622: GAW Edition

Warning, Lucinda's off again this week, so we had to fill her time by saying fuck that much more often.

Hi, my name is Winter.

I have a PhD in psychology.

I just moved to Michigan from Texas because I'm trans and it's Texas and Trump won, and I know 10 other families that have done the same.

I can say that some of us have evolved from filthy monkey men, but not all of us.

This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by Factor, Adam and Eve, and and by

weed.

Lots of weed, even more than usual these days, actually.

And now, the Scathing Atheist.

It's Thursday.

It's January 30th.

And it's National Inane Answering Machine Day.

Do kids these days even know that we have those?

Probably not.

I'm no illusions.

I'm Eli Bosnick.

I'm Heath Enright.

And from Jared Kushner's, New Jersey, Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Wake Ross, Georgia, this is the Scathing Atheist.

Of this week's episode at the Sound of the Beep, tell us your favorite fruit.

God maintains the streak of perfect in inattendance.

And we'll see what the other side of the aisle has to offer us.

But first, the diatribe.

How do you talk with kids about death?

Even worse, how do you talk to other people's kids about death?

Other wrong

people who are telling their kids religious bullshit and will get mad at you if you don't go along with that bullshit.

That's the question I'm wrestling with this week.

Last weekend, my niece's mother-in-law passed away.

I don't really know her, but the family is devastated, of course, especially my niece's kids.

That granny was the one that watched them after school until mom got off of work.

So it's the kind of tragedy that's going to be omnipresent for them.

They will notice her missing every single day.

Of course, the family is Christian, and so the kids are hearing stories of a heaven that they'll get to visit her in one day.

And if they ask me, I'm expected to toe the line, to tell them the same comforting lies, or at least not to undermine those lies.

And that's complicated a little bit in my case because the kids know I'm an atheist.

Well, one of them does, at least.

The other's too young to really understand that.

But when your job is atheist, Your nibblings can't get all that old before somebody has to tell them what that word means.

So she's 11 years old.

She's smart as a whip, and I'm her knowing shit uncle, right?

I'm the one she comes to if she has questions about science or philosophy or history or anything like that.

And she knows that I don't believe in any gods.

So I've been sort of wrestling with the very real possibility that she's going to come to me and ask me what I believe happens when we die.

Where do I think her grandma is?

And then I'm going to have to give an answer that A, comforts her, B, doesn't piss off her Christian parents, and C, isn't an outright lie.

And that's a tall order.

So I've been giving it some thought.

Now, here's what I came up with so far.

And let me say up front that this is not entirely honest, right?

For the sake of the parents, I play up doubts and ignorance a lot more than I think is philosophically sound.

But keep in mind that for the purposes of this hypothetical, I'm talking to an 11-year-old.

So she says to me something along the lines of, what do you think happens when you die?

That's the prompt.

And I say,

I don't know.

None of us know.

But there are a lot of things that I do know.

Like, I know, for example, that we don't know.

So if there's a God and there's a heaven,

God doesn't want us to know about it for sure.

If he did, he'd show it to us like he does with bats and penguins and icicles and stuff.

So he wants us to have at least some doubt.

He wants us to live in a world where we believe that death at least might be final.

And you have to ask yourself, why would a God do that?

But I have a theory.

See, if we knew for sure that all the people that we lost were in heaven, we wouldn't think about them very much.

We would tell ourselves, well, you know, I'll see her in 60 or 70 years and I'll think about her again then, but between now and then I won't because it'll make me sad.

But if we don't know for sure, we have to make room for them now.

See, who I am doesn't just live inside of me.

The part of me that you know lives inside of you.

Some tiny little chunk of your brain is dedicated to me.

And every time you think about me or remember something that I taught you or anything like that, it gets a little bit bigger and it gets a little bit stronger.

That's how brains work.

And when you think about all the people that I've met in my life and you add up all the chunks of all their brains where I I live, I bet that would weigh more than my own brain, even before you subtract out all the parts of my brain that are dedicated to you and your Aunt Lucinda and your mom and your dad and all the other people that I've met.

All of that is me collectively.

Everybody's memories and perceptions of me are just as much me as I ever was.

So when I die, Most of me stays here on earth, tucked away in all the brains of all the people who ever loved me.

And maybe that's why a God would hide heaven.

Maybe he would just want to make sure that we make plenty of room in our brains for the people we've lost, just in case that's the only place they have left.

They're talking about your Jesus.

Joining me for headlines tonight are the Han and Chewy of this podcast, Heath Enright and Eli Bosnick.

Fellas, you got a few parsecs to spare for the headlines?

I try not to shoot first, but sometimes it just just happens.

And then that noise happens.

All right.

Well, Eli needs some money back from NYU.

So while he writes them an email, we're going to pause for a word from this week's first sponsor,

Factor.

Dude, you're cheating.

Corner traps are not cheating.

They're strategy, obviously.

Okay,

you guys ready to go?

Oh, man, five already?

Yeah.

Yeah, let's go.

I didn't get a chance to eat.

Yeah, well, it's already five.

We got to go.

Fine, fine.

Eli, what are you doing?

What does it look like I'm doing?

I'm eating the sleeves off this shirt.

I'm hungry and you said we didn't have time.

Look, Eli, if you're short on time, but you want to eat great, why don't you try Factor?

What?

Factor?

Factor has chef-made gourmet meals that make eating well easy.

They're dietitian-approved and ready ready to heat and eat in two minutes.

So you can fuel right and feel great no matter what life throws at you.

Two minutes?

Now that's fast.

But don't those meal boxes get kind of samey?

Not Factor.

With 40 options across eight dietary preferences on the menu each week, it's easy to pick meals tailored to your goals.

They even have vegan options.

But have you guys actually tried it?

I sure have.

Factor sent us a box to try when they became a sponsor.

I love how I can eat heart-healthy meals in a fraction of the time it would take me to order greasy takeout.

That's why I, no illusions, personally endorse factor.

All right, guys, I'm sold.

Where do I sign up?

Eat smart with factor.

Get started at factormeals.com/slash scathing50 off and use the code scathing50off to get 50% off your first box plus free shipping.

That's code scathing50off at factormeals.com/slash scathing50off to get 50% off plus free shipping on your first box.

Thanks.

Hey, wait a minute.

Is this why I've seen you in so many vests lately?

Yeah.

It's like a lot of vests.

I know, I know.

And now, back to the headlines.

In our lead story tonight, in Preaching Across the Hell News.

Nice.

The Right Reverend Marianne Edgar Budd, in her capacity as the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, gave a sermon the day after the inauguration at a very stupid event that we apparently have called the Service of Prayer for the Nation.

Donald Trump was in attendance, and Reverend Bud told him to stop being evil towards trans people and immigrants, because that's not what Jesus would do.

That's right, a Christian person got morality right.

Wrongly, though, but she landed on ethical, so I'll give a little bit of credit.

The rest of the Christian community, however, not so much with the credit.

At best, they landed in the same place as the Reverend because of a magic book.

At worst, they had a giant meltdown of cognitive dissonance and denounced the sermon for its flagrant use of the Bible to criticize the behavior of Bible-believing people in power.

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

If Jason ever meets Eli in person, Jason has the option of handing Eli one physical object, no larger than a very large bread box.

That's how we measure the size of things.

And Eli has to carry it around for the rest of the day.

Okay, can I put it up my butt?

TBD.

We'll see how you are.

Yeah, can you put it up your butt?

In other words, Jason, don't bring a ferret if you're overly fond of it.

Yeah.

Solid point.

So, sorry again.

The ferret can't hear you, Eli.

That's the whole thing.

Yeah, but I assume the owner might, well, she says he was never going to listen again.

But a lot of people say stuff when you kill their pets.

So I like to think she's moved.

right now.

Okay.

There's a lot less anger now.

So here's what happened at the stupid prayer thing.

Quick piece of context.

In order to get Trump to provide FEMA relief to certain disaster areas in California during his first term, Trump's advisors had to show him election stats to prove that he'd be helping Republicans too.

So with that in mind, Reverend Budd directly addressed Donald Trump and said, quote, in the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now.

They are gay, lesbian, and transgender children in Democratic, Republican, and independent families, some who fear for their lives.

Hey, Bud, love the thought here, but if you have to tell someone that their side is also afraid that you'll fascistically murder them in order to elicit some empathy, maybe you should not invite them to your special God party.

There you go.

Good note.

So here's what we got in terms of responses to the sermon.

Like I said, a handful of liberal Christian leaders gave support, but that support was based on the idea that good behavior needs to be Christ-like, which is obnoxious.

But those people didn't write literally Project 2025, and they're not part of Trump's inner circle.

People like Tony Perkins, on the other hand, are in that circle.

For those who aren't familiar, Perkins is the president of the Family Research Council.

That's a Christian hate group and theocracy activism squad that was intimately involved with Donald Trump while he attempted to overturn the 2020 election.

And according to Tony Perkins, what we heard today from Reverend Budd was not a prophetic voice from the church, but rather pathetic.

I think he was excited about the rhyme between

wordplay.

Prophetic and pathetic there.

We worked on that for hours, me and Tony.

And then a few days later, Perkins was still in a big snit, and he added, the church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state.

We cannot speak prophetically to those whom we're seeking approval.

We do not need the approval of government.

We are called as a prophetic voice of God.

Okay, but Tony, wouldn't that make it more important that you give politicians advice?

Or are you going for more of a Cassandra form of prophecy there?

But I don't know what's the point here.

To the extent that those words mean anything, which is a very minor extent, admittedly, they support, but

like even if you disagree with the point she was making, they still do.

Yeah.

We also got a prominent Christian leader who focused more on the science.

So that was cool, but no, it wasn't.

Oh, good.

No, good.

According to William Wolf, executive director at the Center for Baptist Leadership, and he's a former Trump administration staff member, it's about an important branch of biology biology called Gnostic Biology.

Oh,

quote, mass immigration and transgenderism are fundamentally Gnostic heresies.

Take me there.

They both deny the reality and the goodness of the physical world,

nations on one hand, and our God-given bodies on the other.

Man, nothing gives away your argument faster than your reliance of an internet meme's misunderstanding of the definition of a word.

But the conflation of transness and immigration status is like horrifically intriguing, though, right?

Like you have to wonder if he's foreshadowing banning Mexicans from using public restrooms or attempting to deport trans chicks to fucking like Transylvania or wherever he thinks they're fucking, it just, it could go either way at this point.

Feels like a both.

Yeah.

Feels like a both for these fucking people.

Yeah.

Admittedly, it's a hard connections grouping trans people and immigrants.

All right.

Well, that brings us to the church of the Daily Wire.

Ooh, I know that one.

And Shapiro's news and media group.

It might sound like I was joking using the word church, but the Daily Wire's entire mission is religious conservative anti-wokeism.

And that's one of the most pervasive versions of religion in the country right now.

So naturally, they hated hearing a reverend dismantle their hypocrisy.

That led to Daily Wire reporter Megan Basham making a statement.

She's also the author of Shepherds for Sale, which tells the gripping story of America's religious institutions getting secretly co-opted by Barack Obama and the founder of eBay.

Really?

And of course, George Soros.

So that lady who wrote that book said the following.

The left-wing infiltration into churches has for decades been organized and well-funded by secular foundations intent on hollowing out their spiritual doctrines and replacing them with political programs.

This is the fruit.

God, can you imagine how awful it would be for one political party to completely take over the church to accomplish its theatrical goals?

I mean, perish the thought.

Terrifying.

Also, they're Megan Basham, author of Shepherds for Secretary.

God damn it, I did it again.

I went too far again.

All right, well, lots of bad news in there.

Kind of the standard these days, but at least we got a bit of a silver lining.

Turns out our long con is working.

Our team of secular moles was able to infiltrate America's churches over the decades and make them all beta cucks.

Or that's insane, but they're worried about it.

Either way, I guess I'll take it.

Fair.

Fair.

And in rabbias news, as the podcast token person born Jewish, I answer a lot of the important questions here at Puzzle in a Thunderstorm.

Is it too hot in here?

Is it too early for a little dinner?

And is it anti-Semitic to require Jewish schools to teach literally fucking anything to call themselves a school?

Well, this week, I'm proud to announce that the answers are a definite yes, no, and of course, fucking not.

So we're going to talk about it.

Okay, with all the neo-Nazis calling Elon Musk's behavior, you know, wacky Heil drinks or whatever, I want to be sensitive to claims of anti-Semitism right now.

And I'm done.

This one is not that.

Not that at all.

The Heil is okay.

The Anti-Defamation League, they put out a statement that said, first they have to come for the socialists and trade unions.

We've got plenty of time.

Plenty of time.

Oh, my God.

Insane statement.

It was so.

Well, I mean, look, the ADL, they're famous for being really, they really hold the line.

They don't just call anything anti-Semitism at the ADL.

They're really.

Are they trying to get like a no-bid military contract or something?

They've already got one either.

Thank you to you, but I guess.

Right.

Right.

So, first off, big thanks to Stormy for sending us this link and the pun to scathingnews at gmail.com.

Stormy, we would never treat you the way we treated Carl last week.

As many of you know by now, Carl took his own life in response to our terrible, cruel words.

And we couldn't be more filled with sorrow to him or his beautiful two daughters.

We've learned, we've grown.

We wish we hadn't cost a life to do it.

Scathing news at gmail.com.

I'm sorry, Carl, who is very much alive and may or may not have children.

Two daughters, one of whom is bedridden with AIDS.

Stupid piece of shit with your bad puns.

Yeah.

He had medium puns.

They were bad.

yeah so this story comes to us from the jewish news syndicate which hey side note jns come uh join me over here in the whisper corner jew to jew i think maybe we don't call our stuff a syndicate just yeah

good idea i know it's the correct use of the word i just think it's not in our best interests you know it's kind of like manifesto you know that's just a declaration of ideas but Now you're yelling as you're being dragged out of a Yankee candle store when people read your thing and you call it a manifesto.

Right.

Exactly.

Exactly.

Just like a nice, you know, suggestive pamphlet.

There you go.

Friendly pamphlet.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, yeah, if you're not aware, Jews have these things called yeshivas, which are basically private religious schools.

And while some of them deliver what would be considered a relatively normal education, way more of them exclusively teach religious stuff to kids as young as elementary school.

And by religious stuff, I mean that some of these schools, they don't teach regular books, they don't teach classes in English, and they don't teach girls at all.

So it's way more extreme than even your average American religious education.

Yeah, and we're all well aware of what a huge statement that actually is.

Yeah, by the way, I was about to ask if they don't like teach girls the human beings, like those people don't get an equal education, or they don't teach the concept of female people.

And, you know, like how that works in reality.

But then I realized the answer, the answer is yes for a lot of these schools.

And look, I want to remind you, you're allowed to have a fake school that only teaches God stuff.

I mean, you shouldn't be, but you are, right?

What you can't do is have a state certification and accreditation if you do that stuff, because you're not teaching real things.

That's why we have the certifications and the accreditation.

And because of these rules, Three yeshivas are now suing New York State for not calling their schools real schools because they're not real.

You know, when a little kid has an imaginary friend and you like fuck up the sketch for a second by like bumping into the ghost friend and

the real kid starts crying?

And you know how the kid is not allowed to then sue you for the bumping tort in court?

Yeah.

Yeah.

The state of New York rests.

Yeah.

This is my

real job today with grown-ups.

So according to the complaint, quote, New York categorically refuses to credit any instruction that is part of their Jewish studies curriculum, despite its academic value and content.

It prohibits the yeshivas from teaching required classes with instruction and texts in a foreign language, even though such texts and instruction are central to their heritage, and public schools are encouraged to provide foreign language instruction.

Wow!

And they refuse to let us be a pony.

But that's not all.

The state also imposes a, quote, government-approved reading list on the schools for the express purpose of exposing their students to a range of materials that their parents and schools wouldn't otherwise permit them to read.

Education is what they just said.

And it, quote, interferes in the process by which the yeshivas hire their faculty and it refuses to accommodate their values as it relates to the gender profile of their classrooms.

End quote.

It interferes with nothing.

They can keep doing all their stupid bigot stuff.

Just they don't don't get a sticker from New York State at the end.

They could even make their own sticker if they want.

Yeah.

No, and to be clear, that last one was a somehow indignant way of saying they limit our misogyny.

Right.

And as Heath points out, they don't, right?

But even if they were right, that's what they'd be right about.

They conclude, quote, if they, meaning the students, can't devote sufficient time to Jewish studies with instruction in their original language that utilizes primary text taught by a faculty handpicked by them to model behavior in conformity with their values and heritage while maintaining the autonomy and authority to select which material students read in a classroom whose composition reflects their principles.

Use some punctuation in your sentence, guys.

Then they are no longer Jewish schools.

End quote.

Yes, I guess.

Good.

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

And again.

As the cast Jew, let me translate.

If we're not allowed to teach nothing in a dead language to only the boys, by only the boys, it's not Judaism.

And I speak for the rest of Judaism and sanity when I say absolutely fucking not.

Dang it.

And on that note, we're going to take a quick break for a word from this week's other sponsor, Adam and Eve.

Hey, podcast listener, I'm No Illusions.

I'm Eli Bothnik, and I'm Heath Enright.

With Valentine's Day just around the corner, it's our job, nay, our solemn duty to remind you each year that what your partner wants the most this Valentine's Day is fuck stuff.

That's right, fuck stuff.

While other podcasts might have to cutesy-bootsy around fuck stuff with innuendo and wiggling eyebrows, we here at the scathing atheist can give it to you straight.

Or gay, however you like it, you could have it.

The point is, fuck stuff is awesome.

And there's no better place to get your fuck stuff than adamandeve.com.

Adamandeve.com is a sex and sex work positive LGBTQ affirming adult toy superstore.

And right now they're offering the best deal they've ever offered.

A deal you say?

That's right.

Go to adamandeve.com slash scathing and you can pick any four sex toys from their sale for just $20.

Hold on.

Any four sex toys from their sale for just $20?

Any four sex toys from their sale for just $20.

So go to adamandeve.com slash scathing.

It's the only way to get this offer.

And get your four sex toys from their sale for just 20 bucks.

Adamandeve.com.

Because nothing says Valentine's Day like fuck stuff.

Restaurant reservations, maybe?

I'm in a good way.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Then fuck stuff.

Okay.

Fuck stuff.

And finally, tonight, in Isador opening, is a door closing news.

Phenomenal.

Thank you.

I was so proud of that.

I messaged my friends about that one.

I've got a bit of depressing.

I didn't see mine.

Mine must have gotten lost.

Yeah, no, I was saving.

I wanted you to hear it on the record.

That's cool.

Can you cut all the crack?

I have a bit of a depressing update to offer you.

You're going to remember how last week when we were talking to Jeffrey Blackwell, legal director of American Atheists, he talked about how they had to be careful not to challenge some theocratic laws for fear that the Supreme Court would create a terrifying precedent that would further erode our religious freedoms.

And you'll also remember how on episodes 523, 524, 593, and 601, we talked about the state of Oklahoma trying to publicly fund the St.

Isidore Catholic School by calling it a charter school.

So, yeah, so last week the Supreme Court agreed to hear the appeal on that one.

Yeah, not so much a branch of government anymore.

More like HR for Christ-themed grievances.

That's about all they do.

Yeah.

Okay.

Does anyone, any of those history nerds out there know how we ended theocracy the last time it was in charge?

I remember, I think I remember it was in France, but the details.

It's a bunch of them.

It's a bunch of those.

So if you remember this story.

I got a sharpening stone recently.

For anything,

it will probably be Oklahoma Attorney General and man whose name would be out of place anywhere but for closing on the family farm in a Dust Bowl era docudrama, Gentner Drummond.

Gentner Drummond.

He's the unlikely secular hero who stood up to this ridiculous effort by reminding Christians that they were creating a precedent that could be used to force them to pay for Muslim schools.

And ultimately, the Oklahoma Supreme Court backed him up on it in a seven to one decision that read in part, fucking duh.

Yeah, and I feel like the one vote against was probably some old white guy who didn't really get it.

And he was like, okay, but we'll just ban the Muslim people here in Oklahoma.

Don't we already do that?

And if not, it goes to Christ HR.

We're all good, right?

Yeah.

And then the other old white guys were like, dude, you're doing the scam wrong.

Whatever.

Fine.

Seven to one is fine.

It's a matter of fact.

I already stamped it.

I already stamped it.

I'm not going to cross it out.

It looks weird.

So there is no element, of course, of religious jurisprudence so settled that the Holy Roman apostolic iteration of the Supreme Court wouldn't like to revisit it.

So they're taking up this case, which they'd have no reason to do if they didn't want to overturn the motherfucker.

And to be clear, what we're talking about, this is a school that, because of religious exceptions to non-discrimination rules, would be allowed to fire teachers for being pregnant or gay or living in sin.

They'd be able to deny students based on their gender identity or sexual orientation.

They would not require teachers to be certified in any fucking way.

And they would not have to abide by, and they would not abide by state-sponsored curriculum.

It's a thing that shouldn't even be allowed to exist.

And their goal is to force Oklahomans to pay for it.

Yeah, all to the detriment of their public school system.

Yes.

I mean, it's ranked 44th out of 50.

So they got a cushion, but like, I don't think that's right.

Yeah, but I bet their fucking Oklahoma students couldn't tell you how much of a cushion based on the information you gave them.

That's fair.

Right.

The thing to remember about this case is that they're not fighting for their thing that should be illegal to be legal.

They're fighting for their already legal thing that should be illegal to be paid for by you.

Yes, you should pay for it.

Yep.

Now, ultimately, there are actually two levels of bad here in terms of the outcome.

The less bad is that the SCODA sides with the school and says that it isn't unconstitutional for the state to fund it.

That's a lie and it's a disaster.

That was the good news version.

Yes, that's right.

That's the good news version.

Optimistic sunny no illusions.

Well, right, but well, no, because the prediction is the bad one, which is that the SCOTUS decides that denying the school the money is unconstitutional and that the state must fund it, which based on what we saw in Maine seems like the more likely outcome.

So it's entirely possible that the end result of this case is that all religious schools are suddenly publicly funded, at which point all non-discrimination laws and laws about educational standards are moot.

They're optional.

Cool.

Yeah.

Essentially, Christ HR would declare the establishment clause of the First Amendment to be canceled because it's a macro aggression against our Lord and Savior.

That's what's happening.

Yeah, no, that's really the world we're living in.

Now, of course, there is still a narrow path to victory that is maintenance of the status quo.

No, Eli, no, we'll beep that out.

Amy Coney Barrett has apparently recused herself from this case.

She hasn't officially stated why, but she has a relationship with somebody who's been representing the school, so it's probably that.

Regardless, that's a sure vote for theocracy they won't have.

That being said, you could probably get Noah has to love Jesus through this court with a two-vote majority, so I'm certainly not holding out a lot of hope.

No.

And with apologies that we've apparently exited the era of light, wacky stories to close the headlines, we're going to wrap it up there.

Heath, Eli, thanks as always.

Kumaji.

And when we come back, Heath will tell us about some of those other tabs he has opened.

Being an atheist means believing that zero is the number of gods.

And being a good atheist means you're not done yet.

You got to believe in good things and then like do good things.

And speaking of doing that wrong, we're going to talk about the Republican atheists.

A few episodes back, I mentioned their angry email that yelled, There are dozens of us.

Well, it looks like I was giving them way too much credit with that joke.

There seem to be maybe a dozen singular, but theoretically, they represent a group of people, and those people are allowed to vote.

That's the bad news.

The good news, they have a website, and it's so very sad and stupid.

So sad.

So sad.

Today, we're going to fire up a segment called Gaw or

God-awful websites.

So Noah has subject permanence, like many people do.

So he's aware that he's been here on the show the whole time.

We also have Eli.

What new treats and japes will I bring?

Only by summoning will you learn?

Poof.

My thing actually is that I feel the need to introduce you.

So Heath's still here, everybody.

Thank you.

Heath's here.

Okay, well, now I need Noah to do me too.

You're here.

Eli's here, too.

Yeah.

All right.

Now, Heath, you do me

while I'm still wet.

All right.

And gushy.

I'm going to start with my experience

of

finding their site, by which I mean not finding their site very easily.

I Googled Republican Atheists, the name of their group, and I did not get their site anywhere near the top.

Instead, the top results were mostly surveys about the absurdity of those two words, atheist and Republican, going together.

Might have something to do with the Republican Party having a platform written by literal Christian Dominionist lunatics, hoping to appease the God of the Bible and therefore prevent weather-based smiting, especially.

Well, or encourage it, depending on geography.

Right.

And of course, those people want to oppress anyone who doesn't go along with God's law.

All that being said, these atheist Republican people do exist somehow.

According to the numbers I found, approximately one in 20 Republicans describe themselves as atheist or agnostic.

For Democrats, it's about one in five.

Yeah, and that's just the ones who admit they want to kill God, right?

Okay, so we'll get to the tragic site of the Republican atheists in a minute.

Geo-Simpats.

It's so sad.

But first, we're going to talk about Pew Research, which has much better SEO based on the title of the Republican Atheists group.

Pew Research has earned it.

In terms of demographic breakdown, Republican atheists have Gen X as their biggest cohort, and the overall group is about 70% male and 84% white.

It is similar for atheist Democrats, but we're a bit younger, less male, less white, we make more money, and we have more education.

So big picture.

The prototype for the average Republican atheist is, in fact, a mildly educated, middle-aged middle-aged white guy who's mad about something stupid and whose family doesn't care for him.

And I posted an example, which happens to be the headshot for one of the board members.

Yeah, he looks like if you asked AI to generate guy who ruins a school board meeting.

Right.

Yeah, I don't know the context of this photo, but my guess is that this man just got done telling you how racist his supervisor is against white people.

He sure has.

So I scrolled down past the demographic surveys and the questions on Reddit and Cora that they sounded like nature enthusiasts on Nat Geo wondering about this curious species called Atheistus Republicanus and what that might look like.

And one article from USA Today entitled, Can You Be an Atheist and a Conservative?

I'm proof you can.

So a little bit of evidence.

Spoiler for the rest of this segment.

The secret is racism.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know how how they say a libertarian is a conservative with a bong?

Right.

A Republican atheist is a libertarian who doesn't smoke weed.

So after all that stuff, at result number eight, if you don't count Reddit and Cora threads, I found RepublicanAtheists.com.

The landing page starts with their about section, and it says, Republican Atheists was founded in 2017.

This group is for those who identify as atheist, agnostic, secular, and related, and are registered Republicans or take interest in the Republican Party.

Republican,

end of section.

It just says Republicans.com.

I get it.

You wanted a list of three.

Noah and Heath aren't around to check your spelling.

We could be dumped.

All right, but we take an interest in the Republican Party.

We write headlines about them all the time.

I feel like we have chapter presidencies in our future, guys.

We sure do.

You're damn fucking right we do, no illusions.

Their landing page also has a collection of links to organizations they believe are allied with the idea of atheist conservatism.

That includes the Victims of Communism Memorial Fund, gunsafety.org, and Turning Point USA or TP USA.

That's the conservative propaganda squad founded by Charlie Kirk that advocates for more freedom, which is very often synonymous with Christian religious freedom to do bigotry.

You know, atheist stuff.

They also have a link to friendlyatheist.com, which is run by friend of the show, Hemet Mehta.

Hemet is not a Republican.

I actually reached out to Hemet, and here's what he had to say about the Republican atheists.

Quote, It's a group that pretends to represent a quiet but growing demographic, but does absolutely nothing to highlight why atheists should be Republicans, nor do they challenge all the Christian nationalism in the GOP.

I'm not just mad because they're Republican.

I'm mad because the group is completely incompetent at doing its one job.

Yeah.

Right.

No, lest it get lost in the discussion, it would actually be really useful to have an effective group of Republican atheists trying to tamp down the theocracy in Republican circles.

Instead, we have a group of idiots trying to tamp down the liberalism in atheist circles.

Yep, pretty stupid.

But if anyone out there is listening and you're interested in sponsorship,

I am.

The Republican atheists do have advertising opportunities available.

Based on the advertising section of their homepage, it appears they're already working with a company.

I think it's called Advertise Here, but I imagine they'd be open to new clients.

When I went to their site, my ad blocker thanked me for the the night off and called its girlfriend.

All right.

Let's meet the leadership team.

First up, we have founder and president Lauren L.

According to her bio, L has identified as an atheist for over a decade and registered as a Republican in 2015.

She was born and raised in Southern California and currently lives in Sweden most of the year.

So, next up on the leadership team, we have Sean Paulson.

Seani Paul?

Yeah, he's listed as a board member and correspondent, but you can't read about that until you scroll through an entire page of his ridiculous oversized headshot that he didn't know how to resize for the website.

It's even worse on mobile.

The opening line of the intro is reduced to a four-character wide column along the right side of the page.

I included

it's only three letters if it's there, if there's a capital in there.

And Sean, by the way, is the prototype of the middle-aged white guy whose family doesn't like him from earlier.

And here's the bio for Sean.

Hello.

Hi.

Hi, Sean.

And by the way, and yes, on mobile, hell and O exclamation mark are on six.

It's the mess.

He continues.

We can't write this.

He continues after greeting us all.

I'm Sean Poulson, a Republican atheists correspondent from Maryland.

After committing to atheism five years ago, I began my learning on philosophy, theology, and its application in morality and politics.

I don't believe him.

Well, yeah,

you're going to believe him even less.

My findings have led me to align with the Republican Party.

Okay.

You know that really annoying thing Christians say when they're like, atheists are just as religious as Christians, right?

But you are atheism.

I'm Christian.

But when you say you committed your life to atheism, you are kind of making their point

right.

And rounding out the leadership team, we have a board member named Vacant,

another board member named Vacant, the director of election affairs, that's a person named Vacant.

Oh, that could be me.

The regional manager for the Northeast, same person vacant.

I'll take a ball.

The regional manager for the Midwest, vacant.

The regional manager for the South.

Sean Paulson, and my family.

Oh, God, I'm so sorry.

And you could do the election one.

Well, okay.

And the regional manager for the West vacant.

Oh, I mean, in addition to the move, okay.

In addition,

that one to Thomas from Emmett that you already heard.

He also added the leadership team, and he put leadership in quotes, has more vacancies than members who want to make sure I knew that.

And the math does check out.

So you're saying I have a chance because I don't identify as a member of the Republican Party or interested in him, but I might be convinced to be Republican ellipsis.

Why would they add those positions on their website?

There's no rule that says your website has to list all the positions that you wish you had people for.

Guys, can we add, when we make a website, can we make director of election affairs

manager for the North?

Okay, but don't worry.

They have some more people in the group, including a number of correspondents.

The correspondent for Illinois, New York, North Carolina, and Rhode Island is a very busy person named Vacant.

No other info about that person, but let's meet the rest of my favorite correspondents based on their bios.

I'll start with South Carolina correspondent Jake Goss.

According to Jake, I live in Myrtle Beach and work in the construction industry.

I'm a father of two children still in school.

As far as culture is concerned, I would say I represent the

rock and roll extreme sports crowd.

Oh, quad!

Exact words.

I've been a member of

or have followed

most conservative and atheist pages on Facebook.

Rock and roll extreme sports.

As far as personality is concerned, I have a monster energy baseball cap.

Okay, it's very obvious from these bios that Lauren just messaged everybody in the Facebook chat asking them to introduce themselves.

And then she just just fucking pasted those answers onto the WordPress website, didn't she?

She sure did.

Next up, Arizona correspondent Scott Root.

I've been a registered Republican since 1973.

That's over 40 years.

See, yes, it is.

Cut to Sean Paulson double-checking on his fingers.

I'm affiliated with a local Republican club and I've attended numerous conservative events.

I've been self-employed since 1983.

That's also over 40 years.

It is.

All right.

Now we've got Florida correspondent Charles Hunter.

I've always been a registered Republican and a conservative in my personal views.

I am born and raised in North Florida, and I'm an avid outdoors man.

Do you mean homeless, Charles?

Do you have to tell us if you mean homeless?

Hey, are you a Jags fan, man?

You have to tell us if you are.

He continues very importantly.

Second Amendment is very important to me and my family, as are all the other amendments

my entire life.

No, his family is very adamant about not quartering soldiers.

They get really exercised.

I want Charles to rank the importance of the amendments to him.

I'm willing to pay.

Cold hard cash, Charles.

He sounds excited about the 28th one with the ERA.

Cool.

Moving on to Kansas correspondent, Randy Hem.

I'm a veteran of the Air Force.

By the way, I deleted it.

Every single one of these starts with an angry pronouncement that they're a veteran of one of the armed forces.

Hell yeah, they are.

Every single one.

Fuck yeah.

I'm a veteran of the Air Force.

I've been a Republican most of my life, except one time in a moment of weakness when I voted for Jimmy Carter and regretted it ever since.

I'm an advocate of the Second Amendment, and I hold a concealed carry card.

Dear atheist Republican Lord, forgive me for falling for Jimmy's sweet, sweet, sugary summer tongue.

Let me destroy Republican lord, but never again.

Also, also, I'm sorry, but when you brag about having a concealed carry card, you negate it.

Yep.

Right?

These nicknampoops cannot help but tell you I'm hiding a gun on my person now.

Just in case I ever tempted to vote for sweet Jimmy again, I'll put this gun in my mouth and pull the trigger.

Got holstered rifles and a concealed, you don't know.

I could have a third one.

Next up, we have Utah correspondent Ramon Homan.

My origins began thoroughly inculcated in the Christian church.

Luckily, I left that bubble and joined the Marine Corps and subsequently the San Diego County Sheriff's Department.

How long have I been an atheist?

I guess that we might ask.

I asked you myself in my mind.

Although I did my best to believe what was taught to me by loved ones, I would align with Pascal's wager in that I'm so made that I cannot believe.

No matter how much I wanted to believe, I could not.

I guess I'd have to quote my close personal friends, Reins, Descartes,

when I say...

Next, we have California correspondent Roy Latham.

I've been interested in reasoning and debate for 50 years and active on the internet.

capitalized since the mid-90s.

Takes it real serious that you're supposed to capitalize the I there.

I have over 200 debates in parentheses, about 200 wins, 15 loses, sick, on debate.org.

If you would like to see some, nope, debate.org is shut down.

Continuing.

I like science topics like climate change.

My wife is an immigrant from Taiwan.

She has a PhD in mathematics.

She's who I lost the debate to.

I'm sorry.

Citing your win-loss record against Christians on debate.org is like putting your estimated IQ from a a how many triangles do you see meme on your business card.

Okay.

All right.

Next up, we have Missouri correspondent Max Deville.

An atheist named Max Deville?

Is this a fucking Christiano Brothers production or something?

Yes.

Yes, it is.

According to Max Deville, I was born in St.

Joseph, Missouri.

home of the Pony Express.

His emphasis.

I perform escape artistry and mentalist effects for audiences under the moniker Dr.

Max Deville.

Okay.

There is literally no sign of this person on the internet, but at least I know who I square up on the opposite side of during our rumble, right?

Like I'm obviously

me and Dr.

Max Devil.

Well, no, clearly.

Dibs on the guy who had a job back in 1983.

I think I can tell him.

That's over 40 years.

I love that he added just the word doctor to his thing.

He's like a PhD of escape artistry.

Home of the Pony Express?

Yeah.

It's so fucking funny.

Very exciting.

First time.

I mean, the Pony Express moved around a lot.

That was the whole thing, right?

All right.

So we've met the official squad, but it's also very important that we all know.

that the Republican Atheists do have friends as well.

They have friends.

I learned about that from their dedicated friends page.

They have five friends, by the way.

And literally, one is a black friend.

They have a page about their one black friend.

They really do.

Yeah, they do.

But the most prominent friend, at least based on her enormous photograph, because she too is incapable of resizing an image, is Gillian Becker.

a British-American commentator who was born in Johannesburg, South Africa.

She does not have a black friend.

Likely, no.

She's also an author who has been published.

She's listed on the friends page as a published author.

That's her job.

They've been burned by non-published authors before.

Sure.

Also, she's the editor-in-chief for theatheistconservative.com.

It's a blog by her.

She's the editor-in-chief of herself on that blog.

I checked it out.

Damn it, Johnson.

I need it on my desk by this morning.

I checked out the blog.

And here's what I found in the most recent posts.

There's a post called the English Political Hero Martyr, Tommy Robinson.

Oh my God.

Damn it.

You can't make it up.

In case anyone doesn't remember, he's the soccer hooligan turned bigotry advocate in the UK that Marsh told us about in episode 601.

We also had like the hero martyr, really?

Wow.

The warrior poet of bigotry.

Couldn't write it better of the UK.

Wow.

There was also a post called What Trump's Glorious Victory Could Mean.

Exciting.

Probably the end of your blog.

And the most recent post, President Trump bestrides the world.

Bestrides, huh?

Bestrides it.

And Becker said of his presidency, quote, it's going to be wonderful to watch.

It's going to be a glorious.

Exciting.

People,

people.

Sick.

Everywhere are rightly in awe of the most powerful man in the world, who is also friendly, dependable, though totally unpredictable.

That doesn't make any sense.

Proud, but with no snobbery in him, and with a glorious sense of humor all his own.

If we could not write about our preferred presidential candidate like I wrote about Edward Cullen when I was 13, that would be great.

That would be really great.

And by the way, their good friend Jillian Becker, who is 92 years old, by the way, that's over four years.

You beat me to it.

She also served on a committee within the UK Parliament that advised Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher on terrorist issues.

So

nailed it.

No troubles there at all.

And

Becker is best known for a book she wrote called Hitler's Children, that I'm sure everyone remembers as the Newsweek book of the year

for Europe for 1977.

She also left the honorary board at FFRF, but not on purpose.

It was just a strong wind blew her in the room.

Oh, okay, there you go.

Out of the room.

Yeah, I think the book is anti-Hitler, but like, we don't know for sure.

Really, really don't know.

Another important section from their site is The Shop.

That includes a wide variety of books recommended by their very good friend, Jillian Becker, who wrote Hitler's Children.

The topics include conservative politics, free market economics, and fiction.

It's the same picture.

And each book has an Amazon link that appears on their site as a broken thumbnail.

Oh, I hate to see it.

Most importantly, in the shop is a very exciting section called Miscellaneous,

by which they mean very sad Etsy shop for Trump-themed homemade jewelry created by group president Lauren L.'s friend who makes homemade jewelry.

Here's what they have available: the Trump pendant necklace stamped with heart emoji Trump on one side and hashtag KAG.

I believe that's Keep America Great on the other side.

Okay.

$129.

A bargain.

They have the Trump cufflinks stamped with Trump, also $129.

The Trump bracelet gift idea is what it says right after that.

Well, the other two you'd want to keep for yourself, obviously.

That one's stamped like the pendant with with trump on the front and hashtag kg on the back 79

that one's less expensive because it's confusing what am i doing they have the trump necklace which says keep america great trump 2020 but it's 20 slash 20 like the vision for some reason that's 99

these are all sterling sterling silver by the way and of course they have the love trump earrings stamped with you guessed it love trump That's $119 for the pair of earrings.

Well, and they have pictures, of course, of them.

And we should point out that these pictures, they're all laid over like an American flag, but they're in the stars part.

So it's really hard to see the contours of the jewelry itself.

It's just a fucking mess.

It looks like you stole a photo from one of those stock photos.

Yeah, right, right.

I guarantee you, there was a giant fight with all of those military veteran correspondents about flag protocol when they were doing this photo shoot and putting it on.

Yeah.

Okay.

So what's the Republican Atheist team been up to these days?

You might be wondering, in case you're thinking of joining?

Well, aside from selling homemade jewelry for their weird friend, they also do some very serious activism.

According to their calendar section, they're especially focused on meet and greets.

Their most recent event was a meet-and-greet in Riverside, California in September of 2023.

Well, it takes a lot of planning.

They ramp the next one up slow, you see.

Right, right.

Maybe they just haven't updated the calendar.

They also had a similar event in Idaho Falls, Idaho that same week.

Before that, President Lauren L did an interview with the urban conservative.

Very exciting.

That was in June of 2020.

And of course, they had their first ever meet and greet in May of 2019 at the Cheesecake Factory in Phoenix, Arizona.

Those are literally the four most recent events on their calendar.

Lauren,

Lauren, if you want me to show you how to delete your embarrassing blog, I can show you how.

We almost share a name.

We share a love for silver jewelry.

We also, we went to a Cheesecake Factory in Phoenix, Arizona.

We did.

We went to Cheesecake Ferry.

Yeah.

But we also saved this entire website just for fun in case it goes away.

Yeah.

So vegan cup salad.

I'm guessing everybody's pretty much ready to join up.

Well, good news.

According to their become a member page, Republican Atheists is excited to offer for the first time to the public the opportunity to become a member of the organization.

Where did they get their members before they added the public?

I have no idea what that means.

Audition only.

They just did like a long secret run-up to it.

Weird way to do an organization.

They only have two requirements, though, for the public, which can now get into it.

One,

you have to identify as an atheist.

Check.

And two,

you have to be a registered Republican and or

align with the Republican Party.

Oh, damn it.

They've changed their minds on just Republican, dot, dot, dot, huh?

I mean,

align with them on what?

Not clear.

Not clear.

And membership does come with perks in addition to having exclusive access to their official private forum.

I want it.

Yes.

There's no amount of money they could ask that I don't want to pay for.

Well, spoiler, it's not a lot.

No.

But in addition to that, exclusive access, you also get extra power.

It says Republican atheists' members' input will be recognized more than input from the general public.

They fucking hate the public.

And it's only $35 American dollars a year, Eli.

We almost can't afford not to take them.

We cannot afford not to take them over just for fun.

I think they have two board members.

We win.

And yeah,

we're taking over that sterling silver gold mine of a merch store, too.

Okay, y'all, if we're going to hostile take over the Republican Atheist website, and we should, I have some t-shirt and slogan ideas that I would like to propose right away.

I have some proposals about what to do with the salad bar.

Yeah.

And one other detail that needs to be mentioned.

In addition to those meet and greets from the calendar section, they also list a very important media appearance from August of 2017.

Group president Lauren L did an interview with an excellent show called Cognitive Dissonance.

Oh, did she now?

Oh.

Yeah, that appearance did not include a link to the episode.

We didn't get get a call.

We didn't get a call.

Mostly because it went very, very badly for Lauren L.

Also, Cecil and Tom, don't post it.

Mere minutes into this interview, though, she tried to connect liberal protest movements in America to a conspiracy by George Soros.

Hell yeah, she did.

Here's what happened with Tom and Cecil right after that.

Billionaires like George Soros.

George Soros.

There he is.

I knew he's going to make a video.

I knew it.

George Soros, welcome to the program, George Soros.

Okay.

Thanks so much.

Hey, we're done with this.

This is the dumbest interview I've ever done in my entire life.

We're very sorry.

I'm done.

Take care.

Bye.

Bye.

Delightful fucking mango.

I love it.

George Soros.

Welcome to the show.

It's so good.

All right.

Well, thanks for taking that absurd journey with us through the online world of Republican atheists and their mangled HTML on geocities.yick yak or whatever the fuck it was.

God-awful websites.

Signing off.

Call.

Before we make way for the copyright tag this week, I want to remind everybody that in-person meetups of like-minded people have never been more important.

I know a lot of you who came out of oppressive churches avoid meetups for psychological reasons, but if you can join a skeptics group or an atheist group or a secular group or a liberal group or whatever that doesn't rely on the good graces of Mark Zuckerberg to get together, there's never been a better time to do it.

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

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's Hot Friend God Off a 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, this episode wouldn't achieve full episodeom if I didn't thank Heath Enright for fucking up his recommended ads for us this week.

I want to thank Eli Bosnik for having pretty fucked up recommended ads already.

I want to thank the lovely and talented Lucinda Lucians, who will hopefully be back with us next week.

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

Glad you made it out of Texas safely, and let's hope you like Winter as much as your name suggests.

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

Though you'll have to wait until next week for me to do it by name for reasons discussed in the diatribe, I have to go straight from this record to a wake, so I'm in a bit of a hurry and in too morose a mood to offer up the type of zany over-the-top compliments this segment is known for.

But I will compliment you by name next week, I promise.

Together, this as-yet-undetermined-sized group of people helped us keep the theocrats honest, or at least keep the dishonest ones thoroughly insulted, by giving us money.

Not everybody has the money it takes to do that, but if you do, you can make a per-episode donation at patreon.com slash scathing atheists, whereby you'll get early access to an extended ad-free 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 not in a money-kind of way, you can also help a ton by leaving a five-star review, telling afraid about the show, following us on social media.

And speaking of social media, Tim Ramperson handles that for us, and our audio engineer is Mark and 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 threads, you find all the contact tips on the contact page at skaytheaitheast.com.

Whoa, there it is.

You finally got it.

You finally got it.

Nope, now you lost it.

The preceding podcast was a production of Puzzle and the Thunderstorm LLC, Copyright 2025.

All rights reserved.