623: Fact Checked Edition

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Warning, we're in one of those historical moments that kind of demands a new level of cuss words.

This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by BetterHelp, Adam and Eve, and by the fact that they're not done coming for the socialists and the trade unionists yet.

And now, The Scathing Atheist.

My name is Iniga Montoya, and the five-fingered man did in fact evolve from filthy monkey man.

Inconceivable.

I don't think that word means what you think it means.

It's Thursday.

It's February 6th, and it's lame duck day.

All right, only 1,444 left to go.

There you go.

We could do a countdown.

I'm No Illusions.

I'm Eli Bosnik.

I'm Heath Henright.

And from Grover, Clevelands, New Jersey, Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Waycross, Georgia, this is Escaping Atheists.

On this week's episode, Washington and Montana break God's super best friend Promise.

A new bill in Mississippi aims to teach people that erections have consequences.

And the answer to Hudat turns out to be way worse than we thought.

First, the diatribe.

As a skeptic who spends a lot of time on social media, I'd like to think I have a pretty good bullshit detector.

When I see a claim on Facebook or whatever, I still follow the proper fact-checking procedures and everything, but it usually confirms my suspicion.

If I look at something and say, well, that's going to to be bullshit, it's almost always going to be bullshit.

Or at least that was the case back in the heady days of this time last month, but much like their efforts to overwhelm your outrage capacity that we talked about a couple of weeks ago, the Trump administration also seems to be trying to overwhelm your capacity to recognize bullshit.

No fewer than five times in the last two weeks, I've learned about something on social media first, thought to myself, well, that's going to be bullshit, and then found myself slackjawed in front of a news site a minute later, desperately recalibrating my bullshit detector.

So I feel like now would be a great time to kind of go back over the basics of social media fact checking, right?

Because in all five instances that I'm talking about, somebody was sharing a meme-ified version of the information that had no source.

And I mean, fine, I guess, right?

It turned out to be correct regardless.

But think about all the people who, like me, saw those memes and thought, well, that's going to to be bullshit and didn't double check it.

If the meme maker had taken the time to add according to CNN or the New York Times confirms at the beginning of the meme, well, at least we'd have given the person pause, right?

We'd given them somewhere to go to check.

And if the meme maker didn't do the work, the meme sharer can still add a lot by simply posting something like, I confirmed this through the Associated Press above the meme.

Right now, granted, this isn't as good as actually providing a source, but given the way that most social media sites at this point deprioritize anything with an outbound link, it's often a necessary compromise if you want anything that you post to actually be seen.

That being said, adding relevant links to generally credible news sources in the comments is a quick fix that has no negative effect on visibility.

Now, you might be thinking to yourself, Noah, I love your optimism here, but my relatives don't trust the liberal cucks at CNN or the failing New York Times.

They believe generally credible news sources less than they believe unsourced memes.

But I'm not talking about shouting down the maggots' cries of fake news here.

I'm talking about reaching reasonable people who have been filtering out outlandish claims about the evil shit the sitting president is doing since the reign of Bush the Younger.

I mean, if I saw a bunch of stuff on social media about Biden or Obama like seizing control of central payment systems or ousting real news sources from the Pentagon to put in troll sites or saying that he was going to clear out Gaza to put up hotels, I'd have said, well, that's going to be bullshit.

And I'd have been right.

If you're a reasonable person who's not politically engaged, which sure, I guess that's a contradiction in terms, but if you're a person capable of being reasonable who isn't politically engaged, you're very likely to see those stories and dismiss them as the kind of libel that dogs every sitting president.

It's remarkably easy to do when they're as outlandish as the reality of Trump's second administration has been so far.

Of course, including sources has the added benefit of making sure that you're not spreading bullshit.

Even among the parade of outrageous overreaches and nuclear-level gaffes that we've gotten over the last few weeks, I'm still seeing a steady stream of misinformation and bullshit, just like always.

Saw a Facebook post where somebody had shared a fake screenshot that pretended to be a tweet from Elon Musk, as though there's not enough real, egregious shit that Nazi is doing that we got to make shit up.

And in this instance, the person even said, I haven't checked to see if this is real.

Which I guess that's better than not admitting that you haven't checked.

But why the fuck would you share something like that without checking to see if it's real?

It's so easy to do.

The claim is this is on Twitter.

I mean, you could reasonably say, I don't want to go to Twitter, and I'll back you up on that, but part of the price of not going to Twitter is that you shouldn't be sharing out claims of what's on fucking Twitter.

Look, as bad as things are right now, they're going to get worse.

They're going to get more egregious and more unbelievable in equal measures.

It's going to get harder and harder to convince the middle of the country what's going on is really going on.

And at the same time, it's going to get more and more important.

We cannot afford to give away our credibility in advance of that.

They're talking about your Jesus.

We interrupt this broadcast and bring you a special news moment.

Joining me for headlines tonight are the consonants and vowels to my punctuation, Heath Edward and Eli Bosnick.

Fellas, are you ready to put together some sentences?

Yeah,

I got ideas, but Judge Mershon's just going to make them into nothings.

Yeah.

And I'm going to need to know why, but only sometimes.

All right.

Well, something, something, colon.

So while I take care of that, we're going to pause for a word for our first sponsor this week, BetterHelp.

This show is sponsored by BetterHelp.

And the other night I ordered egg rolls, and I did not clarify that they were both for me.

Because they don't need to know that at the takeout place.

Good for you, buddy.

Thank you.

Hey, guys.

What are you doing?

Oh, we're just going over Heath's green flags.

Green flags?

Yeah, you know, like the opposite of red flags.

There's signs that someone's ready to be in a relationship.

i see well i mean i'm sure heath's got lots of green flags thank you yes they do what is somebody supposed to do if they don't well they could try therapy with better help what's better help

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All right, guys, thanks.

Hey, hey, what are my relationship green flags?

That ass.

Aw, thank you, baby.

I mean, she's not wrong.

And now, back to the headlines.

In our lead story tonight, one of the best ways to assess one's cultural bias when defending an existing thing is to imagine that that thing never existed and you're trying to argue for it to be created or implemented.

Right?

So like, for example, if you're one of those weirdos who argues against replacing umpires with modern technology that can actually consistently define the strike zone, just imagine that we'd always been using lasers and you were trying to argue for replacing those with some dude eyeballing it from behind.

And then you'll see how fucking crazy you sound to the rest of us.

Yes.

Thank you.

Yankees would have won the World Series.

Exactly.

And that's actually true.

Gary's got the eye of a tiger.

And another great example shows up when you see secular people defending the sanctity of confession.

That there's this one class of people who's just allowed to keep somebody's child rape secrets for them without getting in trouble for the sake of keeping their child rape secrets.

That's an indefensibly evil thing to have.

And yet, most of the country is willing to defend it through the invisible force of cultural inertia.

But perhaps that's changing, as evidenced by bills being introduced in both Montana and Washington, that would finally make priests into mandatory reporters.

Ah, finally, the pathways between God and man shall meet the standards of me when I do a presentation in LISCO.

Yeah.

Or the standards of anyone ever with basic morality.

That too.

We have basic morality exemptions for the morality leaders of the morality cults that claim to be morality experts.

So weird that they need those, right?

So, as I'm sure you know, there are laws called mandatory reporting laws that require people in certain professions like teachers, therapists, and doctors.

And brilliant high school speakers and brilliant high school speakers to report it if they suspect child abuse.

And priests, despite being in a very similar position to know this shit to both therapists and teachers, are never included on those lists.

In fact, in most cases, they are specifically exempted from them.

33 states have specific laws saying priests don't have to report that kind of shit if they learn about it through confession.

And there have been a lot of efforts to get rid of those exemptions.

The Associated Press did a review review a couple of years back and found 130 bills had been introduced at the state level over the previous 20 years aimed at closing those loopholes, and all 130 of them failed.

I'd love for voting against those bills to be as politically risky as, say, being a woman of color seems to be.

That'd be enough, Louis May Grant.

Every news interview with these people needs to start with, hello, senator and guy who helped pedophiles.

That's your whole title now.

That's what we call you every single time.

What do you think about the fucking roads Rhodes or whatever we're talking about?

I'm here with pedophile enabler and state senator Marvin Ross.

Marvin, Texas or some shit, right?

There you go.

Don't bury the lead.

Well, so, okay, so undeterred by that track record, Democratic lawmakers in Montana and Washington, so weird since both of the parties are the same, that's always the Democrats doing this stuff.

In Montana and Washington, they have introduced bills that yet again try to get rid of the loophole that allows the profession most synonymous with raping children to keep each other's child rape secrets legally.

SB 139 in Montana and SB 5375 in Washington both seek to remove these exemptions.

And in Washington, there's actually reason to believe it might pass.

A similar bill was making its way through the state legislature that narrowed the exemption without entirely eliminating it last year.

But then news broke about three different archdioceses in the state being under investigation for child sex abuse and nobody could get behind just narrowing the exemption.

Now, unfortunately, that happened too late for them to start afresh before the legislative session ended, but there's certainly some momentum there.

Should we let child rapists get away with it?

I don't know.

How's the momentum of the movement to stop them?

Yeah.

Middling, you say.

I'm listening.

Yep.

Well, yeah, I mean, so medium momentum.

I'm also feeling some medium pro-pedophile inertia, but you know, try and sell me.

I'm medium, medium.

Yeah.

What the fuck?

Right.

No, but here comes the other side, right?

Because these laws will inevitably be met with cries of anti-Catholic bigotry, even though Catholics aren't the only ones with confession.

Mormons do this shit a lot too.

And if past response is any indicator, those cries will be enough to kill the efforts.

But look, the way the most generous secular person would argue against this, against closing the loopholes, is to do the whole like, you know, but imagine if they're right or imagine if you genuinely believed as they do angle.

They'd say like, you know, as horrible as child sex abuse is, to condemn a person to eternal torture for it is still unjust.

They should still be able to go in and get their absolution.

Now, there's plenty of ways to push back against this.

Almost all of them are correct.

But if you want to be every bit as generous on the way back, it's fair to point out that if the abuser truly believed their mythology, they would be choosing between eternal torment in hell and a temporary jail sentence.

It'd be a no-brainer, right?

Like if these laws would entirely prevent the abuser from seeking absolution, they're already admitting they don't actually think they're going to go to hell without it.

Yeah, but if you're looking to counter the argument, what I recommend is just going, what?

Yeah.

Also, we don't make laws based on someone's supernatural convictions.

Well, or at least we used to not do that.

But there was never a time when we didn't do that.

There used to be an idea.

Oh, yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think you got to read some David Barton about how the Constitution has.

I do.

I do need to read some David Barton.

We don't need to.

We're almost done with this fucking book.

Don't you dare start putting that into the ether.

And in YOPIC rulemaking news, the problem with trying to make laws that control other people's bodies is that if you're the kind of person who wants to do that, you're also, in all likelihood, a fucking idiot who knows nothing about human anatomy or medicine.

And being a fucking idiot can, I speak from experience, make terminology tricky, to say the least.

And Republicans in Wyoming learned that all too well this week when, in an attempt to ban abortion, they banned chemo instead.

Yeah, and banning perfectly good cancer therapies is RFK Jr.'s job.

Here's the thing.

Like Eli said, laws are tricky.

You're trying to get rid of the bad stuff, but you end up killing a bunch of the healthy stuff too, sometimes.

Maybe they need a law against laws that work like chemo.

That'd be great.

Oh, there you go.

Oh, yeah.

So first things first, big thanks to Lisa for sending us this story to scathingnews at gmail.com.

If you send us atheist news to scathingnews at gmail.com, you can tag no illusions in your next Facebook fight.

And he has to be on your side, even if it's against him.

Scathingnews at gmail.com.

And there's nobody I'm better at belittling than myself.

So that should come in handy.

I know all my weaknesses.

Exactly.

Right.

So the bill, Senate File 125, is a direct response to the overturning of the state's abortion bans in November of 2024.

That ruling, in part, pointed out that Wyoming state law guarantees the right to health care, which is, of course, what abortion is.

So this bill seeks to change that.

Not the right to health care.

That's probably a different bill somewhere.

No, it helps to change that by changing the definition of health care itself to not include abortion.

Oh, all right.

There's rather like one guy's like, hey, are we being a little Orwellian?

And another guy's like, yeah,

we should change that word's meaning too, I guess.

You know what?

We should make a ministry to make sure we don't get too Orwellian, right?

Yeah, it's the smart, smart.

But it actually gets dumber than this.

Like I said, these people know nothing about medicine or how it works.

So the bill proposes, this is a real quote, no act, treatment, or procedure that causes harm to the heart, respiratory system, central nervous system, brain, skeletal system, jointed or muscled appendages, or any organ function shall be construed as health care.

End quote.

What?

My God.

Look, I'd love to do surgery on your finger, but cutting is harming.

So

looks like I'm going to have to remove all the muscles and joints first.

Yes, exactly.

And look, as I said at the beginning of this story, critics of this bill, Reed, sane people, are pointing out that while the definition does not actually apply to abortion, because fetuses aren't people and definitionally don't have things like hearts and lungs and central nervous systems it does apply to the very much people who need things like chemo or heart surgery or pretty much any invasive medical procedure you care to name right yeah think ones where you get cut open or receive a substance that is later filtered by the kidneys other than that though

Guys, hold on.

Did we make like tumor personhood happen?

I mean, the funerals, they're very amusing, but still, I feel like this is a bad policy.

This is on us.

This is on us.

Let's talk to that ministry.

And look, I know this bill is going to see amendments until it's, you know, fittingly evil to be passed before it can get struck down again by a court.

But I guess what I'm saying is, if your proposal to ban abortion starts so misguided that you eliminate the field of oncology entirely,

bad ideas aside, you shouldn't be able to make laws anymore, right?

Really?

Yeah.

You have to leave your theocracy to someone with a working understanding of the game operation.

That's all I'm asking for.

Okay.

And in 401 KKK News.

Brilliant.

We have a story about a Bible-themed investment company and the critical role of hate speech and lying in improving the...

the ROI of your portfolio.

This one comes from an op-ed in The Christian Post by Robert Netzley, the CEO of Inspire Investing.

Netzley is taking credit for Mark Zuckerberg's decision to get rid of fact-checking.

That's a proud proclamation by the religious investor guy, seemingly unaware that being against correcting things that are false kind of gives away the game about your dumbass worldview.

Yeah.

He titled his piece.

How we pressured meta to end its fact-checking program.

Well, his other proposal was us one truth zero boo yacht.

Right.

Right.

Jesus, we thought JD Bands was making a gaffe in truth.

He was stating their platform.

Sure was.

See?

So here's how the op-ed begins.

Quote, our biblically responsible investing firm played a role in Meta's recent surprising decision to end its controversial fact-checking program and censorship policies.

I am both honored and humbled to share how our shareholder engagement efforts were instrumental in speaking biblical truth to corporate power and contributed to steering meta toward a more inclusive, free, and God-glorifying society.

And when we say biblically responsible, we don't mean welcoming of immigrants and forgiving all the debts every 50 years.

We mean hating gay people.

Oh, no, I'm very excited to hear how transphobia makes a more inclusive society, even by their own definition.

Sure.

I'm very excited.

It's a Jubilee year, guys.

Like literally this one.

You're supposed to do that thing?

No?

Nothing?

Okay, cool.

So I want to remind everyone about the wise words of the Apostle Paul, as I am wont to do here on this show called The Skating Atheist.

In Colossians, Paul said that gambling appeals to covetousness and greed, which is idolatry.

Sounds pretty clear as a policy against.

gambling and given that you might be wondering what the fuck is a bible-themed investment company then?

Well, it's just like a Bible-themed anything else.

Bad.

It's bad.

Bad version, yeah, bad version.

And much like a Christian movie, it tricks your grandma into spending money on something stupid.

So in terms of philosophy, Christian investing is approximately the opposite of a thing called morality investing.

There's a principle called ESG investing specifically, which stands for environment, social, and governance investing.

It's the idea that we should invest in companies that do morality better, specifically in terms of the environment, social responsibility, and ethical corporate governance.

And of course, the version of that from an evangelical Christian perspective is bigotry, also known as stewardship.

That's what they do at Inspire Investing.

They try to redefine ESG to make it align with Christian morality.

selectively kind of like Noah said, mostly the bigot stuff.

They call it BRI or biblically responsible responsible investing.

And they offer a service called Inspire Insight that instantly screens your investments for biblical values.

Okay.

Imagine how difficult this would be if they weren't actually just liars, right?

Yeah.

Sorry, I see you have some Toyota here.

You mean makers of iron chariots?

Yeah,

we're going to fix this.

Yeah, you would really be amazed at how mixed the fibers in their upholstery are.

It's pretty obscene.

Very selective, guys.

So what exactly does their bigotry, sorry, their stewardship look like?

Well, in theory, it means they support companies that are Christ-themed, but that's fucking nothing.

So in reality, they pick stocks from real companies hoping to make money because they want to make money.

And then they try to make those winners more biblical.

That's what happened with Meta.

Inspire was holding a bunch of Meta stock, and they got mad about all the anti-Christian stuff at the company, like fact-checking and equity and inclusion and diversity.

But rather than being consistent and selling that stock, they pressured Meta to get rid of fact-checking and DEI, you know, for Jesus.

According to Netzley, quote, last year we submitted a shareholder resolution to Meta challenging their censorship policies, which many believed disproportionately targeted certain viewpoints.

Specifically, wrong ones.

Yeah, well, including those grounded in biblical values like pro-life and traditional marriage advocates.

Okay, tomato, tomato.

Fine.

There you go.

Continuing, as fiduciaries, our goal was to encourage meta to adopt practices that would promote flourishing for all stakeholders, aligning profitability with ethical stewardship.

End quote.

Or translated, we told Meta they'd make more money for us by allowing Christian-themed hate speech on the platform.

Yep.

And look, they're evil.

Well, they're not wrong.

No.

Yeah.

And it might make more money for Meta too.

It's terrifying.

So Netzley got himself an op-ed in the Christian Post declaring victory, also known as a 900-word advertisement essay for his investment company.

Yep.

And he makes it sound like a big win for the scrappy little guy, a hedge fund with over $3 billion in assets under management.

Oh, Jesus.

Quote: When we engage with courage, humility, and conviction, we can influence even the most powerful corporations.

The changes at Meta serve as a testament to the power of prayerful, principled action in the marketplace.

Using nothing but institutional bias, cultural majorities, a demonstrated willingness to divorce our purchasing decisions from reason and our billions of dollars, we were able to make an evil corporation do the evil thing they already wanted to do, guys.

Hey, are you guys a corporation?

No, yes, fuck.

Yeah.

And from there, Netzley closes it out by explaining that he's honoring God with his investments.

It's all about asking, what would Jesus buy, I guess?

And apparently they pray to figure that out.

But fun fact, the God of the universe,

not the best at picking stocks, it turns out.

Yeah.

Inspire's main ETF, the Inspire 100, which trades on the New York Stock Exchange as

B-I-B-L, by the way, as Bibble.

Their ETF at Inspire Investing got outperformed by about 20% over the last five years by just following a Dow Jones index fund of mostly filthy secular companies.

So that's how that works.

Huh.

And speaking of how it pays to be godless, we're going to pause for a word from our other sponsor this week, Adam and Eve.

Dude, I said I was sorry.

Oh, you're sorry, all right.

Hey, guys, what's the matter?

Eli's mad at the Valentine's I got him.

Why did you buy Eli Valentine's?

Well, he texted me he would drown himself in my tub if I did not.

Suggested.

I suggested it.

Anyway, now he's mad at me for some reason.

Of course I'm mad at you.

Flowers, candy?

I can't hang this on my cock.

I can't cram this up my ass.

Why?

Why would you want to do those things?

Because it's Valentine's Day, Noah.

And I know about adamandeve.com's amazing Valentine's Day deal.

What's adamandeve.com's amazing Valentine's Day deal?

I'll tell you what.

Right now, when you go to adamandeve.com slash scathing, you can pick any four sex toys in their sale for just $20.

And you can hang that stuff on your dick.

And cram it up your butt?

I sure can.

There's so much amazing stuff in this sale, it's hard to choose.

So you're saying if I go to adamandeve.com slash scathing and get you any four toys from their sale.

You'll feel better.

Oh, Heath, it would be the most magical Valentine's Day ever.

I mean, for the record, you can cram the chocolates up your ass.

Thank you.

That's what I said.

And in Florida Less News tonight, we've got an update on a story that we've actually been covering for almost five years now.

Way back on episode 363, we talked about the role the New Orleans Saints played in helping to massage the image of the city's archdiocese when it was flooded by allegations of child sex abuse.

Specifically, team owner Gail Benson loaned them her PR team to do pro bono image enhancement for the rapists.

And we originally learned about this through emails that were disclosed during one of the many lawsuits that bankrupted said archdiocese the first time.

And while we learned about the emails, the Saints organization successfully blocked them from being publicly released.

But they assured us there was nothing in those emails that would change the narrative.

They were just, you know, embarrassed by the misspellings and stuff in them.

Really?

Well, this week, or last week, I guess, reporters from the New York Times and The Guardian got hold of said emails and turns out the spelling was just fine.

Yeah, no, I'm very excited for them to release a statement this week that, no, we did not, in fact, read those emails.

Remember when the Saints were ethical and spent their money on assaulting grown-ups?

Those were the good old days.

Yeah, that was fun.

Right.

So back when this news broke in 2020, Benson's story was that her close personal friend, Archbishop Gregory Amond, the head of the New Orleans Archdiocese, reached out to her distraught about the beating that the church's image was taking from all the sex abuse scandals.

Okay, I'm going to stop you right there.

Stop being that guy's friend.

That's a great idea, yeah.

So as a favor, she offered to have her head PR guy review their strategy and draft a few letters for them, which is already hella fucked up, but it was also a lie.

We now know that the relationship began when their PR guy saw a story about one of their rapist priests in the local newspaper, and he reached out to his Catholic boss to see if she wanted him to help them.

And she did.

And that help began more than a year earlier than they were willing to admit before.

There's a misspelling in the year, too.

Yeah, right.

Also, I misspelled what I said out loud at the press conference at the time.

Now, to be clear, Gail Benson is worth about

billion.

She owns an NFL team and an NBA team.

They both suck, but she owns them.

She's donated tens of millions of dollars to that particular archdiocese.

And when she found out about the decades-long effort to cover up the systemic rape of children that was done with her money, she mobilized her vast wealth to help the perpetrators.

Yep.

That was her instinct.

And they spent years helping the church by reviewing their press releases, communicating on their behalf with local newspapers, and like saying, and

we're with the Saints and we're representing this incredibly important person in town.

And of course, crafting talking points for the Archbishop and his spokespeople.

Yeah, she's just sitting there on the phone.

All this time, you've been raping children without legal representation.

The horror.

Right.

Without a PR guy.

Without spin doctors.

Yeah.

Here's the thing, though.

I just can't believe that a billionaire named Gail Marie Lajoni Bird Benson ended up being an evil liar.

That's so crazy.

Salt of the earth.

So, yeah, so it just in case you're curious why this is back in the news, several reporters got a hold of these emails, and there's pretty lengthy exposés in both the Times and The Guardian about it.

The details are a little much to get into in the format of our show, but rest assured that they're every bit as damning as you would expect them to be.

And finally, tonight, in policy wank news, Mississippi State Senator Bradford Blackmun recently introduced a bill that would place a statewide ban on penis-based masturbation or any sexual act that isn't aimed at creating an embryo like God intended.

Wait, what?

Okay, well, just for context, Senator Blackmun is a Democrat and he's openly mocking his Christian right colleagues.

Okay.

But until I told you that, it definitely sounded like a totally normal headline out of Mississippi, right?

And that's kind of the point.

And in that vein,

vein

called it the contraception begins at erection act.

Senator, I get what you're doing here, but as someone who's seen quite a few of their comedic exaggerations become world history, I just want to urge you to be careful.

Yeah.

Also, that's our turf, man.

You don't do bits.

We don't do fucking christening memorial highways or whatever, okay?

Exactly.

We will now.

And a big thanks to John for being the first of many who sent us a link to skatingnews at gmail.com.

And a big thanks to Jacob for policy wank.

Good work.

And honorable mention to Nick for Mississippi Yearning.

Oh, nice.

And fuck you, Carl.

You didn't send shit.

Come on, Keith.

Nothing.

So you're going to

talk about this at the break.

We had a whole talk about this at the break.

I hate you.

So I hope you get deported.

So here's the language in the bill.

I'm sorry.

I don't know what happened.

I just

got angry about it.

You keep ruining the bunch of puns.

You got to lean in.

I had.

So here's the language.

Here's the language in the bill.

It would become unlawful for any person to discharge genetic material without the intent to fertilize an embryo.

And any violation of the law would lead to a fine of $1,000 for the first offense, $5,000 for a second offense, and $10,000 for any subsequent offenses.

Ooh, okay.

How much time between offenses?

Because at my age, 5K is pretty legally You know what I'm saying?

Wait, no, wait, are we counting by the ejaculation or the sperm still?

Very important question.

I didn't see any language about that.

Good point.

But don't worry, Senator Blackman added some common sense language in order to make sure the bill's realistic.

There's a carve-out for sperm donation because, you know, that could eventually fertilize an embryo.

Sure.

And there's a carve-out for using condoms.

Again, it's a sarcastic bill, but it looks like Blackmun was making sure the GOP lunatics didn't just pass the sarcastic law so they could outlaw condoms.

Yeah.

Warning withdrawn, Senator.

Thank you for your service.

Also, also, nocturnal emissions are reduced to manslaughter.

So you get that.

So despite those reasonable exceptions, and despite the language of the bill mirroring the logic of existing laws that regulate uterus having people, it looks like the heavily Republican legislature is unlikely to pass it.

No.

Senator Blackman gave a statement to the local news, and he certainly didn't use the word hypocrisy.

He is not saying hypocrisy.

He said, quote, all across the country, especially here in Mississippi, the vast majority of bills relating to contraception and/or abortion focus on the woman's role when men are 50% of the equation.

This bill highlights that fact and brings the man's role into the conversation.

Talk about tackling the problem at its root.

So the public response to the proposed bill was mixed, but according to Senator Blackman, the feedback did contain a pattern in terms of gender.

Men were split about 50-50, but among women, approximately 80% of the responses were positive.

And of course, this is Mississippi.

So one other element of the response was literal death threats.

Ah, there it is.

Those were mostly from men who became extremely angry about losing their masturbation rights as they saw it.

And they don't, of course, understand how satire works or perhaps they were just generally terrified of an intelligent black person in power in Mississippi and they don't know how satire works which made them even more murdery they're like is he joking I don't fucking know I'm mad either way masturbation and fun fact that's how satire works actually crazy men from Mississippi you you helped you helped the point good job yeah they don't get it and quick before they realize that heath only complimented the murdery redneck satirically we're gonna wrap the headlines for the night heath eli thanks as always.

Chumaji.

And when we come back, Christianity will remain as mere as ever.

C.S.

Lewis's Mere Christianity is by no means the longest book we've read for this show, and it may be the least unpleasant.

Sorry for the weird double negative.

There's just no way that my lips are going to be able to say most pleasant in relation to this shitty book.

But despite all that, the end keeps receding into the distance, which it's going to do yet again on this installment of

God-awful books.

So he left off on book four, chapter four, wherein Lewis explained that Jesus had infected the human race with goodness and that their religion was a disease that just hadn't spread all the way through the population yet.

And we're going to continue his effort to make one plus one plus one equal one in book four, chapter five, the obstinate toy soldier.

Right.

And he's going to open up this chapter with this weird, look, if we weren't all a bunch of awful sinners, we might have all been Jesus.

So we're not, which is why everyone needs to be my religion.

Yeah.

Yeah.

My first note was, stop trying to make Bios and Zoe happen, man.

This natural life versus uncreated life bullshit that he started in the last chapter.

Reminder that C.S.

started talking about life, which exists.

And then he realized he was writing a book about a ghost wizard who grants this other thing.

And he was like, there's life and then there's life.

No, that sounds crazy.

Yeah, I got to make up a new word.

I'm going to go with Zoe.

I'll make up new words for both words.

And then it won't, they'll be equally new.

Yeah, there you go.

So then

he's explaining id and superego, but without any of the insight.

Right.

His point seems to be like, so there's there's id and then there's superego.

And then in order to balance them, fuck id.

No id.

Yeah.

And maybe my mom is dressed like a lawnmower.

I don't know.

Freud, we have a steel day with seriously.

Also, side note, if you start a paragraph with, and the present state of things is this.

No, you don't.

You didn't start your paragraph yet.

Go back.

Just start your paragraph.

Unless you're a weatherman, no.

Oh, yeah.

So, but our secularity is, he explains, just scared of the light and air of the spiritual world.

Those are his words.

It's not that we think he's full of shit.

It's that we're afraid of his light and

air.

Okay, but that's confusing.

You know how dirty people are terrified of taking a shower?

That's atheism.

Seriously, that's that.

Yes.

It's a real metaphor.

Yeah.

We're all not, look, we're just not all mature and brave enough to believe that we get to go live in the sky with grandma when we die.

Clearly.

Yeah.

No, so then we get to the analogy of the title of the chapter, the fucking toy soldier thing.

So imagine if one day as a kid you had wished for your toys to come to life and they actually did.

Okay, to be fair, this is the most reasonable supposition he has asked us to make in the book so far.

A lot of them were mathematically impossible.

Yeah.

So in his vision of this, though, you turn a tin soldier into a man and it's mad at you for fucking up all its sweet tinness with all this doughy flesh.

Now, I'm going to be honest with you, I never understood how this thought experiment served any purpose but to lend itself to the chapter title.

Yeah, look, this whole thing is this incredibly winding and tired path to it.

It sure did suck for God to have to become a human, but he's getting there via.

Can you imagine how irritating it would be to go from tin to skin?

I'm a professional author.

Yeah, no, I guess it's like

God didn't want to make us, all of us tin men into flesh without showing us on jesus first

i did enjoy the window into cs as a terrifying superego child being like you are impertinent toys accept jesus christ as your lord and savior right this minute i scold you Oh, God.

So, yeah, no, and he explains that God turning into a man would be like us having to turn into a slug or a crab.

Well, which would suck.

It's like us morphing into a slug inside a teenage girl who

we chose on purpose while we were deities.

Like, who are you arguing with?

And who's winning that argument in your head series?

That's a great question.

It's a great question.

And he's describing Jesus, as Christians so often do, as having had like basically the worst imaginable life.

But

Jesus was famous and he was revered and he had magical powers and he knew his dad was God pretty early on and he had thousands of followers.

I mean, like, yeah, it ended shit, but I think Jesus had it way better than I'd say the average person, all things considered.

Yeah.

And look, let's be clear.

What this is actually about is that even back in the 1940s, people have started to mention like, hey, nobody put Jesus in a gas chamber, right?

So that doesn't seem like the, so he has to add how lame it was for him to be a people.

Yes.

Right.

Jesus gets a running start at pain and suffering.

Yeah.

And then he actually says, quote, here we come to the point where my illustration about the tin soldier breaks down.

End quote.

And I'm like, it never did anything, man.

It broke down while I was still on the dealer's lot.

So much of this book is just, curse you the act of writing.

If only there was some way to undo what had been done once one had written it.

Right.

Yeah, but no, but it breaks down here because it turns out that if one tin soldier came to life, the other ones wouldn't know because

they're tin soldiers.

Okay, well, here we come to the point where his illustration of his illustration breaking down breaks down, in my opinion.

Yeah, right.

If somebody magically morphs from a BIOS into a Zoe, much like a Tin Soldier, I would not know because that's nothing.

That's made of nonsense.

Right.

Right.

The second half of this chapter is all about how inadequate the analogy in the first half of the chapter was.

Yeah.

C.S.

Lewis philosophizes like a teenager fucks.

A lot of confidence, a lot of apologizing in the second half.

Yeah, he goes, you can say this in many ways because it's not bound by reality or logical consistency.

Right.

And then he gives us the insane list.

He's like, yeah, you know, Christ murdered the concept of death.

You got washed in the blood of baby sheep.

Some guy murdered his son to address your future masturbation.

Whatever works for you.

Yeah, a lot of ways to say it.

It doesn't matter.

No, I look, I genuinely, I have no idea what this chapter is about i read it twice and i looked through the study guide that i own and i still can't seriously the study guide it was just two paragraphs and it was like the first paragraph said he says summary of the first half of the chapter and then he also says summary of the set last half of the chapter there's no additional commentary no indication of what the fucking connective tissue is there at all I bet someone at the study guide was like, I mean, we could mention he loses a fight with himself, but that feels more like a note for the whole book than for this chapter.

And now it's time to dedicate another chapter to what was wrong with the last chapter in chapter six, two notes.

Cool.

Good system.

Looking forward to chapter 6.5.

Four notelets.

I'm getting there.

I like a book in Markdown.

I think not enough people are taking advantage.

That's why we're never going to reach the end of this fucking thing.

I'm stuck in a loop again.

How do you delete?

So the first note is: if God wanted flesh soldiers instead of tin soldiers, why not just make flesh ones in the first damn place?

Great question.

And as long as we're giving notes, the whole amoeba test ran super long.

If I'm getting God knows, that was weird.

Yeah, you've never tried to get a product at R ⁇ D.

So he explains that one part of the question is easy.

The other part is, quote, probably beyond human knowledge.

Or perhaps a paragraph by me, C.S.

Lewis, will explain it.

One or the other.

Spoiler, that paragraph is going to end with, but of course that was all guesswork.

Yep.

Yeah.

I mean, look, literally, that's the last sentence.

It's easy to sit here just dunking on how clumsy and exhausting my thinking is, but.

Oh, that's it.

Yeah, right.

So, so, yeah, so the easy part is that turning from tin to flesh wouldn't be so hard if we weren't such willful sinners, which is literally nothing because flesh in this instance represents us not being willful sinners, right?

Being the good people that God intended for us to be.

So, your answer to why he didn't do it the easy way is that he didn't do it the easy way.

Yeah, it sounds like it's beyond human knowledge, but in the other direction, not the one he was like, that was subnolegical or whatever.

That was not

yes, it was like Mike Lindell's packet data, not data.

Yeah,

then he resorts to, well, if God did it that way, it must have been the best way.

Yeah.

And again, I just have to remind you: keep in mind that the entire point of this tortured metaphor is to answer a problem with the crucifixion as ultimate suffering narrative that he did not have to bring up in the first place, right?

It's not necessary to the religion.

It's not an argument a lot of people are making, right?

He's done such a terrible job of answering the argument that he brought up that he has to retreat to divine mandate from himself.

Yes.

right.

He also argues that the concept of God having a son before the universe existed wouldn't make sense if he had multiple sons, so only one of them could be the son of God.

And I'm like,

well, it's true that that makes no sense, but the number of sons doesn't factor into it.

All right.

Was that nonsense just now?

Don't worry.

He's got a sweet analogy.

You know how two atemporal concepts of a penny are actually just one atemporal concept of a penny.

It's like that.

It's like that.

And again, whose objection to the salvation narrative is that every generation doesn't get their own Jesus?

You guys remember how there was Robo Superman, and then there was Teen Superman, and then there was Supergirl.

Apparently, he thinks we're all Jones in for that before we get on board.

I guess.

But so he's done with the first question, though.

That's the first note.

I only know that because there are parentheses with a two between them at the beginning of the next paragraph.

He opens the second note with, quote, the idea that the whole human race is, in a sense, one thing, one huge organism, like a tree, must not be confused with the idea that individual differences do not matter, end quote.

No idea why or how he got there.

Wait, it's also two metaphysical pennies.

It's one and two together.

No, guys, guys, I get it because after reading this chapter, I can confirm my consciousness was very blob-like.

Well, that's true.

It's true.

Fair.

The son of God is like the blockchain, if you think about it.

Yeah, but he says that each of us matter, just like all the organs in a body.

And I'm like, okay, but not all the organs matter, though.

There are so many examples of things that don't have a category of vestigial to them.

Honestly, if I have learned anything from this book, from my heart, it is that it is a miracle that the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe managed to stay coherent for the entire volume.

All right, but I kind of actually kind of like the organ analogy.

It doesn't work for what he's doing, but I like the analogies.

He says, like, we're all part of the same body,

so you know, everybody should take care of one another, right?

But we all have different needs since we're not all the same organ.

So you shouldn't try to make everybody be the same as you.

It has nothing to do with what we're talking about, but I like it.

It's, it's, it's taking a while, but on the 143rd try on the 207th page, C.S.

Lewis just nailed an analogy.

Okay.

I like that he accidentally lands on, yeah, don't try to convert people to think exactly like you.

That's totalitarian.

Wait.

Okay.

Hold on.

Do it sometimes.

Yeah.

Goldilocks zone of fascism.

Make sure you're right.

So during his best analogy, he lands on, don't write this book.

I'm writing.

Yep.

Yeah.

Right.

And then we get a chapter title that really zeroes in on the skill set of his readers.

Chapter seven, let's pretend.

He goes, I'd like to start with two images.

Well, two stories, actually.

I'm like, then start over.

Why?

This is the beginning of the fucking chapter.

You don't even have a whole page of shit you have to throw away.

It's just one goddamn word.

What do you mean?

Type again.

Yeah, right.

You can just type things twice.

No, you type them, then you carve them into the stone and and you submit it to your publisher.

I like that he's hijacking his own QA inside his own book.

He's like, I'd like to start with two images.

Well, actually, they're not so much images as very long two statements.

Yeah, right, right.

So, yeah, so he's got two stories starting with Beauty and the Beast.

And I'm like, man, at least look up the goddamn plot of Beauty and the Beast before you use it in your opening of your chapter.

Actual quote of his summary: quote, the girl had to marry a monster for some reason.

End quote.

It's like my mom describing a movie she didn't like to me on speakerphone while she drives home.

Yeah.

And then there, I don't know.

It was that guy you like, the one who's always yelling.

Yeah.

Bernie Sanders?

Yeah, him.

No.

So.

But the other story is of a man who had to wear a mask that made him look nicer for years.

And then when he took it off, his face had grown to match it.

And he doesn't even bother to look up the name of that story.

Yeah, you know how you can change your face, kind of like scoliosis.

Let's talk about Christianity.

It's

that he goes, up until now, I've been trying to describe facts, and I'm like, oh, it could have fooled me.

Jesus.

Does he think the face metaphor story is true?

I don't know.

Does he think that's a real?

True, right?

You can't do that.

I don't think you can.

I don't think you can do that.

But if we can, we got to do it, right?

So, wait a minute, my fucking offer.

You piece of shit.

Noah, you go ahead.

I'm just over here.

You have fun.

And then he's like, he's like, when you say the our father, if you think about it, you're cosplaying Jesus since God is Jesus' father, actually.

Right.

In the most famous prayer in the religion, God says, wear a costume and call me daddy.

I'll be honest, this was by far the best argument from CS for me.

Like, it definitely got me listening.

Sure.

Not how he was hoping.

So here's an actual quote: quote, you are a bundle of self-centered fears, hopes, greeds, jealousies, and self-conceits, all doomed to death, end quote.

Like, do you need it?

Does somebody need a nap?

And you fucked a lawnmower and everyone knew it starting in chapter two.

You just haven't been able to shake that narrative, damn it.

You want a soda?

He says, being Christian is just like pretending not to loathe the idiots that you're talking to.

Kind of.

See, Noah, he understands you sometimes, C.S.

Lewis does.

That's twice this week, the organ metaphor.

Now this.

Yeah, becoming a Christian is all about pretending not to loathe idiots until you actually stop loathing idiots.

He's arguing for the divine truth of the universe.

And he went with, fake it till you make it.

That's the whole section.

That's the best he had.

Yeah.

He goes like, but, you know, but pretending to be Jesus is a great way of noticing all the things about you that suck.

Now, this is true.

I don't flip over enough tables.

Thank you, CS.

Thank you.

No, his actual advice is listen to all them voices in your head.

Those are divine commands from God.

Yeah, he says while you're praying, you're going to think, all right, this is dumb.

I should probably do like

a real thing that's helpful.

And that's why God makes you pray because it's dumb.

And then you think of smarter things.

That's

so close to exactly what he fucking says.

Yeah.

And then he explains that while you're doing cosplay and calling him daddy, you're trying to catch a, quote, good infection from God.

He goes back for that again.

Yep, because it was so good the first time.

So, and then he kind of addresses humanism directly, right?

He says, you might think I've never been helped by Jesus, but I've been helped by people.

But that's like saying, I'm not worried about a bread shortage because I prefer toast.

So I guess as long as nobody ever...

you know, helped anyone before Jesus, and as long as no non-Christian people ever help anyone at all, it's a pretty solid point.

I'm not kidding.

It genuinely felt like he caught himself accidentally saying something that wasn't morally repugnant and was like,

and also, there's no such thing as non-Christian goodness.

There we go.

Now it's a good sentence.

Yeah.

Also,

bad people.

are a thing that God made in his worldview.

Yep.

This was written from 1941 to 1944 in the UK, by the way, just as a reminder.

So it was.

Here's the stupid bread thing.

Humanism is saying, I don't want to worship the bread maker because there's fucking bread doing a holocaust right now.

Yeah.

Speaking of toasters.

Yeah, right.

He's like, sure, it might not look like Christ was behind the person that was helping you, but babies don't know there's a lady behind the tit they're sucking on either, do they?

And I'm like, oh, God, get this weirdo, a lawnmower.

Being Christian is kind of like a glory hole.

Just good sound.

Don't even think about it.

It could be a girl.

It's not, but it could be.

Just a nip, just for a second, just to see how it feels.

Christianity.

He goes, you know, don't make the mistake of thinking that you can just read what Jesus said and then do that.

That doesn't count.

That's not even magical.

Okay.

This part had me fucking baffled because let's be clear.

We have gone from we all intuit the good things we do because somehow that's Christian and biblical to, but you also have to guess a few that weren't on the quiz.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Here's an actual quote.

Christ is here and now in that very room where you are saying your prayers, and he is doing things to you.

Oh, yeah.

End quote.

And what's Christ wearing?

Sure, I hope he's got that good infection right now.

He is that good infection.

Yeah.

I got that one from your roommate.

I did.

Yeah.

Yeah, but he, but he explains that by being Christ-like, we learn to be alarmed, not just by what we do, but by who we are deep down.

This whole chapter is just like a guide to suicidal thoughts.

Yeah, podcast listener, if someone asks you like how to counter-mirror Christianity, now that you've listened to this segment of our podcast, I'm going to say you should just recommend LexiPro.

Maybe a shot of penicillin in there.

Yeah, really.

Yeah.

Fucking roommate.

He says that nearly every day he gets so angry that he snaps at somebody, which is something that like even I would urge you to talk to a therapist about.

My God, every day?

Noah, it's fine.

This was the 40s.

White men's friends and family didn't have feelings yet.

Oh, no, that's true.

Yeah.

Just the main character.

No, look, but this, this chapter, it's really just kind of a sad admission of what a low opinion you need to have of yourself to make Christian mythology work.

Right?

Like, like my first response to a provocation is anger because I'm an ill-tempered person in my heart and will never live up to God's expectations, versus because that's how people act, and I'm a people.

Right.

We do get another fun analogy here.

It's rat-based.

Yeah.

He explains, my personality is just like rats in a basement.

If I know you're coming, I'll hide my real self and I'll seem like the personality of

just an empty basement.

But if you catch me off guard, you'll see the rats.

That's the real me.

The real me is the reality.

C.S.

Lewis thought that to himself about himself and then landed on

i was probably created by a perfect deity

i just need to dress up like a son and call him daddy a bit more and it's probably

yeah

yeah no he points out that cosplaying jesus teaches us that we're not doing shit god's doing through us but only the good stuff we're doing the bad stuff ourselves Yeah, and when I think I'm doing good stuff that turns out to be bad stuff, that's God doing the spot on my shirt thing to me.

And he gets, oh, he got me.

He's got me so good.

Super flinching.

Yeah.

He also said, God looks at you as if you were a little Christ.

Those are his words.

And I'm like,

he sent the big one to die.

So don't be too flattered by that.

Okay, but little Christ, though, right?

Hold on a little pepper frown.

He's just a little Christ.

He's going to become a rapper.

You got him on one arm on the cross.

Yep, yep.

Right?

Not both.

Oh, right, right.

He's too small.

Right.

You could do him on one side and like a couple of others on the other.

All right, well, and C.S.

Lewis closes with this query.

He says, I dare say this idea of a divine make-believe sounds rather strange at first, but is it so strange, really?

End quote.

So, we're going to close with the answer: yes,

it is.

That's weird, man.

And that's going to do it for this installment of

God-awful folks

Before we flicker the lights tonight, I want to thank Sean, a listener that I ran into at a juggling convention in Atlanta last weekend.

Thank you for filling me on on so many of the details of the show so that when I got seated next to a curious spectator at the competition, I seemed like I was really in the know.

Anyway, that's all the blast movie we've got for you tonight, but we'll be back in 10,022 minutes with more.

If you can't wait that long, be on the lookout for a brand new episode of our sister show, The Skeptic, debuting at 7 Eastern on Monday, and an even newer episode of our sister show's Hot Friend God of Home Movies, debuting at 7 Eastern on Tuesday, and an even newer episode of our half-sister show Citation Needed, debuting at Noon Eastern on Wednesday.

Obviously, I can't shut the fuck up until I thank Keith Enright for somehow braving the headlines every week.

I need to thank Eli Bosnick for the passionate way that he implores you and all the clips that I'm legally required to cut out of the show.

I want to thank the lovely and talented Lucinda Lusions for coming through the only news worse than the Christian stuff.

I also want to thank Gavin and his Welsh friend for providing this week's Farnsworth quote.

He asked in return only that I urged you all to believe in true love.

But most of all, of course, I want to thank this week's and last week's best people.

Ben, Michael, Wow, James, Nick, Proud Dad, of an LGBTQ Kid, Chuby, Cobra, Victoria, Adam, Jessica, Crystal, Serena, Camp, Quest, Neese Volunteers, Tarolyn, Anita, Damian, Apoptotic, Jesus, Zachary, Happy Trans Kids of Abortion, Gregory, Ryan, Edward, Will, Jessica, Kitson, Elaine, Tyler, Strong Contender, Harold, Tom, Lily, Nathan, and Mark, whose IQs are so high that the only people who can truly comprehend their size are them.

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The idea of doing butt stuff, it gets less appealing when you use cram as your verb, right?

Cram, yeah.

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