498: Pagan Invasion 7: Evolution
---
If you’d like to make a per episode donation and get monthly bonus episodes, please check us out on Patreon: http://patreon.com/godawful
Check out our other shows, The Scathing Atheist, The Skepticrat, Citation Needed, and D&D Minus.
Our theme music is written and performed by Ryan Slotnick of Evil Giraffes on Mars. If you’d like to hear more, check out their Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/EvilGiraffesOnMars/
Report instances of harassment or abuse connected to this show to the Creator Accountability Network here: https://creatoraccountabilitynetwork.org/
Listen and follow along
Transcript
It's time to head back to school and forward to your future with Carrington College.
For over 55 years, we've helped train the next generation of healthcare professionals.
Apply now to get hands-on training from teachers with real-world experience.
And as few as nine months, you could start making a difference in healthcare.
Classes start soon in Pleasant Hill, San Leandro, and San Jose.
Visit Carrington.edu to see what's next for you.
Visit Carrington.edu/slash SCI for information on program outcomes.
And very clearly, the human eye is a Swiss watch.
So, obviously, the eye had a designer that would be God.
Chuck Smith is wearing glasses while he makes this argument.
Chuck Smith is wearing glasses while he makes this argument.
He's wearing glasses over his eyes.
He's reading off of Gewharts using the glasses on his eyes.
He's making the argument through his glasses into a lens that works better than his eyes.
He's wearing glasses while he's making this argument.
God-awful
movie.
Movie.
Movie.
Movies.
Welcome back.
to God-Awful Movies, where each week we watch another terrible movie so you don't have to.
I'm your host, Heath Henright, and I'm joined by the Eli Bosnik.
Eli, how's it going, buddy?
Fantastic, Heath.
Thank you so much for having me.
Glad to have you here.
And sadly, we don't have the inimitable No Illusions today.
He got blasted with a wicked flu, but we lined up a guest who also got blasted with a wicked flu.
So, Eli, you ready to roll with the old two-hander?
The old two-hander.
That's right, Heath.
It's that very special time of year when our co-host has a heart attack, has all the teeth pulled out of his head, or just gets plain old sick to remind everybody that he's keeping this ship on course.
His bad boy's going off the rails early and often, folks, if this is your first episode,
a different one.
The best part, the worst part in both ways is that our sweet no illusions.
His back to work will probably be like still a little sick crawling out of bed to be like, No, I told the guys I was okay to edit this episode.
And it's just going to be you and me arguing over the pronunciation of salt pork for 90 minutes.
I think it's salt pork.
I think you had it.
Yeah, salt pork.
Saw ya
pork.
Right.
So, Heath, what are we going to be breaking down today?
We watched besides Noah's trust
in his ability to ever miss our show.
We watched Pagan Invasion 7
evolution from physics to metaphysics.
It's the story of how every single word in that title is a lie, except maybe the number seven.
I don't know if they've done six before this.
I assume they have.
Yeah, they've somehow managed to fib about from and two.
Maybe two.
No, yeah, I think two is a lie too.
Because you know, it's not from something.
So the two is kind of a messed up two.
Yeah, no good.
All right, Eli.
This was a VHS from 1991 with religious propaganda, anti-evolution stuff.
How bad was this VHS?
Well, if you loved the satanic panic, but you wish they spent more time being afraid of science textbooks than they did Invisible Witches and Demons, you will love this movie.
Yeah, I kind of enjoyed watching it.
It was, it was a fun
ride through their thought process.
I will say that.
It's great because it's like watching Civil War apologetics technology, right?
They just, a bunch of the stuff that they talk about in this one, we've already like really disproven.
So they have a bunch of old apologetics that I'm like, ooh, that aged like an Eddie Murphy special, that apologetic right there.
Get Gettysburg in a cartoon with the graphics from 1991 on your VHS.
That's cool.
That's cool.
Fun.
All right.
Is there anything you'd like to nominate this one for being the best at being the worst at?
Best, worst graphics.
Yeah, there it is.
We're going to talk about it quite literally right after the first interstitial and ad, so I will save it, but fuck yeah, these graphics.
They're pretty
fucking great.
I was going to go with best, best,
Chuck Smith Backstory.
So Chuck Smith is one of the main people who made this movie.
He's like one of two co-hosts who's running us through the whole thing.
He also founded a big network of churches called the Calvary Chapel, big thing, kind of like a set of stuff stuff that adds up to a megachurch all around California.
And he wrote a book in 1978 called End Times and said the world was definitely going to end in 1981.
And then in his 1980 book called Future Survival, he said, I could be wrong.
But in the same sentence, he also added, It's deep conviction in my heart and all my plans are predicated upon that belief.
And because of that belief, he had a big New Year's Eve thing in 1980 to await the end times.
And when the world did not, in fact, end,
a bunch of people got all mad and left his church.
He got asked to apologize about this later and he said, I came close.
I came close to getting it.
Yeah, he continued to believe the world was going to end at different other times.
Yeah, he thought 9-11 was whatever he thought.
I don't know.
He's got a ridiculous, ridiculous backstory.
So we're going to take a quick break, think about his prophecies.
They're looking better and better, I got to be honest.
And then we'll be back to tell you all about Pagan Invasion 7.
Stupid candy, I hate you.
You hear me?
I hate you.
Hey, Eli.
What's up?
Why are you yelling at a candy bar?
Did stuff start coming to life again?
No, no, I'm pretty sure Noah broke that curse.
No, I'm trying to get back into discipline with my diet.
So I'm like really trying to hate all my favorite foods, you know, to help me stick to my guns.
Look, Eli, denying yourself the things you love isn't going to help you stick to your fitness goals.
Why don't you try Factor?
What's
Factor?
Factor has chef-made gourmet meals that make eating well easy.
They're dietitian-approved and ready to heat and eat in two minutes so you can fuel right and feel great no matter what life throws at you.
Even vegan cheese puffs?
Even vegan cheese puffs.
With 40 options across eight dietary preferences on the menu each week, it's easy to pick meals tailored to your goals.
Choose from preferences like Calorie Smart, Protein Plus, or Keto.
Factor can help you feel your best all day long with wholesome smoothies, breakfasts, grab-and-go snacks, and more add-ons.
All right, Heath, I'm sold.
Where do I sign up?
Eat Smart with Factor.
Get started at factormeals.com/slash Factor Podcast and use the code Factor Podcast to get 50% off your first box plus free shipping.
That's code Factor Podcast at factormeals.com slash Factor Podcast to get 50% off plus free shipping on your first box.
All right, he thanks.
Yeah, man, that stuff sounds fantastic.
And I don't even have a mouth because I'm a candy bar.
Go get the dream catcher.
Get to.
Oh, man.
All right, Steve, you ready to write part seven of our series on the pagan invasion?
Totally, let's do it.
Yeah, so I'm thinking this one will be about evolution, right?
Um, so what about it?
Well, then it's all fake.
Oh, evolution is it's fake?
Oh, yeah.
Did you know that even though it's supposed to be science, nobody has ever observed evolution?
Um, yep, yeah, they have.
They have you can watch like bacteria evolve under a microscope.
You definitely can.
Wait, you could?
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Oh, no, you know what I meant?
Sorry.
I actually meant macroevolution.
That's like where there's a big change in a species over time, as opposed to.
You mean like dogs?
No.
God, they really have changed a lot.
No, I mean like macro, macroevolution.
I mean, like, when one species changes entirely into another species, right?
But doesn't that take like millions of years?
Exactly.
Yeah.
And no, nobody's ever seen it.
Because it's impossible to observe millions of years.
Right.
Exactly.
Yes.
Hey, Chris.
Yeah, Steve.
Are we sure that millions of years even exist?
I mean,
no, we're not, but that's not the topic we're doing this week, okay?
Okay, got it.
Got it, got it.
Pin in millions of years.
We'll figure it out.
Pin in millions of years, yeah.
Hey, podcast listener.
Since Noah isn't on the show this week, Keith and I are pleased to tell you that we've got a live show coming up on May 24th in Portland, Oregon, with all the stuff he usually cuts.
Like, for example, we promise you, Eli will do a cartwheel.
See, I'm not going to do that.
So, Noah would usually cut that out, but we're keeping it.
Exactly.
But you know what you don't want to miss?
Our live breakdown of the worst Christian cinema has to offer with live shenanigans, jokes that whiff so hard we have to win the room back, and so much more.
So head over to GodawfulMoviesLive.com or check the show notes to grab your tickets now.
Our last two shows in the area sold out in less than 48 hours, so don't wait.
Especially if you want VIP or platinum seating.
Oh, got off the movies live, uncut, like our dicks.
Are you not circumcised?
No, I'm circumcised.
Okay, so what was that?
I don't know.
It felt like a good bit to do.
See, this is why Noah cuts this stuff.
I don't, it's, I think it's fine.
Cool,
squeal.
And we're back.
And we're going to start with a cold open on so much microphones.
Hey, hey, hey, yeah.
I wrote in my notes.
I really hope Noah's feeling better by the time he hears this because that microphone is really bound to make him feel sick all over again.
It's aggressive.
We also see a production logo.
It says Alpha Omega.
Alpha like A-L-F-A.
Yeah, I don't know that they spelled alpha wrong on purpose.
I genuinely don't.
I think maybe they were going for like the milit, like the military alphabet alpha.
Possible?
Yeah.
Like, like alpha omega, we're Christian and we're military.
Dive roll.
Red team go.
Like something like that.
Maybe.
Yeah.
They feel military.
These are also people who are about to tell us how perfect the human eye is while wearing glasses, though.
So I'm going to go ahead and put my money on spelling wrong.
Yeah.
And we also see a production logo for cutting edge films.
Yeah.
And their logo is neither cutting nor an edge, but you know.
No, it it is in 8-bit at best graphics.
And then we see more of the amazing graphics.
We're already
onto Eli's best worst.
We see what appeared to me as fighting Polygon team having a secret mountain lair on a Polygon mountain or something like that.
Podcast listener, you know, when you're watching a movie and they need to show you a video game in a movie, that's what the graphics look like for the intro here.
It's a medieval castle, right?
You sort of of do a sail over a medieval castle and you're like, okay, cool.
But then it takes you on, I kid you not, an architectural tour of said medieval castle.
Like you're seeing all the bedrooms they have and all the light that these rooms are getting.
Like it's just, it's the fucking weirdest thing.
It's a strange pan.
We're also getting some music, which reminded me of like, like Pac-Man is at a rave rolling really hard and it doesn't really fit.
Again, this movie is made in 1991, but still it was like way behind.
It was not cutting edge for 1991 even.
No, no, Dreamcast was kicking the shit out of these graphics at the time.
And so they're panning through this thing and I was like, how the fuck does this lead to a pagan invasion about evolution and physics and metaphysics?
And then right after I wrote that down,
they pop up.
pagan invasion as a title card.
And I was like, oh, okay, that's how you get there.
You just
do a title card right after Heath types that.
There is a pagan invasion in this Nintendo, Super Nintendo castle.
Yeah.
And that's not even the only title card we get.
It's like they just put it in there to like spite me.
And then they're going to do a title card at the end of this intro sequence.
at a normal time also.
Right, but this is where the 3D doors open and we get the ominous video clips along with the spooky movie music.
Yeah.
Well, we get the, we get the panning shots and then they, they're like, hold on, stop there.
We have a couch in the lobby.
Let's highlight the couch.
It's like one of those really uncomfortable just wood things in like the lobby of a museum.
That your grandma covered in plastic and never took off even after she was dead.
Like a bank cat at a really uncomfortable restaurant.
But yeah, and then we get the montage of pagan stuff on a video screen that's...
blocking an entire door of the castle.
Like you can't use this castle door because there's a screen.
Yeah, like we're being shown the king's man cave.
Yeah.
And the montage did not make a lot of sense to me.
Really, you couldn't connect these themes.
Let's uh, let's run through okay, yeah,
what did you see?
Okay, so I saw a wooden sword doing like it was like a wand/slash sword doing like blood goblet magic for a second.
I was like, Okay, that's that's pagan.
I get it, demonic, demonic.
I was, I was on board.
Then there's a crystal ball, and I was like, Yeah, okay, guys,
we'll scrying into the future.
Thou shalt not suffer.
And then, out of nowhere, guy in a cat mask, guy in a cat mask.
What was that?
that was a guy in a cat you think they just started with this furries in the bathroom shit no they were ahead of their time back in 1991 they were worried about this guy bringing your his litter box into your school okay we also get a rock show a sad lady on a beach a karate demonstration yes we do and my favorite One of the walls at Halloween Adventure.
Right.
So again, they like, they do guy in a cat mask and and they're like, okay, that was, that was crazy.
Stonehenge.
Stupid.
We're just Stonehenge.
That's a thing.
Dotaro.
Does the guy with the VR, like old-timey, just glasses, kind of like a clockwork orange machine that he's watching?
I don't know, in his glasses.
And then, yeah, the karate demonstration stood out to me too.
That's just a guy doing the karate chop to like get his adult.
purple belt by breaking a very thin board.
Yeah, as he gets over his divorce to Heath's mom.
Yeah.
Does the movie think that the breaking of that wood is like pagan magic?
I'm so excited.
That's exactly the so look, as we mentioned at the beginning, as we teased at the beginning, podcast listener, this is a 10-part VHS series, and we will eventually, of course, be watching all 10 parts.
But now I really want to know when the karate demonstration is going to come back.
I can't wait.
If they do, I want a whole episode on pagan karate.
Karate.
Yeah,
it'll definitely be karate.
Okay, well, now that I guess the movie's introduced, that was the intro, and it's time to meet the hosts.
That would be Chuck Smith, who I talked about earlier, and Carol Matriciana.
And they use the wooden lobby couch as their set for this.
But like in CGI, you have to remember.
Again, it's a PlayStation 1 castle, right?
Where you're about to turn the corner and a polygonal knight is going to explain, like, that there's a polygonal dragon in the room over, but it's just these two old Christians sitting on the couch.
Like, they're there to ask the king if he's ever heard about Jesus Christ, their Lord and Savior.
It's so awkward.
In CGI, like, what terrible couch do they have in real life that they were like, no, that's not going to work.
We have to just use the wooden CGI couch to start.
So that's where they are.
And then we get the first argument.
Chuck Smith explains that, you know, it's kind of a
ironic.
Evolutionary thinking, it's making too many inroads into science.
It's ironic because science is about observing and testing, and you cannot test evolution.
Yeah, when he said science is about observing and testing, I wrote in my notes, go on, Senator.
Yep.
So, question, I'm not a science expert.
You are, though, definitely.
That's true.
Of this podcast, they call me the science expert.
Cool.
Can you test evolution at all, or can you just definitely not, like he's saying?
we definitely can't.
No, it's not a testable thing.
Right.
From there, he just asserts also that there's nothing in the fossil record to support evolution.
And I was like, wow, bold move, Christine.
You might want to avoid the fossil record.
Hey, Bill.
Hey, Bill, when I'm saying there's nothing in the fossil record,
would you not show a dinosaur fossil record?
I already showed a dinosaur fossil record.
Oh, God.
Fuck.
well that's the evidence in the fossil record isn't it bill yeah we did the opposite we did that we're gonna have to this is like the time exactly one year ago when i said the earth was
that's the other thing too mad at you about that with the yes because that's the thing the context that heath has has added to this documentary that everyone involved in this film was probably like so any plans next nick bill i heard your whole life and plan was about it and he's like oh come on we had a meeting on the first day.
You guys said you wouldn't.
Making the VHS thing.
It's going to be good.
Whatever.
They bring up fossils and then they bring up that argument of like, well, non-life can't just become life.
That's crazy.
And okay, that's a question, I guess, but that's a problem for God existing too.
And very importantly, not about evolution.
That's like a separate question.
I didn't understand.
They're going to dwell on that a lot.
Yeah.
And again, like, it's nice to see the old-fashioned apologetics, right?
Because we're kind of used to like the slick and smooth, refined internet apologetics of post-9-11 anti-atheism.
And these guys are like, Charles Darwin was a Freemason.
That is the end of my motherfucking thought.
Hey, Chuck, you want to do like Kalam Cosmological?
No.
I don't know what any of those words mean.
I thought the Earth was going to end and I sold my fucking house.
Yeah.
This is where they're going to introduce one of the villains of our movie, however.
Charles Darwin's
John Dewey.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
Well, yeah,
they introduced Charles Darwin.
And the argument is that, like, evolution science is dumb because they're claiming anyway, religion.
actually invented evolution science.
And I was like, wow, another bold move.
Your argument is
like like our thing is dumb.
Our guys.
We got our guy.
Because their thing invented our thing, but our thing is dumb because of that.
Kind of confusing.
Yeah, because the whole end of this section of this part of the thing is that evolutionists are just as religious in their belief in evolution as religious people are in their belief in religion because both sides
believe.
those things.
So religious thinking is bad.
And they're like, no, no, no.
they it's the real religion is ours the good one pagan religions is the problem that's the that's that's their out for this argument he fucking sits on his ball so hard here at the end he's like they always say why don't we separate church and state but how come they're letting their church their church of
no I want church in the state so I'm saying I'm not a church they're
a church should we introduce that Darwin was a theologian to theologian?
He was a theologian.
Yeah, so they make that claim.
I guess that's true, but whatever.
He's also a high-degree Freemason, Darwin was.
Maybe it was him doing the karate demonstration in the beginning.
I didn't really look at the guy.
Maybe Charles Darwin's just, you know, breaking through six or ten inches at a time.
Third-degree purple belt Freemasonry.
Yeah, while his stepkids took a picture.
Unless you punch a board.
Yeah.
But yeah, then they get to John Dewey, for example.
They tell us about the humanist manifesto of 1933.
And Dewey was one of the signers of that.
Folks, if you haven't read the humanist manifesto, first of all, it's six words long.
So go ahead and treat yourself.
It's the most milquetoast 1940s.
Can't we get along bullshit?
They describe it like it is the actual words you use to invoke bombet.
It's fucking insane.
Yeah, it's just like, yeah, so we learned some new stuff kind of recently.
Like, science did a little bit of stuff, so we're going to implement that into our thinking.
It's a morality white paper.
Yeah, it's lit, it's like six librarians and their Jewish friend getting together and going, All right, so here's the thing.
Maybe we just be nice,
right?
But according to the movie, according to Chuck Smith, here, their militant goal was a religious belief called
teaching science, teaching true things,
yeah.
And then they introduce us to some of the evolutionists who actually freely admit to this day that it's all a religion.
All of evolution is a religion, according to, according to them anyway, many evolutionists.
And I was like, oh, like, like who, for example?
Well, they bring up first L.
Harrison Matthews.
He died in 1986, by the way, at age 85.
So today he freely admits nothing.
But Matthew once used the word faith in something he wrote.
In a sentence about things.
Got him.
I don't even think he was using it in the context of religious faith.
It was just like the regular
other uses.
Sure wasn't.
The word faith.
Fucking Google Scholar has this guy's public domain book, and they were like, no, they're lying about what he said.
Sure were.
They also introduced us to H.S.
Lipson.
Oh, a bunch of lipheads in the audience.
You know it.
Yeah.
Ooh, indeed.
He's another evil evolutionist who, but who does freely admit that it's all a religion.
H.S.
Lipson died in 1991 when this was made.
He was age 81.
So at this point, I was like, okay,
do you have anyone who could like beat Joe Biden in a debate?
Maybe that would be great.
They do have one younger person coming right up,
Colin Patterson, who was only 58, at least when they made this.
He died in 1998.
And he is one of the scientists that the evangelical community loves to cherry-pick quotes from.
And they found one from him that they use, apparently.
But Colin Patterson's final book literally says, Hey, religious people tried to hijack my shit with quotes out of context.
Creationism is dumb, to be clear.
I want to be super clear.
It's stupid.
And I want to clarify right now: don't use my words out of context.
And Christians are just like, use my words.
So then we go back to Chuck Smith and he says, why doesn't creationism get equal tax dollars?
And I was like, well, I mean, maybe if churches paid taxes, that would make a little more sense.
Oh, but also
you want to go correct because you're talking about public schools.
So there's that.
Of course, they go straight from there to the scopes trial.
Scopes trial.
Now, here's the thing.
And again, this is why I love this movie, right?
Because we've watched a lot of anti-evolution films, but they're more modern movies, movies that perhaps have considered whether or not Christians should bring up the time we made evolution illegal to teach trial, right?
But they are portraying the Scopes trial as like this, this moment when atheism conquered Christianity.
Yes.
Sort of.
I mean, so what they're saying is like, Tennessee in 1925 agrees with us, so we win.
Right.
And And just fun fact about the Scopes trial,
the teacher who was teaching evolution, yes, got convicted of whatever dumb Tennessee law in 1925.
The conviction actually got overturned on technicality, which is kind of fun.
He was fined $100, and then they were like, nah, it's fine.
It's a technicality where like, we actually can't even do that.
And their famous Christian lawyer in that trial, William Jennings Bryan, died five days after the trial.
He sure did.
Maybe not in top form.
Although I do like that the old-timey movie about it makes it seem like he got pwned so hard about Jonah and the whale that he literally died.
Yeah.
I didn't know I was going to get asked a tricky question.
Dead.
Ladies and gentlemen, we got him.
We got him.
Yeah.
So we're going to learn about the Scopes trial from one of their talking heads who, I don't know, it sounded like Tom Segura's impression of a guy from Louisiana.
Bill fucking Keith, baby.
Yeah, this is a former Louisiana senator, Bill Keith.
I looked him up to his education is Wheaton College.
I think that's the college from God's Not Dead.
And also Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Yeah.
And he explains that within 10 years of the scopes trial being done, the humanists had a manifesto.
And like,
maybe we can, can we stop using the word manifesto for for good stuff?
It just rings evil to a lot of people.
Yeah.
And then they show us a picture of John Dewey again, the evil socialist.
They give us a piano sting.
They do the Zoom and the piano.
They literally do dramatic prairie dog with creator of the Dewey decimal system, John Dewey.
Oh, different, different Dewey.
That's, I think that's Melville Dewey.
No, it's most people don't know this, but John Dewey's alter ego was Melville Dewey and you are wrong.
Okay, you are the resident scientist and historian.
I'm the resident scientist and librarian.
Yeah, okay.
See, Noah would have cut me being wrong just now, but you're listening to that.
Neither here nor there, Eli.
Neither here nor there.
Pin in that.
Don't you dare
tease that.
Don't you dare tease the neither here nor there on this podcast, sir.
Not today.
Okay, so they show us evil John Eli, Melville, Dewey, John Dewey, the socialist, piano sting.
And then Bill Keith explains that public schools are actually just seminaries for
real stuff.
So we're going to call it a tie.
If you think about it, the way people learn religion and also learn math, it's basically all Sunday school.
Yeah.
School's right in Sunday school.
How could it be different?
Yeah.
And then they make the mistake of showing us a little bit of the evil text of the humanist manifesto.
And highlighted is the sentence, religions are coming to terms with new conditions created by vastly increased knowledge like that's that's the evil text they're talking about
yeah
so next we're going to meet luther sunderland he's a former aerospace engineer who died in 1986 i i would be interested why former but okay whatever i think i have a hunch i have a hunch he's appearing in the christian film called pagan invasion i don't necessarily want to work next to that guy at our aerospace engineer job, right?
You're just like reasonable.
Okay, so I think we need propulsion to go.
I think we're going to bonk the firmament.
Ah, man.
Seems like retirement's a good idea for you.
I'm fired.
You are fired.
Well, I'm going to do a VHS documentary thing with a Christian.
That sounds like a great use of your time.
Yeah, do that, bud.
There's a cult.
He said the world was going to end a while ago.
Yeah, so Sunderland explains to to us the humanist manifesto a little bit more.
He tells us about tenant one,
which is the universe is just self-existing, which is dumb.
But that's what they say about God.
That's their thing for God.
That's their thing.
Yeah.
And then we, of course, learn that the evil socialists from there took over all of education.
And
we meet Vincent Sarek, a doctor who they think is on their team, but that doctor's research found that humans and chimps have a common ancestor four to five million years ago, so kind of fucks with their thing.
Yeah, so this is, I think, a version of frequent guest of the show, Michael Marshall's favorite game, Evil or Tricked Into It.
Oh, okay.
There's definitely one other tricked into it, the hero of this film, who we'll talk about a little bit later.
But Sarek introduces himself by being like, Look, most people don't believe evolution happened, which in 1991 was true.
It was like crazy low, the number of people that believed evolution was happening.
And then he pauses and goes, I mean, except for scientists.
It's the best.
It's the fucking best.
He's like, yeah, but all scientists know that evolution is real.
And then he actually said
exact words.
It's neither here nor there.
It's neither here nor there.
Now, little peek behind the curtain, podcast listeners, if you're not aware, when I am losing an argument to Heath Enright in our reality lives, that is what I say.
Everything.
It's neither here nor there.
When this appeared on the screen, I began to weep with laughter.
Yep.
So we're watching PhD, now Christian born-again Eli just lying.
Just lying.
Even though he knows better than anyone about like four to five million years ago, a common ancestor between humans and chimpanzees.
From there, we go back to Luther Sunderland, the former aerospace engineer, and he starts complaining that thousands of kids are getting bussed to museums of science, which is just like
the Soviet Union.
The Soviet Union.
Yeah.
I don't remember the parts in The Rise and Fall of the USSR by Hydra and Freak that talked about all the museum trips, the brainwashing museum trips.
But you know, I skimmed.
I skimmed.
It's a big book.
I don't remember that being a big part of their thing.
I'd also just like to point out, you know, we have geometry in the United States, just like the Soviet Union, too.
There's some things we have, museums of science, geometry.
You have some things in common, yeah.
A president.
Yeah.
So seems like we're doing lots of stuff like Russia now.
So maybe
they nailed it.
We're going to take a quick break to think about that.
And then we'll be back with more Pagan Invasion 7.
Okay, but if I put in big score, I'm down to 90 lands, and that cannot be enough.
Hey, Eli, can I borrow 20 bucks?
What?
No, why would you think I have 20 bucks?
You must have lots of money.
Don't you go to therapy?
That stuff is super expensive.
You gotta have money.
Oh, Heath, I get my therapy with BetterHelp.
Oh, what's
BetterHelp?
Let's talk numbers.
Traditional in-person therapy can cost anywhere between $100 and $250 per session, which adds up fast.
But with BetterHelp Online Therapy, you can save an average of up to 50% per session.
With BetterHelp, you pay a flat fee for weekly sessions, saving you big on cost and on time.
Therapy should feel accessible, not like a luxury.
With online therapy, you get quality care at a price that makes sense and can help you with anything from anxiety to everyday stress.
Your mental health is worth it.
And now it's within reach.
Wow, that sounds great.
But have you actually used it?
I sure have, Heath.
Therapy is the cornerstone of a lot of my mental health practice.
With over 30,000 therapists, BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform, having served over 5 million people globally.
It's convenient too.
You can join a session with a click of a button, helping you fit therapy into your busy life.
Plus, you can switch therapists at any time.
That sounds amazing.
Where can I learn more?
Your well-being is worth it.
Visit betterhelp.com slash awful to get 10% off your first month.
That's betterhelp, h-e-l-p.com/slash awful.
All right.
Thanks, Eli.
Wait, what did you need 20 bucks for, anyways?
I was going to buy a bunch of pennies to throw at people I don't think voted correctly.
Ooh, just pennies?
Nickels are way heavier.
Yeah, but with pennies, I can get more.
Ooh, smart.
Yeah.
Smart.
About volume.
I hereby call to order this, the Scopes Monkey Trial, according to stupid people.
I'm judge, probably something Jewish.
You may be seated.
Mr.
Darrow, your client is charged with trying to murder God with his bare hands.
How do you plead?
Your honor, I call the other lawyer to the stand.
Fuck, I have to say yes.
Exactly.
Please proceed.
All right, so tell me, counselor.
Big stupid Christian says, what?
What?
Got him.
Got him.
Everybody heard that.
Yep, you got him.
Nobody ever gets to believe in God in a school building again.
Case dismiss.
Yes.
And we're back.
When we left off, it doesn't matter.
There's no coherent thread.
Now we meet attorney Wendell Bird, who argued before the Supreme Court that creationism should get equal tax money and equal word count in biology textbooks.
Yeah.
And podcast listener, if you're wondering what Wendell Bird looks like, he looks like he has a system for wiping.
You know what I'm saying?
Okay.
Judgy, it's good to have a system.
Front to back.
Definitely front to back.
But seriously, this guy wrote a book called actually
to evolution yeah he wrote the origin of species revisited au contra the redux the remix
yeah and again for clarity he is not a scientist he is a lawyer he is a lawyer indeed and then they cut away from that lawyer and they cut away to just some guy being like yeah it's about academic freedom to be wrong or right we're not sure we should have both sides though though.
Both sides are important.
They're literally cutting to the generation that just elected Donald Trump when they were in their early 30s and late 20s.
Just like, I actually think it should be taught in schools because if they don't, I will mail.
You vote for Nixon and Reagan.
Uh-huh.
Yes.
So that guy tells us his wisdom.
Yeah.
He also says we shouldn't be afraid of ideas.
And I wrote in my notes, I bet I can name some ideas this guy is afraid of.
Sure could.
Sure could.
If you panned around just the like crowd shot, you'd find something he's afraid of, I'm sure.
We go back to Wendell Bird.
He explains that 86% of people think we should teach creation in schools.
And I was like, all right, come on.
Like 86% of people can't do order of operations for basic arithmetic on Facebook now.
Well, that seems like a bad, that's a bad example.
You should use a different example.
98% of scientists agree on evolution.
Okay, there we go.
We're back on the same page.
But apparently that's neither here nor there.
Exactly.
If we're playing with percents, I've got percents.
I'm just saying.
Yeah.
And Wendell, when he's quoting the statistic, he has an interesting sentence here that he uses where he says that creationism should be taught with an open mind.
And I wrote in my notes to evolution?
Or do you mean creationism should be taught?
while everyone else keeps their mind open?
Because I think it's the latter.
He means the religious freedom of other people have an open mind to our religion yeah yeah he also says that there are ways to teach creationism without religious intonations and i for one look i'm a pretty hardcore evolution supporter i would absolutely give equal time to non-religious creationism in school you got a secular creationist curriculum yep it's um it all just came out of nowhere cool you a gym teacher yep yeah You'll get that in the third interstitial podcast.
Listen, I promise.
So one other stat that Wendell Bird gives us is that two-thirds of lawyers believe in teaching creation.
And I mean, like two-thirds of the Supreme Court right now believe corporations are people.
So yeah, all you're convincing me of is that the late 80s and early 90s shouldn't have been trusted with nuclear weapons, Wendell.
I'm not being pushed one way or the other here.
Yeah.
He also adds that we are placating all the science people with
science and science class.
We're placating you.
Babying them, honestly.
They're being spoiled.
They're being spoiled of anything.
Right.
We cut to one of these man on the street interviews again, and one of the girls, again, your grandma who voted for Trump, says, well, I think they should teach them both because you can't prove the past.
And I wrote in my notes, what?
Of course you can.
That's one of the only things you can prove.
That's the perfect thing that can have proof because it happened.
Yep.
It's the future that's hard to prove.
The future is the tricky one.
The future is the tricky one.
Like calling when the world's going to end, for example.
I don't know.
Stuff like that in the future.
So from there, we go back to Carol Matriciana, the co-host, along with Chuck Smith, to learn about the founding fathers and their...
science opinions, their God opinions.
I don't know.
Allegedly, the founding fathers wanted to disprove the existence of God.
Well, I don't think they did.
I'm pretty sure they were deists.
What they're proposing is that the founding fathers of evolution just really wished evolution was true.
And correct me if I'm wrong, got lucky.
Yeah.
Right.
Stumbled into it.
Right.
Because to be clear, what they're not saying is evolution's not true.
What they're saying is that all the people who talked about and founded evolution, whatever the fuck that means to them, just really wanted it to be true.
Just wishing really hard, which is dumb, unless you're the real religion and then wishing is magic.
Yeah.
And here's the thing.
Are we canceling the Founding Fathers stuff?
Because I'll happily cancel the Founding Fathers.
Like, I don't get to use them for their disproving God thing and you don't get to use them for anything you want.
I'll take that deal.
I don't think that's what they're going for.
Yeah, no.
Also, again, these aren't the founding fathers of America, to be clear.
These are the founding fathers of evolution.
And who are the founding fathers of evolution, you ask?
Whoever they choose to fucking talk about for the remaining 30 minutes of this VHS tape.
Yeah, right.
We meet Roger Oakland here.
Oh, okay.
He's this is the fucking best.
Yeah, Roger Oakland co-wrote a book with Carol Matriciana called The Evolution Conspiracy.
But she is interviewing him for this VHS tape like they didn't both write the book yeah it would be like if right now straightfacedly and for the next 40 minutes i turned to heath and i was like so tell me heath about your podcast god awful movies right yeah it's a weird bit that she's pretending to be out of that loop of knowledge Did she have to be the interviewer because she's the lady one?
It feels like she had to be the interviewer because she's the lady one.
Yeah.
Also, the title of that book, The Evolution Conspiracy, like qui bono in that conspiracy, according to them.
What do they think is happening?
Who's making the big money on this?
I'm not clear.
Great question.
Great question.
Science textbook writers that have the real books?
I don't know.
But yeah, we meet some of the evil founding fathers of evolutionism.
For example, Erasmus Darwin.
the grandfather of Charles.
He made something called the Lunar Society way back when.
And I was like, okay, well, whatever, fine.
None of this matters.
Like, my grandfather thought Herbert Hoover was spying on him because he was a socialist.
Nothing matters.
Yeah.
Also, there's a couple of things that I just have to point out about Erasmus Darwin that tickle me to no end.
First of all, they show us a painting of him, and he looks like Dumbledore has cheated on his diet one too many times.
It's fucking hilarious.
But also, he is the founder, and a founder is tough because of how science was written down and stuff, but he is the founder of a very old evolution bugaboo uniformitarianism and if you're like hey i've never heard of that i was like that it's because they seeded that ground before you were born podcast listener okay so uniformitarianism was like a little bit around carbon dating era but also modern science has really helped one of the really hardline arguments against evolution for a really long time was there ain't no way the layers of the earth just fell one on top of the other like that.
We have now proven unequivocally and by shaking up a test tube at a science museum that that is, in fact, how settlement settles.
So they've given up that argument, but this VHS is from 1991 when they were still in the fight, baby.
This is back before there were like pebbles of different sizes, I guess, or nobody had looked at that yet.
I don't know.
Fucking centrifugal flows.
They introduce us to another founding father of evolutionism, Charles Lyle.
And he said, there's clearly no evidence of the biblical flood.
And I was like, what?
Why would you bring that up?
Like, again, like, that's one of your worst ones.
You don't have to bring that up at all.
Right.
But whatever.
That's what they do here.
They also tee up Roger to answer another amazing question here.
Carol's like, hey, Roger, are the evolutionists doing
a conspiracy like in the title of our book, yes, Carol, they very much are.
They are doing a conspiracy.
I'm so glad you asked.
Yeah, and apparently, that conspiracy is again the humanist manifesto.
One of the things written in that is that education is a powerful ally of humanism and religion is dumb.
And I was like, Yeah, okay, cool.
Like, they're about to try to do a Hitler quote and get it wrong, like where Hitler says, take over education.
At this point, I was realizing that they read true things the way we read Project 2025.
Like, darling, have you heard this?
It sucks us to say, oh, I don't know about this.
I'm getting worried.
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, next very important question for Roger.
Are creationist teachers being oppressed?
I'm being oppressed.
I'm being oppressed.
Yeah.
And apparently they are.
They are being oppressed.
There was a meeting about public school curriculum being, you know, true stuff.
A meeting.
They had a meeting about it.
They had a meeting.
Yeah.
And they give us a visual aid to like prove that that happened.
Of what a meeting is.
Newspaper article about that meeting.
Nobody was arguing about that.
That is a thing that happened.
Yes,
they did a meeting about it.
Fun fact, if you pause, that meeting is actually about how much worse at science we are than the rest of the world, explicitly because too many of us were Christian.
So it's a fun little Easter egg for you if you want to follow along with the pagan invasion part seven.
Yeah.
So another dead end for the movie running into its own dead end that it made for itself.
And then Carol's like, hey, Roger, okay, we're moving right along.
Name another evil scientist now.
Name other people who are scary.
And he names Isaac Asimov.
Isaac Asimov, that dangerous sci-fi writer.
Yeah.
You might want to be careful about criticizing fiction writers if you're, you know, arguing from the religion side.
To be fair, Asimov, especially for for the time, was brutally against religion.
So he does give them some very ominous quotes.
He's like, yeah, no, religion's fucking stupid.
And they're like, you see, you see, it's the 90s.
They're not supposed to call us fucking stupid yet.
There's not even a Twitter.
Yeah.
Asimov really got him because they can't say the word Asimov very well, but they try.
Sure can't.
Five or six times.
Fails each time.
Plus, he was a gay guy.
They're worried they're going to end up at ass-to-mouth.
He's got a lot of traps built in there.
It's a lot going on.
Right.
But then we learn that a science teacher got fired for teaching not science, for not doing his job.
Science.
You believe it?
And also,
sorry, I wasn't finished yet.
Another guy got
made fun of.
He didn't get fired, but still, it was rude.
Yeah, it does a great thing.
He says, this other guy was attacked by his fellow teachers.
Like physically?
No.
So they just made fun of him because he's wrong.
They said, they mentioned that he was not teaching science.
Right.
So their point is that this is cancel culture, but with science,
also known as science.
That's what science does.
It cancels things wrong when it finds out.
Yeah.
In fact, it goes so far that the ICR, the Institute for Creation Research, has come under attack and is not allowed to be
the Department of Education.
But they want to be.
And you should give them equal.
They're the Department of Education too.
Yeah.
So from there, we go back to Chuck Chuck Smith, the host.
He explains that we're supposed to teach kids logic, and very clearly, the human eye is a Swiss watch.
So, obviously, the eye had a designer that would be God.
Chuck Smith is wearing glasses while he makes this argument.
Chuck Smith is wearing glasses while he makes this argument.
He's wearing glasses over his eyes.
He's reading off of Q-Hart's using the glasses on his eyes.
He's making the argument through his glasses into a lens that works better than his eyes.
He's wearing glasses while he's making this argument.
Those glasses don't do things.
He could have taken them off for this shot.
Just for one shot would have been great.
Just admit, it's a really bad designer and your whole argument is so much better all of a sudden.
So God.
Incompetent.
Incoming God.
Incompetent God.
Just God shows up to Earth in a four loco hat.
Hey guys, what's up?
I don't know.
I zapped some life into like an amoeba or something.
How'd that work out?
I fucked a crystal like a couple million years ago.
But who hasn't fucked a crystal when they weren't fucked up?
Am I right?
I'm the creator of the universe.
Such a bad thing to bring up if you're trying to do the intelligent designer.
Like, I mean, like, in fairness, I do have a Swiss watch that tells time upside down.
But, like, come on.
Why are you bringing up the eye?
While you're wearing glasses.
Also, while we're bringing up the eye, I submit exhibit Tim Robertson, our social media current.
Yeah, well, from there, they decide to pivot to the purpose of DNA, which Chuck Smith.
Oh, oh, I know that one.
Oh, do you?
Yeah.
So the purpose of your DNA is to prevent you, according to Chuck Smith, exact quote, from changing into another life form.
Okay, really, really bad designer because a lot of that changing is happening.
Also, I think that if your DNA is to prevent you from chaining into another life form, you are not a human.
You are actually a werewolf.
That is your DNA.
It feels like they made a hard right into eugenics here and then somebody made them cut it from the thing.
Yeah, no, it's
part eight.
Yeah.
So part eight is their skulls are shaped different, I swear.
For sure.
So
we get a great segue here.
They're like, yeah, so our version of science is very, very serious.
From there, cut to a cartoon castle in outer space.
Looking at the earth out the window, the open window of the space castle cartoon.
And then we get an evil atheist quote from a paleontologist.
That would be Dr.
Nicholas Houghton.
He's actually kind of fun.
Oh my God, he's the fucking best.
Okay, first of all, this is a good guy.
This is the hero of the film.
He's every person over the age of 70 I've ever met at an atheist convention is just perma shouting.
Yeah.
Looks like someone cut off Jordan Peterson's face and is wearing it as a mask.
I don't know.
It's just, he's beautiful.
Just coming in hot, mid-sentence he's coming in hot full volume no apologetic it's the best and he by the way his quotes are devastating right because they have obviously asked him like why don't you want creation in schools and his answer is like that's just sneaky religion and they're like fuck you gotta say you crooked kneed motherfucker i guess they were hoping for like a gotcha moment but he just said something that's unassailable and they were like fuck
cut and don't cut it just cut away from it and that's what they do.
They cut back to Wendell Bird, the attorney, and he explains the problem.
It's that science nerds claim it's about separation of church and state.
And then he pauses for a second.
This attorney who has argued before the Supreme Court says that, pauses, and he's like, fuck, that is what it is.
Cut.
And they just cut away.
Then we get Larry McClain.
He's an author, just a vaguely guy who writes books according to his Chiron.
And he explains that lots of things don't agree with the Bible.
A fact is a fact.
So, this was another guy that they were hoping for a gotcha, and it didn't work.
So they just cut away again.
And they're like, anyway, fuck that guy.
The Constitution mentions the Creator.
The Creator, therefore, creationism
is in the...
Yeah, but God's not.
Also, just moments ago, weren't they saying the founding fathers were like evil humanists trying to erase that?
Okay.
You're singing.
You're singing.
So then they tell us about a lawsuit in the 80s about public schools.
And their argument is basically, you know, who agrees with us?
Well, Tennessee in 1925, we already told you about that, but also Louisiana and Arkansas.
So those two states apparently passed laws about balanced treatment of creation and evolution in their biology classes.
Right.
But, and again, keep in mind that this is a movie from the 1980s.
They explained that those laws were overturned by the evil ACLU.
Yeah.
Right.
So they're like, okay, our next villain is violence to the evil violence.
Coming in, coming in, evil violence music.
ACLU.
Yeah.
Which means at some point, someone wrote in a script, when you hear the word civil liberties, start the ominous music.
Start the evil music.
Yeah.
The tremolo happens, and we hear that it's the ACLU.
That's their next villain.
And they tell us that the ACLU has millions and millions of dollars from
they come pretty close.
I guess they didn't think of blaming George Soros personally yet.
That wasn't like a talking point yet.
Well, he was a young man at this time.
He's a man about town.
I had a sad realization at this point i was like man i would happily go back to the creationist propaganda of 1991 compared to now right yeah no it was it was a simpler time a better time 1991 but okay this is one of my favorite moments in the whole movie coming up this is where wendell shows us how girthy his brief is so this is exactly what happens podcast listener i need you to understand this wendell says we submitted a 4 000 page brief and then he takes the brief and he like plumps it down in his desk and then without pausing he goes the judge dismissed We, we actually lost because we lost because there the First Amendment actually is a thing, it actually doesn't matter how many pages it is.
We got fucked on that.
It's the very first one.
I studied this a lot.
Stupid, I had this thing bound, so expensive.
God damn it.
Yep, it's a birthday gift for my wife.
Yeah, so again, ran into a dead end.
And then Wendell's like, Well, I don't know, fuck those guys from the ACLU.
Here's a list of evil atheists I will now present in the format of a 90s commercial for like DeVry, where there's the scrolling thing of like the different
majors you could study.
You remember when you were watching cartoons and it'd be like, you can be a personal detective, a secretary, a plumber, a water, a degree, a candlestick maker.
Yeah, exactly.
That's their enemies list.
Yep.
We also get a flash to Paul Kurtz here and look.
No offense to Paul Kurtz.
This was the former president of the American Humanist Association.
I'm sure Paul did great work in the time.
Not the raw sex appeal of Nick Fish is all I'm saying.
All right.
He's not bringing the heat Jeff Blackwell was bringing.
Okay.
Certainly not.
Certainly not.
You pluck a lot more than my nose hairs, Jeff.
That's all I'm saying.
So a lot more.
From there, Wendell explains that there's a coordinated network of humanist sleeper cells for...
for teaching science and that's that's their enemy and then we get a quick evil montage
of evil science-y stuff we see a museum for a second we see an evil national park i guess it was supposed to be like a grand canyon because that i don't know that like that
fucks up the biblical flood is things like national parks they might do you could see i mean look you could see strata here's the thing whatever they show a picture of it does prove evolution i suppose And then the third thing in that montage was just a guy looking at a spotlight on paper, like like somebody doing just, I don't know, like a photon thing.
Yep.
Unclear.
Not clear at all.
But the point is, at the end of this section, it's all anti-Christian censorship.
Yeah.
They wanted a space in their museum for their argument, right?
And just a little plaque in the corner that just says, or God did it.
Yeah.
And
then we see a book with an American flag on it and they do the whole like, this is America thing.
It was pretty fun.
Dude, genuinely, fucking Randy marsh has nothing on this section of the movie i thought this was america i thought we believed in freedom i thought i thought i was allowed to say what i want and you're and just because i one cup of wendy's chili i'm banned from all wendy's forever why does the american
civil liberties union hate liberty when i was there
all right well lots to think about so We're going to give George Soros a quick call, make sure we're doing all the right globalist talking points as we finish the podcast.
But first, let me give Act Three the hard sell.
Are we not in America?
I thought this was America.
Am I being detained?
Find out the answer is Hitler abortion yoga when we return for the remaining runtimely conclusion of Pagan Invasion 7.
Hey, podcast listener, I'm Heath Henry.
And you right Morember Mull from our last filter ad, where my character, the dirty air filter, was was going through a tough time.
Well, many of you reached out worrying about his well-being, but we want to assure you that he's just an actor.
That's right, Heath.
I'm James Rickmore, professional actor, graduate of Yale Drama, and series regular on this year's season of Chicago Fire.
I didn't know.
Congratulations, James.
Thank you, Heath.
But the truth is, many homeowners don't remember, don't have time, or can't find the right size filters.
Filter Easy makes changing your air filters effortless.
The Filter Easy subscription service delivers the right filters to your door right when you need them.
Finally, a subscription service I actually want to subscribe to.
And right now, if you use my code Awful, you can get 50% off your order plus free shipping forever.
But James, have you actually tried it?
I sure have.
My Filter Easy filters arrived the other day, and they are amazing.
No more guessing sizes, running out of filters, or living with dirty air.
The delivery is my reminder to change my filters.
Good for me and good for my family.
You're married?
Oh, yeah.
Two kids.
Look.
Adorable.
I know.
Filter Easy takes care of your air filters so you have time to take care of everything else.
Head to filtereasy.com slash awful and use code awful for 50% off your first order plus free shipping forever.
Once again, that's filtereasy.com backslash awful for 50% off your first order plus free shipping forever.
And make sure you use my promo code AWFL so that no I send you.
All right, James.
Thanks.
So, what part do you play on Chicago Fire?
An air filter.
Air filter, right?
Sure.
A lot of screen time, though.
Over five.
Exciting.
Serious regular.
You like to use Crafty?
They don't do Crafty for the top television.
All right, everybody.
I'm Mr.
Smith.
I'm your biology teacher.
Now, real quick, before we start this year, it's going to be a little different.
Thanks to Bill 184 in the state Senate, in addition to teaching my usual biology curriculum, we'll also be presenting the
non-religious argument for creation as well.
The
Mr.
Bigsby, our gym teacher.
What up, nerds?
Right.
Okay.
So, like you know, this is going to start with a basic biology overview.
So, after the earth cooled, or or was created
or was created, the dominant theory is that the first single-cell organisms may have actually come from crystals capable of self-replication, or everything appeared at once.
That's also a theory, right?
Or that,
anyways, over millions of generations, or none or none,
these single-cell organisms
replicated and changed
that to bring us to today or exactly where we are
okay
questions
yeah why is mr bixby giving you an atomic wedgie
oh yeah the um
the bill says you get to do that too
got it atomic wedgie
and we're back And it's time to get scared by yoga.
So Carol Matriciana continues the interview with her co-author, Roger Oakland, who she's pretending she doesn't know about writing a book with.
The next question is:
Is science actually just pagan magic?
Yeah, and I wrote in my notes, I'm listening.
Yeah, right, because in modernity, right, evolution is not true and we shouldn't be teaching it to our kids is enough.
This movie, this movie's given it to us old school, which is
it's all a trick of yoga and psychotherapy yeah they actually are they're saying that eastern religion is being advanced as science in schools and so like they heard somebody mention i don't know like ai singularity in 1991 and they were like it's big hindu and that's what they're afraid of in this little section they show us a book called Kundalini for the new age and i was like i don't i don't think that's like a textbook in most public high schools.
Yeah, you mean that from that very famous scientist, Goldie Krishna, who we all know and love so well.
And then they get mad at yoga.
And just like as a complete tangent, they're just like, also yoga, they're making our kids fucking stretch, but with like Hindu serpents or something, we're pretty sure.
It's like Halloween.
Yeah.
And they look to the camera when they say that.
And I realized that they had already done a Halloween version of this.
so that was their version of a callback.
Like, and I think we all know how dangerous that is.
Oh, right, they're afraid of Halloween because it's occult somehow, it's pagan, whatever.
Yeah, spooky, scary skeletons.
So, then Carol is like, Hey, Roger, next question for you.
They're bringing paganism into our schools.
Sorry, it wasn't a question, right?
Is that what's happening?
Yes, yeah, and he explains that he has shelves upon shelves of books about Eastern religion indoctrinated into our public schools.
Yes.
And even if it isn't Eastern religion, because it isn't, they learned it from Buddhist people.
And I wrote my notes, well, wait till he hears about that Muslim propaganda zero.
Also, why does he have shelves and shelves of that?
Why do you think you just, you know,
somebody can point it out and you can be like, oh, that's in public schools and then lie about it.
Get a bibliography going.
Yeah, right, exactly.
But the point is that California schools in particular are teaching religion.
They're masquerading religion as science.
And I was like, wow, they're never going to hear it.
I love when the movie starts fighting itself by accident.
They don't even realize it.
And then they just move to the next question.
Yeah.
She asks Roger, evolution, that's the key to the pagan invasion, right?
That's how are they, how are they doing that?
How are they using that as the key?
And his explanation explanation is that king solomon from maybe you've heard of him from the bible he's the wisest guy ever and he said according to the book we wrote right he said don't get fooled by metaphysical lying again it will never hear their point it's amazing god is gonna get you right so again the counter argument to evolution, according to Solomon, their smartest guy ever is
God's going to fuck you up.
I'm just saying, God will fuck you up.
And people will make up like magic shit and they'll be liars.
Not us, not ours.
Not us.
But like all the other ones, I'm the wisest person ever.
I said in this book.
Yeah.
So then Carol kind of gives us the summation of what she's been doing.
She explains that American students are being forced into Hinduism.
And from here, the movie's going to complain about new age stuff because they don't like that either they they thought about hinduism and they were like also new age i don't know keith are we going to hear about new age stuff in the schools new age stuff for students
that would be at least vaguely irrelevant no we are not they're just going to talk about whatever the they feel like talking about they're going to show us the 1991 version of like a gwyneth paltrow goop expo yes the whole life expo so let's be clear about what happened here they very clearly planned part 11 of the pagan invasion about the new age movement.
Right.
And they were like, guys, we only got 11 minutes of footage.
And they were like, damn it, that's perfect.
We had 20 minutes of footage for the Evolution episode.
What we'll do is we'll relate two unrelated words in the title with the words from and to.
We'll say neither here nor there towards the at the beginning.
Oh, that's great.
And then we'll just talk about both of those things unrelatedly as much as we like.
I'm also mad at Shirley McClain.
Can we use that?
Fucking Shirley McCain.
Having someone do Shirley McClain jokes, I felt like I was getting a shoulder massage from a young Jay Leno all of a sudden.
Like the unapproachability, the unrelatability of trying to explain to anyone in our audience under the age of a thousand of what Shirley McClain was and how we felt about her as a generation.
It's impossible.
It's the, I need a Rosetta Stone to communicate Shirley McClain jokes, but yeah,
they are very scared of her.
Okay, so remembering back,
you apparently were there for some of this Shirley McClain phenomenon.
We both were.
You are older than me.
Was she a big factor in like high school biology tech speakers?
Jeff Dunham.
She was the high school circuits, Jeff Dunham, old Shirley McClain.
It's so good.
The movie, it just got distracted and started ranting about different new age.
You know, like, you know what else grinds my gears?
Other brands of lying that were real, but other ones are bad.
They show us just for a second.
Again, it's just like, you know what else grinds my gears?
The United Nations General Assembly.
And we just see like a tiny little shot of their logo or something like that.
Nope, that's a real thing.
Shit.
Fuck.
Yeah.
And then we get, we get to hear from the guy from the Whole Life Expo.
Yeah.
And look.
The people from the Whole Life Expo are obviously saying stupid shit.
Yeah.
But,
but this was supposed to be about schools.
Like, I'm happy to join you in your documentary called New Age Stuff is Bullshit.
And yeah, all the stuff they say is bullshit.
It's also significantly less harmful bullshit than what you believe movie.
Yeah, I feel like Chuck Smith and Carol Matriciana could come on to this show and do an episode about like a goop thing,
but they have a lot of trouble realizing why their thing is also.
Got a lot of that going on.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so the Whole Life Expo guy actually says at one point, you got to think like Jesus Christ.
But that's one of his like New Age messages.
And the movie didn't know what to do with that.
They were like, do we agree with that guy?
Or I don't know.
He's pretty Hindu.
Anyway, moving on.
They had no idea.
And then the New Age guy explains that humans are taking control of evolution now, you know, like with with our minds and our consciousness and our new age, whatever.
Yeah, I wanted Chuck Smith to turn to the camera and be be like, see, these motherfuckers don't understand evolution any better than we do.
We see a little bit of evil crystal dancing.
We just kind of get a montage of evil new age stuff that they're afraid of a little bit more.
There's a lady in a pyramid hat.
I found that very enjoyable.
Yeah.
And then we're going to take a hard turn.
to some Hitler footage.
Hitler!
Yeah.
So the movie's like, yeah, so humans obviously have lost their morality.
They cut to the Hitler footage and they show us a bunch of it.
And then they make one weird, the audio comes in and the narrator says, lots of non-Jewish people were also victims of the Holocaust.
That was bad.
Weird.
And I was like, okay, why?
Yes, but like, that's weird to go out of your way to do that.
Also, careful not to get too into the whole anti-Hitler thing.
Spoilers, 1991 Christians, that will be your future brand.
Think of your grandkids, won't you?
Yeah.
Well, the connection they make here is that Hitler is just like abortion now or in 1991.
And I was like, what are they going to do with this?
Yeah.
And can I say, it is a bold,
it is the kind of boldness that only 1991 Christians had to go directly from footage of children starving in the Holocaust to one of your little pro-life marches.
That's
a hell of a thing.
Yeah.
Is this the like,
you know, millions and millions?
First, they came for the fetuses, and it's just like a Holocaust of fetuses.
Is that the thing that they're going for here?
We get a little footage of them moving around a gummy bear limb for a second, pretending that's a baby.
Yeah, we see the anti-choice march.
We see a protest sign at that march.
It's fucking weird.
It's a fetus getting like grabbed by a hand that's coming in there because that's that's how abortion works.
And the entire huge bright red background of this big protest sign is a swastika.
So like the person who went to that march had to carry that fucking giant swastika sign like through a bus station or a subway station and like down other streets.
Loudly explain.
I'm doing an anti-abortion thing later.
This is an inappropriate metaphor.
I'm not an
anti-abortion thing.
Why is the swastika in it though?
Because it's a stupid method.
I'm a stupid person, not an evil.
Can you at least do the crossed out thing, maybe?
No.
Oh, that was diagnosed to say they're not.
Yeah, well, then I would say they're not the Nazis.
They're the opposite.
Then the fetuses are the GIs.
Okay, let's all vote for George Bush Sr.
What do you think?
Absolutely.
I will vote for the right side of the ticket until the very second I die of the COVID they give me.
Yeah.
So
I think this is their argument.
They claim that like, if we want to stop being abortion Nazis, we can do evolution or
we can do the Bible.
And I was like, wow, they're just like, I need to reject about 19 different premises in that one little sentence that is their claim for their whole movie.
From there, we get a montage of nature-ish stuff that proves God is real, I suppose.
It's intelligent design stuff, like a river and a fish, a bee.
Just resulting to, ain't it pretty, though, as an argument.
Yeah, and it ends on zebras.
Why would you fucking pick zebras?
They're such a good example of evolution.
Yeah, but they're very pretty, too.
They're also pretty.
They are pretty.
I suppose.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, from there, we get Chuck Smith.
to wrap it all up and he comes on he's like sorry got got distracted by listing did i just complain about a wellness grievances expo and then yeah yeah I think I just showed you a bunch of video footage of penguins God
sorry I'm really thrown off because I can't describe this enough I predicted the world would end last year
that's the guy yeah he uh he comes back on and he's like listen here's our here's our main point sorry that was a big that was a big tangent public schools are corrupted by Hindu evolution and now it's like a a zoo.
Schools are like a zoo because evolution is about animals, and animals are in zoos.
I think that's what they were going for.
Yeah, yeah, we are now literally going for the argument from kids these days,
right?
Yeah, and they're showing a playground, and two kids like kind of start to shove each other.
And they, you can feel them like getting a boner and zooming in.
See, see, and then the kids are like, nah, I'm just fucking with you.
I'm like, god damn it.
And
it's just watching this playground with this camera for four and a half hours.
Kids playing soccer actually
that's why probably there was a little bit of a bump there
but then he goes full or well or like full bad or well needs to get tackled with a time machine he explains that you can trick kids if you tell them that two plus two equals five if you tell kids illogical lies they'll believe it and and that's like our thing you can't you can't steal that's our thing yeah damn it and and then he starts talking about the bible and i was like nope stop i'm gonna to stop listening.
It's going to be long.
What's so funny, again, with no self-awareness at all, he's like, you can implant these lies in people young enough and they will lose the ability to critically think for themselves.
Now I would like you to accept Lord Jesus Christ as your personal sin.
No fucking middle, no jokes, no bits.
I missed the Avenger crowd work.
Let me tell you.
Yep.
Just real long.
And I like, it got me back in.
I heard like, anyway, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, I'm Chuck Smith.
We're done.
And I was like, okay, good job.
And then you did it.
Look, I know the movie's over.
There's literally like three seconds left before the credits, but I have to talk about what might be my favorite movie in the entire film, which is they're like, Thank you so much for watching.
See you next time.
And then the camera and the movie continue to roll while we watch them stand up and leave the CGI castle.
Yeah.
Yep.
Oh, you don't want to fade down?
You don't?
We're just going to stand up and walk out.
Still rolling.
Okay.
Dude, doot-doot.
Fossil on the screen now.
Oh, damn it.
Yeah.
And they're done.
All right.
So, question.
No googling honor system.
What do you think they talk about in Pagan Invasion 8?
Okay, so with material like Shirley McLean and,
you know, outdated evolution arguments, I am going to go with their hatred of the new Chris Rock special
and
Britney Spears jokes.
Yeah.
How'd I do?
How'd I do?
Sadly, it's going to be a lot.
That would be amazing.
It's going to be a lot worse than that.
They're going to be talking about the Antichrist.
Yeah.
In particular, the, you know, charismatic leader who takes over with way too much fascist power and has, I don't know, in their heads at this moment, probably a communist accent, but yeah, there's going to be a whole episode about that.
The old people in our audience already know who they're going to infer is the Antichrist, and it's, it's a fucking perfect choice.
All right.
Well, that's going to do it for Pagan Invasion 7, but that's not going to do it for the episode just yet because we found another terrible movie.
Eli, what's on deck?
In less than a generation, cell phones and the internet have revolutionized virtually every aspect of our lives, transforming how we work, socialize, and communicate.
But what are the health consequences of this invisible convenience?
Giant mental health crisis.
One film reveals the dangers associated with prolonged exposure to wireless technology.
For fuck's sake, it's a 5G thing.
Including health risks such as infertility and cancer.
We'll be watching Generation Zapped.
Come on.
All right.
That sounds like it's going to be fun, actually.
With that to look forward to, we're going to bring episode 498 to a merciful close.
As always, big thanks to our Patreon donors for all the generosity.
If you'd like to help support the show, you can make a per-episode donation at patreon.com slash godawful, and that'll get you early access to an ad-free version of every episode.
And if you enjoyed the show, be sure to check out our sibling shows, The Scathing Atheist, Citation Needed, The Skeptic, and Dnd D Minus, available in all the podcast places.
If you have questions, comments, or cinematic suggestions, you can email GodawfulMovies at gmail.com.
Our theme song was written and performed by Ryan Slanick of Eagle Giraffes on Mars.
All other music was written and performed by our audio engineer, Morgan Clark, and was used with permission.
Thanks again for giving us a chunk of your life this week.
For Noah and Eli, I'm Heath.
Promising to work hard to earn another chunk next week.
Until then, we'll leave you with the Animal House clothes.
All things considered, Heath and Eli kept this one right on the rails.
See, Noah, I told you we could.
Chuck Smith went on to get caught for sexual misconduct.
I don't know, probably, I don't know.
His chances are so high.
Just guessing.
Oh, no, his son did.
His son actually got
there's a bunch of sexual misconduct in that church and a bunch of financial misconduct, too.
Shocking.
Well, we don't judge financial misconduct by this podcast.
Keith is innocent.
Keep it in the fucking podcast, you coward.
This content is can-credentialed, which means you can report instances of harassment, abuse, or other harm at their hotline at 617-249-4255 or on their website at creatoraccountability network.org.
The preceding podcast was a production of Puzzle in the Thunderstorm LLC, Copyright 2025, all rights reserved.
Ready to take advantage of an incredible deal at Mazda?
September is the final month of eligibility for federal $7,500 electric vehicle lease cash on the new Mazda CX70 and CX90 plug-in hybrid.
All Mazda current inventory is unaffected by new tariffs.
See your local Mazda dealer for details.
$7,500 electric vehicle lease cash offer expires at the end of September.
Don't miss out.
$7,500 lease customer cash good toward 2025 CX70 PHEV and CX90 PHEV when leasing through Mazda Financial Services.
These customer cash can be combined with other public offers, including lease incentive offers.
Lease customer cash cannot be combined with APR or other customer cash offers.
Lease customer cash is not redeemable as cash or cash back option.
Lease customer cash is only available on approved credit.
Not all customers will qualify for credit approval or offer.
Limit one discount per customer per vehicle.
Lease customer cash offer only available in the United States regardless of buyer's residency.
Void reprohibited.
Apply within the lease structure as a capital cost reduction.
Lease customer cash is only available on participating Mazda dealer's current inventory, which is subject to availability.
Off rents 9:30-2025, and you must take delivery prior to the expiration of offer.
See participating Mazda dealer for complete details.
I was sipping my latte when my friend gasped.
Her phone had just alerted her to a data breach.
Again, that's when I told her about CAPE.
It's not just another app, it's a mobile carrier built to protect your privacy.
No name, no address, no data collected.
CAPE offers premium nationwide service for $99 a month.
First month, just $30.
Use code CAPE33 and get 33% off your first six months.
She signed up that afternoon.
And now, no more gasps.
Go to CAPE.co.
Privacy starts at the source.
Tired of spills and stains on your sofa?
WashableSofas.com has your back, featuring the Anibay Collection, the only designer sofa that's machine-washable inside and out, where designer quality meets budget-friendly prices.
That's right, sofas started just $699.
Enjoy a no-risk experience with pet-friendly, stain-resistant, and changeable slip covers made with performance fabrics.
Experience cloud-like comfort with high-resilience foam that's hypoallergenic and never needs fluffing.
The sturdy steel frame ensures longevity, and the modular pieces can be rearranged anytime.
Check out washablesofas.com and get up to 60% off your Anabay sofa, backed by a 30-day satisfaction guarantee.
If you're not absolutely in love, send it back for a full refund.
No return shipping or restocking fees, every penny back.
Upgrade now at washablesofas.com.
Offers are subject to change, and certain restrictions may apply.