuff. Said a lot of things he left out. These are just, these are just clarifications. Okay, okay. Everybody seems confused. It's like, it's like milk and meat. Don't eat them together. No, no, that's, that's, that's okay now.

I meant like, like when you're a baby, you need milk, but when you're grown up, you need meat. And reading the Bible is like, it's like the milk. Understanding it is like the meat. Uh, sorry, Noah, I actually don't understand that metaphor at all. Yeah, no, that's because it's fucking stupid, Eli. Oh, nice. Nice. Okay.

Any other questions? Uh-huh. Yeah, yeah. Great. You know how God swore things to Abraham and Moses? And Noah. Yeah, yeah, and also Noah. Sure, yeah.

Who is he swearing those things, too? Oh, oh, he's himself. You know, that feels incredibly lower stakes. No, it's not lower stakes because God can't lie. Well, First Kings, 22, 23. I mean, he won. I wasn't lying like then when I was talking about. Okay, but then...

It's not lower stakes. Okay, everyone. A lot of you've been complaining that the book is low stakes. But what if I told you the story of the most important high priest of the whole Bible? Uh, Moses? King David. Nope, no, no, no, better. No, Kizadek.

Who? You got from Genesis. He brought out bread and wine to Abraham. Well, he was a priest most high. He was never born and he never died. Wait, so he's still alive right now? Yeah, yeah, probably, I guess. I have so many follow-up questions.

No, no, no follow-ups. The point is Chris is a guy. I called Christ Chris. No, Christ is a high priest in the style of Melchizedek. He's a Melchizedek-Kian high priest. Have you seen him around? I said no follow-ups. Okay.

Sorry, Noah. Who's the Mixel-Plexic guy? Yeah, so this is a rather bizarre attempt at correction. So one of the big objections to Christ's divinity is that he was a descendant of Judah, and they weren't allowed to be priests. So he technically couldn't be a priest, let alone the high priest. Got it. So Hebrews is kind of making a minor character important in the hopes that they can carry their sort of new narrative forward.

Exactly, yeah. So it's doomsday. Yeah, no, it's like doomsday. I like the Yelena. No, you don't, Dawn. No, I don't. Right. So now that we've established that Jesus is totally a high priest of me.

Melchior. I thought it was Melchizedic. Yep. Yeah. Uh, him. So anyway, that's fully established, which means Christ can provide over a new covenant with man. Uh, question. Yeah. What? Why didn't God make a perfect covenant the first time he made a covenant with me? Oh, yeah, yeah. Is God even capable of making imperfect covenants? Oh, that's a really good point. He just... I have that same So the thing is that covenant was perfect for the people at that time. But now those people are dead. And so the new covenant is for the now people. Oh.

So how often does God need to make new covenants? This one is good now and forever. It's good to go forever. Oh, got it. Yeah, yeah, good to go. Is this also a blood covenant? It's a weird question. What? Well, no, no, the first one was the blood covenant.

We're supposed to care. Oh, right? No, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, yes, yeah, it is. It is. This one is a, this is a blood covenant, but it's Christ's blood, which is way better, just to be clear, than sheep's blood or cow blood. Why? Um, because, because of Malachi. Melchazardik. Yep, yep, that, nope, yep.

Okay, so Jesus' blood is better than cow and sheep. Got it? You said that already. Right, right. Right. Okay. Also, also, you know, let me finish. God is really, like, hard going to fuck up the wicked.

Everyone who broke the Hebrew laws will feel his wrath in the end times. How do we know that his punishment is just? Well, because God has, God has witnesses about. that. God has witnesses for everyone he's going to destroy with his wrath. Yep. Uh-huh. He does. Uh, three, actually.

Three witnesses? Each. Three Each. Each. Yep. Uh, also that time is coming. By the way, that's definitely coming. A lot of people are saying that God might be taking too long to come back and for the world to end, but I want you guys to know that he's going to be here like,

Like any second now. He will not tarry. Okay. Do we have some sort of timeline here? Not tarried the timeline. I'll tell you that. That is for sure. Untary the timeline.

It is timeline. Fucking tariless. Hey, Craig is this? Yeah. Yeah. What's up? So, remember how in the last chapter you said that the end of the world was coming

and that Jesus wouldn't tarry? Of course, yeah. I said that. Well, it's been a little while now. Yes, and we were kind of hoping we could get like a working definition on the word theory here. Okay, guys, listen. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Whoa.

That's really great. Wait, wait, sorry, what? Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. So it's the stuff of not stuff and the evidence of no evidence? Don't define words like that. Yeah, the more I think about it, that sentence is literally nonsense. Yeah. A lot of people are going to use it when their kid dies.

Okay? It's a good sentence. Why? Because it sounds nice. It sounded really nice. Okay, guys, I was thinking more about faith. And I can see you guys. You need some examples.

Yeah. Yeah. Can we have a good venture. Okay. Well, what was it but faith that caused Abel to offer God a better sacrifice than Cain? Think about it. But he died because of that. Still, still God enjoyed the present.

Also faith made Noah build the ark. No, it didn't. But God came and told him in person that he should build an ark. Abraham. Right? To God. I mean, I mean, Sarah, right? Did not have faith.

Literally the opposite, like the most famous story of a person not. Moses. He had magic powers that God gave him. And later, he doesn't have enough faith in those magic powers, which is why he doesn't get to. Why are all of your examples? Oh, wrong. You're wrong. Okay, everyone.

You can see how the faith thing got a little confusing for you. That's something very evident. But, but. I have a way better metaphor this time. You do? Oh, yeah, yeah. You see, God is like a father. And all fathers, as we all know, whip their sons.

The only sons they don't whip are bastards, am I right? Um... What? What's um? Not all fathers whip their sons, man. Yeah, like... Like even in the now times. What are you talking about?

They don't? No. Dad? Talk to you real quick, dad. This book got bummer. It's a bummer now. Yeah. Dark really quick.

Okay, everyone. I'm back. I'm back. Did you talk to your dad? I don't want to talk about it. The point is, God is a cleansing fire. Oh, okay. If you say so, man, whatever makes you feel better.

And always let a stranger eat in your home, because you never know when they'll turn out to be angels. Yeah, I feel like that might not go the way you're picturing. Hey, thanks again for the invite. Um, yeah, no problem. No, seriously, I feel like, okay, you guys are going to, you're going to go crazy about this. I feel like I should tell you, I'm an angel.

Yeah, yeah, we can tell. You can tell. Oh, you can tell? You descended from the heavens Yeah, and you walked through the wall Just like the Kool-Aid guy Right, right Right, so

So anyway, you guys want to see my flaps? No, no, thank you What would those even look like anyway? No, don't. Okay, so do you guys have the Arby's Beef and Cheddar Sandwich yet? Do you have that? No. Oh, oh, never mind then.

Got it. I can show you anyway. And on that vivid image, we're going to leave things for a bit. We'll be back next month with even more. Bible Peace Theater. Before we lock the door behind us this week, I want to let you know that if you need more me in your life,

I was recently a guest on the Phil Ferguson show with my friend Phil Ferguson. Talked a bit about the Ark Park protest and all the fun that we had there, but as is so often the case, the conversation wandered around quite a bit. If you'd like to hear it, be sure to check the show notes

or just look for the Phil Ferguson show wherever you get your podcasts. Anyway, that's all the blastment we've got for you tonight, but we'll be back in 10,000, 22 minutes with more. If you can't wait that long, be on the lookout for a brand new episode of our sister show's hot friend godiful movies debuting at 7th, Eastern on Tuesday, and an even newer episode of a half-shrall citation needed debut at noon eastern on Wednesday.

Obviously, this show wouldn't be very showful if neglected to thank Heath Enright for coming back to the United States, even though he'd already escaped to Europe. I need to thank Eli Bosnick for reluctantly agreeing not to do the whole episode in a French accent to quote, ease Heath back into America. I also want to thank the lovely and talented Lucindilusions for agreeing to talk about misogyny on YouTube. I'm sure the commenters will be very kind. I want to thank Don Ford Voice of Fantasy and Adventure for also showing the face of Fantasy and Adventure this week. I also want to thank Justin from Secular A.A.A. Australia for writing this week's Farnsworth quote, incidentally, if you'd like to submit a video, Farnsworth quote, we're doing video now, so we might just use it.

Speaking of which, if you'd like to see what I look like right now, you can check us out on YouTube. But of course, most of all this week, I need to thank this week's best people, but the recording schedule is a little out of whack at the moment because we're making that transition to video content. So I don't have all your names yet. I promise, though, I will compliment you all the more complimentary next week. And if you'd like to get in on those double plus compliments next week, you can make a per-episode donation at patreon.com slash scathing atheist, whereby you'll earn real access to an extended ad-free version of every episode, or you can make a one-time donation by clicking on the one-time by clicking a one-time button on the right side of the homepage at scathingaadist.com. And if you'd like to help but not with money, 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 Ramperson handles that for us. Our cartoonist is Angelo Madrid from Madrid tunes. and our audio engineer, as Morgan Clark wrote, all the music that was used in this episode, which was used with permission. If you have questions, comments, or death threats, you'll find all the contact to info on the contact page at scathingatheas.com.

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