The Scathing Atheist - 708: Bakker's Doesn't Edition

Episode Date: October 8, 2026

In this week’s episode, Pete Hegseth creates a department of HOLY war, we learn from a Fox News interview that Jesus is the gay, the truth, and the life, and that ding you hear is the oven telling us the Baker’s done.---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:Pete Hegseth creates a Pentagon Office of Religious Affairs reporting directly to him: https://apnews.com/article/pete-hegseth-defense-department-pentagon-religion-41405eb6dd60ca5a3f45fe3387f82952https://www.friendlyatheist.com/p/pete-hegseth-is-centralizing-religioushttps://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/2026/10/pete-hegseth-state-of-force-address/688852/Eminem is featured on Kid Rock's new Christian album 'Halfway 2 Jesus': https://www.detroitnews.com/story/entertainment/music/2026/10/01/eminem-kid-rock-join-forces-for-track-from-rocks-new-christian-album/92044133007/Daily Wire’s filming permit suspended for latest movie: https://deadline.com/2026/10/daily-wire-filming-temporarily-suspended-montana-1237146172/Turkish court orders access ban on popular news portal over 'LGBTQ+ propaganda': https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/turkish-court-orders-access-ban-popular-news-portal-over-lgbtq-propaganda-2026-09-30/Christian influencer claims to have died and met testosterone Jesus: https://www.friendlyatheist.com/p/a-christian-influencer-says-he-went---This Week in Misogyny:Woman on United flight forced back into seat next to masturbating creep: https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/united-airlines-flight-masturbating-incident/6551525/FTA to tie funding to birth rates: https://www.politico.com/news/2026/10/06/babies-marriage-transit-funding-trump-01107399

Warning, this podcast contains all the cuss words but cock sucker. And now it has that one too. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by Mint Mobile, Quince, and by the new manliness supplement for the reluctant low-tie soldier testosteroneian cheese. Testoster and the Defense Department just ordered four million cases this shit, even though it was a joke. Fuck. And now, The Scathing Atheist. It's Thursday.

It's October 8th. And it's international lesse. Day. Ooh, globalized a lesbian defaude. Okay, Miss Rachel.

I'm no illusions. I'm Eli Bosnick. I'm Heathenright. And from Buzz Aldrin's, New Jersey, Annover, Michigan, and Waycross, Georgia. This is the skating list.

On this week's episode, Pete Hagseth creates a Department of Holy War. We learned from a Fox News interview that Jesus is the gay, the truth, and the life. And that ding you hear

is the oven telling us that the baker's done. But first, the diet trial. So I spent the last week in Portland, Oregon, which is great for like my mental health and my relaxation. But man, it fucking sucks for coming up with diatribe ideas. Nothing pissed me off all week. And that's a week with airline traveling it, right?

Like Oregon is so relaxing that not even the TSA could piss me off. Right. Maybe it was just that groovy carpet at PDX that was keeping me calm. But something was doing it to the point where I started to get kind of worried. I'm flying home and I'm like, man, shit, I'm really going to have to scrape together something for this week's diatribe. I'm going to have to repurpose a headline or something. But then I got back home and I got so pissed off at the place that I lived, sucked so much more than Portland, I figured that would feel a diatribe's worth of rage. Because, look, obviously,

the swamps of South Georgia are never going to match the natural beauty of the, you know, Columbia River Gorge in the Oregon coast. But we could at least not suck culturally. I mean, I actually, I spent very little time getting out and enjoying Oregon. I was too busy enjoying its people. I was too busy basking in the radical acceptance that defines the city's attitude. A city where a shaggy-haired 50-year-old hippie can walk down the street smoking a joint and feel like a bit of a square. I'm sure it's no paradise.

I'm sure that people who live there could give me a laundry list of complaints and tell me about places where their city's vaunted, wokeness fall short. I mean, hell, the whole time I was there where I got sunny, beautiful weather. You know, there's not exactly a Pacific Northwest mainstay. But when you compare it to the relentless, oppressive, suffocating homogeneity of Waycross Georgia, it's fucking utopia. And that is probably a big reason why conservatives are so desperate to demonize it, right? Like when I would tell people that I was going to be vacationing in Portland, Oregon, I got one of two diametrically opposed responses. From all my liberal friends and my liberal family, I got stuff like, oh, you lucky bastard, what a beautiful city you're going to have so much fun.

be sure to get some voodoo donuts. From my conservative acquaintances, I'm not really friends with fascists, but when you live in South Georgia, you can't help but know a few. Anyway, to a person, every one of them acted like I just told them I was going to be vacationing in North Darfur. Because, of course, according to Fox News, Portland is a lawless city of public kitty litter boxes and forced gender transitions. It's a war zone, a Molotov cocktail hurling, antifal armies demanding minimum wage increase. and the sacrifice of Christian virgins. It's a hell on earth, populated entirely by homeless mad Max extras feasting upon the bones of park ducks and

unborn babies. Never mind that it's the city that famously responded to violent provocations by the state with inflatable frog costumes. It's scary, damn it. It's a scary place. And there's obviously a purpose behind all this, right? Because Portland's fucking amazing. The last thing they want is for their terrified bumpkins on their audience to actually

experience what woke feels like on a citywide basis. Think about it, like Minneapolis, Chicago, L.A., all these places that they want to occupy or in some instances offer up to Iranian bombs are all the kind of places where even a week-long vacation might be enough to get a way-cross redneck to say, hey, y'all, maybe we're doing everything wrong. After all, fear of the other is the animating force behind fascism. And when people see a concrete example of embracing the other, and then they see that the end result is a really groovy city where, yes, a lot of people are way different than them and

no, it isn't any kind of burden on their existence. How do you convince them that otherness is an existential threat? I mean, nothing emphasizes the point that other people being gay and trans doesn't actually affect your life any more than a fucking crowd of gay and trans people being around you, right? But in a sense, I actually find it very encouraging that they're shifting this focus so close to home. Right. A decade and a half ago, they were doing it. in this same shit, but their focus was in Europe. Fox News and Republicans that it shows for were terrified

of their flocks going to Europe and realizing that being environmentally conscious and socialist is actually better for everybody but the billionaires. And then 10 years ago, they started to really shift in that focus to Canada. And then about five years ago or so, they started shifting that focus to cities right

here in the good old US of A. And I know I'm oversimplifying here. Obviously, they've been demonizing all of those places the whole time and I don't have any hard evidence to prove that slow creep that I'm asserting here. It's just a feeling. But it sure as hell feels like they're reinforcing an ever smaller bunker. And if their level of fear is anything to go by, they sure as hell at least think we're winning. They're talking about your Jesus.

I interrupt this broadcast and bring you a special news bulletin. Joining me for headlines tonight are the rack and opinion of this podcast, Heath Enright and Eli Bosnick. Fellas, are you ready to convert circular motion into linear motion? Oh, I'm going to save so much daylight. It's crazy. I'm going to be a little round about it. There you go. And on that note, I'm going to steer us into an ad break with a word from our first sponsor this week.

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Okay, well, that's probably true. No, that's true. That's true. And now, back to the headlines. In our lead story tonight, Pete Hegseth still has a job. Why? He does. A little bit.

A couple of weeks ago, we talked. about a proposed impeachment in the house, but that's currently stalled because the house is, we don't have a house right now. We don't have one right now. They're on sabbatical until they, you know, finish the midterms and then they can come back. They got that novel. They've been working on, you know, publisher parish. So until then, Pete remains the quantum defense criminal in charge of our entire military. And during his state of the force address, last week, That's really what he called it. Yeah, yeah.

Evil Universe PD Pancakes, which I don't like, announced a new office that is not related to any of his three marriages called the Office of Religious Affairs or the ORA. It's going to provide first class religious support and report directly to him. You know he was heartbroken that he didn't get to count the O and of so that he could call it URA. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. That's what he was going for. So this is just the latest of many different ways that Pete's been injecting religious nonsense into the military.

So the Pentagon PR team, I guess they're starting to learn the pattern of how this goes. And they gave a pre-backlash memo that basically said, hey, Jeff Blackwell, who never skips legday, by the way. This will not compel religious participation, favor one faith, or diminish the rights of personnel of any faith, or lack thereof. Here's the thing. It will, though. It will. They're lying.

He hasn't named the leader of the aura, but whoever that is, maybe Doug Wilson, I don't know. That person, whoever they are, is going to coordinate spiritual resources,

including faith-based homeschool support for military families. I have a funny feeling they're not going to provide lessons about the Quran for Muslim families in the military. Yeah, probably not.

you know, lessons about real science for atheist families. I don't think so. Yeah, keep in mind that we already reported on military schools teaching children Christian propaganda earlier this year. So this is just an expansion of that program into not bothering to hide it anymore, I guess. Yeah, right, which is really saying something from a guy who already has this shit tattooed on his body. That's true. The memo also explained how the aura is going to have faith-based.

initiatives to help with suicide prevention. Seems like not doing a stupid war and not, I don't know, deploying 5,000 sailors for over 300 days under terrible conditions on the USS. Lincoln, that might be a good start. Another good idea might be mental health care. Pete is going with none of the above. He wants the aura to prevent suicide by using chaplains who focus more on God and less on therapy. that seems like a terrible plan, right? That's like trying to keep kids from skipping school

by telling them there's a super cool water park next door. I mean, honestly, I feel like the only honest anti-suicide message that PD can give to soldiers is, look, if you give me a minute, my inept handling of the military is going to take care of that shit for you, okay? You wanted the mortal sin to worry about even. Right. And just in case the message of Christian nationalism was a bit subtle. Pete ordered chaplains to stop wearing their rank on their uniform, and instead,

they're going to wear religious insignia. So, yeah, let's get those Jewish chaplains wearing a patch with the star David. Sounds super chill. It's a great idea. And Pete also made sure to throw in some of his signature style of oratory, I guess we could call it, kind of like, you know, Dr. Seuss doing slam poetry at the Klan rally. You might remember classics like, Maximum lethality, not tepid legality. Pete was doing one of those bits again. He loves to rhyme, sort of. And he said, quote, no fatties, no slur word for trans people, no beardos, no weirdos, no wimps, no radicals.

Ideological clowns are out. The patriotic cowboys are in with testosterone testing on top. Okay. guys, I know that Kamala Harris and Trump were exactly the same. Obviously, exactly the same. But I feel like maybe whoever she had appointed to head up the Department of Defense probably wouldn't have dropped the T-sler in a speech. But that's just me. That's just me.

Champaign liberal, you know, I just... Also, like, how can they pretend not to want to fuck dudes and still be? brag about having testosterone on top, right? Give me a fucking break. And on bottom. And we also got one other new project from Pete called Fortress America. He decided that every military base needs to be self-sustaining, produce its own electricity. Sounds reasonable if sane people were in charge.

But no, it's Pete Hagseth. He didn't specify how the power is going to work, but I have to assume it's not going to be solar panels. Maybe we get some fuel from that thing Pete uses to start his car. I don't know. Regardless, I only mention this I only mention this because I blow start it. There's this

clunky as fuck acronym that they forced into this. Fortress America stands for federal operations for resilience, troop resources, energy, supply, and survivability.

America. America's like who he's talking to. He's addressing the country that we're in. In these uncertain times, I can't tell you much, but I can tell you with complete certainty that Pete Hagseth is picturing a giant hamster. I can't promise. It happens, but I know it has been suggested.

I can also tell you the skin color of the guy he's picturing running in that thing as well, the religion of that guy. confident prediction. So yeah, that's what the head of the entire U.S. military has been working on. Chaplains and sweet acronyms. Nothing else going on. He's glad he had so much free time.

He's got a cover. And in Wants to Fuck Kids Rock News. If you asked me how relevant I thought country outlaw Kid Rock would be to the political discourse of the year 2026, I would have hopefully, I'll say it, naively replied, not at all. And yet, from the Great American Fair to a failed national tour, to really let these words sink in that video he made with the head of Health and Human Services. Massacring Bud Light with an AR-18. Yeah, yeah, right. Yeah.

I have talked about Kid Rock an awful lot this year. Well, apparently I'm not done yet because he just released a Christian album with Eminem on a guest track. I get Eminem is a big draw. But kid, Mr. Rock, if you bring in RFK Jr. to rap on your next one, you will go platinum so fucking fast just from me. I'll go to the front row of every concert. Fuck, yeah. Maha with Tabah will make.

a fortune. It's right there. It's right there. He's giving you gold. RFK Jr. Your own auto tune. And then when the fast rap part comes up, Little Worm pops out of his head with a headset, Mike. This is fucking gold, Bob. Call us, Bobby. We've got it for you. We've got it.

Now, look, I know for a lot of people, the headline here is that Eminem is appearing on a Christian album or it somehow aligns him with Maga. And while I wouldn't bet on the politics of any white man who bleached his hair blonde at any point in time, think it's more a case of him and Kid Rock both being Detroit-based musicians who have worked together

before and less about Mr. NEM's politics. That said, a whole lot of people are pretty happy to side with fascism in this brief window. So I won't be shocked to my core if the guy whose most famous song is about killing his pregnant girlfriend turns out not to be as woke as I was hoping him to be. Right. I mean, like, if this is what it took to besmirch the character of Eminem in your eyes, you have weird lines, is all I'm going to say. Yeah. Okay. So enough

of the sad stuff. Let's talk about this musical masterpiece. I don't know that we're going to be ending the sad stuff here, but go ahead. Oh, this is, call it all joy. This album is called Halfway to Jesus and includes titles

that, when read in order, truly sound like a cry for help. They are. Freedom. James 117. Seven sins. That's the one with Eminem. Why don't you look into Jesus, water into wine. Halfway to Jesus with Gary LeVoe and Jimmy Allen, in case you're wondering. I don't drink the whiskey anymore. Me and Jesus. I drink the whiskey again. I need to. Jesus. God is good prelude. God is good. just the song. Sorry, Kid Rock cannot have the word prelude and he's absolutely not. Get the fuck out of you.

There's no way he. It's a spoken bit. I guarantee it's just a spoken word from Mr. Rock. Which meant some real music professional was listening to this CD and had the moment where he was like, do we got any more Skittles? And he's like, God is good. That's what that's called.

And to wrap it up. God bless the U.S. phenomenal. It's like the life of all the idiots on my high school hockey team got set to music. It's like the AA and the on and off the wagon

and the divorce and everything. I fuck it. I love the irony of putting water into wine and then the song about not drinking alcohol anymore like two songs apart. It reads like the shit wine that Jesus conjured gave him one of those never again headaches.

Right. Exactly. I don't drink whiskey anymore. Just the wine from the water. Just with Jesus. You're allowed to do that. One last piece of news about this story, which is that there is a music video. Now, I haven't seen it yet. But that is because I, like so many of you, and hoping that it is bad enough to pull the lovely and talented Anna Bosnick back in for another god-awful music. segment. Look, people, if Kid Rock can't do it, nothing can. Hand in Firewire news tonight. Things aren't really going great for the Daily Wire. First, they lost seven-eighths of their audience because half of their audience is getting ahead on the I was never actually a Trump supporter lie. Half of the remainder don't think the Daily Wire supports Trump enough and half of the remainder of that are so dumb they shortened out their laptops with drool. That's a big one. Yeah. And then their new movie got mocked so hard on God off

movies that Ben Shapiro personally filed a bullshit copyright strike against our episode in an impotent attempt to silence his critics because he's terrified of free speech. And as they were still reeling from that, the town that they're filming their latest movie in temporarily suspended their production license because they're fucking awful. Which reminds me, if you haven't checked out our review of Run, Hide, Fight, Infidels on YouTube, It's probably back up by the time you hear this. And it would make Ben so sad if that video had 200 million views, guys. It would be careful.

It would be the worst thing that ever happened to him. If Ben and the Daily Wire fail like a little bit more, I think we can file a claim against the movie itself for defaming our gam review. We could put a strike on that. Right. Honestly. We were called God-awful movies first. And then they made.

Right. Yeah. So, yeah, so the movie is called pawn shop, likely because Ben Shapiro has been spending a lot of time at those lately. And the town in question is Livingston, Montana, population 9,290. Can I sell you this piece of wood from home? How much can I get after that? I do have the receipt. I do have the receipt.

And as you could probably imagine, this little 9,000 person, a hamlet in southern Montana, just outside of literally nothing, isn't exactly a bastion of liberal rage that's put. in the daily wire out on political grounds. And it's not exactly so flush with industry that it can easily expel a $40 million production. But apparently, they have been such insufferable assholes that even this little town unanimously decided they weren't worth it. You're blocking the town gas pump, fellas. Really?

That's genuinely that kind of shit. Just the mayor of this tiny little town. He's got Commodore 64 in his arms. You guys got to go. We're putting up a data center. That seems much better for us. get out of here. So let's start with the noise disruptions. Like all Ben Shapiro movies, this one has a lot of pew-pew in it, which they're, of course, achieving with the use of blanks.

Where's that like Baldwin when you need them? So a true story, the producer of that movie is on the production team. So fingers crossed. Anyway, this does track. Wow, we're doing like a runaway jury, huh? Yeah, right, right, yeah. So now blanks are, while quieter than real gunshots, still super fucking loud, which is fine, right? Movies use them all the time. But you kind of warn people. around you that you're going to do it because people have a habit of freaking the fuck out when suddenly there's a nearby gunfight. They do, yeah.

Right? Same thing with like pyrotechnics and staged car accidents, which they also didn't tell anybody about. Also, they're doing dangerous stunts without forewarning emergency services. And you might recall that daily wire productions don't have a super good track record with dangerous stunts.

And of course, they've also caused huge disruptions to local businesses and the area's only food. Bank. The local police department says they're receiving multiple complaints daily. Yeah. I mean, to be fair, randomly firing a gun in the middle of our town was already the number one reason cops were getting called in Montana. This is on top of that, right? Just the normal background rate of firing a gun in the middle of town. So anyway, so that's the good news about this production. Now for the bad news, especially for those of us who will inevitably have to watch this fucking thing. Apparently it's an ICE propaganda film that

recasts the shooting of Renee Good as a righteous act by an embattled peace officer. The fuck is happening. Okay. I'm not obviously saying I want this to happen. But if a local cop shoots the actress playing Renee Good in that, like we're in a simulation, right? Then like that would be official confirmation. You would have to talk me out of it at least.

Yeah, rather than into it. We get a game over screen if we don't notice at that point. Yeah, exactly. And I guess like for listeners that love to hear us suffer, that part, that part about the plot might not seem like bad news, but this movie also stars Harvey Kytel and Danny fucking Trejo. And that is going to ruin a lot of good cinema for me. So while I shed a quiet tear for that loss, we're going to take a quick break and tell you about our other sponsor this week, Quince. You know those pieces in your closet that you find yourself wearing on repeat?

A sweater that goes with everything, the perfect pair of pants, or the tea, you somehow always reach. for first. Those are the pieces that make getting dressed easy, and that's what Quince does best. Actually, Quince might do a lot of things even better than that, and you'll probably get dressed the same even if you like the clothes. Noah, what are you doing? You go, you guys did the whole mean thing to me in the last ad. I'm doing that. No idea what you're talking about. Interrupting. 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 how. quality, not brand markup.

Don't listen to them, Quince. They were total jerks in the last one, okay? Crazy. That's right, Noah. Quince did send me one of their Mongolian cashmere sweaters to try when they became a sponsor. Now, it's my favorite fall fit. That's why I, Eli Bosnick, personally endorse Quince. I am the word guy. Find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers. We go to Quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. now available in Canada and the UK too.

And when Quince asks where you heard about him, let him know it was the scathing east. You guys didn't even remember to do the posy thing. What's the posy thing? I will disassemble you. A man wrote the Bible. A horse what she wants. If it's a legitimate rate.

It's a slut, right? Cooking can be fine. Hey, I'm glad of a man. This week in massage. All right, look, I'm not going to go into a bunch of details on the Cornell thing. Those details are out there. The story has been broken down thoroughly. And I don't think any of us need to relive the details here. But I do want to point out that this is what we're talking about when we say rape culture. Here you have a woman that was raped by multiple rapists. She reported it to the cops. She did everything she was supposed to do. She had evidence in the form of the rapist confessing via text. All of this information was in the public eye as soon as the story came to light. And it still managed to kick off a national conversation along the lines of, was she really raped, though?

Or here's another great example that's getting way too little press for my opinion. At the end of last month, a story broke about a 25-year-old woman on a united flight that was horrified when the dude next to her started masturbating while staring directly at her. She, of course, immediately got up and notified a flight attendant and asked to be receded. But the plane was full, so they said no. And I mean, I guess I get it kind of hard to tell some other passenger, or, hey, we're going to need you to sit next to the masturbating purve, but it strikes me as the right thing to do regardless,

assuming that the other passenger isn't a young woman. Preferably, you look for the most muscular dude with the scariest-looking tattoos. Anyway, the woman was allowed to stand for part of the flight, but had to return to her seat for landing, which, again, safety regulations, etc. She can't just, I'll serve. And there's probably a federal regulation about swapping out with a flight attendant seat or whatever. But here's where this crosses the line into rape,

culture. When they deplane, the dude just walked off like nothing happened. No cops there to meet him, no TSA agent there to put him on the no-fly list, nothing. And as for the assaulted passenger, United gave her a $100 credit on a future flight. But I have one more story to share with you this week, and it moves outside of the rape culture topic and back into the familiar one about women's bodies as baby factories. See, the real animating force behind the rising support for fascism across the globe is the great replacement theory. The idea that some terrifying other is going to outbreed the homegrown folks and bring about some kind of cultural genocide, whether that's Middle Eastern is in Europe, Muslims in India, or Mexicans in the U.S. And there are two ways to tackle that

problem. One is to restrict, deport, or otherwise eliminate the replacers. The other, of course, is to match them baby for baby, which is where wounds come in. And of course, this is seen as a major priority for the Trump administration. For example, the head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services, Dr. Oz, recently said that, quote, one in three Americans is under-babied, end-a-quote. And in their latest effort to combat that problem, the Federal Transit Authority is planning to steer grant money towards areas with higher marriage and birth rates. Because, you know how when people are deciding to procreate, they often ask themselves,

well, how's this going to affect municipal bridge maintenance down the road? So yeah. Once again, the only thing saving us from their avarice is their incompetence, which is the best silver lining I can offer up before I hand you back over to Noah, Keith, and Eli. Thank you, Lucinda. And in Turkish LGBT light news. Well, because T and D are both letters? Yeah. They are.

With Trump, they are doing his best. He's got us there. Yep. Yeah. Check and mate. Hang me. With Trump doing his best to destroy the freedom of the press and the rights of LGBTQ people, it's nice to remember that sometimes other world leaders are doing even worse. But we say that's nice to remember?

It is nice. It's nice for me. Now, to be fair, we can. It's not a lot of world leaders. And at this point, it's not a lot worse. But like when I see a man, who's balder than me, I'll take what I can get. Okay, I mean, I wouldn't, I wouldn't call myself a world leader, exactly. World influencer, maybe, but world leader?

I mean, thank you, but I don't know. It's going good for me. Right. So this story comes to us from Turkey, who I should point out would like you to pronounce their country, Turkey, but I'm not going to respect their chosen name if they won't do it for their own citizens. So suck it. If you're going to act like the bird that drowns in the rain, I'm going to treat you

like the bird that drowns in the rain. Anyway, Turkey has been on an anti-LGB crusade this year under a series of laws that roughly translate to, my family is safe. Okay. Like, all right, I'm cool saying Turkey, but not because Rakeep Erdogan said so. Absolutely not. Reticip. Looking at the history of shitty tyrants, your family's family is not exactly safe. I mean, you are not exactly safe.

Yeah, hey, look, I'll use your fucking prefer pronouns or whatever, but I'm also going to start calling movies that fail at the box office turkey A's so everyone can fuck himself either way. Exactly. Do turkeys drown in the rain? No, they don't. I looked it up because it's a myth that I'd heard before. And I was like, I was like, I should see if the thing I said is true.

And the internet was like, what are you fucking? How would they still be here? How would they exist? Describe what you think? reality is. And I was like, find a cartoon or something. It's true. It's a vapor canopy. Trying to get the firmament. Fuck you. Google AI to lie to me. But could that happen? No. It does the minus AI thing for me and just from the top. So in the name of people feeling safe, the government has arrested dozens of members of LGBTQ advocacy groups. And this week, Istanbul's first criminal court of

Peace, a lot of ironic names this week, ordered the website and social media accounts of the independent news outlet T24 blocked after authorities found that the outlet had produced 118 pieces of content over the last year that it deemed to constitute LGBT propaganda. I want to see the fucking like the gay scale that they're using to determine which ones cross the line on this, right? What are the units? I want to know what this is a great question. Anyways, this is obviously. awful. And we hope that the LGBTQ folks in Turkey are able to stay safe and free, but perhaps we haven't considered all sides here. Please don't do this, Elon. Which is why I've called in our special correspondent, Signor Pets. Okay. To give us his side of the story, Signore. I separate myself

from this physically. I'm just... Hello. I love no. Hey, their senior pets. Hello, Noah. Thank you for having me on the podcast. Honestly, you're mostly from another show, and I can't imagine what you're going to lend this incredibly serious topic. Let me ask you something. Let me ask you. Okay. Yes, ask. Have you actually met an Armenian? Oh, wow. The cat is gone now. That's the end of that story now. I'm so far away. And finally, tonight. And don't forget the third and forthcoming news.

We have another contender that seeks to fill the hole in our hearts that Matt Powell left when we embarrassed him so goddamn hard that he decided to hide under the race car bed in his room for the rest of his natural life. And it comes in the form of one Gabe Porreau, a Christian

influencer who said that he spent 18 days in heaven and more importantly that when he met Jesus, the Lord and Savior was fucking jacked. Podcasts, isn't it? So weird. I once watched several men utilize an ejaculate-based slip and slide and an establishment called the Eagle in the East Village.

And ever since watching Gabe's testimony, that is now the second gayest thing I've ever seen. Right. Yeah. So your first instinct when you hear this story might be to lightly reprimand us for trolling through YouTube videos and searches some like mentally ill Christian to make fun of or whatever. Because, you know, it's not like any mainstream media outlet would be platforming such a patly ridiculous story. So anyway, so during his interview on Fox News with host Haley McAnnie, there it is.

Quiro described Jesus in a manner indistinguishable from really wants to fuck the guy. Actual quote, he was 5-11, like six feet, yet as tall as eternity, like an ocean of love, yet his eyes were burning white and red at the same time. What about his hormones? Like good tea? Would you say good tea? And I mean talk about testosterone. That's the actual next fucking line.

And I mean, talk about testosterone like a Mustang. Like what animal? Oh, like a Mustang. I'm telling you, he's the lion of Judah, and there's a roar within his voice. Wow. That is graphic. As someone who wrote a tremendous amount of Harry Potter fan fiction in their youth, may I say, cringe? Yes.

And as someone who was me in my youth. May I say cringe as well? And me as an adult, cringe. It's a lot for us to say cringe. Yeah. So this all started when Perrault was out for a leisurely helmetless ride on a skateboard. And an accident later, he was in a coma where either he had sex dreams about manly Jesus or he was spiritually transported to heaven everlasting in a manner inconsistent with pretty much all Christian theology. Oh. Oh, I know which one.

You can't sell a book called I had a crazy dream in the hospital once. So Poirot claimed the former And so as not to lend credence To all those sissy liberals Who think Jesus is about peace and compassion He made sure that his Jesus Drew fucking guns and skulls and daggers On his trapper keeper

And I know what you're thinking podcast listener Wait isn't that the guy that Cecil talked about last week From the podcast Coom documentary Coom Christian broadcast Coom Fox News broadcast And yes it was but that was before he wrote erotic fan fiction about himself and Jesus. And this requires follow-up.

We are journalists. I feel like we're in like a doodily swoosh episode of Jerry Springer or something. And like Ebony Darkness Dementia Ravenway from My Immortals about to like run out and fight Eli or something. Everybody's like, Kaylee. Yeah. Fox News. I was describing Fox News. Oh, yeah, you are.

So I have to give you another quote from the interview here. He's talking about his revelation, along with the contradictory revelations of similar Gryptors that he's pretending aren't contradictory. And he says, quote, you know, all these other testimonies, they didn't meet a female Jesus. They didn't meet a soft or passive Jesus. Jesus is a man. And especially in America, he's misrepresented. There are so many cultural things that present him as if he's just some tolerant guy. It is not the Jesus I met.

He's a lion. He's a bigot. But he's not a lion angry against me. He is a lion angry for me. He is a Mustang on my behalf. And super gay quote. With a lot of tea. So much Mustang tea.

And as I climbed onto his back riding through a field of Muslims, I think, man, being gay is probably less weird than whatever I ended up. So anyway, and Mustang, Jesus, he does a crane kick to Satan's face. It's awesome. And then we made out for like a while. A while. Like Mustangs. Is my skull cast bleeding through? Yeah, right. Kaylee, is it? So yeah. So strangely enough, Jesus didn't say anything about caring for the least of these or clothing the naked or anything like that. I guess he mostly just like, you know, flexed his guns, did that little bit where your pecks bounce up and down, crushed a few beer cans on his floor. forehead. But Perrault did mention that he saw babies in heaven eagerly awaiting their parents, which doesn't exactly sound like paradise for those babies, but whatever. The point is you have to

stay Christian or your dead babies. You're going to be very disappointed. And given all that's going on in the world, that is apparently the only thing Jesus wanted to clear up with his disciples. Well, that and the fact that he is swinging. Pipe. Like a Mustang. Yeah. And with that update on the Savior's penis situation, I guess. We can close the headlines for the night. Heath, Eli, thanks, as always. I hurt myself so bad just now. You're really getting. You got to watch it on video to see how. I think you're going to be gone next week.

And when we come back, we'll wait until the Wednesday injury report. But, you know, when we come back, we'll learn that clogs are much better than tap shoes when it comes to grave dancing. Think of burger. No C-Sigment this week, everybody. That's it. We're wrapped. In most jobs, it would be a real bummer if at 11 p.m. on a Monday, realize that you were going to have to spend a big chunk of Tuesday afternoon redoing the work that you spent Monday afternoon doing, but not in my job.

Because the work I did on Monday was outlining our plan C segment for this week. And the news I got at 11 p.m. on Monday was that we were going to have to postpone that one for a week and instead bring you another installment of everybody's favorite segment. Son of Obituary. No whammy's the orange guy. No whammy, the orange guy. No whammy, the orange guy. Okay.

Starting again? This is going to work soon. This has to work soon, right? Eventually. We'll let you know. A couple weeks ago, you hit dolly. It's going to be us. The delightful demise that we're going to talk about today is that of Jim Baker,

who may have held the title of American Christianity's griftiest grifter in the pre-Trump era. But in addition to being a legally adjudicated money-grubbing preacher, he was also a convicted fraud, a woo merchant, and a rapist. Allegedly, but like definitely he was a definite fucking rapist. Yeah, like the least credible claim Jim Baker ever made was that someone had consensual sex with him. Sure, yes, exactly. So James Orson Baker was born in Muskegon, Michigan in 1940. And to give you an idea how antiquated this motherfucker is, both of his parents have names that have long been resigned to the dustbin of history. His dad was Raleigh and Raleigh and Furnia. Like, honestly, imagine meeting a couple that introduced themselves as Raleigh and Fernia and not thinking you'd accidentally stumbled into somebody's head.

fantasy roleplay or some shit. Yeah, and not even a fun fantasy role play. Like, he's going to wear a gray uniform and chase you around the yard. Right, but the yard's like kind of shitty. So yeah, it's no fun. Yeah, exactly. All right. Yeah. Anyway,

so I like to be Ava Braun. Whatever. Interesting. So anyway, so Baker grew up in a strict household. His parents didn't allow him to watch TV, which is rough, I guess, but certainly easier back in the 40s and 50s. His dad did let him play with a tape recorder, though, which probably seems like absolutely nothing to anybody born near this century.

But trust me, that used to be pretty fucking cool. Mix tape. Well, not for him, though, because little Jimmy used it to practice giving speeches because apparently he was always boring. How does nobody on this tape player send me money? I need distribution. Yeah, right, right. So in our time here at The Scathing Atheist, we've come across a lot of preacher origin stories. and I think Baker has the least orthodox of all of them.

He decided to become a preacher after he ran over a toddler with his car. When he was 18 years old, he was driving through the church parking lot and he accidentally speed bumped a three-year-old. No, I say accidentally, I'm just, I'm honestly giving him the benefit of the doubt. I don't know. Anyway, the kid was okay, and the parents were so cool about it that he decided to become a preacher. It's weird to think, man, it's too bad that that kid lived. But when the alternative is the career of Jim Baker. Sure.

You have to, that is a dark origin story with the like pretty big speed bump toddler. It's got a weird bat cave in the origin story. Yeah. Yeah. We just make Bakeman begins. We do need to make that. And look, I want to dwell on that origin for a second because this is the story that he himself told about himself, right?

So now, of course, when he told that he dressed it up as a story about the power of forgiveness or something. But in reality, what happened is he looked at these parents and he said, holy shit, these Christians will forgive you for running over their kids if you do it Christianly and then spent the rest of his life taking advantage of them in ever crueller ways. A lot of people hit child adjacent stuff with their car. A lot of awesome people who own a third of your company, by the way. Totally. The shares are right there on the punch card we gave. Contract.

Legally binding. There you go. So, yeah, so he goes to an Assembly of God College in Minneapolis where he meets the woman destined to be his unindicted co-conspirator, Tammy Faye LaValley. The two fell in love and got married, which was a bit of a problem because the college didn't allow married undergrad. So they dropped out and Jim became an ordained minister by other means because that is literally nothing so you don't have to learn how to do it. Stupid meaningless job title. Okay, what's next on our podcast? Let's influence.

Podcasters are making fun of how easier job is preachers. That's where you are now. Class house we live in. They go on the road. They become itinerant preachers, which is a favorite occupation for preachers who are unethical, even by the standard of preachers. But they were popular.

They did really well. And they also developed a puppet show, which turned out to be damned consequential, since that's what brought them to the attention of Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson. At that time, his Christian Broadcasting Network posted a viewership in the low thousands, but with the Baker's help, they turned it into a juggernaut with a viewership in the high thousands.

Okay, between Jim Baker and Ray Comfort, the puppetry community has a lot to answer for. I'm looking at you, Darrow. What's going on at the meetings? Fair enough. But, you know, let's also be fair on the other side. We got Jeff Dunham. You're not making it better, man. You're not making it better.

You never know how the art form is going to flourish, is what I'm saying. But Jim quickly realized, I guess, that anything Pat Robertson could do had to be easy. So in 1973, Baker left CBN to found his own Christian television network, famously actually with Blackjack and Hookers, as it turns out. At first, he partnered with fellow televangelist Jan Crouch to found the Trinity Broadcasting Network. But eight months later, he and Crouch's husband had a falling out. And Jim and Tammy Faye left again, this time to found PTL ministries. PTO originally stored before Praise the Lord, but eventually

they changed it to people that love and then to prophets talking loudly and unofficially to pass the loot. Hey, should we do Preppers' Tribulation Luker? Do you think Ptia, not yet? You don't think people are ready for that? People that love. We'll go people that love.

Yeah, if he lived a little longer, baby, yeah. So their show floundered for a bit, scraping by on a few local stations near their home in North Carolina. but in 1974, Jim founded the PTO's satellite network, and a year later, they would launch the nightly talk show, the Ptel Club, which would eventually turn the couple into household names. Right, you know, the way black mold is a household name.

Right, it's in the household, exactly. Disclose if you've ever had contact with the baby. Right, right. Tammy in your house. So by the late 70s, Baker's perpetual fundraising was raking in an estimated million dollars a week from viewers. were donations alone. Now, once the PTO Club took off, they also opened a theme park called Heritage USA and Fort

Mill, South Carolina, which briefly held the title of America's third most attended theme park after Disney World and Disneyland. It's weird that amusement park is the go-to for so many Christians who get some money in the bank, right? Do they learn this at puppet school? What's happening? Why? They should really focus more on like a museum.

It could showcase the deep artistic values of things. the American Christian culture. Okay. These people are dead inside. And they want to go to fucking theme park. Yeah, that's fair. They need ziplines. And they're like sticky things.

Gross. As the 80s rolled around, Americans were growing increasingly uncomfortable with televangelists, mostly because they were making the regular preacher's grift a little too obvious. So the Federal Communications Commission opened an investigation into Baker

and found, to nobody's surprise, that he was neck deep in illegal bullshit. In their 1982 report, they noted, for example, that he raised $350,000 from viewers that he said would go to overseas missions and instead paid for part of his theme park. They also found that he was routinely using the money supposedly raised for charitable purposes for personal expenses. I'm sorry, is a water slide not overseas anymore? There's a pirate ship, a pirate ship with a mission of pirating. So, and of course, Jim and Tammy Faye had a lot of personal expenses.

and they didn't remotely try to hide it. During the height of their popularity, they were chauffured around by a fleet of Cadillac limousines. They had three limousines. There's two of them. Two people, three fucking limousines, as well as several Benzes, a Corvette, and a vintage Rolls-Royce.

Tammy Fay owned at least a dozen mint coats and frequently bragged about her shopping sprees on the PTL Club. And of course, they justified all this shit through the prosperity gospel. Baker explained, quote, God wants his people to go first class. Christ wished above all things that we prosper, end quote. Jesus is looking down from heaven.

Okay, technically, I know you guys are the least of these, but that's not what I meant. Okay. Look at our limos. They're shaped like a camel, garage doors, like the I haven't eaten. We're doing what you said. We're doing exactly what you said. Absolutely nail it. We're getting in, right?

Now, the 1982 FCC report didn't go anywhere. Baker sold the only television network that he owned at the time, which pretty much neutered. the FCC's oversight of him personally. And when the FCC referred it to the Department of Justice, they declined to prosecute. Now, they officially cited insufficient evidence, but unofficially, there was no fucking way Ronald Reagan's DOJ was going to start going after Christian grifters. That was their fucking bread and butter. So instead, Baker portrayed the entire investigation as an anti-Christian witch hunt and then

used it to solicit even more donations from his gullible followers. And for Christians, that was like watching Steve Jobs on. unveil the first iPhone. Yeah, right. It changes everything. Gordon Gecko, reading that white paper about Bitcoin, just we've been tears of joy, chocolate. Yeah.

Right. Satoshi, you son of a bitch. But Jim Baker couldn't keep dodging bullets forever. In 1987, a Pulitzer Prize winning story in the Charlotte Observer exposed allegations that Baker and his co-host John Wesley Fletcher drugged and raped an employee of the PTL named Jessica Hahn. I only mentioned her name because that's how a lot of people remember the controversy. And that apparently wasn't a huge deal.

They probably had to fucking write some essays or something. But the fact that they hid the $279,000 in hush money payments that they later gave her was a problem. Apparently they were keeping two sets of books to account for the discrepancy because Baker was too fucking cheap to just pay that shit out of his own vast personal fortune. And that would ultimately lead to his disgrace and resignation from the PTO. Okay, how does this not count as a business expense? I literally raped an employee. Oh, Jesus Christ. And she had the receipts and we wrote her off.

The CPA said that's exactly what we're doing. And these rules are confusing. I'm doing it right. Now, importantly, though, raping a lady and committing fraud to keep it quiet would not lead to any criminal charges. Those would come from another crime altogether. See, part of the financing for Heritage USA came from these limited partnerships that Baker was hocking for $1,000 a piece.

And part of the deal was that if you bought in, you'd get to spend three nights in the on-site hotel in the place every year. But the thing is, there was only one hotel on site. It had 500 rooms, and he'd sold 185,000 of those partnerships. Oh. Might have them booked a little bit. Yeah, you do the math on that. That means that even if no one's staying at the hotel except for those people, you know,

people, they're going to have to buddy up quite a bit. More of a tenement situation. Yeah, right, right. Okay, the other, like, 61,000 people, they're on standby, and we get them a room at the Modell 6. Well, we give them, like, a voucher for some of that. If they get through to customer service, like, a third time and threaten a loss. You're telling me every airline is illegal. Yeah.

That's illegal to be an airline. Now, of course, it should be illegal to be an airline. Yeah, absolutely. Almost everything they do, yeah. But that did eventually lead to criminal charges, specifically 24 counts of mail fraud, wire fraud, and conspiracy to defraud the public. Baker would be convicted on all 24 of them.

I don't want to brag, but all the stuff I've been conned into was way cooler than staying in Jim Baker's hotel. Yeah, right. Now, originally, Baker was sentenced to 45 years in prison, but that would be reduced to eight years on appeal. And partly that was because during the sentencing, the judge referred to Jim and his unindicted wife as of money-grubbing preachers. That was used as evidence that the judge's religious prejudices were coloring his judgment.

And the lawyer who successfully argued that the Christian judge was animated by anti-Christian prejudice was none other than Alan Dershowitz. Cool, cool. So I heard he's a Harvard guy. Are we sure he didn't go to Cornell? It's honorary. Honorary degree from Cornell. Yeah. So while Jim is serving out his eight-year term, Tammy Fade divorces him and marries one of the dudes who helped them build Heritage USA. And though Baker was released only five years into his eight-year sentence, he was released still owing the IRS about six million bucks, which they definitely had not forgotten about. Okay. Do you fail us take hotel stays? Wait. All right. Habits that hard. You take vouchers for that?

So with his net worth reduced from an estimated 173 million to a much more humble negative 6, he said about doing the only thing he knew how to do lying to people for money. But he started off at least doing it legally again. That is he started a show called The Jim Baker Show, which managed to get picked up by all kind of existing television networks, despite the fact that his name was synonymous with fraud and rape. Because that's how desperate cable channels were for content in the early 2000. I guess. Guys, it was Jim Baker or crank yankers. Okay. We had to take the right decision then.

Or the apprentice. Okay. But it was during this post-downfall stint that he began selling the post-apocalypse prepper buckets that we actually subjected ourselves to once. Now, I can't tell you much about the taste of the food because there was not one. But the macaroni and cheese did have a neon glow that would help you find your meal in the dark. And I feel like that would be useful in the Apocalypse at least. It's helpful. Yeah. I ate the pizza crust and I'm pretty sure archaeologists will find it lodged in my skeleton in a thousand years.

Right. So I kind of liked the food. He did in the buckets. So I guess you could say Jim kicked the baker. That he did. That he did. So during this period in his broadcasting career, give me a cheers right now. Cheers.

But his last hurrah came in the form of colloidal silver, which he sold on his show as a panacea, which our nation was surprisingly cool with both before and after COVID. But there was this brief, like, the nine or ten month window where we decided to enforce laws against pretending shit is medicine when it's not. So when Baker started claiming his colloidal silver supplements could cure COVID, he got C-synthesis letters from the FDC, the FDA, and the Attorney General of New York. He was also sued by the AGs or A.Gs. of Missouri and Arkansas. Okay, if we're picking a time for medicine has to be real,

I guess that was a good time to do that specific thing. But hey, maybe we don't pick a time for that anymore. That would be good. We don't do that. There you go. I doged it. Streamline. Well done.

Just times. So as a result of those actions, his ministry was barred from receiving credit card transactions. At this point, he took to the air to tell his viewers, He was on the brink of bankruptcy. And then shortly after that, two of his largest networks that were carrying a show dropped him. And DirecTV and AT&T asked all the other channels that they carried to at least consider a following suit. On June 21st of 2021, the lawsuits against him settled on the condition that he would refund the money to anybody who bought his bullshit supplement,

a restitution that ultimately cost him about $157,000. Yeah. Luckily for Jim, a decent amount of the death that happened to lowered that bill. Yeah, right. Honestly. Yeah. And see, people, this is why when you're selling fake medicine, it's all about the eyebrow work, right? You got a COVID?

Yeah, right? No, that's it. That's it. Oh, she should be watching on YouTube if you want to get that joke. So during the worst of the COVID repercussions, Baker had a minor stroke that he blamed on the lawsuits. Oh. Tim, did you try the silver ointment? Like, did you put it on your brain?

Oh. Yeah. That's it. So he took a sabbatical. from his show to recover, but never really did. He died on Monday night at the age of 86, having lived long enough to know good and goddamn well that his obituary in the New York Times

and the Washington Post would have about the same tone as this one. And they made a movie and a musical about how much his wife hates him. They did, yes, exactly. That was fun. And here's hoping Eli spins the wheel just a little bit better

on the next installment of Son of Obituary. Before we let's sit for a 30 minutes, to cool i want to thank heath eliz cecil marsh and dr alice for all the extra stuff that they did to help keep things flowing while i was gone the only way a business owner can relax when they're away is by having really amazing partners and i am super fortunate to count myself in that group 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 can't wait that long be on look out for a brand new episode for a sister's host friend god off a movies debuting at seven eastern on tuesday and even newer episode of our half social citation deed and evening at noon eastern on wednesday and even though i already thank them once i want to thank heath and elai once again for being the best darn business partners a felon have i want to thank lucind illusions for being the best partner partner a fella can have and i want to thank all the fine folks in oregon that made my vacation so enjoyable including but not limited to sophia clark gail elliot lisa amy steve caroline mark and the absolutely obsequious bud tender at the oregon dispensary over on coot street sorry i forgot

your name because you kept selling me really good weed right after i saw you and i would forget shit but you were awesome but most of all of course i want to thank this week's best people thanks this week's best people i'm sorry i'm running so behind after the vacation but I promise I will thank you by name next weekend. If you'd like to hear your name alongside theirs, you can make a per-episode donation at patreon.com slash scathing Atheist, whereby you'll an early access to an extended ad-free version of every episode, or you can make a one-time donation by clicking on the one-time donation on the

homepage at scathingeat. And if you'd like to help, but not in a monetary way, you can also help a ton by leaving a five-star review, telling afraid about the show and following us on social media. And speaking of social media, Tim Robertson and Lily Bosnik, that can't hold that for us. Our cartoonist is Angelo-Madrid from Madrid tunes, and our audio engineer is Martin Karp,

who also rolled the music that was used in this episode, which was used with permission. If you have questions, comments, or death threats, you find all the content info on the contact page at scaling athus.com. I believe

Anne has dressed as Tammy Faye Baker multiple times on Halloween and may have the costume that might need to find its way back out sometime soon. All right. I'm going to call Ann in a second.

You can call her Fernia and she can call you Raleigh. A lot of things can happen. This content is scanned credentialed, which means you can report instances of harassment, abuse, or other harm to their hotline at 617-249455 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.