The Scathing Atheist - 702: Ready, James, Fire Edition

Episode Date: August 27, 2026

In this week’s episode, Christians will persecute THEMSELVES if were not gonna do it, Republicans warn us that dinosaur demons are eating the cats and dogs, and Don Ford will be here for more of the Bible’s “yadda yadda yadda” chapters.---To make a per episode donation at Patreon.com, click here: http://www.patreon.com/ScathingAtheistTo buy our book, click here: https://www.amazon.com/Outbreak-Crisis-Religion-Ruined-Pandemic/dp/B08L2HSVS8/If you see a news story you think we might be interested in, you can send it here: [e-mail] check out our sister show, The Skepticrat, click here: https://audioboom.com/channel/the-skepticratTo check out our sister show’s hot friend, God Awful Movies, click here: https://audioboom.com/channel/god-awful-moviesTo check out our half-sister show, Citation Needed, click here: http://citationpod.com/To check out our sister show’s sister show, D and D minus, click here: https://danddminus.libsyn.com/Report instances of harassment or abuse connected to this show to the Creator Accountability Network here: https://creatoraccountabilitynetwork.org/---Headlines:Meanwhile, Trump is ACTUALLY targeting churches: https://religionnews.com/2026/08/20/11-faith-groups-accuse-trump-administration-of-violating-court-order-while-spying-on-churches/Survivors Just Built the First National Database of Accused Protestant Abusershttps://relevantmagazine.com/current/survivors-just-built-the-first-national-database-of-accused-protestant-abusers/Pete Hegseth is bringing Blue Bonnet like bullshit to military schools: https://www.friendlyatheist.com/p/pete-hegseth-is-bringing-christianSwiss Tourist Sentenced to Prison After Violating ‘Day of Silence’ in Bali: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/21/travel/bali-swiss-tourist-nyepi.htmlThe GOP nominee for governor of Illinois doesn’t want to talk about his Creationist beliefs: https://www.friendlyatheist.com/p/the-gop-nominee-for-governor-of-illinoisColorado GOP Gov Nominee Claims to Have Battled ‘Demons’ With ‘Reptilian’ Eyes: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/colorado-gop-gov-nominee-claims-to-have-battled-demons-with-reptilian-eyes

Warning, there are offensive words in this podcast. Also, defensive words. This week's episode of The Skathing Atheist is brought to you by Quince and by Church's Fried Chicken. Church's fried chicken. Apparently, that's the wrong answer to what church do you go to, even if it's true. And now, the Scathing Atheist. It's Thursday. It's August 27th. And we're letting there be a heaven this week, but it's just so Dolly can go there. I'm no illusions.

Also, my birthday, I'm going to fuck myself. I'm Heath Enright. And from William Carlos, Williams's New Jersey, Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Wake Cross, Georgia. This is the scathing atheist. Of this week's episode, Christians will persecute themselves if we're not going to do it. Republicans warn us that dinosaur demons are eating the cats and dogs. And Don Ford will be here for more of the Bible's yada, yada, yada chapters.

But first, the Diet Tribe. You know, we talk a lot about Christian bigotry. on this show. And I feel like sometimes we get so focused on the homophobia and the transphobia and the sexism and the racism and the Islamophobia and the prejudice against atheists and the anti-immigrant bias and the general xenophobia that we lose track of the ableism. And that's a weird one for me when I think about it because my mother is paraplegic. She's been in a wheelchair since before I was born. And I've spent an entire lifetime watching people dismiss her and infantilize her and act like her existence is somehow a burden

to them. Right. So it's the kind of biased I feel like I should be especially attuned to, but it still slips through the cracks until I meet a guy like Casey. So I was at an atheist conference in Canada last weekend. It's called Baja Khan. It's in Sarnia, which is just over the border from Michigan, super well organized. And everybody involved in it was a fucking delight if you're thinking about maybe attending next year. And one of the people I met while I was there was this guy, Casey. Now, Casey has a severe mobility impairment that also affects his speech to some degree. And so naturally, he's spent his whole goddamn life being treated by Christians like he's a project or a special test from their God. Right. And he's been lied to over and over again about how the powers of God are going to heal him.

In any minute, Christ is going to fill him and he's going to rise right out of that chair. He told me a great story about that. In fact, and he gave me permission to share it with you. years ago he had a Christian girlfriend that had been encouraging him to go to her church. And he's not just an atheist, but he's also got this highly visible disability that tends to elicit the very worst in Christian sympathy out of a lot of people. So he resists for a long time, but eventually she talks him into it. And so he goes to the church and they do their little church thing.

And eventually inevitably, they reach the point where they're going to fix him, right? They're going to call upon their God magic to heal him. So they ask if they can lay hands on him. Now, this would be a great time to mention that Casey has a fantastic sense of humor. So while he's got the undivided attention to this whole congregation, he just can't help himself. He's like, I'm falling out of this fucking chair. So they start their prayer and he starts shaking like something's happening, right? Starts wiggling back and forth as much as he can.

And they're all elated, right? Like they're like, oh, fuck, Jesus is finally coming out of our fingertips and revealing himself once in for all, guys. And then Casey just flops on the fucking floor. And after a long minute, they're like, well, fuck. I guess we have to pick him up now. Now, there is a price that he paid for this bit. Like I said, he's got severely limited mobility. So he couldn't exactly break his fall.

So instead he broke his nose, which sucked like hell for him. But he said, he told me it was worth it, right? It's like, if you think about it, like, in retrospect, that makes the bit even funnier. Just the image of all these people who are just shown in no uncertain terms that either their religion is bullshit. or their God doesn't give the slightest fuck about this one of his little lambs to try to wrestle him back in the chair and the whole time he's just spurt and blood all over him. And look, if you've got a visible disability, I think you can probably relate to this story

because for a certain type of Christian, those people are an opportunity, right? They're reduced to their chair or their crutch or their cane and they become a challenge that God is laid before his humble believer. Because let's face it, it's a really hard thing to reconcile, right? like to reconcile lifelong disabilities meet it out at birth to somebody who didn't even have a chance to sin yet, right, with their concept of a loving God.

It fits perfectly well within the humanist worldview of unfortunate circumstance, but it's a downright cruel thing to sell to a person whose their God apparently decided to smite. And it's all the worst for a person who is desperate for interactions with people who don't pity them or reduce them to their disability. You know, Casey is a perfectly complete human being

that does not need God's special fucking favor. Yeah, I mean, if there was a surgery or a treatment that could give him more mobility, that'd be great. And the fact that there's technology to compensate for it already is. But this is the guy with a full and a rich life. He's got an amazing wife. He's got a lot of friends, a community that cares about him, the cutest fucking dog I've ever met in my life. And a truly stellar sense of humor. The kind of qualities that you would only find out about if you started from a point of shared humanity.

And speaking of which, I wanted to share one more story that he told me, because it's too good, not. to share. He's out in public at like a food court in the mall or something like that. And he sees this very conspicuously Christian woman sitting at a table. Right. I don't know what makes her. Like she's wearing a big crucifax or she's wearing a Jesus t-shirt, Bible opener. She's one of those, look how Christian I am type Christians, right? And she sees him and he sees her see him. So he's like, fuck, she's going to come over here and she's going to want to fucking talk to me. And eventually she does, right? Predictably, she comes up and she goes, can I pray for you? And he's like, like, well, sure, but I want to warn you, prayer doesn't work.

And she goes, well, what would make you say a thing like that? And he says, well, I spent the last five minutes praying you wouldn't come over here. They're talking about your Jesus. You may interrupt this broadcast and bring you a special news bulletin. Joining me for headlines tonight are the Wabit season and duck season of this podcast, Heath Enright and Eli Bosnick, Phyllis. Are you ready to fire away? I'm good waiting until we get home.

Wait, you go home? I've been solo with a six-year-old for eight days. I would happily take a shotgun blast to the face at this point. All right. Well, we're moving into that pre-agreed stuff. Eli's not allowed to ask the listeners for territory. So we're going to need to pause for a word from this week's sponsor, Quince. I don't even play the fighting games that I've heard of.

Okay. Well, I'm telling you this one is good. Hey, sometimes they fight in FIFA. In the game? No. Hey, Don. You're early. You're not supposed to be here until the last third of the show.

I know, but Eli already tricked me into the house and asked me to help with the ads this week. It's true. I did. All right. Well, that's nice of you. No problem. So is this the script? Yeah, I just finished it up right there. All right. Hi, I'm Don Ford, Voice of Fantasy Adventure, and I dress like a comic book store owner.

Hey. The copy, Don. If you could just read the copy. Okay, sorry. Sorry, you're right. But you don't have to dress like me. You can dress well with Quince. What's Quince?

Absolutely. No, absolutely. I am only on hitting the ads. Every once in a while. I will steal it every time. I will do. I wish I could describe. Quince specializes in everyday staples that work harder,

like their ultra-soft organic cotton teas and premium Mongolian cashmere sweaters. They're versatile. timeless and transitioned seamlessly from a casual workday to dinner out. Plus, everything at Quince is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. They work directly with ethical factories and cut out the middlemen so you're paying for high quality, not brand markup. And you'll never end up looking like a guy who's been arrested for racist cosplay like Don does. I hate, I think everybody hates you. I'm sorry, Don, it's in the script.

You fat-faced Corgi Trollope. Quint sent us some stuff to try when they became a sponsor. I love their cashmere sweaters. They keep me cozy and stylish year-round. That's why I, no illusions, personally endorse, Quince. I'm really sorry about that. Upgrade your every day. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com slash scathing.

Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and UK. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com slash scathing. Quince. You'll look better than Don. You know, this is really my fault for agreeing. Yes, it is Don, yes, it is. Yeah.

Potato bug. I like corgis. And now, back to the headlines. In our lead story tonight, one of the fictions that sat at the very heart of Trump's re-election was the Christian persecution fantasy in which the Biden administration was targeting churches and weaponizing the government against them. propping up this fabrication was the whole point of the silly religious liberty commission, right? They took a bunch of normal, like, church breaks, law has consequence situations and pretended they

added up to a pattern of discrimination to give Trump a straw man to defeat, which he could pull off simply by refraining from weaponizing the government against churches in a targeted act of discrimination. So anyway, 11 faith groups are suing Trump for weaponizing the government against them in a targeted act of discrimination. Specifically, they're using warrantless surveillance, even after a judge told them to stop it. Okay. I think I know where this is going. It's going to be Christians, not the white Christians. And spoiler. Okay, I know spying is bad, blah, blah, but given all the stuff we know about what's happened inside of churches with church people, Maybe we do some light spying in that case.

At least we should let them think we might be doing some light spying, right? It seems like that's just like a moral positive. Filling out the puzzle in a thunderstorm, moral alignment chart is trickier than one model. There's always probable cause in a church. Yeah. Now, to be fair, outvoted. It's very unlikely that we're going to see a broad Christian backlash against this particular story. Because, yes, it turns out that this one is motivated by the kind of.

of bigotry that Trump's Christian supporters can get behind. They're not targeting Christians in general. They're targeting Brown Christians. There is. Yeah. Specifically, they're staking out churches to look for Hispanic people to harass. See, what are Trump's first actions when he took office for the second time was to rescind an ICE policy known as the sensitive locations policy?

It barred or at least strongly discouraged ice from performing raids in places like hospitals, schools, and churches. Places we as a society don't generally want to bar. people from even if they broke a law. I'd like to bar people from one of those that you named. Just that's some light bar, some for white people, some light barring. See, we're always, we're moving on the chart. Head on a swivel.

You don't know where we're at. This is consistent. Look, look, I'm perfectly fine leaving churches off that list because they're, you know, they serve no necessary function. There you go. Don't get wrong. I'm good barring ice agents from literally any location we can bar them from including the ground, but I don't consider giving.

going to church to be like a necessary thing, like going to a school or to a hospital. But you know who does consider that necessary? Fucking churches. Liars. Well, that, yes, exactly. It was a tomato tomato, which is why a bunch of them suit liars slash churches, sued the Trump administration last July to stop that shit. Yeah.

Okay. Being serious for a second, that's good stuff. Using religious liberty to fuck with the Christian nationalist Gestapo that claims to love Religious Liberty, that's a nice play. It's like calling Force Field when you're a kid, you know, but in this case, you're dealing with grownups who actually believe in force

fields. Yeah. You know, like ice shows up, floors lava, floors lava, floor's lava, you can't go and they're like, fuck, that checks out, that's true. Elementally. It does. Yeah. Seeing as there are customs agents who are shooting people in the head, I'm fine, fucking

wrapping a towel around our eyes and telling them, they can't see us. Yeah, right. Right. Obviously, the laws didn't matter. Exactly. So when the lawsuit was filed, the judge quickly issued a preliminary injunction that barred ICE from performing immigration enforcement's actions at any of the churches involved in the lawsuit, right? ICE appealed that injunction, but it was upheld. So instead, they ignored it. According to a motion, the coalition filed last week, the DHS has committed multiple egregious violations involving warrantless surveillance of churches protected by the order. Churches with like, hey, we're protected by that order posted all the fuck over them.

And in response to direct evidence that ICE agents were surveilling and even entering those churches, the THS claims that it was for something other than immigration enforcement activities. So, you know, it's not actually covered by the order. Was it? But, like, that's literally all that they're legally permitted to do. So unless they're claiming the dude was there for an altar call, their excuse. just creates a new problem.

Okay, get these fucks on the stand. Just like, hey, were you worshipping a smir-god? That's gross, you're under oath, by the way. They'll come clean for sure. No, I had heard that their communion was a chilooper, and I wanted to see. You eating the smir-shmarsh-moods?

So, yeah, so I guess we can add American Baptist Church's USA and evangelical Lutherans in America to the list of strange fellows that the Trump administration has forced us into bed with. And you can add this to the even longer list of their accusations that turned out to be admissions. And while we're at it,

we can also add it to that ready list of examples we all need of why a presidential administration that respects the wall of separation is good for churches too. Yeah. And in database news, podcast listener, we tend not to get into the nitty-gritty details of child sexual abuse by religious leaders.

Primarily because one time we had Noah read the Pennsylvania report and he just kind of stared into the middle distance whenever he wasn't talking for like a month afterwards. But secondarily, this is a comedy show. And nothing kills the vibes like the constant reporting we would have to do on the rape and torture of the world's most vulnerable population if we talked about that stuff.

But this week, there are people doing the incredible difficult work of tracking this stuff. And so we're going to talk about it. Okay. The we're going to talk about it, freeze frame. It felt inappropriate just now. Yeah, I felt it. I shouldn't have posed.

I felt, at least we finally told the audio-only listeners what that noise was all about. Exactly. Now we're all information. Yeah, right. So first off, a big thanks to the Ann that didn't marry Heath

for sending us this story to Skate the News at Gmail.com. And for sending us atheist news to Skagit. Cathing News at gmail.com. We forgive you for not marrying Heath. It looked bleat for 40-something years about anyone. Well, anyone at all marrying Heath. But then one of your kind finally stepped up to the challenge. Scathing News at gmail.com.

All right. If I'm being honest, I still look bleak. But Anne, who did marry me, seems to find that amusing. So I'm rolling with it. That's good. You know, I kept telling Eli the whole time that we needed to move on to a different alphabetical station, but he insisted we go through all the, the American women alphabetically.

So, God, we were on Abbeys for so long. You remember all that? We were. Oh, man, the Abbeys took a while, but we needed a system. The point was I had a system and I stuck to it. Right. So a new resource comes to us from the Survivors Network of those abused by priests, also known as Snap or, oh, snap, if you'd like to be totally inappropriate.

And you would. I did, yeah. Snap, crackle pop, right? That scene. Six, seven. Nope. No, go ahead. I offered them snack, Crabble Pops C-7, and they said, please stop calling this is the most serious possible organization.

You're blocked. There's a cop behind you. Yeah, exactly. And they have created Protestantaccountability.org, a searchable database of more than 2,700 people publicly accused of abuse in Protestant churches. And if you're wondering why it's very specifically Protestant, I'll remind you that the Catholic version of this website, bishopaccountability.org, has already existed for more than 20 years. Yeah. Well, and all the data center protests are blocking the compute that we need for that Catholic one. Yimbi for the kids, people.

That's what it is. Now, when you point out that a website like this has to exist, the Christians in your life are going to make, like, a crappy social studies teacher excuse from your youth and tell you like, anybody can put anything on the internet. So I will point out ahead of time that the database draws on entries from court records, state attorney general reports, news accounts, and existing survivor run archives and covers. Church workers broadly, in addition to pastors and priests, including youth leaders, worship leaders, associate pastors, and staff who never held a pulpit.

Well, and another argument that they're going to make is that every profession that works with kids, has, you know, child rapists in its history. And that is true. But that's why we have accreditations and licensing for most of the jobs we regularly entrust our children to. We're trying to minimize that. Yeah. Right. Yes, exactly. We would be happy to replace this database with a license to priest that can be revoked upon child molestation. Oh, yeah. No, swapsies right away. Yeah. Oh, you weren't able to parallel park. Can't be priest. Ah, that's what it is. You hate to see it. One last thing about this story, it's worth pointing out that networks like Snap and websites like this wouldn't have to exist at all if religious organizations cleaned up their own shit. Regular listeners to the show will remember that the Southern Baptist Convention voted in 2022 to create this website and then just fucking didn't.

And to make matters worse, when they were asked about it last year, SBC Executive Committee President Jeff Lorg said that it was, quote, not a focus. Oh. Yeah. Then he threw a Wurthers and yelled smoke bomb and everybody was like, you just threw a Wothers. That was nothing. Can't see it. So. International Jeff. No. Yeah, exactly. Focus up. So yeah. Thanks to Jeff and a bunch of other evil pieces of shit websites like this have to exist. And look, I know we have a lot of listeners forced into the atheism closet, right? We have listeners who have to send their kids to religious schools or

religious programs. So maybe give your town a Google and donate to the project if you can. And in Historia Hysteria news tonight, one of the many things standing between the Trump administration and the Christian nationalist version of public education that they want is the fact that education is controlled by the states in the U.S. The federal government can certainly put their thumb on the scale through funding and no presidency has ever been quicker to do that than Trump's, but they still can't just say use this curriculum. which means that no matter how egregiously Texas agrees to miseducate their kids, some future voters might grow up knowing true shit.

That's no good. Which is terrible news if you're an elected Republican. Okay. We need to redo the children movies where Paul Giumani is the good guy and that he's not supposed to be blue. Okay. Republicans could go back to the moral high ground of Richard Nixon politics in real. But that was like a whole thing and then they're cowards. Spineless cowards.

Yes, that also works against them. Compared to Richard Nixon. Right. Yeah. But there is one school system that the federal government has total control over. That is the schools operated by the U.S. military for the children of enlisted men and women. And under Trump 2.0, they've been using those schools as a bit of like a testing ground for their vision of the nationalist reeducation. Specifically, Hagseth has.

pushed for an emphasis on classical learning. Really? By which he means jingoistic bullshit we now know to be incorrect. Okay. And that push is perfectly encapsulated by a new history textbook for high schoolers titled The Golden Thread, a history of Western tradition, volume one, the ancient world, and Christendom. Guess who the golden thread is?

Ariadne, Theseus, and the pagan gods of Greek antiquity? from the scholar of classics Peter Hegsa? Is that what? No. Actually, the opening 100 pages are a flip book of that footage of him doing pull-ups on the news. And the caption is, that is to what they're supposed to live.

That's right. I was doing endurance pull-ups. French style. This guy's cheating. He has peptides and heroin addiction or something. So, yeah, so the AP got an early copy of this thing. And they had a few historians review it. they were scathing in their critiques.

The titular golden thread is, of course, the Christian values that were passed on from one dying civilization to the next, bequeathing us with ideas like freedom and equality and gumption or whatever. They invented gumption, that's true. Yeah, right, no, exactly. It basically uses the terms Christianity and Western civilization interchangeably, but it also spends quite a few paragraphs reminding everyone that Muslims are the enemy. It describes Islam as inherently moral.

violent than Christianity, a fiction it achieves, I guess, by claiming that the Crusades were all about protecting Christians, even the one where they just attacked each other for a couple years and went home, apparently. Also, also getting a righteous genocide tattoo is

a super chill thing to do. Write that down. You're going to put that in the book. Also, I can do serpentine if I want to. I know, do that we need a left right. Do we have time for another flip book? Oh, we do because there's no content. great. Let's do the high knees. I want to do the high knees. So here's an excerpt on modern Islam to make the point. Quote, in recent decades, Islam as a religion, has understandably aroused

acute hostility from a great many non-Muslims around the world thanks to the behavior of radical Muslim terrorists. Understands. Sometimes referred to as Islamists, their atrocities have been applauded by depressingly large numbers of ordinary Muslims. End quote. It's not depressing. Well, look, that quote is correct, right? But if you leave out the context that the overwhelming majority of deaths are attributed to terrorism in the U.S. after 9-11 were perpetrated by Christian extremists, not Muslim ones,

kind of key. Who have and continue to arouse the acute hostility from a great many non-Christians, it becomes propaganda. Also, it's a weird thing to have in a history book that ends in the 1500s one way or the other. Well, the golden thread reaches through the time dimension. Yeah, sure does. You can find your way back. Originally, the book was called the golden noose, but they thought it was too subtle.

Yeah, right. Yeah. Now, the books publisher says that the book was peer reviewed by 15 scholars, but since they developed the work in conjunction with Christian pseudo-university Hillsdale College, there's reason to question their working definition of scholar. And peer. Yeah, right. According to the real scholars, the AP gave it to, it's so biased and nakedly political that it doesn't even qualify as a work of scholarship, which is, to be fair, exactly what Pete Hegzeth was going for. And in Ballyhoo news, religious assholes make for some strange bedfellows, Muslims and Jews, atheists and liberal Christians, and this week, I find myself on the side of an asshole tourist because,

despite the obvious shittiness of making an Instagram post about how you're violating a national day of silence and reflection, Bali is throwing a guy in jail for a year over it, so I'm on his side, I guess. Okay. If it was just for using Instagram ever at all ever, I would be praising this. but then Indonesia ruined a great prison sentence by using religion as the rationale. They fucked the whole thing up. Yeah, I was with you. This is so fucking took.

I'm also, I'm a big fan of a national day to shut the fuck up and leave me alone, right? Like, this is a tough one. It is. Yeah, just do a secular shut the fuck up day. Oh, that works. Yes. Right.

So, first off, big thanks to Fred spread them cheeks, G for sending us this story to Skathingly News at gmail.com. Fred is thanks for sending us atheist news to Skate the news. at gmail.com. We will continue to inform the younger generations that you are the man who invented eating ass. He did.

It's true. If anything will win over Gen Z, it's that. Scathing News at gmail.com. I'm not a proctologist, but I'll look into it. Fred coined that. Oh, did he? In his memoirs. I looked it up. The term analingus was coined actually in 1886. By Fred. That's what I said.

Overlap. Yeah. Fred was there. Just barely makes it, yeah. Right. So the perp in this situation is Lusian Andrin Zagragan. This is a catchy, a 26-year-old construction worker from Switzerland. Also a Bond villain, fun fact. Yeah. Oh, sure, yeah. Played by Christopher Walken, for sure. Yes, Zagracken. And I would be in favor of arresting this dude for literally anything, except insulting religion. First of all, he went to

alone. Already, jail. Then, when hotel staff informed him, hey, tomorrow is our national day of silence and remembrance. According to the Times, he immediately took to Instagram to brag about how he was breaking those rules while swearing about how crazy the holiday

was. And look, here at the scathing atheist, we love a good swear about a religious, stupid thing. But we also have the head out of our ass's ability not to do it on social media while blaspheming in fucking Indonesia.

Or at least in the name of our brand, I hope we do. At minimum, I'd make sure my name wasn't the noise of pure evil before I think of that. Yes. Yes, Zagragan sounds like something

that you would be like it would be unleashed by a spiteful God or something. Unleased the Zagin. It's going to wreck a bunch of local websites. So Zagruggan gets thousands of comments. We need to Israel, to fight the Zagrug. Yes.

So Zagragan gets thousands of comments on his video. He takes it down and then he reposts it with the caption, approximate translation. They want smoke. At which point, hotel staff actually let him know that he could be in real legal trouble for his actions. I hate him so much. So at that point, Mr. Zagragan reached out to a senator in the Indonesian Regional Representative counsel to apologize. How'd that go?

Yeah. So when he goes to that guy's house, he's arrested. And while he was being arrested, he threw the side hand sign at the camera. Sorry, this one? This one. He did this while he was being arrested. While he's being arrested and led into court. You can see it.

It's on video. So I'm guessing he wasn't quite as contrite as he was claiming. And then he was sentenced to a year in prison. And that is so fucking stupid that I'm, I have. on this guy's side. I'm on the West Side Hand Sign guy's side. Okay. No, I actually did watch this video. My favorite part is what he tries to add like some other hands. He does this and then he tries to do like this one or something, some other letter. But he forgot that he was handcuffed. Yeah. So he was just like, oh, fuck. Okay. Moving on. The saddest part of this story, though, is that this holiday is March 19.

And it says in the article that he showed up for his vacation on February 10th. And the idea that a 26-year-old construction worker can take a fucking six-week vacation in Bali is depressing as hell if you're an American. Oh, my fucking God. We don't get, we are the bosses and we don't get six weeks of vacation. And he's got a heart attack. I think we gave you two weeks. He's just skiing and eating cheese and chocolate. Fuck that guy.

That's what the other symbol was. It was the reclette symbol. Oh, this is raclette. Interesting. Yeah. This is the drippy, melty cheese off of the big wheel. Sure, yeah, yeah, now that makes sense.

That's what it is. So, yeah, there are efforts being made to extradite this guy, check on his welfare, and assure that he isn't murdered in prison for insulting God's very special quiet time. The point is, take it from us, scathing atheists. God is stupid, and religion deserves to be mocked.

But you, Zagragan, are real, and your safety should come first. You can fucking shit on Muhammad when you're safely back home. And even then, if you're doing Muhammad, maybe keep it in the green circle. Yeah. Also, yeah, get an Android phone.

It's gross that you have an iPhone. And finally tonight. Why would you say such a terrible thing? In Tribulation Raptor. We can't continue the podcast every night. I said, I said Tribulation Raptor, Eli. I'm sorry. It's going to interrupt?

It was very. Tribulation Raptor. I'll give you a second. Darren Bailey is the GOPNNob. for governor of Illinois, and he is quite certain that humans and dinosaurs were living on the earth at the same time. And he's mad that you asked him about it. He's mad at you for asking. And over in Colorado, the GOP nominee for governor is Victor Marx. And Marx actually has some evidence to back up Darren Bailey. Victor Marks calls himself a high-risk missionary. And during his

missionary impossibles. He's taken part in multiple magical battles against reptile demons. That is high risk. It sure is. And those could be leftover dinosaurs. Sure. That are also demons.

And in the spirit of intellectual honesty, I think we should hear him out. So, we're going to talk about it. So that one was more tasteful. I liked that. Thank you. That was better.

it is yet another time that I regret that Angelo is not a full-time employee and six guys. I mean, if we would just chain him to his art table like I asked, he would get it done. Fair enough. And a big thanks to Eric for sending us a link

to scathing news at gmail.com. When we fire up the demon dinosaur action figures at our young earth creationism store that secretly raises money for Democrats, Eric gets first dibs on his favorite one, whichever one he wants. Fuck, yeah, unless he tries to take the demonic ankylosaurus,

in which case you can go fuck himself. Yeah, obviously. That one is age. So you have two choices. You can go fuck yourself or pick anything on that. So we have the troodon. I'll start with Victor Morgan, just in Colorado. Well, it's in the dark.

Who you might remember Victor from a few months ago. We talked about him. When he emerged as the frontrunner in the GOP primary, it felt like a good time to mention a few things about his back. Story, quick recap for anyone who missed it. He's the founder of all things possible ministries and now begin asterisk. There's going to be a while with this asterisk. He's a master of karate.

He trained federal agents with his hands-on wrist control seminars and dive-roll colloquia. He's rescued over 45,000 women and children. from sex traffickers. And he has multiple righteous kills during his career as a Christ warrior, dating back to age seven for his first kill. No questions. Those are classified, hands down. You cannot ask about his righteous kills.

Also, he is a self-described reluctant exorcist who often exercises demons with. the help of angelic swords or sometimes just over the phone. He does phone exercising and long asterisk. And if you're curious to learn more about Victor, he wrote an autobiography called The Dangerous Gentleman, a call for men to be courageous in a culture of fear. And the foreword of that book was written by none other than Charles Kirk. Oh, I enjoyed this book. I wish it had more chapters on dodging, but I don't know if I'll ever need them.

I bet he still uses the angel sword on the phone exorcisms too. They probably a little cata he does over Zoom or something. 100% he's doing a cada. I want a sword. His angel swords. We'll get you a sword. Can I have a sword? You got a birthday coming up.

Eli, did you want a sword? Yeah. That was all? You just wanted to know that you wanted a sword? Yeah. Okay. So that guy, I was just describing Victor Marks. Noah, he called out my not funny, I want a sword joke.

And then he brought it back so it's going to be harder to end it out. It's going to be harder to end it. Well, you're saying, well, this makes it harder to him. So that guy, Eli, good bit, loved it. That guy ended up winning his primary. And now he's got a chance to become the governor of Colorado. The polls, to be fair, are not looking great for Victor Marx, but they should be looking zero for him instead of something like 38%, which is insane.

Well, a journalist from Talking Points Memo named Hunter Walker agrees with me on that, agrees with me that 38 or anything above zero is insane. And Hunter Walker decided to read some of Victor Marx's book so that we don't have to. Now, that being said, it sounds like a delightful romp that might need a segment one day. It sounds like a great book. I will kill you with my sword. Right.

And also, like, I mean, think about that history book we have to read now. Golden Threat. Okay. Well, you're going to hear a little bit about the book. You decide after hearing it. Don't answer yet. So here's a few details I learned about. The book begins with the story of a secret mission to Myanmar

that involved training up some warriors to do some operations. but naturally, Victor got there and he had to be tested first. So the prospective warrior squad attacked him all at the same time. They swarmed him. According to Marks, the group was more than 10 men. And yet, he easily defeated them with nothing but a plastic training blade. Yeah, I know. I have a copy of the book right here.

That part reads, quote, and I was like, And then they were like, and I was like, and I was like, and I was like, and whoop-swash. End quote. That's very accurate.

You know, the toughest thing about a training blade is when people won't admit when you got them. It's really lame. Right. I got you. Obviously got you.

That gets you. You have to respect the that gets you. Okay, moving on to reptile demons. That's my new gender neutral greeting, by the way. Reptile demons. I like it.

Reptile demons. to reptile demons. So, according to his book, Victor had to exercise multiple reptile demons. Reluctantly, I guess, he exercised reptile demons, kind of in a snit. In one of those encounters, Victor came across a girl in a youth prison, and he started praying with her. But then she turned into a reptile demon, and he had to fight the demon, of course. It was clear, by the way, that she was, in fact, a reptile demon when her eyes started morphing into reptile demon eyes.

And also, she smelled like sulfur all of a sudden. And he almost threw up from the smell. He's going to get sued by the Christian band Demon Hunter any minute. Okay, real quick, just to touch on the reality, best case scenario, this guy is lying about fighting a child. Worst case scenario, he's admitting to fighting a child. Yep, yep, it's one of those two. And he lost so hard he threw up and had to be like, it was a solver smell.

I think it's, I think he didn't admit when I got her. I'm pretty sure it's B. So that was one of them. Another encounter happened in Iraq. And this one was even tougher. Victor was praying with a captured ISIS fighter. And, um, okay, I'm going to let Victor tell the story. Quote, the ISIS fighter's face became contorted, morphing into a hardened angular

mask within seconds. Holy corn flakes, I thought, what is happening? I feel like if someone turns into a demon, you get a pass to say fuck. Yeah, no, God will be forgiving. Non-Victor Marx. He continues, muscles bulged out of his forehead.

His eyes narrow. How would that help to have muscles in your forehead? You can do a forehead punch with the muscle. You can pop it out. Stupid comment. His eyes narrow. Stranger still, his ears It's not racist.

His ears got pointy. Ears started sticking out from his head and looking sharp like a troll's. Oh, I'll just search my ready visual database for the way, Ray, that troll ears look to fill in the blanks. He was right there with that information. He continues, somebody else in the courtyard caught photos of the transformation. and it's all there in living color from start to finish, end quote. And before you ask, you cannot see the photos, hands down. Marcus would not show the photos.

He did not respond to multiple queries by Talking Points Memo to see any of those photos. Well, he did respond, but mostly by grabbing their wrists and encouraging them to come at him like this. Okay. Talking Points Membo is a real news organization. And you know they know he's lying, right? And he was like, there's real photos. And they were like, can we see the photos? And he was like, no.

And they had to break to courtroom and be like, can we see them? We're just, you know, I get to write this at the end. Multiple. Why did you agree to this interview? Remember how badly it went for you with that other guy from the local news? Okay. Yeah. So with all that evidence in mind.

Let's circle back to Governor hopeful Darren Bailey and the dinosaurs. Bailey was the GOP nominee in Illinois four years ago for governor as well. And J.B. Pritzker easily won that. And given the political makeup of Illinois, Republicans, they're just giving up. So they let Darren Bailey try again this year. Pritzker, of course, is fully aware of that. And now Pritzker is just fucking around with his campaign against Bailey, mostly for his own amusement.

and our amusement. For context, Bailey is the founder of Full Armor Christian Academy, and they used Young Earth Creationism textbooks from Bob Jones University Press at that school. So Pritzker decided to fuck with him at the Illinois State Fair. Bailey was attending Republican Day at the fair last week. That's apparently something they have. And Bailey was doing a campaign rally. So Pritzker hired a bunch of people.

to wear very large inflatable dinosaur costumes and carry-around signs that said dinosaurs against Darren Bailey and they went all around. Amazing. Amazing. You know that he had something good up his sleeve when we were like, we come out starting with the reptile demon guy and then move on to this, too. Podcast listener, there are so many reasons to check out our visual products on YouTube and now on patreon.com.

Noah's sweet hair, Heath's amazing background. But if this picture of six guys in inflatable dino costumes doesn't do it, nothing well. Nothing well. Am I pointing right? I'm so sorry, Morgan. It's one of these. Just a natural organic plug solid.

And by the way, I wasn't just editorializing earlier when I said that Dan Bailey, I don't fucking care. The guy, Bailey, the Republican guy. he's mad at you for asking about his dinosaur beliefs. He really is. He got interviewed at the fair, and he got asked if he thinks humans and dinosaurs coexisted. His answer was, were you there? I wasn't either.

I don't know. Normal. Exact words. And just a good rule of thumb, if someone asks, it doesn't have to be an interviewer, if anyone asks you about your belief and then you get mad, you should. you should kill yourself for being a Republican. So yeah, that's what's going on with the party of Lincoln these days in a couple of states and their gubernatorial raises.

It appears that Bailey and Marx are not in communication about this, but I really think they should be. So, Darren, Victor, I know you're listening. If you two get together and then you want to fire up a new podcast, I am happy to help you with that. T-Rexorcist pod. There you go. Oh shit.

We can make it happen. Incredible. All right. Well, it looks like Eli and I have to have to stop helping the bad guys talk with Heath again. So we're going to wrap up the headlines there. Heath, Eli, thanks, as always. Come on. And when we come back, Bible Peace Theater will officially move into the book no longer sits flat without closing itself pages of the pie.

One of the most remarkable things about the New Testament is just how quickly it runs out of shit to say. It starts off telling the same story four times. and within two books of that, we're clearing out Paul's inbox, which we're going to continue with in this installment of Bible Peace Theater. I'm just saying you look like the director of a Lithuanian cam shop. Okay, I will buy a new computer and it will have a new webcam. And also you're going to buy a background for your life. We can't all live in a museum.

We can, though. Just buy nice things. Hey, fellas, you're good. Are you ready for Bible Peace Theater? You mean the part of the show where we read the Bible so our listeners don't have to? We sure are. Where were we? A book of James.

Ooh, this is a pretty famous one, right? Indeed it is. So who wrote this one? Well, Here me, brothers, for I am James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I speak unto you. Aren't you his brother?

Sir, sorry what? Yeah, aren't you Jesus? brother? Oh, yes, yes. I'm, I'm his brother and I bring word of salvation. Each man must bring. What was he like as a kid?

He was fine. He was fine. If a man lacks wisdom. Did he have superpowers or anything poor? I mean, yeah, thank you. It depends on the gospel you're reading, but yeah, yeah, he had

superpowers. Anyway, as a was saying about wisdom. Did he sleep on the top bunk or the bottom bunk? The top. Was it to be closer to his dad? I mean, that's what he said. Fucking, fucking liar. Oh, there it is.

Okay. So if we're all done with questions about my upbringing, we are not done at all. I would like to begin my speech thing. So first and foremost, no matter what happens to you, consider it all good. Right, but it's not, though. Yeah, bad stuff does happen.

Did you know bad stuff happens? Right, right, right. But you should consider it all good. Why? I don't know. People really like this. They're going to, like, put it on pillows and hallmark cards about grief. It's going to be good.

Oh, that's stupid. Okay, well, consider it not stupid. Okay, let's see. So, um, uh, don't be an asshole. Don't be mean. If you're mean and religious, your, your religion doesn't count. That's an important one. Uh, James? Yeah, question. What? Okay, this is all a little counter to what we heard before. Can you, like, sum it up for us? Uh, yeah, okay, sure. Um, pure religion and undefiled before God and the father is, is this. To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction. Wow, James, that's wonderful. That's really going to just... And to keep himself unspotted from the world.

There it is. I think that last part means hating gay people. I know you do, Craig. It does mean that, to be clear. Okay, let's see. What else we have? Don't treat rich people better than poor people. Oh, yeah. Love your neighbor as yourself. Oh, I love that one. And also breaking one law breaks all the laws.

I would. What? Because he that says, do not adulter also said, do not kill. That doesn't make more sense now. But, but be merciful. I think he thinks that fixes it. I did fix it just now. No.

Okay, if someone is naked and hungry and you say, be clothed and fed, that doesn't help anybody. You just all asses it. Oh, good. Nice thing. Yeah. Okay, good.

Good. Faith without works is dead. Asterisk. Hey. Hey, uh, James. How are you doing? Hi, man. Hey, who are you? Time traveler.

Time traveler from the future. Yeah, just real quick. So, do you know that the whole rest of the book has said the opposite of that thing that you just said? I feel like my stuff is implied. No, no, it is not. It is very directly refuted. Okay, well, either way, mine is better. So.

Okay, it is. Technically, I mean, if the question is who goes to hell, then the threat, is generally sort of immoral, no matter what, like the standards are. But in a vacuum, in a vacuum, doing stuff is better than thinking stuff. Yes, you write about that. Okay. But, but here's the catch. If you say this part, you're going to cause a schism that kills like a billion people.

A billion people, like at once? No, weird question. No, not at once, but like total. They're like a billion people. in the words. Why? Why would that happen? German guy is going to be really hung up on this and then start his own thing based on it and then it's like war, war, war, war, war.

Okay, okay. But then why don't you go back and see that guy? He's fucking crazy. He's not going to listen to me. Everyone told him he was wrong and he was still like, you know what? I think I'm going to keep it. My stuff was good. Sure. Okay. Got it. I tried. Hey, while I'm here, did Jesus kill a guy when he was a kid?

That story is apocryphal. Okay. So now? No, no, he did. I knew it. I could feel it. Okay, everyone. Sorry about the time guy. So, um, you know how all of you know for sure there's one God? Oh, yeah, of course. Yeah, well, keep in mind, so do the demons.

You know, I wonder if that's ever awkward. Oh, hey, Satan. Hey, Alan. What's up? Uh, your mind? Oh, sorry. Beazov, Lord of Disease. What is up? Oh, that's much better. What's you up to? Uh, well, I was writing a song that's going to make everyone fat.

You want, you want to hear it? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But da-da-da-ta-ta-da, I'm loving it. Oh, I like it. It's catchy. Uh, and how does that defeat God, though? Not everything I do defeats God, man. I can have hobbies. I mean, I mean, right, right, right.

So that was my question. We know God exists and he's all powerful, right? I mean, I'm hoping he gets sort of defanged in the midterms, but yes, yes, we know that. And we know that people going to hell is a part of the plan because, well, it happens. I mean, look around. Sure, yeah, sure. So aren't we kind of working for him? It's like the taxes, right?

You pay your taxes that enforce drug laws, even if you don't believe in drug laws. Ah, got it, got it, all right. And plus sometimes I do other stuff. Like the song. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, like quiet quitting. Exactly like quiet quitting, yes. Yeah.

Okay, also, everybody, you need to control how you speak to people. You know how humans have tamed like every kind of animal, right? I don't think we have. Sure we have. Yes, we have. We definitely have not. What? Name an animal that we have not tamed.

All the bugs. Yeah. Okay. Those were examples. We've killed all those things, though. That's killing isn't taming. Yes. Yes, it is.

We teach them to be dead. That counts. The point is you gotta say nice things to people. Okay, whatever man. Don't tame my dog over it. Okay. Okay, so like, here's another one. Everything bad comes from, from lust.

Really? I feel like murder is worse than lust. No, no, no, because hear me out. You lust for the stuff you don't have because you don't have, Because you don't ask for them. And when you do ask, you ask wrong. Because you don't ask for your lust to be satisfied.

And that is why you have affairs. So it makes sense. James, do you even know what lust means? Yes, yes, I do. Fuck you. Okay, another reminder. that being rich is terrible. That's an important one.

If you're rich, God, he just fucking hates you. And so do the people who work for you. That's definitely true. Yeah. Also, in the end times, your gold and silver, they're going to rust, and then the rust is going to devour you

as if it's fire. Man, I wonder what that'll be like. What that'll be like. What that'll be. What is that. Hey, everyone. back to the science fraud podcast. I'm a guy you recognize from YouTube Reels in a room that feels

way too dimly lit to be an interview. I'm joined today by Craig Haber, a tech CEO who could not look less human if he was worked on by a special effects team for weeks at a time. Craig, thank you for joining us. I am the son. A normal thing to say that I have no pushback on. So let's get the elephant out of the room. Ever since Christ came back, a lot of mainstream press outlets, traditional press, have been saying the sentient rust that jumped off your money is devouring your flesh. How do you respond to that? Well, I mean, look, it's obviously disappointing that there's been slower adoption than we hoped, but I still stand by my statement that 90% of the American workforce will be replaced by rust in the next 11 minutes. Wow, that is a high number

that you would have to be a dim child to believe. And to be clear, I do believe that. You do. I made you promise that before I came on. Cool. Yes, you did. So I think the obvious question is what the American worker is going to do in that new world with the Russ. I hope that most of them will become tech CEOs like myself.

Obviously. All right. Well, let's take a break for some ads for some Chinese sawdust disguised as dick pills. and then we'll shoot big guns for some reason. My robot dogs have guns. Normal and cool. Exactly. Also, most importantly of all, do not swear.

Like, don't say fuck? No, no, like, don't swear by heaven when you say stuff. That's the most important thing? Yes, yes, it is. Also, your prayers can heal the sick. Oh, well that's awesome. Dave, you've been feeling sick, right? Oh, totally, yeah. Right, right.

When a man does reach out to God to heal the sick. Okay, so how do we start? I don't know, man, just go. My stomach hurts. He reaches up to the heavens. Slow for the heavens. Help Dave. Give Dave help.

Now. Go. Go. What are you doing? I don't know, man. You said go. Yeah, but like, try to go with like a normal. English sentence. Maybe that's...

Years of heaven are open to those who reach out, is what I was saying, to pray for the sick. Dear God, please heal James Selma. There we go. You don't, you definitely don't need to yell, man. He's all the way up in heaven. You know what? That's a good point.

No, it's not, Craig. For when one man reaches for the Lord, are you better yet? Okay, one, I'm not in heaven, and two, No. Jesus's brother. Jesus's brother.

It's not working. That's because it's fake. I'm lying. Great. Now everyone's yelling. And on that candid admission, we're going to wrap up here, but there's still more biblical bullshit to come on the next installment of Bible Peace Theater. Before we devolve into static once again, I want to thank everybody who came out and saw us in D.C. and everybody who came out and saw me in Sarnia, incidentally, Baja Khan is a fantastic

conference that should be on your radar for next year. Anyway, that's all the blast movie 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 look up for a brand-new episode of our sister-so's hot friend God-a-Fo movies, debuting at 7am Eastern on Tuesday, and an even newer episode of our half-sister-show-debue at Wednesday, debuting at noon. Obviously, this show would unshow if I'd like to thank Heath Enright for being the best, and Lucinda Lusin for being the best, and Lucinda Lusions, for being even better than that. Incidentally, Lucinda and I both send our apologies for the long-twin hiatus, but promise you will be back soon. I also want to thank Don Ford, Voice of Fantasy and Adventure for being the face of fantasy and adventure again this week.

that's right Don's lovely visage is available for you if you were watching this episode on YouTube. But most of all, of course, I want to thank this week's best people, though I will have to wait until next week to thank them by name. Sorry, crazy week, very short turnaround to get this episode out, but it's not that I don't love you as much or anything. Incidentally, if you'd like to hear your name alongside theirs, you can make a per episode donation at patreon.com whereby you want to only access to an extended ad-free version of every episode, or you can make a one-time donation by clicking on the donate button on the right side of the homepage at scalingadies.com. And if you'd like to help, but not in a having less money kind of way, you can also help a time. by leaving a five-star review, telling a friend about the show and following us on social media. And speaking of social media, Tim Robertson and Lily Bosnick, handled that for us.

Our cartoonist is Angelo Madrid from Madrid-2s and our audio engineer is Morgan Clark, who also wrote all the music that was used in this episode, which was used with permission. If you have questions, comments or death, that you find all the content to them on the content page at scanning aadious.com. Hear me, brothers, for I am James, a servant of God and the Lord Jesus Christ, and I speak unto you a message that you should be. interrupt me now. Wait, wait. Fuck.

Sorry, do that over again. I had to take care of something on the screen. I'm sorry. He's on a really hard You were doing great vamping though. Just keep going. Swish.

This content is scanned credentialed, which means you can report instances of harassment, abuse, or other harm to their hotline at 617-2494255 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.