631: Chasten the Dragon Edition

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Warning, the following podcast contains Fs followed by Ux.

This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by Stamps.com, Eli's mom's new book, and by the new Grow Your Own Beard on Muhammad gift for the Muslim in your life, The Shia Pet.

The Shia Pet. Because, yes, Heath made that joke last week, but it was too damn funny not to use for this part of the show, too.

And now, The Scathing Atheist.

Hi, it's Simon here, a longtime listener in DEI Council, holding back a Noah Size diatribe on why, while people are dying in a fire, others are talking about a fire chief being hired based on her gender.

So let's say it one more time, shall we? We did indeed evolve from filthy monkey man.

It's April 3rd. And it's national.
Don't go to work until it's Funday.

Do you want a the day the earth stood still? Because that's how you get a the day the earth stood still, right?

I'm No Illusions. I'm Eli Bosnik.
I'm Michael Marshall. And from Corey, Bookers, New Jersey, Liverpool, England, and Way Cross, Georgia, this is the Skating Atheist.

Oh, this week's episode, Satan comes to Kansas, George Pell will get uncomfortably close to a child one last time,

and Marsh will tickle the dragon's tail. But T-A-L-E tail.
But first, the diatribe.

From the very beginning, I knew that Trump 2.0 would be an existential threat to atheist activists and therefore to to myself.

But I've never felt it as acutely as I did when I saw that Oklahoma superintendent and world's worst bulk Bible buyer, Ryan Walters, was suing the FFRF for

being the FFRF.

So here's a story. Ryan Walters is the state superintendent of schools in Oklahoma.
He's the guy who keeps trying to buy bulk Trump Bibles for classrooms and keeps sitting on his balls about it.

But that's far from the only shitty thing he's done. He's a regular theocracy machine, desperately pushing the boundaries of what kind of Christian coercion you can get away with in a public school.

And as a natural result of that, Oklahoma schools are getting a lot of letters from the Freedom from Religion Foundation.

I'm going to be clear, that's what the FFRF does. That's why they're there.
People email us all the time. They're like, hey, my kid's teacher is sending them home with Bible shit.

And my go-to response is to refer them to the FFRF.

So when one school district started a new policy that allowed student-led mandatory Christian prayers at the start of every school day with no fucking opt-out.

Terrified non-Christian parents reached out to the FFRF and the FFRF sent a letter that said, hey, even with this bullshit Supreme Court, this shit is still illegal.

Or a time when a different public school in a different school district hired a team chaplain for their football team whose stated goal was to, quote, share the gospel, end quote.

Again, terrified non-Christian parents, they reached out to the FFRF. The FFRF sent a letter that said, hey, this is how the law works in case you needed a reminder.
That's what they did, right?

They didn't sue these school districts, even though they probably could have won a fucking lawsuit against either of them.

They just sent a letter reminding them of their obligations vis-a-vis the Constitution.

They've also, and something tells me this is related, even though it's not officially related, they've been among the leaders in the coalition of secular groups that have been fighting Walter's humiliating effort to impress Trump through the size of his Bible purchases.

So he's suing them.

And what could he possibly be suing them for? That's a great great question. And he swears the answer is somewhere in his vague, scaremongering bullshit.

Quote, the Freedom for Religion Foundation are a group of radical atheists that continue to attack our students and teachers in the state of Oklahoma. Well, never again.

These radical atheists can find somewhere else to go because we're not going to allow them to harass our students and teachers for freely expressing their religious beliefs. End quote.

Now, since Ryan Walters brought up harassment of students, this seems like a great time to remind everybody that he's been called on to resign by, among others, GLAAD, the Trevor Project, the Human Rights Campaign, and the NAACP because his rhetoric directly led to the harassment of a trans student in Oklahoma that was driven to suicide after an altercation about what bathroom they were using.

That kind of harassment he'll allow or even cause. Right?

Along with the harassment that non-religious and other non-Christian students must feel every fucking time the team chaplain urges them to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, or they're asked to say amen at the end of the morning announcements.

That kind of harassment, he'll dedicate his career to ensuring.

But the kind of harassment that is having the people tasked with watching over you, being politely reminded of the law, well, that's where he draws the lie.

Everything he has said publicly about this lawsuit is hyperbolic bullshit.

He implies that the FFRF is trying to stop students from praying just because they're trying to stop them from praying into the public address system.

Farting in school and farting into the PA system are two different propositions. And the homophobic misogyny that Christians are promoting is way more offensive than any fucking fart.

But of course, he has to be hyperbolic because there's literally nothing he could even theoretically be suing them for in the law books.

He's just using the courts to get headlines about how he's fighting the back against out-of-state atheist groups.

And the courts should sanction the shit out of him and whatever lawyer he roped into filing this lawsuit for this fucking publicity stunt.

Because anything short of that is an invitation to everybody inconvenienced by an atheist group or watchdog group of any sort to bog them down in meritless lawsuits right justice missing this case will not be enough here because let's say I wind up on Ryan Walters radar right he decides to sue me for calling him say a dick cyst

Doesn't matter that I can prove to a judge that he is in fact a dick cist.

It doesn't matter that the first judge who sees it throws it out because I can't even afford to win a lawsuit of that magnitude, right? Most people can't.

He's charging his side to the Oklahoma taxpayer, and maybe that's who would ultimately pay the bill for me. But in the meantime, I got to lawyer up.
And who can realistically afford to do that shit?

I mean, I guess the FFRF probably doesn't have to lawyer up because they are lawyers, but this is still going to cost them valuable time and effort that should be spent on their mission.

And it's also a warning shot to those of us who aren't a bunch of lawyers and are fighting the same fight.

And of course, given the type of activism we're seeing out of conservative courts, including the SCODIS, who's to say that this lawsuit will fail just because it's entirely frivolous?

When it comes to prayer in schools, this court is perfectly willing to insert more convenient facts when the real ones don't support their conclusion.

What's to say that they won't step in and do the same for Walters? This is a dangerous time to be a watchdog or a watchdog group. And think about what that means.

There are no steps between shutting down the groups, protecting your civil rights, and shutting down your civil rights. Those are the same proposition.

And that is where this lawsuit is trying to take us.

They're talking about your Jesus.

Joining me for headlines tonight on the Wallace and Gromit of the podcast, Michael Marshall and Eli Boznick. Fellas, are you ready to get cheesy?

So, yeah, I am just like Wallace, but I actually have to disguise my accent because Nicola would rather have died a proud Lancastrian than ever marry a Yorkshireman. Oh, obviously, yeah, yeah.

And as an American, the only interspecies couple I'm willing to acknowledge are Shaggy and Scooby-Doo. So, you know, well,

on that moment of cultural bestiality exchange, we're going to pause for a word from this week's sponsor, who is busily drafting a please introduce us different email as we speak.

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All right, then. Well, yeah, I'll just, I'll let you guys get back to it.
Marsh, can you push on my other leg? Oh, this one? No, nope, nope. The other one.
Right. Yeah, sure.

There it is.

And now, back to the headlines. In our lead story tonight, if you are a patron to this show, you occasionally get bonus headlines that the normies miss out on.

And sometimes they're damn good headlines. Like last week.

When patrons got to hear about all the wacky shenanigans Kansas Christians got up to in their effort to block a satanic black mass that was scheduled to take place at their state capitol.

These included trying to change the rules, trying to cancel the event, trying to move the event, trying to have the Satanists arrested, suing the Satanists, and passing a resolution that said they and their religion were bad.

But apparently, that paled in comparison to the chaos that erupted when the event actually happened.

Okay, I'm thinking four Kansas Christians in Ghostbuster jumpsuits carrying vacuum cleaners as backpacks. Please tell me it's that.
Oh, don't be silly, Marsh.

The Ghostbusters are way more scientific than Christians.

Idolized scientists.

So the group organizing this event, they're called the Satanic Grotto. They're unaffiliated with the Satanic Temple and the Church of Satan.

And despite jumping through all the necessary hoops to obtain a permit to hold their black mass in the rotunda, right, where anti-abortion activists are allowed to wave around pictures of aborted fetuses and shit, a last-minute panic by the governor moved them outside.

So last Friday, about 30 Satanists showed up for the event and were met with hundreds of Christian protesters who chanted, yelled, proselytized, and worst of all, sang at them.

Okay, there's no way these people think a Bronze Age carpenter would show up to them scream crying through how mighty be his name and be like, yep, this is exactly what I'm talking about.

This is what I did. That's what I wanted.
This is this right here. Also, you've got to wonder how many of those Christian protesters turned up because it was a black mass protest from Satanists.

And also, like, how many only got as far as black and protest and were already in their power points. Right, yeah, exactly.
Rat or dab boys, rat or dab. They got a Google alert on those words, yeah.

Now, so there were police at this event, but they don't seem to have been doing a great job keeping protesters back.

So when the group's leader, Michael Stewart, said about stomping on a communion wafer as part of the event, one Christian protester grabbed his leg while another tried to eat the cracker before he could stomp on it.

That's the funniest. possible thing.
Am I wrong to be picturing that as like the scene from bodyguard?

Kevin Costner diving into the air to rescue the cracker, but like with his mouth, like some kind of golden retriever with a frisbee.

In a situation where that guy won and stuffed a floor cracker on his mouth, how would he imagine that to be a win? Right. Yeah, exactly.

Now, as near as I can tell from the reporting, they were not able to rescue the Jesus pieces in time before it got stomped.

But after that, Stewart decided to take his protest indoors in defiance of the blatantly unconstitutional decision by the governor to move it. Once inside, all hell broke loose.

Stewart tried to do like a satanic benediction or whatever, and then some asshole Christian tried to snatch the script that he was reading from.

At which point, Stewart punched the motherfucker because he had a reasonable expectation of harm and was engaging in his legal right to self-defense. That's what I saw.
Yeah.

No, No, so okay. So look, at this point, Stewart got arrested.

And, you know, I look, I know that he was kind of trying to get arrested by going inside in the first place and all, but punching the dude was a crazy dumb move, right?

So I guess some people just aren't cut out for martyrdom, I guess.

And to be honest, Stewart just exudes guy who would pop you in the fucking face if you tried to snatch shit from him while he was reading it, right?

Like you take one look at this guy, you have to know. So in his defense, I feel like the inaction of the cops that let the counter protest get out of hand is a pretty strong mitigating factor.

But, dude, you knew you were on camera, Satan better. I don't know, Noah.
In the words of Aleister Crowley, fuck around and find out as thou wilt. No, that's true.
He did say that.

But, like, you are right because they were already terrified of Stuart as some kind of mystical threat. So, don't punch at that by resorting to punching them.

Like, you were at most one mumbled Latin incantation and a bit of a hand wave away from this guy protesting, pissing his pants in fear. Do the homework, put the time in.

Oh, that would have been so much much better, man. Come on.
So, okay.

So, ultimately, four people were arrested, including the guy that Stewart punched, who had apparently been arrested before for threatening to bomb a pride parade. Yeah, there it is.

Surprise, surprise. Yeah.
So him, Stewart, and two other Satanists who tried to continue the indoor demonstration after Stewart was carried off, they were all arrested.

The latter two, because the governor had declared that there would be no indoor demonstrations that day.

Curiously, though, all the counter-protesters who came inside, who were equally violating the governor's order about indoor demonstrations that day, were not arrested for committing the exact same offense.

So we're,

yeah, nor were the guys who assaulted Stewart in their attempt to rescue his Jesus cracker, which he bought off of fucking Amazon.

Details I include both for their relevance to the story and for the people wondering what holding a black mass at the Capitol building was supposed to prove. Yep.

Seems relevant now.

And in Old Testament news,

last week, as I was perusing our inbox over at scathingnews at gmail.com for atheist news provided by and for listeners like you, several folks sent in a story about a Eucharistic miracle in Morris, Indiana.

According to the Twitter account Corpus Christi for Unity and Peace, nothing but the best journalism for you podcast listeners, it all began when a consecrated communion wafer, or a couple of wafers, I guess, were accidentally dropped on the floor, which, hey, side note, clumsy with the body of your God.

Right. Okay, but does the five-second rule apply to deities? Just like blow some of the fallen sin off him.
He's still good. It's fine.
Yeah.

Yeah, no, if he falls, it becomes body of Satan, doesn't it? Yeah.

So it's seriously that there's like a fucking, they're genuinely, there's like a hazmat team that they have that has to come in when there's a, when there's a, when a communion wafer falls on the floor.

It's crazy. Yeah, exactly.
Exactly it. Yeah.

So as is Catholic tradition, the priest put the two fallen crackers in water and then left them in the tabernacle to dissolve for the for the magic but when he came back a couple days later they had begun to bleed and grow skin

is jesus a gremlin

and if so is that

But if so, is that why the Last Supper had to take place before midnight? Well, right, no, clearly, yeah, yeah. He was a magwai at the time.
He was perfectly safe. Yeah.

Now, I know what you're thinking. Eli,

why didn't you bring this to our attention earlier? What are you for if not reporting cracker skin and blood related news?

Well, my friends, I was forced to be patient because it was also explained that they were so sure of the supernatural nature of this miracle that they had sent it to a laboratory to be tested.

And I wanted to wait for those results because I'm a skeptic, damn it. Yeah, the number of potential advertisers you've got to run by me to see if they're bullshit or not suggests otherwise, Eli.

Well, he's no, he's just, it's, it's, it suggests he's a bad skeptic, but not that he's not a skeptic. He is checked.
I'm not checking if they're bullshit, everybody.

I'm checking if they're so bullshit that Marsh will stop being friends with me.

I would sell you a cancer cure for your dog, Judy. Okay, anyways, my friends, the wait is over.
The results are in, and the answer is

it's mold. Okay, but

is the mold circumcised?

Well, we'll find out. According to the Archdiocese, quote, a biochemical analysis of the host from St.

Anthony Church in Morris that was displaying red discoloration in February revealed the presence of a common bacteria found on all humans. No presence of human blood was discovered.

The results indicate the presence of fungus and three different species of bacteria, all of which are commonly found on human hands.

Yeah, and they added, and no, those three different species of bacteria don't count as a holy trinity.

Well, you know, that somebody in the room, when they announced this, when they first read this thing, was like, oh my God, guys, it's found on human skin. The wafer did turn into.

Why am I the only one standing up, guys?

One last thing about this story. If it sounds familiar, it's because it keeps fucking happening.

As Hammond Mehta over at the Friendly Atheist blog pointed out, this exact situation happened in 2012. And then again in 2015.

The reddish mold is actually pretty common and putting fungus food in water makes fungus grow. So

yeah, nice to know that even when it comes to miracles, everything old is new again.

They've never topped up the one where they were eating aphids yet. That was pretty cool.
That was pretty funny.

Or the sewer water

Mary was crying sewage. Yeah.

And in free preach news,

I don't know if you've heard, but free speech is under attack here in the UK right now. Turns out J.D.
Vance, completely right about everything.

And I'd fly over to America and tell them that to his face if I wouldn't be detained at the U.S. border and held for an indeterminate amount of time for having said things Donald Trump dislikes.

There's that. Well,

you don't have to be a sissy about it, though, Marsh. They're going to strap you naked to a chair for what, a day at most.
It's not like you have tattoos. But yeah, J.D.
Vance is completely right.

It is impossible to say anything at all here in my country. And that's doubly true if you're religious, because these days they'll arrest you and throw you in jail just for saying you're Christian.

It's an outrage. It's illiberal.
We need some sort of solidarity movement for the persecuted Christians. You know, put the Jesus into just we Charlie.
Marsh, did you get bitten by Richard Dawkins?

You have to tell us you got bitten by Richard Dawkins.

Or at least that's what you'd think if you'd read recent headlines in the Telegraph, like the headline, Labor Council tries to ban christian street preachers

or as the uk based us funded religious lobby group christian concerned put it street preachers in legal battle to prevent council criminalizing christianity

jesus

christ all right 11 years of doing this i'm guessing the christians are being asked to follow the same rules as everybody else yeah well the council in question is rushmuir council which covers the areas of farnborough and aldershot in Hampshire, who've recently introduced measures to ban groups from using public address systems and handing out religious flyers in the street.

Right.

And if that sounds harsh to you, I'll remind you that that usually consists of a bored, psychotic teenager screaming, you will die, you will die, you will die, 11 hours a day into the sound system made for a system of a down concert.

Yes.

So Sally McGinnis, one of the preachers who's been so viciously silenced, said in an interview with national newspaper, the Daily Telegraph, quote, if this is not challenged and stopped in its tracks now, it will spread and will be terrible for Christian freedoms and freedom in general in this country, unquote.

So, yeah, like first day came for the flyers, but I did not speak out for I did not have a valid discount cord for Vista Prince. Yeah,

well, more like, you know, first day came for the flyers and I did speak out, but I was very hoarse the next day because I had no amplification.

Right. Yeah.
To be clear, they are not stopping these people from handing out pamphlets. No.

They're stopping them from screaming homophobia so loud it affects people trying to pick out a meal deal at the boots two blocks over.

So in reality. Marsh, did you notice I use boots as my reference? Because you're on the show this week.
I could have said 7-Eleven, but I said, in reality,

this isn't actually a case of Christian persecution at all. Are you going to bother next time?

According to a spokesman for the council, they saw an injunction because they received, quote, a high number of complaints relating to aggressive behavior and the use of loud amplification for preaching which has caused nuisance and distress to people and businesses over a prolonged period they sought to prohibit the preaching of any sermons that were quote hostile towards anyone with the protected characteristic of age disability gender reassignment pregnancy race religion belief sex or sexual orientation Oh, okay, so I'm sorry, I should have known better.

I should have said they're being asked to follow the same rules as everyone else and they're being a bunch of abusive bigots. I feel like such a fucking amateur My Ben, right? Come on.
Absolutely.

Yeah. It feels an awful lot like preachers have been over a prolonged period of time using loudspeakers to aggressively share homophobic, transphobic, and or misogynistic messaging.

And the council have told them to stop doing that.

And according to the preachers in question, being seen as hostile is unavoidable when attempting to convince non-believers of the truth of Christianity.

And like, to be fair to them, they're right about that. That is part and parcel of recruiting for a homophobic, transphobic, and/oristic religion.
It is, though.

Yeah, I mean, how can you sell a product when you can't describe its features? Exactly. But I've got a solution for them, right?

If you don't want to have to stop praying your religiously motivated homophobia and transphobia, you can just keep praying all that stuff inside your head.

Because according to your own beliefs, your God can already hear every piously bigoted thought you already have. So you were never actually using that loudspeaker to honor whatever God you believe in.

You were using it to insult and shame and attack the people you happen to dislike there it is yeah

and in snark of the covenant news of the many sacrifices we make for you podcast listener perhaps none is greater than the stupid bullshit we are willing to wade through for your amusement be it 500 christian movies or the self-harm exercise known as the no rogan experience available wherever you podcasts exactly we dive headfirst into the sea of untruth that makes up the majority of the internet, all for your entertainment.

And so, when I heard that the Kennedy files had revealed that the CIA had found the Ark of the Covenant using psychic,

I put on my scuba suit and got ready for action.

And yes, our scuba suits have little windshield wipers on the goggles with the spray. Yeah, I mean, mine too, but to be fair, that's just standard issue for a British winter.
So it wasn't faulty.

So there's pretty much no words in the sentence that I just said that are true. This story is about declassified CIA files, but they aren't from the JFK release.

They're from a declassification way back in August of 2000.

The 1988 document in question comes from something called Project Sunstreak, which claimed to be testing the ability of remote viewers, people who, via psychic ability or a bunch of drugs, depending on the claim, could see thousands of miles away using only their minds in a process that we've now come to call imagination.

Yeah, exactly.

Right, yeah.

So in one of the documents that was part of this project, remote viewer 32 locates the Ark of the Covenant, describes the object itself, its surroundings, and most importantly, what it was protected by.

Quote, The target is protected by entities and can only be opened by those who are authorized to do so. The container will not slash cannot be opened until the time is deemed correct.
End quote.

The remote viewer continued, individuals opening the container by prying or striking are destroyed by the container's protectors through the use of a power unknown to us. End quote.

Us as in you and the idiots who asked you to psychically intuit the location of a magic box from Hebrew mythology or us as in humanity.

Because if it's the, if it's the former, that you could be describing a magnetic time-lock safe with a fucking attack ferret.

I also, I like that it was remote viewer 32 who found it. Like there were 31 previous remote viewers who, like, I assume just kept finding different holy relics.

God damn it, not another holy foreskin. Throw it in a pile with the rest of them and send the next psychic in.

Now, look, there are a lot of problems with this.

First of all, while a lot of the posts around this release claim that the remote viewer didn't know they were supposed to be looking for the Ark of the Covenant, there's nothing in the paperwork that says that.

It just says that they were hoping the remote viewer would find the Ark of the Covenant. And considering that Raiders of the Lost Ark came out in 1981,

seven years before this session took place,

if the examiner did, in fact, tell them that they were looking for the Ark of the Covenant, then details like it being in the Middle East and the description, which exactly matches the prop from the movie, are

less than impressive.

Right. Unless they were remote remote viewing the movie.

In which case, the experiment was a success. It's useless for stealing state secrets, but a really handy way to save money on expensive cinema tickets.
Oh, there you are. Yeah, exactly.

It gives you something to do during Crystal Skull. Lots of uses.

So, yeah, this looks like this one might not be 100% legit. We're still waiting.
But on the other hand, based on the last couple of interviews I've seen, Elon Musk does appear to be genuinely melting.

So maybe someone got a hold of the ark after all, you know? Interesting. Open minds, people.
Yeah, Andy, white nationalist news tonight. That's all the news.
Yeah, right?

Possibly the only good thing Trump did in his first term was to allow the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives to die.

But because Trump didn't do anything good in his first term, he eventually replaced it with his own White House faith office that was way fucking worse.

So much worse that when the Democrats took over, they disbanded it, even though it had the word word faith in it. That is hard to do in American politics.

But of course, Trump undisbanded it this year and has placed congressionally adjudicated grifter Paula White at its head. Paula, I visited heaven and God placed a mantle on me, white.
Paula.

Called upon angelic reinforcement and abundant rain on election day in 2020 to thwart Biden, White. Paula, same-sex union is against God's wishes on marriage.
Just ask my third husband, White.

And those are the middle names we know about. Imagine what we could guess.
Yeah,

right.

Okay, I had to look this lady up and I learned two things about her. One, in almost every single photo you can find of her, her eyes are completely black.

She's been possessed by an evil entity in a bad sci-fi film. Yep.

And then also, two, her surname White came from her second husband and she's since married again, but kept the previous guy's name, which, you know, absolutely her choice.

But given point one, it feels like she's trying to remind us all which part of her eyes she no longer had. Yes.

Trust me, honey, it's better for the brand. So, yeah, right.
So, of course, many are saying, well, sure, no, Trump appointed her to that position, though, in February.

Why are we just talking about it now? Well, because we've had a month and a half to see what she's doing with that position. And it seems to be asking people for money with more authority now.

Of course, now this is kind of tricky, right, for any preacher who gets a job in any presidential administration, I guess, because when your job is give me money and I offer nothing in return, what would a bribe even look like, right?

Well, Paula would like to show you, I guess.

Yeah, if I know one thing about the Trump administration, it's that they're always doing what a stupid person thinks other politicians have been doing all along. Yes, right, exactly.

So in late February, after being assigned to a senior influential post in Trump's White House with plenty of access to the president, she issued a challenge to viewers of her televangelism show.

That challenge, give her money, specifically $133, $52, or $414

in correspondence with Bible verses that she picked out that just happened to naturally fall into a small, medium, and large range all by themselves. What a coincidence.

And for that money, White promised

blessings.

You know, just in general, general blessings. Blessing.
Okay, yeah, but like three tiers of blessings.

You you can choose how blessed you want to be because maybe things are going all right and you're happy just getting magical help like medium like a medium amount of magical help right no 133 dollars worth of magical i don't know 414 worth right but if you're feeling sorry for the dupes that took that challenge i should mention that they actually got off light because as of last week inflation had driven the price of blessings all the way up to a grand

thanks biden right that's why i voted for trump when i was going i would have bestas were 140.

Okay, so, but God did get a little more specific with this one. For your $1,000, you get a personal angel assigned to you, which is pretty good.
God will thwart your enemies.

He'll take away your sickness, and he'll give you prosperity, a long life, an increased inheritance, and a special year of blessing.

Okay, but what if your enemies have also taken up this $1,000 challenge? Oh, shit. Is it going to be like some sort of supernatural face-off against

against their personal angel spiritual thunderdome right god has to fight a mirror match yeah

just picturing an angel up in heaven you sure you don't want me to do one of the kids in africa no no yeah right

so also make this a magical bowling night by the way so i i stopped i stopped a little early there i don't want to sell this short if A longer, wealthier life and the favor of the omnipotent creator of the universe and your own personal angel isn't enough.

They'll also throw in a beautiful 10-inch Waterford Crystal Cross, normal retail value, $70.

Ooh, see, I didn't think that I could be disappointed in a brand whose existence I'm only reminded of when I am both lost and too early at an airport. But damn it, Waterford, you did it.
You did it.

Right. So to be clear, there's no law against selling bullshit for money.

Unfortunately, but there are rules against using your position in government to enrich yourself, which White is very blatantly doing.

Of course, in an administration that will no doubt have the Lincoln bedroom on Airbnb by the end of the year, I don't think he's going to get in any trouble for it, right?

But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't still talk about it and be outraged by it.

And finally, tonight in Saved by the Pell news, the idea that the Lord moves in mysterious ways, it's one of those coping mechanisms that the religious have to sign on to because the alternative is to accept that their omnipotent and benevolent creator really seems to get a kick out of causes suffering.

So, like, rather than face the conclusion of their flawed premise, they perform mysterious ways, mental gymnastics to fool themselves into thinking that their worldview is somehow coherent.

And when it comes to those mental gymnastics, this week we met the Simone Biles of self-deception in the form of the following headline in the Catholic Herald: quote: Family attributes toddler's recovery after near near drowning to Cardinal Pell's intercession.

What? Okay, do I want to know what the angel did after the kid was out of the water, Marsh? Yeah, yeah, right. You can't resuscitate somebody by blowing their guys.
Hold on a second.

So, as the Catholic Herald explains, Caitlin and Wesley Robinson's toddler, Vincent, nearly drowned in their family swimming pool in Arizona, but he miraculously survives.

And they're putting his recovery down to the intercession of the deceased Australian cardinal and convicted paedophile, George Pell.

Okay, well, they're obviously pushing him towards sainthood with this, right? These dude does the posthumous miracle.

And I just, I, I want that to happen just to see what they make him the patron saint of, right?

Like, like, I feel like the other saints are going to strip him as committee assignments, like when Marjorie Taylor Greene blamed the wildfires on Jewish space lasers or something.

And look, this story was so on the nose when I was looking for stories to cover on The Scathing Atheist that when I saw it was published on April april 1st yeah right i genuinely had to double check genuinely i had to double check because the idea that the catholic herald would run a young child rescued by ghost of a magic paedophile as an april fool's prank felt more likely than anyone thinking this story showed the catholic church and its adherence in a good light but this story it also appeared on catholic weekly on march 31st so this story appears to be real even if it definitely isn't true right well i feel like religious news misses a big opportunity every April 1st.

Just a little, you know, or maybe it's Islam. Head your best.

Apparently, the Robinsons met George Pell before he died.

But, you know, to be clear, after he was sent to prison for the sexual abuse of two young boys, when he visited their home state of Arizona in 2021, they even had him over for dinner.

And they say they were hugely impressed by him. Presumably, because, you know, he didn't actively abuse any of their children between courses.

And he never even tried to cover up any rapist priests before dessert well that we know of right to pay fallacy and um

they're just lucky they misunderstood what he was asking for when he asked if they had any pud

so after they found marsh did you notice i made a pudding joke instead of saying dessert because you're here did you notice i did it for you so after they found their 14 month old son vincent

face down in the swimming pool they prayed to george pell for a miracle and after nine days in hospital vincent pulled through and he's expected to make a full recovery from his accident.

Though, given that he's one of nine children and his parents are too busy worshipping dead paedophiles to ensure their swimming pool is baby proof, I'm just hoping he gets the hell out of that whole situation as soon as he's legally able to.

Yeah, but I'll tell you what, the idea that Pell wanted to keep the kid for a week before he miracled him, that tracks, right? Yeah.

Now, to be fair to Cardinal Pell, his conviction for abusing two boys was overturned on appeal after an appeals court found that a jury unanimously believing that the victims and the 50 witnesses were honest and reliable in their accounts isn't sufficient to convict.

No. Especially when there are other members of the clergy who totes swear Pell didn't do it.

Like genuinely, one of their arguments was that he liked to shake hands at the church door at the end of Mass. So he'd have been too busy to abuse that choir boy in 1978.

Right. And the implication thereafter that some kid got a handshake and was like, I think I'm going to spend the next 40 40 years of my life lying about that kid.
Yeah, that seems fun. Yeah.

So the Catholic Church would say it's unfair to refer to him as a prolific child rapist who used his position to cover up the crimes of his fellow paedophile priests.

But given that he died in 2023, they can say it's unfair, but they can't say it's libelous. No, they can't.
They can't even honestly say that it's untrue. Yeah.

And incidentally, this whole story came to light on the 26th of March when Archbishop Anthony Fisher, the current Archbishop of Sydney, mentioned Vincent's miraculous recovery at the launch of a new biography of Cardinal Pell.

And while I've not read the book, I'm going to call it now as incomplete. Yes.

When the real story comes out, it'll be a real

Pell-all.

Nice. Child rapist.
Okay. He's a child rapist.

So when asked about the experience, Vincent's father, Wesley, explained, quote, we know a lot of friends have asked for miracles and they haven't come.

For some reason, God decided it wasn't Vincent's time. And we may never fully know why, but now I'm kind of excited to see what happens next.
Unquote.

Which, again, going back to those mysterious whiz, means that their God ignored the pleas of lots of their friends, but chose instead to nearly drown their 14-month-old son and then chose to toss in a sex offender at the last minute as a kind of paedophile life preserver.

That is their best case scenario of what happened here. Right.

Basically, they're saying, like, I know a lot of people prayed over their pick four tickets other than me as well, but God clearly likes 7-1-3-4-straight box the most. So

therefore he exists. So this is either proof that God truly works in mysterious ways, or it's evidence that even after he's dead, nothing can get between George Pell and some vulnerable children.

Oh, Jesus Christ. All right.
So with congratulations to Eli for holding back so many jokes that he wanted to make during that story, we're going to close the headlines for the night.

Eli, Marsh, thanks as always. Chewmungy.
And when we come back, we'll find out if Marsh is British enough to slay a drag.

Hey, podcast listener. As I've mentioned once or twice on this podcast, my mother, Lee Bennett Hopkins Award winner Liz Rosenberg, writes children's books.
Once or twice?

Well, this week, she's got a brand new book for kids called Giant Baby, and it's based off my, well, extremely giant baby. Yeah, it's basically a documentary.
That's right, Marsh.

Giant Baby has hilarious illustrations, a great story for all ages, but more importantly, it's by my mom and based on my son. So you should buy a copy.
Honestly, you should buy a dozen copies.

Once again, that's Giant Baby by Liz Rosenberg, wherever you get your books. Link in the show notes.
My God, he was massive. Yeah, he was.
His cheeks started as temples.

Yeah, they right above the eye. It's all chair.

I guess the question I'm most often asked is, when they make a video game out of this scathing atheist, who will the boss fights be against?

Well, we try to answer that question periodically in a segment called, Whose

Woo?

So, Marsh, whose flash and red targets are we going to be attacking today?

A lot of our Who's Woo entrant to date have been people who put in the hours and they've done the hard slog to work their way up to a special place in our hate.

But this week, I want to talk about something of a Woo Wunderkind, you know, someone who pivoted from the mainstream to become one of the world's most recognizable faces of bullshit, despite being the youngest Who's Woo Hall of Famer so far.

So let's talk about diary of the ceo's stephen bartlett oh one of my fondest professional memories is listening to you talk about him on an episode of incredulous that we did together so by all means let's

stephen cliff bartlett was born in botswana to a nigerian mother and a british father in august 1992 He moved to the UK at the age of two, growing up in Plymouth on the south coast, where according to an interview with Bartlett in 2016, his parents had no money and he, quote, came to to realize fairly quickly that if he was going to have stuff in his life, it was going to be down to him, unquote, which is a very strange way of describing a five-bedroom detached house in a leafy middle-class suburb, which is now worth about half a million pounds.

And his dad's career as a civil engineer who runs his own consultancy company. Yeah, no, when your dad owned the bootstrap company, it's way less impressive, Steve.
Yeah.

Never met a self-made man whose dad wasn't blue on Wikipedia. You know what I'm saying? Yeah.

The part of Bartlett's biography that does seem to be true, at least, is that he was expelled from his school for poor attendance because, again, according to a later interview with the BBC, quote, he wasn't conforming.

He didn't look like the thing they wanted him to look like in order for them to get the marks they needed for their league tables, unquote.

And then there was a hilariously sycophantic local paper feature in 2021 that went even further on this, explaining that Bartlett was, quote, banned from the sixth form prom and not permitted to attend the celebratory school trip to a theme park, but he went independently anyway, unquote, which was tricky because he had no money at that time.

He wheeled himself over the fence. Oh, right.

Yeah, yeah.

So Bartlett was readmitted to school and secured a place at Manchester Metropolitan University, where he promptly dropped out after attending a single lecture.

And he subsequently explained why in a characteristically earnest LinkedIn post saying staying in university in an environment that I didn't want to be in which I knew wasn't right for me was the risk I was risking my happiness future and potential I knew in my gut that that path wasn't for me and that wasn't a risk I was willing to take I wasn't willing to risk my North Star because it was the conventional way to do things Yeah, that's what I said too, man.

But the real answer was I was doing a lot of drugs.

Most of my homework in college was drugs. Yeah, same.
You guys missed missed out.

In 2012, he unconventionally launched a social media website, Wallpark, which didn't take off and left him in relative poverty.

He was so poor while working at Wallpark that he had stomach pains for days on end, he says. And at one point, he started shoplifting Chicago town pizzas.
Wow.

He was too poor to steal New York-style pizzas. That's right.

Well, I mean, think of it, Noah. You eat a Chicago-style pizza, you're not hungry again for a year.
No, that's fair

to do a crime with, you know.

And then in 2014, he set up a social media marketing agency, Social Chain, which was soon worth $6 million

and just as soon was attracting the attention of the regulators, like the Competition and Markets Authority, for failing to declare content that was actually paid for advertising.

Popper pin in that for later. The social chain were also criticized for stealing content from other social media platforms and passing it off as their own.

But according to Bartlett, that kind of plagiarism and intellectual property theft is actually perfectly fine in the digital world. Oh, Steve, you missed your opportunity as a stand-up comedian.

Right, yeah.

And after a merger with a German company in 2019, Social Chain was reporting revenue expectations of 500 million pounds.

In 2023, those reports were as high as a billion pounds, with Bartlett describing himself as the founder of a billion-pound company. Later that year, the company was sold for £7.7 million,

which is fair to say raise some questions as to how much the company had ever been worth and how much of Bartlett's claims to be extravagantly successful were ever actually true.

Okay, but like by his math,

I own a million-dollar company here. So I feel like maybe we roll with it.
I like his multipliers. And if someone out there wants to offer us $7 million for this company, we are all

listening.

Still, by this point, Bartlett's personal brand was very firmly established. In 2020, he was named in the Forbes 30 Under 30 list.
The same year, he was inducted into the Manchester Hall of Fame.

He'd written a book, Happy Sexy Millionaire: Unexpected Truths About Fulfillment, Love, and Success.

He started a new business called ThirdWeb, which aimed to, quote, simplify the process of building decentralized applications on the blockchain, unquote. Oh, for fucked up.

Did that sentence just pop its collar? What? Yeah.

And at the age of 28, he became the youngest ever dragon on the BBC's Dragon's Den, which is the UK equivalent of Shark Tank. Okay, don't get me wrong.

I love to get high and watch Shark Tank, but I've never understood how these rich people don't know how to turn their money into more money without your help was supposed to impress me. Right?

You know, I don't get the concept.

And right from the off, he was very clearly working hard hard to style himself as the unconventional rebel of the show.

He eschewed the suit and tie look of the other dragons, a decision that he explained in a quintessentially self-aggrandizing LinkedIn essay.

I feel like quintessentially self-aggrandizing is assumed when you say LinkedIn essay. It's a big part of it.
Yeah, it's a big part.

And that combination of self-mythologizing and exaggerated accomplishments and the strategic or pathological requirement to be seen as unconventional has led Bartler to throw his weight behind a series of incredibly dodgy businesses on the TV show.

The TV show itself, for example.

Last February, he endorsed AccuSeeds, which are tiny adhesive balls that, when placed on magical acupuncture meridian points on the airlobe, were claimed to have been the cause of business owner Giselle Boxer's miraculous recovery from her debilitating ME.

And after the ringing endorsements of Bartlett and Primetime BBC, AccuSeeds had to add a note to their site to let customers know to expect massive delays on their orders, so swamped were they with custom.

And soon after that, they had to add a note to their site, making clear that their products can't actually cure or treat any illness, while removing the pages from their site that claimed that their ear stickers could be effective for treating ADHD, endometriosis, postpartum depression, and weight loss.

Wait, the stickers treat weight loss? What are they made of? Mashed potatoes?

We don't answer yet. The regulatory agencies have put a temporary block on new orders.

And then the following week on the show, Bartlett led the cheers and the investment offers for Full Power Cacao, whose founder Liam Brown claimed to be a shaman from Salford in Manchester,

who says he's where all the best shamans come from.

That's not a Manchester accent, but never mind.

Who says he can increase the vibrational energy of his chocolate drink by performing a healing song and that the newly vibrating beverage cures depression?

Wait, so does the business business include him coming around to sing on your coffee? Or like, does he just sing over the beans and then send it to you already vibrating? Ooh, it's crazy.

And just hope they don't stop shaking by the time you're in the middle. Right, yeah, exactly.

And this actually came after the January 2023 appearance on the show of a company called Psychic Sisters, who, as well as selling healing crystals that are good for what ails you, will also perform charms to ward off the evil eye and dispel malevolent curses.

Also, they literally sold a crystal yoni egg to wear in their vagina.

Well, by the way, free evil eye warding with every Patreon sign-up, by the way. Vagina egg not included.
Yeah, right.

Now, Bartlett was all in for each of these businesses and for every other bit of woo that wanders into the den of dragons. More irritatingly, he rarely ever endorses the products directly himself.

Instead, he explains that his girlfriend really loves this stuff. She's a really big believer.

She brings those things into his life, which means he's either into that stuff but doesn't have the conviction to just admit it.

So he just like blames it on his girlfriend, or he isn't actually into any of it. He's just willing to cynically lend his brand to it because he knows there's money to be made from Wellness Woo.

Or maybe it's because his girlfriend is a wellness influencer and entrepreneur whose profile just happens to align with the business that he's choosing to invest in at that time. Oh, so tacky.

What a giant baby by Liz Rosenberg. The perfect children's book for a child of any age.
Giant baby. By Liz Rosenberg.
Now, as a minor silver lining,

the influence of Bartlett's predilection for wellness were on the show is likely to be lessened in the future.

Partly, some enterprising young British skeptic had a meeting with the senior producers of Dragon's Den, which resulted in the show having to review all future content to ensure it doesn't promote dodgy health products.

Also, partly the businesses supported by Bartlett were on the receiving end of a string of high-profile rulings from the Advertising Standards Authority after the intervention of that same young, handsome, and downright downright heroic British scout.

Why, he should be skeptic of the year.

Honestly, Marsh, to me, I'm most impressed that you made it through a meeting with the producers of Dragon's Den without offhandedly mentioning that suicide was an alternative to their career.

So, you know, you're good all around.

So, those aren't actually the only time Bartlett's found himself and his projects on the wrong side of advertising regulators.

There was the 2024 Facebook ad where Bartlett, the well-known guy on TV who talked about which good businesses are good and which ones are bad, he recommended the health tracking app Zoe, saying it might just change your life.

And what the ad didn't explain was that Bartlett is one of the investors in Zoe. He makes money from Zoe.

At the same time, another ad included the caption, ever wondered what Stephen Bartlett actually thinks of Huell's daily greens? No.

And wouldn't you know, he thinks Huell is great because he's one of the company's major investors. Huh.

On his own podcast, he tells his audience that he's been on a really interesting journey with Huell, like the meal replacement drinks, and how he thinks their caramel flavors amazing.

But that journey is, I make money from telling you these things, as long as I don't tell you that I make money from telling you these things.

So there's that pin from earlier where throughout his career, his companies have played pretty casual about what is and isn't sponsored content.

Yeah, say what you want about our ads, but nobody ever mistook Carl for a real unicorn pug. No, they mistook him for Tony D.
Well, no,

yeah. And I should be clear, Liz Rosenberg is my mom, everybody.
My mom.

Author of Giant Baby by Liz Rosenberg.

All of which leads me to what is undoubtedly the most prolific outlet for Bartlett's particular brand of pseudoscience, his Diary of a CEO podcast.

Launching in 2017, Diary of a CEO initially mostly focused on like hustle culture, interviewing influencers and tech startup founders, and talking about Bartlett's own extensive and highly editorialized success story.

But as the years have gone on, that focus has drifted more and more towards pseudoscience and wellness bullshit.

And in doing so, it's become one of the most listened to shows in the world, with in excess of half a billion views on YouTube alone.

And today, as of writing, it is fourth place in the Spotify rankings, just behind Joe Rorgan and just ahead of Candace Owens.

But, you know, it's easy to accept that you're never going to be at the top of your profession when that's what the top of your profession looks like, right? Yeah.

in our case we'd be hoping it's lonely yeah

in december 2024 the bbc published an analysis of 15 health related episodes of diary of a ceo in an investigation that could have been titled well just about time to get that barn door closed

Each episode featured a supposed expert on health, and each one contained an average of at least 14 harmful health claims that went against extensive scientific evidence, including including anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, stating that COVID was an engineered weapon, the idea that polycystic Aubrey syndrome and autism can be reversed with diet, and the idea that evidence-based medication is toxic for patients.

What would reverse autism look like? You just suddenly you fucking hate Max like hates boss baby. Oh my God, sold.
I'll pay anything.

We saw that money from the guy earlier in the podcast who bought our company. He can have it.
He can have it.

Those shows included interviews with fellow Who's Who's Woo Hall of Famers, Vim Hoff, Russell Brand, and Asim Malhotra.

It also included interviews with probable future Hall of Famers, Brett Weinstein and Jordan Peterson. Ooh, I'm looking forward to that one.

He interviewed a breathing expert who told him that breathing through your mouth can cause ADHD.

He interviewed the world's number one yoga guru about how we're on the brink of extinction. He interviewed Gary Brecker, a self-proclaimed human biologist,

who says he can predict a person's death to the exact month and that Alzheimer's disease is a type of diabetes. Now, to be clear, Brecker does not have a medical degree.

Okay, well, based on that list alone, I agree with the brink of extinction guy. Yeah.

Also, maybe Brecker's just threatening people and nobody really picks up what he's putting down, you know?

To justify seeking out and airing those views to millions of people, Bartlett says his aim is to present some of the other side as the truth is usually somewhere in the middle.

But the thing that you're presenting the other side of is the truth, though. Yeah, exactly.

He also explained in an interview that, quote, ideas from the suffragettes, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King were also received equally horrifically.

So we have to be humble that an idea that may be important may trigger us, but it can't be censored.

Well, I guess the other side of that assertion is how hard he can go fuck himself. And since he

can't be censored, I guess I'll be on his podcast to present that side in no time, huh? Yeah, you're not going to be president, Gavin Newsom. I mean, Stephen.
Sorry.

I'm not going to be tracking of that argument. Stephen Bartlett has shown very little sign of slowing down in this pseudoscience.

His latest shows promise to tell you the biggest lies about weight loss and how to beat belly fat and how to rewire your brain for growth and success.

A few weeks ago, he learned that stress is the root of 90% of all diseases, from Dr. Joe Dispenza, a chiropractor.

From his humble beginnings of exaggerating the financial struggles of his youth to his formative years, lying about the value of his businesses via a steady background hum of undeclared commercial interest in his personal brand building, Stephen Bartlett has become the go-to name for business hustle culture bullshit and the second biggest platform in the world for anti-vax health misinformation and you know, whichever wellness grifter has floated to the podcast surface this week.

And he's achieved all of that before the age of 35.

Less impressive than depressive, but it's pressive at the very end.

Yeah.

Stephen Bartlett is what you'd get if you threw a crypto coin into a wishing well. And he is a very deserving entry into who's woo.

Well, thank you so much, Marsh, and I can't wait for the next install.

Before we lower the curtain today, I want to remind listeners in the Pacific Northwest that God Awful Movies is coming to Portland, Oregon, for what is already going to be our biggest live show ever.

And if you're on the fence about coming, look, we haven't announced the movie yet, but when we do, you will definitely tip over to our side of the fence. So you might as well get tickets now.

Check for more details at godawfulmovieslive.com or check the show notes. Anyway, that's all the blessed movie we've got for you tonight.
But we'll be back in 10,022 minutes with more.

If you came out there, I want to be able to look out for a brand new episode of our sister show, The Skeptic Day, being at 7 a.m.

Eastern on Monday, and even a newer episode of our sister show's hot friend got off on movies debuting at 7 eastern on tuesday and an even newer episode of our half sister's host citation needed debuting at noon eastern on wednesday one one of these days i'm gonna get all the way through that paragraph obviously i need to thank marsh for stepping in for heath this week i need to thank heath for all the stuff he does that needs stepped in for eli bosnick for always bringing his a game lucinda illusions who would have loved to be here this week but we're watching a couple of our nieces including a two-year-old and that has been her full-time job this week also want to thank simon for providing this week's farnsworth quote he said that shit back in january can't imagine that he's feeling any better about it right now though but most of all, of course, I want to thank this week's best people.

Elkin, the Jodi Lang, CIH, FPK, Depressed Bumblebee, Hausdorff, Eileen, Logan, Fam, Bo, Steven, Randy, and Jim. Elkin, Jodi, CIA, and FPK, or so smart chat GBT asked them to do its homework.

Bumble, Hausdorff, Eileen, and Logan fam, whose IQs match their social security numbers, and Bo, Steven, Randy, and Jim, whose dicks are longer than a Corey Booker filibuster.

Yes, I know it wasn't technically a filibuster, but joke works better with the word filibuster, damn it.

Together, these 12 people, families, initialisms, mock initialisms, and animals with mental illnesses helped keep our boat afloat this week by giving us money.

Not everybody has the financial buoyancy it takes to give some money to us, but if you do, you can make a per-episode donation at patreon.com slash scathing atheists, whereby you'll own early access to an extended aftery version of every episode, or you can make a one-time donation by clicking on the donate button on the right side of the homepage at scathingatheist.com.

And if you'd like to help, but you've made financial investments as bad as millions poured into a Wisconsin Supreme Court race, you never had any chance of winning and thus don't have the money to spare, you can also help a ton by leaving a five-star review, telling a friend about the show, and following us on social media, and speaking to social media.

Tim Robertson handles that for us, 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 threats, you'll find all the contact info on the contact page at skaythegadius.com.

Hey, podcast listener. As I've mentioned once or twice on this podcast, my mother, Lee Bennett Hopkins Award winner Lee Rosenberg, writes children.

You got your mom's name wrong.

You just

what did I say? You just called her Lee Rosenberg.

There's my fucking day, everybody. Keith Rosenberg.
Yeah, Keith Rosenberg. There it is.

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.

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