648: Chopping Wood Edition

Cozy up with fragrance that feels like fall and smells unforgettable.

Pura's smart, app-controlled diffusers pair with premium scents from brands like Nest New York, Capri Blue, Anthropology, and more.

Whether you're craving spiced pumpkin, warm amber, or nostalgic woody notes, there's a scent to match every mood in every space.

Discover why Pura is the go-to for premium home fragrance.

Start your fall refresh now at Pura.com.

So, what do this animal

and this animal

and this animal

have in common?

They all live on an organic valley farm.

Organic Valley dairy comes from small organic family farms that protect the land and the plants and animals that live on it from toxic pesticides, which leads to a thriving ecosystem and delicious, nutritious milk and cheese.

Learn more at OV.coop and taste the difference.

Warning, the following podcast has been rated R for strong language, partial nudity, and mild drug use.

This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by My Sheets Rock and by 7 a.m.

Eastern.

7 a.m.

Eastern.

Because if you have to be up this early, at least somebody can be telling God to go fuck himself.

And now, The Scathing Atheist.

This is DJ Morrow of Balloons in Bold.

And considering the current state of our country has pushed me from twisting at kids' birthday parties to making balloon art speaking out against fascism.

I can assure you we did, in fact, evolve from filthy monkey men.

It's Thursday.

It's July 31st.

And it's Uncommon Instrument Awareness Day.

Hydraulophone will have its day at last.

Yes.

I'm No Illusions.

I'm Eli Bosnick.

I'm Heath Henright.

And from Andy Kims, New Jersey, Annover, Michigan, Awaycross, Georgia, this is the Skating Indepeast.

On this week's episode, Scott Cooper watched The Right to Believe on his work laptop.

A Christian college in Australia buys a robot dog that works in mysterious ways.

And Ryan Walters did not watch The Right to Believe on his laptop.

The first, the diatribe.

I'm not normally polite about my atheism.

Kind of my thing.

But in this instance, I was as nice as I am capable of being.

Still didn't fucking matter, though.

I should have been mean from the start.

So the subject under discussion here was a local Facebook group.

Though to say that it was under discussion is giving too much credit to the moderator.

So when I went to the local No Kings rally in my incredibly trumpy town, the main way that I connected with the little blue speckles in my red ocean that I met was through Facebook.

I joined several local Facebook groups, including a local LGBTQ group, a local group that helps the unhoused, and a Facebook group for local Democrats.

And that last one was by far the largest and the most active.

But it had a problem, and that problem, of course, was Jesus.

One of the moderators decided that the page didn't have enough of him in it.

So about a month after I joined the group, group, he started posting daily affirmations about his Lord and Savior.

So, I reached out to the guy privately.

I said, hey, man,

and I'm directly quoting my message here.

I'm like, hey, man, I appreciate that in your mind, you're just sprinkling some goodwill on other people's Facebook feeds, but that's not how non-religious people take your daily religious posts.

As an atheist in Waycross, Georgia, I'm already bombarded with Christian messages everywhere I go, and I'd love not to have to deal with that when I'm in my home.

This is a really useful page for local liberals, but part of being liberal is welcoming a diverse coalition of people, and these daily religious messages are doing the opposite.

His response?

Still waiting for it.

I message the group itself, hoping that maybe one of the other mods will reign this asshole in, but again, I get nothing back.

So then I try rude.

Not because I think it's any more likely to get a response, but because that's my natural setting and I'm sick and fucking tired of pretending otherwise.

Now, of course, nobody ever read this response, not because they didn't care.

It actually just got bounced for profanity and I didn't feel like it would have the proper impact if I bowlerized in a bunch of references to nether regions and maternal copulators.

But it seemed a shame to let it go to waste entirely, so I at least copied it for y'all.

So here it is.

Dear delusional moderation team that seems to think Wake Ross Georgia has LGBTQ affirming politically active liberals to spare.

I'm not normally the type that would announce my departure from a Facebook group, but when you run a motherfucker off with your petulant ass holery, you should probably know about it.

I joined this group after the No Kings rally in hopes of finding a place where a progressive-minded person in Waycross could feel welcome, and I was able to cling to that delusion for about three fucking weeks until name of asshole removed decided to turn this group into a carnival row for Christ.

Just step into my shoes for a second.

Imagine tomorrow as you walk through this bursting with Jesus City that every bumper sticker and billboard and church reader board and Bible verse on a cash register and message on a cop car and plaque at the courthouse and posters in the library and words in the Pledge of Allegiance and slogan on your fucking money challenge rather than affirmed your religious beliefs.

Just consider for a second how unwelcome it would make you feel and then consider what a prick you would have to be to insist on forcing that bullshit even into the few rare spaces that bill themselves as inclusive.

Or hell, if that imagination is too much work for you, what about you just imagine if I took it upon myself to start posting an atheist affirmation every day.

Every day I could drop another post about how evolution evolution clearly disproves the biblical narrative or about how okay your God book seems to be with slavery or hell, maybe I could point out how easy it was for unethical people to weaponize your faith and use it to usher in fascism in this fucking country.

At least that would be on topic.

There are conservatively 26 billion places you can go on Facebook for daily doses of your Jesus bullshit.

There is, as near as I can tell, one place you can go to connect with fellow liberal thinkers in this blood-red magified city.

But you've gone out of your way to make it unwelcoming.

Keep in mind that many people outside your religious bubble, especially people in the LGBTQ community who are constantly being targeted by your religious bubble, see the cross as the symbol of a fucking hate group.

And maybe instead of shoving it down people's throats, you should be working on rehabilitating it by not being the same petty, thoughtless assholes that those of us victimized by your church expect you to be for once, eventually, ever.

They're talking about your Jesus.

The interrupt is broadcast to bring you

Joining me for headlines tonight are the Abracadabra and Hocus Pocus to my open Sesame Heath Enright and Eli Bosnick.

Fellas, are you ready to make some magic?

Check your wallet.

Yeah, nice try, Heath.

I learned how to make all my money disappear way before this week.

Check your Bitcoin wallet.

Yeah, right.

Yeah.

And speaking of making magic and taking money out of your wallet, we're excited to announce that we've got another live god-awful movies coming up in September.

September 27th, we're going to be in beautiful New Orleans, which eli probably also thinks is rock city for a live recording of our sister show so while you rush to godawful movieslive.com to get your tickets we're going to pause for a word from this week's sponsor my sheets rock

see

i mean it's better but what about meltage oh meltage is a problem yes it is what are you doing oh heath is trying out my brand new invention the ice bed The ice bed.

Yep.

Perfect solution for warm sleepers everywhere.

It's a whole bed made out of a solid block of ice.

Yeah, I see.

But Eli, if you're a warm sleeper, why don't you just try the regulator sheets from MySheets Rock?

What are the...

Okay, I think I'm stuck in the bed.

Yeah, I'm stuck in the bed.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's like a tongue-in-flagpole situation.

Yep.

Okay, what are the regulator sheets for MySheets Rock?

My Sheets Rock created the regulator sheets, which are designed specifically to keep hot sleepers cool and cold sleepers comfortable.

They regulate temperature with moisture, stay breathable, and they're so soft you'll sleep comfortably every night.

That's because these sheets are made from best-in-class bamboo rayon, which transfers body heat two times more effectively than regular sheets and reduces humidity by 50%.

So you can experience your best night's sleep yet.

Have you actually tried them?

Like really stuck.

I sure have.

My Sheets Rock sent us a set to try when they first became a sponsor and I loved them so much that I bought three more pairs.

Now MySheets Rocks are the only sheets that I'll sleep on.

But what if I don't believe you?

Don't believe me?

Their 2,200 five-star customer reviews speak for themselves.

Plus, they offer a 90-day risk-free trial and free shipping and returns.

Check out MySheetsRock at mysheetsrock.com/slash scathing and enter our code scathing for 10% off and free shipping.

That's mysheetsrock.com/slash scathing, code scathing.

All right, Noah, thanks.

So, Heath, do you want some help getting unstuck or do you want to wait for it to melt?

Wait for it to melt.

Smart.

It's got my flaps.

We see that.

And now, back to the headlines.

In our lead story tonight, newly confirmed head of the Office of Personnel Management Scott Cooper wants to send a message to federal employees, and that message is Jesus.

And rather than hold down the E key long enough to fill five pages, he instead presented it in the form of a five-page memo encouraging federal employees to be more religious about it.

The memo emphasizes and expands all the various ways you can express your religion up to and include proselytizing your coworkers and subordinates.

And the public that you serve.

Yeah.

Note to staff, we're doing theocracy now.

Also, Also, don't forget Fun Shirt Friday.

Yeah.

Not too fun.

Keep it fucking professional.

That's a sin.

And only brown shirts.

Right, yeah.

So, right, so for the most part, this memo just says shit that's already true and pretends it wasn't before.

Right.

Like whenever they say that they're going to make it legal for kids to read their Bibles in school.

But buried within five pages of, and we're going to make it legal for you to love Jesus during work hours, are a couple of terrifying expansions.

For example, the memo specifically allows for, quote, posters displaying religious messages, end quote.

And of course, we already know that religious messages can and often do mean expressions of bigotry.

So this memo has just encouraged Christian bigots to put up posters about how many genders their God created or how Adam and Steve it isn't.

Yeah, I mean, sure, but I am going to get creative on those posters if there aren't cameras in the fridge.

And I have a Sharpie and a vivid imagination, Cheryl.

I'm just telling you.

I have posters made of brick and mortar and no imagination.

Oh, okay.

Well, there you go.

Whatever that meant.

The most terrifying snippet, though, comes in the section on conversations between employees where it specifically allows for federal workers to engage in religious conversations with other employees, quote, including attempting to persuade others of the correctness of their own religious views, provided that such efforts are not harassing in nature, end quote.

Nope, that does not exist.

If you start a sentence with the word Jesus while we're at work, that's harassing in nature now.

Right.

So if you stay calm enough, this is what they're saying, is if you stay calm enough, you're allowed to tell your gay coworkers that they're going to burn in hell now.

Yeah.

Okay.

Satanists, you know what to do.

Time to set Carol from HR who wears the obnoxiously large cross straight.

Why?

I'm waiting to hear from you.

That is legal now, apparently.

But pin in that, right?

So, but that same section, by the way, it also allows religious people to, quote, encourage their coworkers to participate in religious expressions of faith, end quote.

Now, would that remain true if those coworkers that you were coercing were, say, your subordinate employees?

Well, there's nothing in the fucking memo to suggest otherwise.

And if you think, by the way, that you're safe because you're not a federal employee, I should point out that this also applies when they're dealing with the public.

The memo specifically says that and uses the example of a park ranger praying with a group that they're giving a tour to.

Now, kids, this bristlecone pine tree is older than I think the earth is, but why don't we take a knee for a moment?

Des the big boy stares what he thinks.

Okay, clearly, a Christian park ranger met a young Noah at some point and showed up at Scott Cooper's office just weeping after losing a fight with a child.

I like that part of this origins.

Can you put this in your memo?

Put the part about Bear Mason there so that I get to use it.

And look, so the knee-jerk response to this from a lot of the people in our corner, including some of the people on this show, will be some variation of, well, they sure aren't aren't going to like it when they see my religious expressions, right?

Like we'd like to imagine a bunch of Muslims bowing to Mecca and Satanists drawing bloody pentagrams on the floor and Wiccans dancing naked around a fire in the middle of the office and these idiots are going like, oh, what have we unleashed?

But in reality, the social contract already excludes those people,

right?

The way the majority of their coworkers would react to them is enough to dissuade their religious expression already.

Just ask anybody who's got a religion that requires wearing a turban or a yarmuk or something like that, Right.

Like something tells me that not a lot of office Hindus are going to avail themselves of their new right to evangelize their religion at work.

So what this actually is in the end is a bunch of new ways for Christians to make everyone else feel unwelcome, which is exactly what it was intended to be.

Okay, but Chad Stevens does work somewhere.

And now he has weapons in his arsenal.

And in what a Davis Has Been news.

Oh, nice.

Nice.

You know, one of the most common questions I get when I get to meet folks like you at live shows is, doesn't your job bum you out?

And honestly, 99% of the time, the answer is no.

I mean, yes, we report on the horrors of theocracy at least once a week, but we do so in solidarity with you.

We are listening.

We are not dwelling on the awful, the evil, and the bigoted.

We're reminding you that this shit is bananas, B-A-N-A-N-A-S, and that you are not alone, which is pretty positive, actually.

But sometimes,

sometimes the enormity of Awful is too much to bear, even with that in mind.

And this week, we learned that the death blow to marriage equality might come in the form of ex-county clerk and permanent lurks, the Uruk high-cost player, Kim Davis.

So, we're going to talk about it.

Even as we were dancing on her grave, they were sewing her back together.

Yeah.

Bigot, stronger, faster.

Technology.

Great.

We do.

Kim Davis is back.

It's not worth the money, though.

Yeah.

So if you're unfamiliar with Miss Davis, I assume you're a fantasy creature who's accidentally stumbled into the human realm.

Let me be the first to tell you, you should go back.

Yeah.

Whatever you were running from in the wild hunt or whatever is significantly better than America right now.

So go back to the nothing.

Grab some Starbucks, maybe a Rice Krispie treat, head back into the Fey Wild.

Trust me.

But quick reminder for those of you who don't know, Davis is the Kentucky County clerk who refused to marry a gay couple after after the Obergefell ruling here in the United States.

And her deep biblical loyalism, expressed within the confines of her fourth marriage to her third husband, cost her and her county almost a million dollars in legal fees.

And honestly, Davis's case was kind of a shining beacon for us for a little bit, right?

The living milk-curdling proof that in the end, bad guys do see their comeuppance.

But like everything good in American history, this Supreme Court is now positioned to overturn it.

I feel like it's fucking lazy the way they keep bringing back the same bad guys for the sequel.

It cheapens the ending of the last one.

Okay, lots of Project 2025 was just about thawing Kim Davis out of the cryo prison.

I'm pretty sure.

Yeah, exactly.

Here it is.

Yeah, so Liberty Counsel, Davis's lawyers, have asked the court to weigh in on three points of her case.

One, whether Davis's First Amendment religious liberty rights were infringed upon upon when she was asked to certify marriage certificates for gay couples since it violated her evangelical Christian beliefs.

Two, whether she has qualified immunity that should shield her now as a private citizen from having to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages to the gay couple or sued her.

And three, whether the very case that legalized gay marriage in 2015, oh, Bergeville versus Hodges, should be overturned.

And I should point out that these are all points that this court has either explicitly said or already already demonstrated they are eager to take her side on.

Well, yeah.

And as near as I can tell, there have been zero cases where this court has found that a Christian did not have the legal right to do whatever the fuck it was that they were doing.

So I feel like we can all mark down the 6-3 split now.

Yeah.

And that includes the religious right of removing your kid from a class that has a book with a lady in a leather jacket.

Yep.

I wish that was a wacky, sarcastic example.

It's not.

It is.

So do I.

Yeah.

That's real.

Yeah.

Now, look, this is far from a done deal.

We don't even know if the court is taking the case yet.

And if they do, we don't know which points they're going to agree to weigh in on, right?

As awful as this court is, they're also tremendously cowardly.

And that NYPD mugshot of Luigi Mangioni looks fabulous.

So they may fall short of their theocratic goals, but I am not

optimistic.

What is Eli talking about?

I don't even understand.

And in pubic education news tonight, we have had very serious internal discussions within our company this week about whether we should even bother to keep doing comedy now that the funniest possible thing has happened.

We seriously thought we might have to come out here all serious as fuck, like an East German documentary from 1968 or something, because how the fuck could anything ever be funny again after professional inept Bible purchaser Ryan Walters, who wrote a wave of anti-pornography rhetoric to his position as superintendent of Oklahoma schools, was caught watching porn during a meeting with the state board of Edge of Fucking Gation.

They should have sent a poet.

Damn it, they should have sent a poet.

Okay, so

there's this Christian right activist group who think they're spies called Project Veritas.

They go around trying to discredit liberals with insane entrapment operations and deceptively edited video, but they're all idiots and they keep failing.

Ever since I first learned about them, I've been working on a plan for my own version of their thing.

And I'm brainstorming ideas and then Ryan Walters Project Mendassiums himself so fucking hard in reality.

I'm actually mad about it that I didn't think of this.

Regardless, the new plan is going to every public meeting for every Republican I can find and projecting porn onto whatever screen they're using.

Yeah, sure.

Yeah.

It's my singular focus for now.

Fair.

And a good use of your time.

Now, to be clear, the type of anti-porn sentiment that propelled Walters to the 193rd most powerful position in Oklahoma state politics was the type that actually is just anti-LGBTQ bigotry masquerading as a concern for children, right?

So the porn he was crusading against was along the lines of Heather has two mommies.

And while the porn he was watching no doubt had two mommies in it, it was a fundamentally different thing.

Porn.

Porn was the fundamentally different thing.

It was the other thing is a kid's book.

And I make that distinction because I think it's kind of homophobic to even call this hypocrisy, right?

It's not.

Like anti-abortion people who murder abortion doctors are only ironic if you buy into the bullshit claim that they were pro-life in the first place.

It's like that.

Right.

Yeah.

It's important that we clarify that Ryan is the thing he only imagines other people to be.

Right.

And we got to get out in front of him.

Yes, exactly.

So let me set the stage here for you because, again, this is the funniest thing that ever happened.

So, absolutely.

Ryan Walters is wrapping up a meeting with the State Board of Education last Thursday morning.

And at the end of the meeting, he has to step into the office with a couple of members of the board to discuss some personal stuff about students that shouldn't be like a matter of public record, right?

This is a typical thing.

So, they go into the office, and Ryan Walters fires up his computer, forgetting apparently that he's got one of the TV screens in his office set up to clone his monitor.

And apparently, he's getting himself a pre-boner in advance of the very important jerk session he's planning to have the second this meeting's over.

Because the lady in the schoolgirl outfit on his screen was not a student.

Well, those are way too short to be the new uniforms, Ryan.

Ha ha!

I am seeing you passed the test that they are too short.

Yeah, right, right.

So, okay.

So, apologies for the length of the quote here, but this is all too delicious.

I was trying to like trim this down.

I cannot leave a word of this out.

So, I'm quoting from the local news source that first reported the story as quoted on the friendly atheist blog this is the account given to them by the two board members present whose names are ryan dirthridge and becky carson quote

dirthridge said he noticed the video first while a parent was speaking about her appeal of a district transfer denial as dirthridge weighed his options about how to bring the video to the room's attention carson noticed the nudity yeah you want to come up with like a funny way to bring that to the room yeah right right exactly yeah exactly you got to get into it oh my my gosh rebecca that is so sad but just real

kind of gotta kind of gotta address this so i'm just gonna take out my laser pointer so okay so now we're

we're quoting carson you're recording quoting uh becky carson i was like what am i seeing i was kind of in shock honestly I started to question whether I was actually seeing what I was seeing.

I was like, is that woman naked?

And then I was like, no, she's got a bodysuit on.

And it happened very quickly.

I was like, that is not a bodysuit.

And I,

sorry, I love this quote so goddamn much.

And I hate to even use these terms, but I said, those are her nipples.

And then I was looking closer and I got a full body of view.

And I was like, that is pubic hair.

Even right now, I couldn't even tell you what I was watching.

I'm not sure I'm loving that the first lady had a Lovecraftian response to a picture of a naked body.

It's just Lovecraftian tentacles, not porn.

Wait,

that's porn.

That's porn right now.

Let's be fair, though.

We all watch porn at the office on Thursday morning, and we all cast it onto our big TV.

We're human beings.

But dude, get a dedicated porn laptop, you fucking weirdo.

What are you doing?

Obviously.

So, okay, so dedicated laptop.

Whatever my old laptop is, that's my dedicated laptop.

That's the porn laptop.

All right.

So, okay.

So, at this point, Carson decides it's time to put this smut to a stop.

Or, as she put it to the local news, quote, the mama bear in me came out, end quote.

And then somehow it gets even funnier.

Back to the local story, quoting Carson's recollection, quote,

I was so disturbed by it that I was like, very loudly and boastfully, like I was a parent or a teacher, I said, what is on your TV?

What am I watching?

He was like, what?

What are you talking about?

He stood up and saw it.

He made acknowledgement that he saw it, Carson recalled.

And I said, turn it off now.

And he was like, what is this?

What is this?

So he acknowledged it was inappropriate just by those words.

And he was like,

I can't get it to turn off.

I can't figure out how to turn it off.

And I said, get it turned off.

So he finally got it turned off.

And that was the end of it.

He didn't address it.

He didn't apologize.

Nothing was said.

And greatest quote in the history, and I'll go ahead and say it, the future of this podcast.

Turn it off.

No, don't airdrop it to me.

What the fuck are you doing?

I'm not a cat.

Wait, I am a cat.

With the fucking cat button.

I'm not a pussy.

So, yeah, so move aside, congregation who found out the savior blood dripping from the tree outside that they were eating was aphid shit.

Pack your bags, time that Jerry Falwell Jr.

fell drunkenly down his stairs and then refused to let EMTs in until he'd passed out.

Move over Ben Shapiro's wife, telling him a wet vagina was a disease.

Because now I have the image of Ryan Walters standing up, trying to panic, close his porn window with an awkward boner while the church ladies scream spittle at him, and then trying to sit down and carry on the meeting like nothing fucking happened.

And that will be the last thing that keeps me warm as the light from the world dies around me.

I really, I'm hoping a bunch of pop-up screens kept happening.

Oh, yeah, he's just trying to get me up.

He's like, whack-a-mole, right?

Never mind.

Do you think he went with an anyways?

I bet he went with an anyways.

And in Naked in a drone news, whether or not they're willing to admit they're inherently Christian problems, most people know about things like Christian homophobia or the Christian war on bodily autonomy.

But when you do our job, you're privy to the deep cuts.

The theocratic assholery is so absurd, it sounds like something atheists would make up to make Christians look bad by exaggeration.

Like, for example, the insane insistence of Christian missionaries to reach out to isolated jungle tribes, often at the expense of their own lives or the lives of the people they're reaching out to.

As a result, these tribes are often legally protected from contact.

And this week, we learned that the Christian response to these laws in Brazil has been...

solar-powered drones yelling Bible passages in a language these people don't speak.

So we're going to talk about it.

I feel like you should have to at least believe in all the technology that makes a device possible before you should be allowed to use it, right?

Like this combination of smart and stupid is infuriating.

Yeah, but they'll happily get flying gas-powered chainsaws to fly around the rainforest and then alle their Christian thing.

Exactly.

So first off, big thanks to will you guys actually say whatever I pretend is my name if I send you atheist news to scathingnews at gmail.com for both sending us this story to scathingnews at gmail.com and including the plug in your message.

Yes and yes.

Scathingnews at gmail.com.

Yep.

Okay, so this story in particular is about the Karubo people in the Javari Valley near the Brazil-Peru border.

Now, it's worth pointing out that there are humanitarian agencies in the process of safely making contact with these tribes.

These groups are providing food, medical care, and knowledge of the outside world in a way that's safe for everybody involved.

A job that has been made significantly harder by the fact that their biggest challenge in making contact with a Stone age people

is the Christians who bash through the trees with the full-on flu to tell everybody about a dead carpenter from a country they don't know exists.

Yes, right.

Like the fucking licking all the brownies before anybody else can get to them system of tribal outreach.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, okay, these Christians are liars, but here's the narrative if they're telling the truth about their belief.

They worship a God who sends people to a lake of fire for eternity if those people don't learn about that God's whiny fucking son who really needs attention.

Yes.

And that God's plan was to keep doing that until people invented solar-powered drones in this case.

And then that God was going to keep doing it because the drone doesn't speak Karubo.

That's what's going on.

That's their narrative.

As I said at the top of this story, this week it was discovered that Christians have been flying in solar-powered drones that preach the gospel in a language the tribe doesn't speak.

According to The Guardian, quote, the The first device uncovered, a yellow and gray mobile phone-sized unit, mysteriously appeared in a Karubo village in the Javari Valley recently.

The gadget, which recites the Bible and inspirational talks by an American Baptist, can do so indefinitely, even off-grid, thanks to a solar panel.

Up to seven of the units were reported by local people, but the photo and video evidence were obtained for just one.

A message on the device, located by the Guardian, states: Let's see what Paul says as he considers his own life in Philippians chapter 3, verse 4.

If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more.

This is real embarrassing, y'all.

We already bought them before Larry realized that babble fishes weren't a real thing.

They're just from that book.

All right, we got to get some Duolingo drones or something.

Figure it out.

Now, you might be wondering yourself, okay, why the hell wouldn't these tribes just smash the hell out of the boring bird they got handed?

Well, it's because, nefariously, nefariously, the talking box is also a solar-powered flashlight.

As InTouch Ministries chief operating officer confirmed in an interview with The Guardian last year, quote, it is built for functionality, solar-powered with a flashlight.

Then they discover the content.

Oh, yeah, give them the old in-and-out burger.

Gotcha.

Yeah, exactly.

So, obviously, there's an investigation in progress here.

Local authorities are doing their best to prevent further contact, which, reminder, could be deadly to literally everyone involved.

But it's also an excellent time to remind ourselves that for whatever good missionary groups pretend to be doing, their first priority has been and continues to be pushing their beliefs at the expense of literally any other possible consequence.

Yup.

And finally, tonight, in Dog Forbid News, a Christian college was found to to be run by stupid liars last week.

And we are shocked.

Despite having an amazing source of absolute morality, we got a good deal of immorality.

And

there's a dog, so Dog Forbid nailed it.

The school recently went bankrupt and got forced into receivership to unwind all their debts.

The Deloitte accounting firm is handling the operation.

And according to their 113-page report, the administrators of Brindabella Christian College in Canberra, Australia were fully aware the institution was completely insolvent for years, and they bought a robot dog for $336,000.

Okay, they didn't even buy a real dog.

Consider me unhooked, sir.

Unhooked, I say.

Okay, so my instincts tell me that spending a third of a million dollars on a robot dog is the only thing they ever did that didn't make me hate them.

So this seems like weird framing, Heath, but I'll ride with you.

Yeah, this is probably like the best expenditure they ever made.

And a big thanks to Peter for sending a link to scathingnews at gmail.com.

Peter gets to wrestle with our robot and mammalian dogs anytime they're available.

Okay.

Madge is a lady of years in repose.

Wrestle Bailey or Heath.

Okay.

Peter.

Yeah, you know, you do not want to wrestle Lucinda's robot dog.

She could ride it.

She could ride it.

Madge is delightful as just kind of like a little bit, a little bit old, a little bit slow, but wrestler for sure.

No, she's not there for wrestling.

She's a lady in repose she loves to wrestle so the absurd expenditures went beyond the amazing purchase of a robot dog the school was aware of their financial problems since at least 2018 and they were clearly entirely insolvent since at least 2021 but that didn't stop three board members of the school and two other administrators from taking an expensive trip in april of last year That included a five-day retreat, three days at the Kentucky Derby.

Really?

And yeah, and and what are you doing sidetackle these motherfuckers come on now weird thing yeah plus uh however long it takes to buy one of those robot dogs from boston dynamics no idea why they needed to see that horse race and i'm pretty sure the dog robot is for something lair related like that's what they're using it for yeah i don't like it hey guys we don't get in trouble for spending money we don't have right because i because i gotta start apologizing for my college years now if that's the case we gotta we gotta get ahead of this.

Eli is currently riding one of those Boston dynamic dogs right now.

So I'm too fat, so I'm just kind of sitting on it.

So the total debt amassed by Brindabella to their creditors is about $12 million.

And during just that time in April last year, they spent $460,000 total.

According to Deloitte, quote, the robot was not a core operational requirement and had no clear link to the college's curriculum or educational outcomes.

End quote from Deloitte's Department of Understatement in their report.

Stupid dog pray or something.

The accountants are like, stop putting a mortar board on it.

That is nothing.

It doesn't change anything.

Air you dye.

Robot self.

So in the end, Deloitte found someone to buy the school and its property.

But it's another Christian education group.

And that group might have a robot dog with fucking lair-based training.

So it's not great.

And with our Australian listeners duly warned, we can wrap the headlines for the night.

Heath, Eli, thanks as always.

Jumanji.

And when we come back, we'll have an intervention with Eli.

Hey, podcast listener.

Do you love our shows?

You wish we'd stop visiting metropolitan mecca like California,

New York City.

I'm walking in.

And Cleveland, so we could come to a place near you.

Oh, yeah.

Well, good news, you southern bells and bows.

We're dipping back below the Mason-Dixon line for God Awful Movies Live in New Orleans on September 27th.

Bonjour.

That's New Orleans for Rock.

Enjoy all your favorite God Off of movies with all the visual shenanigans you've been missing.

That was a backflip.

But don't wait, these tickets are going to sell faster than Mardi Gras beads after midnight.

Woohoo!

Head over to GodAwfulMoviesLive.com or check the show notes to grab your tickets today.

God Awful Movies Live in New Orleans, September 27th.

It's going to be French as fuck.

Here at the Skathing Atheists, we often focus on the bad things that people are doing in the name of religion.

Well, today, we're going to mix it up a little bit and focus on a religious person who's doing much better.

He's curing Christian men of watching porn.

And that's nothing, which is way better than average.

Except, well, okay, he's charging money to cure the nothing and wasting people's time while they cure the nothing.

So, oh, well, also bad.

We will not be mixing it up.

The format lives on.

Perfect.

And the porn recovery ministry has an extensive website detailing all their amazing offerings.

So, welcome back to another installment of Gaw, God-awful websites.

All right, you guys ready to heal?

We had Captain Ryan Walters furiously taking notes.

And he's used to furious activity with that army.

Isn't he?

Yeah, he's ready.

On Thursday mornings.

It's like fucking Popeye.

So let's start with the leader of the team, Blaine Bartell.

God-awful movies listeners might remember that name.

He's the former host of the Christian Saturday Night Live rip-off called Fire by Night that we've covered multiple times over the years, but now he's a dedicated minister.

Here's what it says in the meet Blaine section.

Blaine is a modern-day Lazarus.

Oh, is that a refractory period reference?

That would fit.

Jesus resurrected him out of 23 years of sexual addiction and the death of everything he held dear.

Death?

Today, he coaches men out of sexual brokenness and into the Jesus life.

Blaine and his wife Lori reside in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

They love going on long walks from the kitchen to the living room and have a weakness for reality shows.

Okay, so first of all, I'm dying to know what he jerked off to death, but also like, I love that he feels the need to go in, like, I like to go for walks.

I'm kidding.

What am I?

Gay?

No, no.

But seriously, folks, if you masturbate, you will kill the things you love

all right so here's a little backstory on blaine his righteous path started as a kid growing up in saskatchewan canada where he fully absorbed their legendary culture of very serious martial arts what by the time he was only nine years old Blaine was the provincial judo champion.

And we know that's real because Blaine very clearly made his mom find an old photo for the bio section of his anti-masturbation website.

And we can see a young Blaine wearing a gi and holding, well, three very small trophies.

Very tight.

Well, yeah, the one is almost unseeable.

It's so small in the middle there.

Yeah, a lot of people were highly decorated martial artists as children.

You guys, you guys actually sound jealous.

All right.

A lot of similarities, Eli and Blaine.

So after a childhood of judo mastery, Blaine naturally became a superstar of Christian sketch comedy on VHS and Betamax ordered by subscription

through a church.

And that brings us to the tragic incident that incited a 23-year addiction.

This is very serious.

One night, while living in the fast lane, at a hotel in Pennsylvania, he was tempted away from the path and he watched an adult film.

That started what he calls a debilitating addiction that led to his divorce.

Okay, it's less debilitating if you use enough lotion, Blaine.

Jesus.

So after hitting rock bottom, Blaine finally decided to start a support group for his fellow recovering porn addicts called

Chopping Wood.

Okay, I want to make a joke about chopping wood being the title of his anti-porn thing, but isn't divorce also a sin?

Like, I feel like you undo that one before you pledge to never touch your weenie again, right?

Like,

priority-wise.

So, the online home for Blaine's ministry was choppingwood.org, and it presented a variety of useful techniques for staying sober.

One major risk, of course, is morning wood, right?

You wake up and you have to pee, but you also have the uncontrollable urge to masturbate furiously.

We've all been there and we were all confused at times.

Which do you do first?

Do you pee or masturbate?

Sure.

Can you do both at the same time?

Is that even possible?

How do you pee at that angle, even if you just decide to pee?

Most Christian men just don't have all the information they need.

Well, according to Blaine, you can relax that erection by drinking a bunch of water when you wake up, which reminds the brain to focus on the bladder instead of your uncontrollable urge to masturbate furiously.

And then you pee at a normal angle.

And also you never watch porn for the rest of your life.

Yeah, I'm sorry.

Drinking water when you already have to pee is such a great euphemism for Christian advice.

Right.

And thinking a pee boner is sexual arousal is a close second.

So he's right there.

Tracks.

Well, apparently Blaine decided that chopping wood was...

a little on the nose for the name of his anti-erection group.

It wasn't the nose that it was on.

And he wanted to be taken very seriously as a professional.

So he rebranded and split his operation into its two major components, his online education department and his in-person recovery department.

Yeah, it was mostly handcuffs.

So it's all available under one umbrella at BlaineBartel with one L dot com.

So if you know anyone who's struggling, that's where to go.

I'll start with that first component, Blaine's online recovery seminar, known as the Catharos Masterclass for Men.

And the very first thing at the top of the landing page is an important stat about porn.

Quote, 93% of pastors have no plan to combat the greatest enemy to growth in their church.

Let's change that.

Preach about baseball.

Too much Thai food.

And here's the main description.

Catheros is an eight-week small group curriculum for men who want to put pornography in the past for good.

Blaine walks men through the eight transformation practices that liberated him from a lifetime of sexual addiction.

This groundbreaking training program beautifully merges sound behavior science

with the life-altering teachings of Jesus.

Sick.

Sick.

You can become a certified Catharos coach today.

I'm pretty sure none of us are

qualified.

Hey, speak for yourself.

I stayed celibate the entire time the urologist was doing my vasectomy.

Did you?

Whole time.

Did you?

Well, yeah, we're obviously getting certified as anti-wank facilitators.

That's going to be awesome.

So according to Blaine, his coaching materials, quote, fully equip you to walk men into freedom.

All you got to do is order the group Katheros Masterclass Curriculum bundle.

You'll get eight film quality training classes, six workbooks.

Extras can be ordered for $20 each.

Six sets of declaration cards.

They say, I am fully surrendered.

Yeah, I can see that, Fred.

Would you like a towel?

I'm a master of my domain.

And they have a Bible quote on the back of the card.

You also get six handcrafted wooden crosses.

Extras could be ordered for $7.50 each.

A promotional package.

That's all it says.

It's a mystery package of some sort.

The facilitator training manual and

personal email access to Blaine Bartel himself.

And you get all that for just $299

or as low as $27 a month if you get approved for a payment plan.

So Heath has included some photos in our notes here.

Imagine being the guy who had to arrange this photo here that you included to make like six workbooks, a deck of cards, a half dozen tiny little cheap-ass crosses and website access look like $300 worth of shit, right?

This first one, amazing.

I mean, I would love to email Blaine Bartell, and $300 is an amount of money that I have, but I'm really only going to get one shot at this email, everybody.

I got it.

It's got to count.

Get it?

Right.

Okay, so don't believe me.

What are you, my sheets rockets?

You skeptical about this amazing system?

Just listen to this very satisfied customer.

This is Jeff Stone, a certified Catheros coach.

Honey, they're putting me on the website for the anti-porn course you made me go to.

That's fucking awesome, babe.

Here's the quote from Jeff Stone.

Unlike other programs that focus on behavior modification, Catheros challenges men to experience resurrection.

I saw lives change as a catheros group leader.

Catheros changes lives because it addresses the core issue in pornography's addictive behavior, the heart of man.

No, no, that's not the if you if you think it was the heart, you've been tugging on the wrong place the whole time, man.

I hate to tell you that.

Okay, but what about teaching kids?

Great question.

Don't worry.

Lane's got you covered with another masterclass called Catheros for Students.

Oh, fuck.

Arming teenage boys with the power to say no.

Just below that on their student page.

Wait, who are they saying no to?

It's do this to you.

Pornhub.

They yell at the screen.

Just below that, it says 11.

That is the tender age our kids are being exposed to pornography.

The porn kingpins are waging a war for the souls of our children.

It's time we equip them to win this battle.

I am not exaggerating when I say I would rather give my son free reign through my porn hub search history than have him learn about porn from Blaine.

Right, yeah, right.

No,

the latter is far more abusive, yes.

Yeah.

And if you're interested in Catheros for students, you can get the group curriculum bundle for $149.

Wait, hold on, hold on.

I'm being told they are slashing prices for a little time only.

It's just $75.

And that comes with a set of...

I'm glad I didn't answer yet.

You did not.

Good work.

Way to hold out.

You're breaking my balls, but I'm slashing prices.

That makes one of us.

For $75,

you'll get a set of field journals for the kids.

The journal is called 30 Days to Purity of Heart.

Did you jerk off?

No.

Did you jerk off?

No.

Jerk off.

That's basically it.

According to Blaine, quote, journaling, scripture memorization, and a clear blueprint for a life free from porn are all a part of this practical resource.

And you also get access to his video series.

I watched a little bit.

He has a teaser in there.

He sits in front of hot rod cars and like shiny, chromed-out engines.

And he tells kids to stop masturbating.

Yeah, right.

Yeah.

These perverts are the reason that I have to spend so much time thinking about what 11-year-old boys are doing with their penises.

And that brings us to our next amazing vacation together.

Buddy vacation to Blaine's inpatient rehab center for porn addiction.

This is real.

It's called the House of Resurrection.

Oh, come on.

Seriously, you're making it too easy.

So here's what I learned at houseofresurrection.life, which was under blainmarktel.com.

Very first thing, we're told that hope has an address.

That address is in Wagner, Oklahoma, just east of Tulsa, like a 45-minute drive.

And it's near a lake.

They have a lake near their thing.

They describe their venue as a picturesque residential healing center.

where they serve men in crisis with a program called the Men's Freedom Intensive.

According to Blaine, freedom belongs to you.

The Men's Freedom Intensive is the pathway to freedom for any man who has struggled with porn and sexual compulsion.

This two-day residential program will fast.

Fast.

Yeah.

It'll provide the wisdom.

I bet it seems like a long time when you're not jerking off.

It might.

It might.

But just during those two days at this residential program, you'll be provided the wisdom, tools, and healing for lasting freedom.

And then it says, come on in.

No, don't, don't come.

And also, don't bring a fucking black light.

He talks like Tobias Fiume so much, it seems like it's almost on purpose.

I don't think it is.

Here's the pitch for the men's freedom intensive.

Your marriage can't afford another failure.

That's the first thing it says.

Yeah, that's how Anna responded when I asked to be Polly.

So I guess

that's what I said to Anne when she proposed to me.

You promised yourself it was the last time.

You swore you'd never do it again.

Yet here you are, stuck in the same cycle, clicking, hiding, deleting, and drowning in shame.

Deleting?

Like, downloading?

Downloading?

Yeah.

Fucking weird.

Continuing.

Let me get a screen capture on this one.

And if you're married, your wife knows.

Maybe she doesn't have all the details, but she feels the distance.

Nobody takes that long to poop.

The tension is growing, and so is the risk.

Porn and sexual addiction don't just steal your integrity.

They rob you of intimacy, trust, and the very life you were meant to live.

And then it says, Your life?

It says, two days that will change your life, a full year of personal aftercare to keep you free.

Should I Google aftercare to make sure it doesn't have any associations outside of spiritual support to stop jerking it?

Nah, how bad could it be?

Okay, I feel like maybe they're doing aftercare for people who relapse.

I feel like that might be happening.

So here's a list of key components that you get during the rehab.

You'll get the eight-week catheros program plus

two days of transformation at the house of resurrection, skilled and compassionate therapy, including trauma and healing work.

Well, they will include trauma at no extra cost.

Yeah.

Marital trust restoration practices, sacred routine formation, including deep spiritual renewal.

I thought this was about not masturbating.

Five acres of timber and tranquility with plenty of room for therapeutic recreation activities and most importantly, a full year of aftercare with planes.

And all of that, by the way, is Christ-centered and neuroscience-backed.

Once again, sick.

Nope.

Nope.

Pretty sure those two hyphenations cannot legally be linked with an and.

No, they cannot.

Okay, but don't answer yet.

Still don't answer yet.

Okay.

I haven't told you about the facility itself, which is beautiful.

They included some photos of the property and also a photo of a nice boat taking a ride on on a lake.

At first I figured this was the lake they mentioned and they have a boat, but then I saw watermarks for stocksee.com on that photo.

So that's just some guy on a boat somewhere.

There's a concept of a lake is what we meant.

That being said, they do have a fire pit with Adirondack chairs around the side of it, a dedicated cornhole area, and they might have a guitar guy.

I love this pic, though, because

Heath has included a bunch of pictures here, including Guitar Guy.

And you know, this starts with Jerry going, you got to get a picture of me with my guitar, right?

And it ends with him going, okay, but one more with me doing the hoodie and the flannel, though, right?

Right?

Podcast listener, I don't know much, but I know that nothing would make Heath happier than a day trip to the House of Resurrection to destroy these half-chub-carrying Christians in Cornwall.

That is the gift I have for him.

I want to go and just masturbate constantly, just the whole time.

What are they going to do?

Are they going to stop?

I'm relapsing again.

Everybody, lock eyes with me.

I'm relapsing.

I need help.

I need your support.

Blaine, I need after care.

Blaine, after care.

And I need during care.

Come on, man.

Jerry, play something that's not arousing.

I can't do it.

Don't do Wonder Wall again.

Okay, so I'm sensing you might still have some questions.

That's totally natural.

Maybe you're wondering something from the FAQ page.

Oh, good.

Question.

How many men suffer a relapse after residential treatment?

Answer.

Recidivism rates in the sexual addiction industry are alarming.

Eight out of 10 men who attend long-term treatment programs completely relapse within 12 months.

Our long-term success rates with men are over 70%.

Either that or they aren't more honest with us than they are with their spouses it's one of those two things yeah what do you think they meant by completely relapse like you do have to tell you you go all the way all the way back

they don't just like tick a little bit we're talking about stuff up their butt relapse okay

all right here's another important one from the faq question

do i have to tell my wife about my struggle answer Blaine believes disclosure at some point to your spouse is an important step in finding freedom.

However, the how, when, and where are critical.

Blaine will help you understand and discern this process, but ultimately, this decision is up to you.

Okay, so podcast listeners, a little science experiment, when I read this paragraph in our notes, I turned to my wife and I said, Anna, I masturbate.

And her response was, I'm playing Tales of the Shire.

Those of you who are wondering.

Please don't interrupt me.

So

let's get down to brass tacks.

Yeah, way too sharp.

You got to start with a pinky, everybody.

All it's going to cost you to get yourself a three-day, two-night, inpatient rehab in Oklahoma with Christian men who think their wives hate them because they're porn addicts.

They think that's the reason.

All that's going to cost is $1,500.

Reasonable payment plan available.

And again, don't take my word for it.

According to BG of Vancouver.

He's smarter than the guy who gave his first and last name to this website.

I feel like brighter.

Sure is.

According to BG of Vancouver, quote, I did my research.

Programming similar to Blaine's cost multiplied thousands of dollars.

I would have paid twice as much for all that Blaine poured into me.

Oh, come on.

End exact quote.

Freezing.

Okay, I'm just saying, patrons, if you fundraise me $1,500 plus however much the pina colada makes, I can sneak into my luggage.

We have one hell of a prank on our hands, people.

Okay.

One other important component.

If you're the type of guy who just explored the entire site from Blaine Bartel, you're probably concerned about the debilitating pornography addictions of the women in your life.

And once again, the FAQ has you covered.

Question, does Blaine work with women who suffer from sexual addiction?

Answer, he does not.

In fact, he tries really hard not to think about that existing at all for a living.

That's what he does.

However, there's also a version of the rehab program for couples being torn apart by Pornhub called the Marriage Intensive.

And I feel like all of us might be in that exact situation depending on the vacation schedule for Lucinda, Anna, and Anne and how much all three of them want to lean into this bit.

According to Blaine, if you're willing to do the work, this intensive is for you.

God is not finished with your story.

Podcast listener, he has included a picture from I assume this program in our notes.

And the best description of the couple pictured in this photo is at gunpoint.

Whether or not they are,

maybe the best description of them.

Yeah.

And the price, by the way, for the couple's rehab is $2,500.

And I think we can all agree that's a bargain to save your marriage and your eternal soul.

Oh, yeah, big time.

BlaineBartel.com.

God-awful websites, signing off.

Before we take our place in your memory, I want to remind you that you meant to hop over to GodAwfulMoviesLive.com and get your tickets to the Norwegian's live show on September 27th at the end of this show.

VIP and Platinum Night tickets are still available, but they will sell out fast.

Anyway, that's all the blast meeting we've got for you tonight.

We'll be back in 10,022 minutes with more.

If you can't wait that long, be in the lookout for a brand new episode of our Sister Souls hot friend, God off on Wednesday, being at 7 Eastern on Tuesday, and an even new episode of our Hepster So Citation Need to be at noon Eastern on Wednesday.

Obviously, this show would lack showness.

Have I neglected to thank Heath Enright for being so damn complimentable that I'm still finding new ways to compliment him?

648 episodes in.

I'd like to thank Eli Bosnick for starting later.

And for being real sported about the way I always make him the butt of these jokes.

I also want to thank the lovely and talented Lucinda Lusions, who will be back next week, I do believe.

I also want to thank DJ for providing this week's Farnsworth quote.

And hey, if you heard that Farnsworth quote and you were like, what the fuck does balloon art speaking out against fascism look like?

I would strongly encourage you to go to balloonsinbold.com or check the show notes for a link.

You will not be disappointed.

But most of all, of course, I want to thank this week's best bipeds, Trevor, Natalie, the Coffee Mancer, David, other David, Carey, Gridfire, Chris, Magenta by 5, and Stubbs, the three-footed rescue dragon.

Trevor, Natalie, and the Coffee Mancer, whose punches register on the Richter scale and whose kicks register off of it.

David, David, Carrie, and Gridfire, whose IQs are so high, Starlink satellites fuck up the pictures of them.

And Chris, Magenta, and Stubbs, whose coolness is what's going to finally dissipate this heat dome.

Together, these 10 mellifluous mammals managed to maximize our message of mindful management and monotheistic madness by meting out some money.

Not everybody has the alliterative qualities it takes to give us money, but if you do, you can make a per-episode donation to patreon.com slash scathing atheists, whereby you'll earn early access to an extended after version of every episode.

episode.

Or you can make a one-time donation by clicking on the donate button on the right side of the homepage at scathingatheas.com.

And if you'd like to help, but you're saving all your money for having more money, you can also help a ton by leaving the five-star review, telling a friend about the show, and following us on social media.

And speaking of social media, Tim Robinson handles that for us.

Hi, Tim.

And our audio engineer is Morton Clark, who also wrote all the music that was used in this episode, which was used with permission.

If you have questions, comments, or death, touch upon all the content tips on the contact page at scathingadius.com.

I hope Morgan is editing this before the headlines so he doesn't know what we're talking about yet and this is all a tease.

I love that.

This content is canned-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.

Suffs, the new musical has made Tony award-winning history on Broadway.

We demand to be host.

Winner, best score.

We demand to be seen.

Winner, best book.

We demand to be quality.

It's a theatrical masterpiece that's thrilling, inspiring, dazzlingly entertaining, and unquestionably the most emotionally stirring musical this season.

Suffs, playing the Orpheum Theater, October 22nd through November 9th.

Tickets at BroadwaySF.com.

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.