609: Pumpkin Spice Edition

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Speaker 2 Warning.

Speaker 3 On this podcast, we tell people to fuck themselves.

Speaker 5 Who should fuck themselves?

Speaker 8 This week's episode of The Skating Atheist is brought to you by Factor and by the new Christian Wright comic book series about the virtue of hating people who are different.

Speaker 13 The adventures of Maganito.

Speaker 14 The adventures of Maganito.

Speaker 15 No flux to give.

Speaker 16 And now, the scathing atheist.

Speaker 17 Hello, people of America.

Speaker 19 It's I, the ghost of John F. Kennedy.
I fucking hate my nephew. And we did, in fact, evolve from filthy monkey man.

Speaker 22 It's Thursday.

Speaker 8 It's October 17th, and it's Mulligan Day.

Speaker 24 And it's Mulligan Day. Sports thing.

Speaker 25 Did I do it right? Yeah, nailed it.

Speaker 26 Perfect. I'm Eli Bosnik.

Speaker 27 I'm Ethan Wright.

Speaker 8 And from Burb Clave, New Jersey, and Ann Arbor, Michigan, this is the Skating Ideas.

Speaker 31 On this week's episode, Michael Marshall will magically appear for some headlines.

Speaker 32 Neil Stevenson fans will love that snow crash illusion just now.

Speaker 34 And Anna Bosnik will join us to remind us that Christians have the worst version of everything.

Speaker 37 But first, the Eli tribe.

Speaker 38 So I'm teaching a full semester acting class this fall.

Speaker 37 I'm absolutely loving it.

Speaker 42 And last week, I get an email from the university mentioning that my class happened to fall on mental health awareness and screening week.

Speaker 46 And would I mind passing along a brief video to my students?

Speaker 27 And of course, I was happy to do it, but it got got me thinking about this moment here where I'd get a chance to talk to you.

Speaker 40 I mean, I knew Noah was headed to QED, which meant another chance for one of these Eliah tribes.

Speaker 39 And so I got to thinking about what I wanted you to know about mental illness, what I wanted to tell you.

Speaker 51 See, we live in a very different world than when I was first diagnosed with depression.

Speaker 43 The only depressed people I knew about or heard about outside of my own family were poets and writers who had killed themselves.

Speaker 17 Sylvia Plath, Ernest Hemingway, Virginia Woolf.

Speaker 54 I never heard of anyone living with depression, only dying of it.

Speaker 44 And even the experience of those poets didn't match up with my own.

Speaker 55 Their depression seemed so well expressed, so delicate, so grand.

Speaker 40 Their depression seemed like one last poem they had lent to the world.

Speaker 53 And mine,

Speaker 39 mine was just pathetic.

Speaker 48 Now, look, obviously everyone's depression is different, but to express to you what mine is like, or at least what it's like when it's bad, I need you to imagine the worst thing you've ever done.

Speaker 39 A time when you got caught or maybe even just accused of something terrible and it felt like the whole world was against you.

Speaker 59 Maybe a time when people in your life said and did unforgivably cruel things to you you that made you feel entirely alone in a pain that's so total, it's damn near physical.

Speaker 62 And look, I hope you can't relate to that feeling, but most of us can.

Speaker 49 And that's what depression is like all the time.

Speaker 39 You wake up with that lump in your stomach, that feeling that you've done something wrong, that something terrible has happened, but the terrible thing is just

Speaker 23 you.

Speaker 17 And that's before the self-talk starts.

Speaker 54 And it never really seems to stop.

Speaker 29 Not a voice in your head so much as it is just a rising certainty that everything you do and say is stupid and shameful and just very obviously the worst.

Speaker 68 I remember during a very especially bad bout of depression as a kid, sitting and eating a peanut butter and banana sandwich and crystal clear, like it had been whispered in my ear, I had the thought, that's right, you just eat your stupid fucking sandwich.

Speaker 49 Which, can I say, in retrospect, is a pretty funny depression thought, but hilarious in retrospect or not, nobody else had depression like me, right?

Speaker 71 My depression was not, as Susan Sontag put it, melancholy without its charms.

Speaker 53 It was messy and ugly and

Speaker 72 mean

Speaker 39 all day, every day, mean, mean in a way that I believed and identified with in a way that I don't know that I'll ever be free of.

Speaker 39 And add to that, that I have what was known at the time as refractory depression and is now called treatment-resistant depression.

Speaker 62 Can I say I'm kind of glad they hadn't started using that term when I was diagnosed?

Speaker 53 But the point is, the medications and the treatments available at the time of my diagnosis didn't work for me.

Speaker 42 Finding medication that helped me was a years-long process, and the slips and slides along the way were painful and embarrassing.

Speaker 40 It felt like I couldn't even heal in the way medicine intended, that I was somehow so irrevocably broken that even medical science had no help for me.

Speaker 65 And in the middle of all of this, in a therapy session, a very good psychologist told me something that absolutely baffled me.

Speaker 23 He said, one of these days, the idea of suicide will be completely reprehensible to you.

Speaker 61 One of these days, you'll put the chance of killing yourself at 0%.

Speaker 63 And I was like,

Speaker 25 0%?

Speaker 26 I mean, I laughed at him.

Speaker 35 Like, when you're in the throes of depression, you feel like you're underwater and suicide sounds like coming up for air.

Speaker 35 I mean, I'd been joking, thinking, or outright planning to kill myself since I was a child.

Speaker 47 I'm not exaggerating.

Speaker 4 I found one of my old journals this year, and the earliest entry I could find where I expressed the desire to kill myself was when I was seven years old.

Speaker 54 And when I told him that, this doctor looked at me and he shared the only thing about himself that he would ever share with me.

Speaker 22 He said, I get it.

Speaker 63 I was there.

Speaker 53 And now I'm here.

Speaker 21 And now,

Speaker 16 here I am,

Speaker 63 almost 20 years after talking to that doctor.

Speaker 23 And he was right.

Speaker 21 I'm at a zero. Now, look, a lot of that is my kid, right?

Speaker 44 I think before I had my kid, I had gotten my offing myself percentages down pretty low.

Speaker 35 But now that it's something I would do to my son, yeah, it's zero.

Speaker 62 There's no set of circumstances, no feeling of waking up that sends me that direction.

Speaker 63 I don't think about suicide seriously, and I don't think about trying to fly seriously.

Speaker 55 That's how certain I am.

Speaker 53 And look, it took a lot of work, messy work, therapists, and pills, and mental health walks and meditations, all the shit you see on brightly colored posters.

Speaker 53 But it also took setbacks and failures and patient friends and family and also not patient friends.

Speaker 43 People I lost, people who didn't want to stick around till I was better.

Speaker 38 That is their choice.

Speaker 49 And I still don't know that I can bring myself to blame them for it.

Speaker 35 In fact, I wouldn't hear anyone talk about depression in the way that I felt it until well into adulthood on John Green's podcast, The Anthropocene Reviewed, in an essay called Harvey.

Speaker 52 I send people that audio and that text quite a bit.

Speaker 63 You should check it out if you haven't.

Speaker 52 The image John Green conjures of lying on his kitchen floor, unable to do anything but stare at the world through the bubbles in a leader of seven up.

Speaker 49 That was a depression I could identify with.

Speaker 53 That was a depression like mine, but more importantly,

Speaker 53 someone who I admired had been through it.

Speaker 16 And so, like Harvey helped me, I hope

Speaker 25 this

Speaker 21 gives you some hope wherever you are.

Speaker 53 Maybe your depression isn't as bad as mine.

Speaker 44 Maybe it's worse, but maybe you've never heard someone describe looking up from the bottom the way you see it. And maybe hearing that there is, in fact, a way up from that bottom helps you.

Speaker 48 Maybe it sounds as absurd to you as the doctor sounded to me, but here I am and there I was.

Speaker 21 It's so hard not to sound stereotypical when you talk about this stuff.

Speaker 76 It's so easy to feel inauthentic and trite because beautiful language, by the very nature of beauty, lies about the experience.

Speaker 23 Poetic flourish betrays the prosaic reality.

Speaker 81 So,

Speaker 20 I guess what I wanted to tell you is just what that doctor told me:

Speaker 82 that it's possible.

Speaker 49 I was there,

Speaker 53 and now I'm here.

Speaker 84 they're talking about your jesus the interrupt this broadcast bring you a special news moment

Speaker 85 joining me for headlines tonight is the me to the myself and i me

Speaker 28 hello today me i'm heath and i'm here in the podcastiverse we've got some headlines from the last couple weeks that we didn't get to share with you quite yet but first we're going to take a quick break for a word from our sponsor Factor.

Speaker 89 Okay, what if I just stand outside on the street?

Speaker 50 Like we could watch the same TV show at the same time.

Speaker 48 What do you want?

Speaker 90 Cecil, you're being unreasonable.

Speaker 47 Okay, can I say that?

Speaker 91 Hey, Eli.

Speaker 12 I got you some takeout.

Speaker 16 Oh, thank you, Heath, but no, thanks.

Speaker 83 I appreciate it. Really?

Speaker 16 Sure? You don't want any?

Speaker 62 Yeah, I'm kind of on a special diet right now.

Speaker 35 It's a little embarrassing, but I'm only eating meals that are

Speaker 12 full of fall flavor.

Speaker 16 Sorry.

Speaker 16 Full of fall flavor. That's right, Heath.

Speaker 76 The diet. Full of fall flavor.

Speaker 90 Pumpkin spice, birch, warm sweaters, that kind of thing.

Speaker 83 You're only eating warm sweaters mostly?

Speaker 64 Warm sweater vibes, Heathelton.

Speaker 77 Okay. You wouldn't understand because

Speaker 79 you don't have Factor.

Speaker 91 Oh, hold on. What's

Speaker 77 Factor? At Factor, their chefs do the shopping and the chopping to bring you fresh, never-frozen, fully cooked meals right to your doorstep.

Speaker 35 All you have to do is heat and eat. All of their meals are dietitian-approved, so you know you're getting the nutrition you need along with the fall flavors you crave.

Speaker 12 So wait, no cooking or cleanup?

Speaker 16 Nope.

Speaker 92 Factor's fresh, nutritious, chef-prepared meals are ready to eat in just two minutes.

Speaker 16 All right.

Speaker 11 That sounds great, but does it come with variety?

Speaker 31 I don't want to eat like sweater vibes every day or whatever you're doing.

Speaker 65 Oh, Heath, Factor offers 35 wholesome meals every week, including gourmet plus, keto, calorie smart, vegan, and veggie.

Speaker 50 So you'll always have something you love that suits your lifestyle.

Speaker 12 Okay, I'm sold.

Speaker 6 Where do I sign up?

Speaker 35 Head to factormeals.com slash scathing50 and use code scathing50 to get 50% off your first box and 20% off your next month.

Speaker 51 That's code scaming50 at factormeals.com slash scathing50 to get 50% off your first box plus 20% off your next month.

Speaker 16 Good stuff.

Speaker 6 Well, more Chinese takeout for me, I guess.

Speaker 56 Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Speaker 77 Is it pumpkin spice Chinese?

Speaker 46 What?

Speaker 22 No?

Speaker 22 Oh, well, then you can have it.

Speaker 28 And now, back to the headlines already in progress.

Speaker 42 And in X Fox Live News, Fox News host and man who dresses like a middle school art teacher going through a bad divorce.

Speaker 47 Glenn Beck appeared on former Fox News host and man who dresses like a history teacher going through a bad divorce, Tucker Carlson's Twitter show this week to talk about how it was actually him that broke up with Fox News back in the day.

Speaker 94 Was it?

Speaker 73 And he did it.

Speaker 92 He did it for Jesus.

Speaker 30 Cool. So we're going to talk about it.

Speaker 87 I heard his audience was actually too big for Fox News.

Speaker 69 That's it, right?

Speaker 96 No, I also, he ended their relationship with Welsh's because those grapes were sour to begin with.

Speaker 38 That's what it is.

Speaker 69 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 34 So little backstory here.

Speaker 23 Both Glenn Beck and Tucker Carlson were forced to resign for being too racist for Fox News, which is a fucking achievement on its own.

Speaker 16 That's right.

Speaker 9 It actually confirms general relativity.

Speaker 25 It does.

Speaker 60 And can we just say it's been going great for them ever since, right?

Speaker 47 Glenn Beck started the household name of conservative news media, The Blaze, and Tucker Carlson is now hosting an interview show about Jesus in the only place more racist than Fox News.

Speaker 93 Twitter. Yeah.

Speaker 50 The social media website.

Speaker 52 And pretty much since the moment Tuckum's hit the Twitter timeline airwaves he's been rewriting his own story but this week they took a crack at glenn's let me guess his sweaters are actually too stylish and women think he isn't mushy enough pretty much is what it is yeah so glenn starts off with a series of insane claims right Beck alleges that Fox News hired someone to sift through his garbage in an attempt to find dirt on him, that Roger Ailes had personally threatened him by implying they had information that he had somehow hurt his own wife and that he was told not to talk about God so much on air and that his bosses were keeping count of how many times he mentioned him.

Speaker 21 Really? Okay.

Speaker 72 Well, this is fun.

Speaker 13 If anybody out there happened to create a remote control raccoon with a big flashy red light on top, it would definitely be insensitive and mean to deploy that robot near Glenn Beck's trash cans

Speaker 13 a whole bunch.

Speaker 66 Yeah, but Glenn,

Speaker 82 the shit you say out of your fucking face is dirt on you, right? Nobody needs to go through your garbage.

Speaker 78 You sucking is plenty.

Speaker 4 Yeah, it really is.

Speaker 36 Now, you're probably thinking to yourself, wow, Eli, that relationship at Fox News sounds a lot like Satan's temptation of Jesus Christ.

Speaker 30 Yeah.

Speaker 16 Exactly.

Speaker 35 Well, good news, Tucker Carlson agrees with you, interjecting, all this can be yours in reference to Matthew 4.

Speaker 99 Hold on,

Speaker 55 what's the low, low price for that?

Speaker 8 That can be yours.

Speaker 15 Like, I'm genuinely on board for funding this.

Speaker 24 Okay, so well I subsidize Satan's Temptation to Jesus at the rate of about 45 bucks a month, but it depends on how many different people you subscribe to sure like individually.

Speaker 24 You got to be careful.

Speaker 42 But what about the moment where Glenn finally decided to call it quits?

Speaker 43 Was it because he called Barack Obama a racist and a bunch of their advertisers pulled out?

Speaker 4 No.

Speaker 67 No.

Speaker 98 I heard it was that.

Speaker 65 No, it was at the same time as that,

Speaker 16 but it's unrelated.

Speaker 29 Oh, I'll let Glenn tell us in his own, may I say it, poetic words.

Speaker 76 Quote, I walked to the window and I could still feel the cold glass on my forehead.

Speaker 35 And I leaned against the window.

Speaker 78 You're looking out the window wrong then, you fucking.

Speaker 93 You doing Windows head first, like I'm being weird.

Speaker 56 And I put my head there.

Speaker 98 They work from a distance, too.

Speaker 26 Yeah, timeline.

Speaker 32 The technology is good from a distance.

Speaker 74 And I'm looking down at the city, which is just intoxicating.

Speaker 54 If you like that kind of stuff, it's intoxicating.

Speaker 23 And I look down and I'm like, how can this be your plan? And I heard, internally, I heard, if you don't leave now, you will not leave with your soul.

Speaker 23 The next day, I went in and tendered my resignation.

Speaker 30 Okay, quote.

Speaker 45 So just to be clear, Glenn Beck left Fox News in 2011, which means A, the god of the universe was cool with Fox News until 2011, apparently.

Speaker 100 And B, Tucker Carlson definitely got super scared about his eternal soul based on that timeline timeline when he heard this.

Speaker 31 But most importantly, if you're ever feeling a little sad, a little down, think about Glenn Beck pressing his weird middle school art teacher in a divorce face into his pain of sadness glass that he has as a single tear rolls down his cheek.

Speaker 13 That's fun. It's fun.

Speaker 78 It also works if you're ever feeling a little ED, whatever.

Speaker 98 It does the work a lot.

Speaker 43 It does the work, yeah, for sure.

Speaker 97 I was just thinking that.

Speaker 82 And in the N D is 9 news.

Speaker 16 Fantastic.

Speaker 82 There's nothing that alternative medicine practitioners love more than the chance to appear credible.

Speaker 82 Because, like, sure, they'll give the big talk about other ways of knowing and embracing new paradigms, but crack open that door of legitimacy even a little, and they'll be up in your august institutions faster than you can say white lab court.

Speaker 82 Which is why it's so important that we, as skeptics and rational thinkers, remain alert to any opportunity to strip Wu of even the slightest unearned token of officialdom.

Speaker 10 Okay, yeah, lots of great ways to do that.

Speaker 6 I feel like the white lab coat needs to become fully restricted, like a licensed thing.

Speaker 16 Like if you see a naturopath wearing one, it's like a stolen valor situation.

Speaker 36 You know what I mean?

Speaker 78 Like real doctors putting up videos about how they deal with that.

Speaker 18 Yeah, 100%.

Speaker 55 I would enjoy those.

Speaker 82 So fortunately, I bring you news of one such opportunity to fight back today, courtesy of the skeptical writer and the only naturopath will ever have speak at QED, Britt Hermes.

Speaker 16 So far.

Speaker 57 So far.

Speaker 82 Because Britt got in touch to tell us that the accreditation of the naturopathic doctoral program offered by Basta University is currently up for review.

Speaker 82 And part of that review involves asking the public for comments about it.

Speaker 3 Yeah, but I don't think they mean my comments, do they, Mark?

Speaker 82 So Basta University is actually Britt's alma mater, where she studied the same naturopathic course that's under question here before realizing after graduation that everything she'd learned was a complete lie and that naturopathic doctors can't actually cure cancer and or anything like that.

Speaker 82 And that the only real thing about her college experience was the massive student loan debt that she left with.

Speaker 82 And sadly, fellow graduates of Basta, who I guess probably don't refer to themselves as bastards, but I think I'll refer to them as bastards.

Speaker 37 Obviously, yeah.

Speaker 82 They've not learned that lesson. And many of them go on to be the same naturopathic doctors doctors that will peddle dangerous pseudoscience to sick people throughout their careers.

Speaker 82 And look, I know some of you might be thinking, why should we care? Why do we care about people who sign up for a course in bullshit?

Speaker 82 But if you're one of the ones thinking that, you should remember lots of people believe in all sorts of woo ideas when they're college-aged, but then they go on to be the kinds of people that you look up to and respect and, you know, subscribe to their podcasts and things.

Speaker 26 Yeah, to be fair, when I was 18, I would have majored in Ayn Rand objectivism if they offered a department for that.

Speaker 100 Like, I was lucky enough to have those ideas just verbally beat out of me by smarter people, but I get it.

Speaker 91 When you're 18, you're fucking dumb.

Speaker 38 Yeah, and I was a 9-11 truther, but I only turned out to be one-third right about that. Isn't that right, Marsh? Moving on.

Speaker 7 I'm not indulging that.

Speaker 26 The Pennsylvania thing.

Speaker 82 But fewer people do like figure out that it's all bullshit than we'd actually like, partly because colleges like Basta persuade them to go deeper into the bullshit, because when they've graduated, they'll be able to heal the world and get rich doing it, apparently.

Speaker 82 And given that they don't have truth on their side, the marketing of these colleges heavily relies on the trappings of credibility that they get from things like accreditation.

Speaker 82 So BATA's course in bullshit is currently accredited by the Department of Education, which allows them to charge $200,000 for a four-year naturopathic course, knowing that the fact that they're accredited means students can then take out federally subsidized loans to cover those costs.

Speaker 60 Yeah, it's like if you could use FEMA funds on thoughts and prayers.

Speaker 51 You know what I'm saying?

Speaker 80 Yeah, or using PPP loans on thoughts and prayers. It's like that.

Speaker 16 Okay, we did do that one.

Speaker 82 So accreditation of BASTA therefore sends millions of dollars of U.S.

Speaker 82 tax money into the pockets of pseudoscientists while telling students that they're going to, quote, the Harvard of Naturopathic Medicine, unquote.

Speaker 88 Okay.

Speaker 87 I mean, I've said this before.

Speaker 80 I'd say it's like the Rolex sundial, but sundials can actually tell time somewhat.

Speaker 13 Right.

Speaker 78 It's dumber than a Rolex sundial.

Speaker 37 Yeah, it is. Absolutely.

Speaker 82 Like the Princeton Review actually ranked Basta as, quote, one of the 168 best medical schools, unquote, in the U.S., which, given that they said that in 2011, Britt Hermes points out, that might be their way of saying that the school came dead last, but that hasn't stopped Basta boasting about it and putting it in their marketing materials.

Speaker 35 Yeah.

Speaker 38 Can you imagine bragging about going to an overpriced and demonstrably worse school, those

Speaker 16 fools?

Speaker 82 So what we have right here is a rare opportunity.

Speaker 86 Put it on your resume for podcasting, huh?

Speaker 100 Why we hired you?

Speaker 82 So what we have here is a rare opportunity to help push back a little against the spread of bullshit in America, stopping bullshit artists from getting richer and stopping unsuspecting students from being taught how to give fake medicine to sick people.

Speaker 82 and therefore making it less likely that sick people will be given fake medicine at all.

Speaker 82 So we'll call this a bit of a homework assignment for the listeners here, for anybody willing to spend even just a few minutes letting the accreditors know that the naturopathic doctoral program does not meet the standards of medical school education and that students and patients alike are being harmed by the misinformation disseminated by Bast University, as well as being burdened with major debt and then a qualification that just hugely limits their job prospects for life.

Speaker 60 Exactly. Hey, apropos of nothing, how do you spell fraudulent douche canoes?

Speaker 12 with pocket sand?

Speaker 15 That's how you spell it.

Speaker 30 Yes, that's a correct question.

Speaker 82 Yeah, and so with a reminder that public comments are by definition public and that feedback is only ever going to be effective if it's reasonable, polite, and factual.

Speaker 58 Polite, I'm going to emphasize very well.

Speaker 82 Listeners, you can find the link to the consultation in this show notes, and you should definitely, definitely take part.

Speaker 18 Factual pocket sand.

Speaker 13 Got it.

Speaker 55 Thou art.

Speaker 18 And next up in headlines in resurrectile dysfunction news, we have a very troubling story about a disease that's been spreading across the country.

Speaker 91 And it already has an alarming death toll that continues growing rapidly. It's called the woke mind virus.
Latin name, Democratitis.

Speaker 15 If you support democracy and vote against Republicans, you will

Speaker 91 die 100% of the time.

Speaker 28 But here's the good news.

Speaker 80 There is a cure out there.

Speaker 12 One man can save you.

Speaker 31 He's a simple carpenter named Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

Speaker 37 Yeah, I had a feeling.

Speaker 32 Also, a lying pastor is involved in saving you, apparently.

Speaker 16 Yeah, it's redundant.

Speaker 33 That's redundant.

Speaker 80 And we got the first officially recorded use of the cure last week, thanks to Pastor Robert Henderson.

Speaker 15 who managed to cure a dying man by making that man become a Republican.

Speaker 34 Okay, you joke, Keith, but I'll have you know that thousands of Republicans who got COVID actually died of pneumonia.

Speaker 47 So, you know.

Speaker 82 Yeah, but they died with Jesus in their hearts, which was like a bit of a tight squeeze, what with all the COVID-caused myocarditis they were having at the time.

Speaker 16 Right, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 37 So we learned about the miracle cure during the Open the Heavens Conference in Iowa.

Speaker 8 Just a reminder, in case you're not paying attention to the world, that's the event where the prophetic heart of God and the manifestation of his supernatural power are demonstrated to those in attendance and viewing online around the world.

Speaker 11 And the general idea is to create a divine appointment of God's remnant to boldly release the sound of the roar of righteousness and justice.

Speaker 58 That is all from their sight.

Speaker 13 Exact words. Huh.

Speaker 60 I feel like if they did that, I'd have... heard about it before our podcast, right? I don't think we got the scoop on that.

Speaker 82 Maybe it's just that their online streaming tickets were just far too expensive.

Speaker 82 You know, they priced everybody out, unlike QED streaming tickets, which are just under $60 for two full days of skeptical content. QDcon.org for more information.

Speaker 34 Oh, I can buy a streaming ticket.

Speaker 7 You can. That's true.

Speaker 16 I'm going to ban.

Speaker 98 I'm going to get banned.

Speaker 98 I'm going to get banned.

Speaker 93 Block my IP address right now.

Speaker 89 I'll text it.

Speaker 30 Okay.

Speaker 32 So the Open the Heavens Conference is run by self-proclaimed prophet and scathing atheist all-star.

Speaker 18 Well, B-Team all-star.

Speaker 100 He's on the roster.

Speaker 12 Hank Kuneman.

Speaker 6 I remembered his name, but I had to look back at old notes to refresh myself.

Speaker 83 And I was reminded that he wrote an evangelical comic book series for kids about heroes named Milo and Mutzvy.

Speaker 87 He totally predicted that Tucker Carlson was going to get fired by Fox News, and he he just never mentioned it until after Tucker got fired.

Speaker 37 And he prophesied that everyone who's mocking Christianity is going to get leprosy.

Speaker 26 Huh.

Speaker 71 Okay, well, looking at the leprosy statistics, I guess our next live show should be in India.

Speaker 39 Am I right?

Speaker 82 But I mean, I guess it's a new spin on the old tactic of trying to turn everybody who has leprosy Christian, unless their plan is to give all the atheists leprosy and then cure them into Christianity using the old way.

Speaker 16 Sure, yeah. It's a roundabout plan.

Speaker 15 Well, that guy, Hank Kuneman, was hosting an event, and Pastor Robert Henderson has pretty much the exact same resume of lying.

Speaker 86 So Henderson got himself a slot.

Speaker 74 You might remember Henderson for blaming 9-11 on Christianity not being unified into one single branch.

Speaker 92 Or from that one time he personally killed Ruth Bader Ginsburg by praying.

Speaker 6 He did do that, Army.

Speaker 11 And this week, he told us that he cast a spell against Kamala Harris to destroy her campaign with, quote, the heat of God.

Speaker 24 Yeah, but she ducked and North Carolina got a face full.

Speaker 76 You hate to see it.

Speaker 16 Yes.

Speaker 15 So the claim about tanking the Harris campaign with a magic heat ray didn't go very well because numbers mostly.

Speaker 83 So Henderson launched into a story about a guy in Kentucky who was at the hospital with a really high fever that doctors just couldn't figure out.

Speaker 82 Had he been struck by the heat of God by any chance, it seemed like he's going around.

Speaker 72 So the pastor did a little recon, and he discovered that the ailing man was a lifelong Democrat.

Speaker 92 And that means his voting puts him in league with, quote, the spirit of death.

Speaker 74 And the only way to save him was to make him switch parties. So people tried, I guess, arguing policy with the man on his deathbed, but somehow that didn't work.

Speaker 65 Yeah, I mean, to be fair, if I was on my deathbed and you told me the only way for me to survive was to be a genuine Republican, I'd probably start getting my affairs in order, you know.

Speaker 82 Yeah. And I'm pretty sure at that point, if instead you choose to switch to third party, the hospital just shoot you themselves.

Speaker 82 It's like a back door to getting good assisted dying legislation into America. You've either got that route or just be wrongly convicted of murder and then the state will carry that out for you.

Speaker 69 Right, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 91 Yeah, so Pastor Henderson continued the story and he explained that he organized a praying sesh and everybody was like, G-O-P-G-O-P, turn Republican.

Speaker 37 And it worked.

Speaker 10 I'm not joking.

Speaker 15 And that phrase, I'm not joking, it's actually part of the quote.

Speaker 12 Henderson said, quote, I'm not joking.

Speaker 16 Oh, there you go.

Speaker 12 Five minutes after we finished that prayer, someone got the call and said his fever just broke.

Speaker 32 And the man was spared and he was back at services the next day.

Speaker 91 I want you to hear this.

Speaker 41 His vote connected him to something in the spirit world that had to be undone.

Speaker 87 Hopefully, he repented.

Speaker 30 Hopefully, he's a good, solid Republican now.

Speaker 76 Okay, so to be clear, he's not even claiming he won the debate.

Speaker 23 Nope.

Speaker 37 He's saying he lost the debate and then the guy got better.

Speaker 60 So he probably won later because, you know, there is one other possibility of the outcome there.

Speaker 6 So yeah, the dying Democrat switched parties because of praying in a different building and his liberal death fever went down.

Speaker 31 And if it goes back up, hopefully they can find him an election before November so he can vote Republican and make the, you know, the magic spell official.

Speaker 6 I worry it's not official until he votes.

Speaker 100 So they just got lucky.

Speaker 16 Right. Yeah.

Speaker 38 Does he have to re-register?

Speaker 30 A lot of questions.

Speaker 62 And in Jesus Take the Steel news, you know, as a podcaster, it's not easy to be judgy of other people's career choices.

Speaker 34 But as Christians are so fond of saying, through God, all things are possible. And such is the case this week with first-round draft pick NBA player A.J.

Speaker 23 Griffin, who explained that he's retiring from basketball this week to follow Jesus.

Speaker 48 So first off, big thanks to Michael for sending us this story to scathingnews at gmail.com.

Speaker 35 Michael, thanks to you sending us atheist news at scathingnews at gmail.com.

Speaker 92 When we throw paper into a container successfully, we'll say your name instead of Kobe's.

Speaker 37 But yeah, it's provisional.

Speaker 9 If you keep sending links to Fox News, I think we're going back to Kobe or

Speaker 93 Okay, to be fair, I'm the one who found the Fox News.

Speaker 67 Oh, that wasn't Michael.

Speaker 13 It wasn't Michael's. In the show notes, it's now like

Speaker 6 something like that. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 91 I say Bortles, by the way.

Speaker 100 I know it's the wrong sport, but when I hit, you know, hit a basket with the rolled-up paper, I say Bortles food or stuff like that.

Speaker 16 Gretzky?

Speaker 42 I have no idea what Bortles is.

Speaker 30 Blake Bortles.

Speaker 26 Is that a game?

Speaker 16 He's a quarterback,

Speaker 16 but it's from the Good Place.

Speaker 3 It's our version of Jenga, but it's got guts.

Speaker 13 It's a reference to the Good Place, which is one of my favorite things.

Speaker 34 Yeah. So if you're not a sports person like myself or prefer more international sports like Michael Marshall here, A.J.

Speaker 54 Griffin was very good at basketball in college, which meant when NBA teams were choosing players, he got picked first.

Speaker 48 Kind of like middle school volleyball, but with tens of millions of dollars instead of social dread.

Speaker 91 Well, first round, 16th overall, but still,

Speaker 13 yes, in college.

Speaker 8 Yeah.

Speaker 82 Like, as an external observer, it is genuinely hilarious to me how much of American sports seems to run on the solid foundation of dibs.

Speaker 7 It's all dibs, basically.

Speaker 16 We have a giant annual dibs convention for every major sport.

Speaker 35 Dibs thing, people attend. Yeah.

Speaker 35 And since then, he's been fine at basketball.

Speaker 48 He played in 92 games, averaged seven and a half points and 17.1 minutes per game, which ChatGPT informs me is good, but certainly not the kind of performance you'd hope from a first-round pick, which is probably why he was traded from the Hawks to the Houston Rockets in the offseason.

Speaker 48 And look, I'm not saying that's why he's switching to a job with no qualifications or metrics for success.

Speaker 65 But yes, I am. He's a quitter and quitting is Jesus.

Speaker 82 Right.

Speaker 82 Yeah, because being an American sports star and being religious is otherwise apparently entirely incompatible, which is why Jesus and God get so little mention during every single fucking Paul interview you ever see.

Speaker 31 Yeah, just to be clear, he's not quitting his multi-million dollar career to be a minister.

Speaker 6 He got to the NBA and he was like, meh, and got traded to the Houston Rockets.

Speaker 92 And then the Rockets told him to play in the Extra Help Summer League to get good, hopefully, and he didn't.

Speaker 9 So the team was like, hey,

Speaker 10 any chance you, I don't know, found Jesus and you want to just like take off?

Speaker 58 I did find Jesus. Oh, you did.

Speaker 69 Yeah, no, I don't.

Speaker 78 Oh, it's going to be tough, but we will let you go from your contract if you want.

Speaker 98 Oh, God, twist my arm.

Speaker 48 Now, of course, if you have Christian relatives or Facebook friends, you have already seen this story multiple times as a courageous leap into faith instead of the quitting quitterism that it is.

Speaker 60 With Griffin saying of the move, quote, I gave up basketball to follow Jesus.

Speaker 40 And I know that in a lot of people's eyes, that seems like, it seems like a loss in the world's eyes.

Speaker 76 But I just want to let you guys know that I'm super excited because I truly get to serve God, you know, with my full.

Speaker 65 Yes.

Speaker 35 And I feel like letting go of basketball is allowing me to, you know, go into full-time ministry and truly serving the Lord with all my heart, with all my time too, as well.

Speaker 35 So

Speaker 35 I'm excited to see where that leads me.

Speaker 47 And exactly.

Speaker 31 I mean, it's the same reason I ended my career as a professional model/slash actor and got into podcasting with my full yes.

Speaker 16 I get it.

Speaker 16 With your full story as old as time.

Speaker 13 Heart and time. Yeah.

Speaker 65 So with that way of words, I am very excited for Griffin's first ministry.

Speaker 48 Can't wait for his very first Sunday sermon.

Speaker 35 God is like good and stuff, you know.

Speaker 91 And on that note, we're going to close out the headlines.

Speaker 30 Me, thanks as always, Jumanji.

Speaker 91 And when we come back, the legendary Anna Bosnik is going to give Christianity another roasty music lesson.

Speaker 9 Here at the Scathing Atheist, we spend lots of time taking down the terrible things that are done in the name of religion.

Speaker 87 We like to focus on the negative. because, well, mostly because it's fun, but we realize it's important to have balance.

Speaker 6 And that's what we're going to be doing right now in a segment we call God

Speaker 2 awful music.

Speaker 8 Okay, so actually we're going to start with a whole bunch of negative right now too, because the music's bad.

Speaker 30 But then a true expert is going to fix it.

Speaker 8 And that expert is none other than Anna Bosnik.

Speaker 33 Anna, welcome back.

Speaker 57 Hey, guys.

Speaker 57 You ready to get into it?

Speaker 37 Ready.

Speaker 57 Oh, this one's a bop. I'm already dancing.

Speaker 15 This is good. I'm dancing.
And

Speaker 15 Eli, you can hear him shaking right now.

Speaker 78 Eli, you're still here.

Speaker 98 So back in Mora, Dora more than ever, Heathen.

Speaker 57 Write. Thank you.

Speaker 49 There was music, and I was worried that I wasn't in the podcast anymore.

Speaker 15 What is your theme song in your head?

Speaker 13 I'm just curious. How does it go? Is it like a...

Speaker 98 Okay.

Speaker 16 Okay.

Speaker 2 Known.

Speaker 57 He's never asked me to write him music.

Speaker 57 So I'll have to write him. Oh, I have to say that.
Because that's what she would write. I would not write that.

Speaker 7 I don't want the...

Speaker 57 I thought it was going to be like...

Speaker 47 I don't want the copyright problem.

Speaker 39 I thought it was was gonna be a little jingle you know like a of gold coins perhaps in the pouch i always carry wow wow

Speaker 78 wow you wow to you so anna yeah let's do the segment what piece of music what what piece of music falsely so-called are we gonna be breaking down today

Speaker 57 we're breaking down get down

Speaker 57 by audio adrenaline oh yeah imagine imagine the band third eye blind right you're imagining them i am i love that band. Yeah, you've got like the beachy smell.
You definitely can smell.

Speaker 57 Got the long hair. They look like they've been living in their car for a week.
In a good way. Imagine that they found God instead of Crystal Meth.

Speaker 57 And there you go. You have the vibe that we're picking up today.

Speaker 15 Okay, I was smelling crystal meth when you asked about the smell.

Speaker 57 No, no, no, you weren't. No, you weren't.
That was

Speaker 57 straight cheese.

Speaker 18 That was God.

Speaker 57 That was God. You were smelling.

Speaker 98 All right.

Speaker 8 And Eli, how bad was this music?

Speaker 67 Well, if you love the hop and beats of the 90s,

Speaker 60 but you can't keep up with the lyrical genius of Ben Folds.

Speaker 25 Wow.

Speaker 66 You will love this music.

Speaker 100 Shots fired on Ben Folds.

Speaker 16 That's, we're in a fight.

Speaker 2 We're in a fight.

Speaker 57 We'll circle back up the end.

Speaker 57 Ben Folds is like not the worst lyricist of the 90s. Thank you.

Speaker 99 No, he's not the worst lyricist of the 90s.

Speaker 40 I agree.

Speaker 100 It's almost impossible to be the worst lyricist of the 90s.

Speaker 87 There's a lot of competition there.

Speaker 12 Yeah.

Speaker 91 But it's not Ben Folds.

Speaker 15 It's not. I enjoy him sometimes.

Speaker 57 Okay.

Speaker 13 Is there anything you'd like to nominate this so-called music for being the best at being the worst at?

Speaker 57 Oh, God. Worst, worst rebuttal to the song, I get knocked down,

Speaker 57 but I get up again. You're never going to keep it down.
Yeah. I fucking, yeah, that song is poetry compared to that.
I love that song.

Speaker 16 That's too, oh, man.

Speaker 57 It almost fits like exact opposites.

Speaker 37 Lyrics.

Speaker 68 Oh, where's that DJ remix?

Speaker 7 Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 87 I'm transported right back to the 90s.

Speaker 41 Semi-charmed life and tub thumb.

Speaker 37 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 91 I'm right in 97.

Speaker 102 Get some Shumba Wumba in here.

Speaker 57 Yeah.

Speaker 48 There are ads for the new episode of Buffy this Thursday night.

Speaker 12 Oh, you remember TV on Must See TV?

Speaker 16 Thursday.

Speaker 34 Remember when TV would tell you about other TV?

Speaker 35 You'd be watching TV and they'd be like, hey, if you want to watch some TV later, because it's literally the only fucking thing to watch.

Speaker 57 And they wouldn't stop the show. It would just pop up on the bottom.
Do you remember that? Anyway.

Speaker 78 so exciting okay so i'm gonna go with best worst

Speaker 13 tucked in t-shirts oh yeah baby so this is a rock band or they're trying to be it's a christian rock band but they want to be you know third eye blind basically but the vibe of the whole thing is

Speaker 87 christian people tried to dress up like a real band of youths with riz

Speaker 16 and then they tucked in their t-shirts and they did the whole thing yeah

Speaker 57 I still have to wear the tie. Do I, do I, is that why I put it around my head?

Speaker 77 All right.

Speaker 60 And I'm going to go with best, best pug in the music video.

Speaker 57 Oh, my God.

Speaker 99 Yeah.

Speaker 35 This music video opens with a pug in the video.

Speaker 56 Oh, my God.

Speaker 102 I missed the pug.

Speaker 48 By definition, it goes downhill from there.

Speaker 32 Yeah, there's a pug, and I think there's a boxer next to it.

Speaker 69 There is a boxer. Yeah.

Speaker 22 It's pretty great.

Speaker 57 Not as excited about boxers as I am about pugs. All right.

Speaker 15 Well, we just hit the highlight of the video and song, but let's dive right into it.

Speaker 74 Eli, do you mind being the lyrical navigator for us?

Speaker 3 Indeed, I will, Heath.

Speaker 77 And I want to start with this, even before the words on this music video, where we see our lead singer drinking his coffee, waving at his neighbors, which I don't know if I mentioned this, include a pause.

Speaker 3 And then we get these lyrics.

Speaker 57 Branny was robbed. Amazing.
Amazing.

Speaker 4 Lavishly, our lives are wasted.

Speaker 47 Humbleness is left untasted.

Speaker 65 You can't live your life to please yourself.

Speaker 57 Spoken like someone who's never had a vibrator

Speaker 75 i also have to point out that at this point in the video we watched the band go for a hands in the middle and they miss

Speaker 69 so that's the level of caucasity we're dealing with in this particular like a one two three break my eye my eye we all hit ourselves in the eyes

Speaker 88 yeah

Speaker 32 so according to the lyrics here They're going for a commentary on like typical American life in the suburbs being shallow, right? But they want Christianity instead.

Speaker 74 But what we're watching is these Christian guys loving that life.

Speaker 35 Yeah, just having a great time, right?

Speaker 18 Like normally a rock band, they're supposed to, you know, shake up the burbs with counterculture, but they're just like, this is nice here.

Speaker 12 Let's set up a neighborhood watch. I don't know.

Speaker 42 I understand why people want to.

Speaker 57 Do you know what's great? Lavishness. We love a lavishness.
The property taxes are a little high, but you know, sure.

Speaker 89 It continues, that's a tip from my mistake.

Speaker 14 Exactly what it doesn't take to win.

Speaker 20 You've got to come in last place.

Speaker 57 You hear that? Winning at sports is actually super sinful. Olympians are all going to hell.
All of them. Every single one of them.

Speaker 12 Also, I'm just thinking how brave it is for them to admit that finding Christ Jesus is a participation trophy, basically.

Speaker 102 Feels like they're getting there.

Speaker 40 In the video at this point, they almost get in a car accident and the other guy in the other car gets out and threatens to kick their ass.

Speaker 35 I'm not sure why they kept this in the video.

Speaker 79 Yeah, it doesn't really fit. I have a theory, though.

Speaker 91 I think, okay, I'm certain actually.

Speaker 101 One guy in this band believes he knows karate and clearly demanded at least one moment in this video to like do all my sweet karate moves that you all know that I know.

Speaker 57 And this was it for that chicken down.

Speaker 57 It's five white guys. Of course, one of them thinks they know karate.

Speaker 74 It's probably more than one, but one demand, the Jamie Kennedy looking guy demanded.

Speaker 57 At least one of them thinks he knows karate.

Speaker 99 Sorry, I should be more specific.

Speaker 74 They all look like Jamie Kennedy. Yes.

Speaker 80 The one who most looks like Jamie Kennedy at age 25, that guy thinks he knows karate.

Speaker 15 He does not.

Speaker 19 Three of them think they know karate.

Speaker 51 One of them pronounces it karate. And that's the guy.
Let's be honest.

Speaker 91 They all pronounce it karate.

Speaker 57 Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 5 One of them says Jojo instead of Dojo.

Speaker 57 Absolutely no question.

Speaker 57 Oh, no.

Speaker 65 All right. Next up, it says, to live your life, you've got to lose it.

Speaker 20 And all the losers get a crown.

Speaker 57 Lyrics written by the girl from 13 Reasons Why. Yeah, that's a skin.

Speaker 57 It's fucking terrible, man.

Speaker 89 Now it's time for the chorus. Get ready, everybody.

Speaker 3 I get down. He lifts me up.
I get down.

Speaker 69 He lifts me up.

Speaker 102 I get down.

Speaker 34 He lifts me up.

Speaker 50 I get down.

Speaker 57 Okay. Now, this.
This is the thesis statement to why I had to write a song about this, because he has now gotten down. Let's count with me.
Count with me, audience. He's gotten down four times.

Speaker 57 Yeah, I think. And I believe God has lifted him up only three.

Speaker 57 So either that's like that is an inconsistent measurement of lifting or falling, or God is slacking. Yeah.
God is slacking. You're like falling down on purpose at this point.

Speaker 32 Yeah, the God of the universe has that trouble with like, you know, counting how many months it's been since because like January starts as one, but it's sort of the zeroth month at the beginning.

Speaker 57 It's a leap year. He didn't get it.

Speaker 50 Also, the video has given up on itself at this point.

Speaker 35 There was sort of a theme of them wandering through the suburbs, but now it's just switched to a concert footage, but they're a Christian band, and they obviously can't fill a room with people.

Speaker 71 So it's shot like all the scenes at the bronze in Buffy the Vampire Slayer rate.

Speaker 3 There's the band, and then there's a very excited line of dancers who would like to assure us under oath that this club is hopping.

Speaker 74 Yeah, it's like every video of a Trump rally for the last couple of of months with just like those three women he clearly paid to be quote enthusiastically clapping and swaying behind me.

Speaker 67 You have to do it for this amount of money.

Speaker 69 The whole time.

Speaker 76 Otherwise, you don't get the KFC coupon.

Speaker 57 All right.

Speaker 48 Let's talk another lyric here.

Speaker 35 All I need is another day where I can't seem to get away from the many things that drag me down.

Speaker 57 So far, the things that drag you down are pleasing yourself, having confidence, and winning at things. And the concept of winning.
The concept of winning. So sad.

Speaker 12 So, this is where the video took a confusing turn for me.

Speaker 12 All of a sudden, we're learning about the plight

Speaker 80 of the newspaper delivery guy on the electric scooter, like an adult, like a 25-year-old guy whose job that is with a paper wrap.

Speaker 73 He's in an army helmet.

Speaker 77 Yeah, he's going to come back.

Speaker 75 Not in a way that makes sense, but he is going to come back.

Speaker 15 A bunch more of this is like from his perspective and like how maybe God helps that tough job he has.

Speaker 34 Buckle in, guys, because it's about to get relatable.

Speaker 27 All right.

Speaker 37 Are you ready? Oh, boy.

Speaker 90 I'm sure you've had a day like me when nothing seems to set you free from the burdens you can't carry all alone.

Speaker 21 Yeah.

Speaker 57 Yeah. I mean, yeah, that does tend to be the case when you rely on an imaginary friend to help you with your real problems.

Speaker 57 Right.

Speaker 65 That's an issue.

Speaker 3 And I should point out that the video chooses to illustrate this for us by handing one of the the band members a bunch of binders, which I guess would be an okay illustration, except he's grinning and so excited to be in a music video the whole time.

Speaker 60 It doesn't quite get the solemnness meaning across.

Speaker 74 I thought he was just grinning at like binders.

Speaker 102 Like he enjoys stationary and good organization of businessy stuff.

Speaker 6 Like, again, the band member.

Speaker 93 is supposed to, you know, get the boring desk job, but then explode the cubicle with the power of rock and roll and like change everything.

Speaker 57 My God.

Speaker 26 But this guy is just like, ooh, 401k matching plan. Nice.

Speaker 16 I like this job in the 4% rather than three.

Speaker 99 Wow.

Speaker 57 Oh, you got the plastic sheets. So I'm not going to, I'm not going to tear any of the stuff that's frequent.

Speaker 34 All right. It continues.

Speaker 20 In your weakness, he is stronger. In your darkness, he shines through.

Speaker 57 Sounds like a super healthy, chill relationship.

Speaker 35 Well, that's because you aren't seeing how well he's handling these binders now that God is on his side.

Speaker 102 Apparently not.

Speaker 57 Do the homework.

Speaker 8 Okay.

Speaker 102 Seriously, though?

Speaker 57 Does the pug come back?

Speaker 9 The pug does not, sadly. But that is the message about the binders for real.

Speaker 15 Like, according to those lyrics, in your darkness, by which they mean when you just can't organize binders in your cubicle, he shines through.

Speaker 30 Like, Jesus Christ inspires you to.

Speaker 37 And then we watch.

Speaker 57 To go get a label maker.

Speaker 69 Use the little shelf area and get the label maker.

Speaker 56 It's actually out, but you have to refill it.

Speaker 58 But then once you refill it, you put labels on everything and it's very organized.

Speaker 82 So it's pretty, pretty nice.

Speaker 37 Wow.

Speaker 13 Thanks to Jesus Christ.

Speaker 90 He continues, when you're crying, he's your comfort.

Speaker 61 When you're all alone, he's carrying you.

Speaker 37 Yeah.

Speaker 57 And according to the video, that lyric was about when you're riding your scooter on your paper route as a full-grown adult and you get a little wobbly for a second, but then you're fine.

Speaker 102 God's the scooter.

Speaker 32 Thanks to Jesus and God.

Speaker 13 Yeah.

Speaker 89 So we get the chorus again here.

Speaker 48 I get down. He lifts me up.
I get down. He lifts me up.
I get down. He lifts me up.

Speaker 77 I get down.

Speaker 47 And the illustration at this point, correct me if I'm wrong, is a guy standing in line at a burger shop.

Speaker 14 He picks his nose and then throws that booger in the garbage.

Speaker 14 At which point he's asked to leave the restaurant by people bigger than him.

Speaker 50 What I'm saying is that this isn't a hill song.

Speaker 35 You know what I'm saying?

Speaker 37 Okay.

Speaker 85 What Elijah said is exactly what we see with our eyes if you watch this video.

Speaker 57 But he flexibrate.

Speaker 15 Well, I think here's what they were going for.

Speaker 76 The nose picking guy that we clearly watched, he was supposed to be throwing out his gum in the garbage.

Speaker 32 Like he's online at the burger place.

Speaker 6 And he's like, oh, I have gum.

Speaker 78 A good person would throw it out in the garbage right over there.

Speaker 27 I'll walk over there.

Speaker 93 A Christian would put it in the garbage.

Speaker 15 The Christian thing to do would be to put that in the garbage and then get back in line.

Speaker 26 So he starts doing that and he tries to get back in line.

Speaker 101 And then big guys with muscles cut the line and they're like, back in the line, dude.

Speaker 5 And you need Jesus when that happens.

Speaker 99 So to be clear, though, what happened is gum guy had so much trouble taking the gum out of his mouth, like in real life, the actor, the band member, that it looked like a very aggressive nose pick in video.

Speaker 102 Sure did.

Speaker 57 I mean, I mean, to be fair, not a lot of people do take their gum out of their mouth through their nostrils. Yeah, that's a weird pick.
It can can be done.

Speaker 57 Any sideshow performer will tell you it can be done. But man, gross.

Speaker 37 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 100 And just to be clear about the lesson here, the guy, he just goes to the back of the line after the big guys cut him because Jesus helped him be a coward in a good way.

Speaker 57 Good for you. Good for you, Jesus.

Speaker 89 So we get that chorus again.

Speaker 48 I get down, he lifts me up.

Speaker 75 I get down, he lifts me up. I get down, he lifts me up.

Speaker 57 Yeah, double chorus.

Speaker 40 Every time I'm down, the Lord lifts me up.

Speaker 57 So, just so we're clear on where the score,

Speaker 57 we're going to settle the score. So, so, so far, we're halfway through the song.

Speaker 57 Literally, not every time, even in the song, because like 11 times he's gotten down, and only nine times has the Lord lifted him back up again.

Speaker 57 He's like pretty much subterranean at this point.

Speaker 76 It's true, yeah, he is sinking.

Speaker 15 Christianity is getting bugs bunnied in their own song with the old, like, one for you, one, two for me, one for you, one, two, three.

Speaker 48 Let's get back to another verse here.

Speaker 20 The valley is so deep.

Speaker 57 See my previous math.

Speaker 65 I can barely see the sun.

Speaker 40 Also, at this point in the video, he's, as Heath mentioned, in the back at the burger place, and a pregnant lady is behind him, and he lets her in front of him.

Speaker 35 But they didn't have a pregnant friend.

Speaker 94 No.

Speaker 35 So they're just letting a woman who's leaning backwards in front of him.

Speaker 16 Yeah.

Speaker 15 They just do the like hand baby shape thing in that area and they're like, that's pregnancy, right?

Speaker 57 Just rubbing my food, baby, rubbing my Chipotle burrito.

Speaker 15 Okay, if I'm in that scenario, I would definitely let the pregnant woman go in front of me.

Speaker 8 I'm cool with that, but not the guy, right?

Speaker 78 Like, I'm still in line.

Speaker 98 Yeah, the husband takes the free ride.

Speaker 57 Interesting.

Speaker 57 I would let anybody with IBS go in front of me. If you're rubbing your stomach like that,

Speaker 57 I don't even want to.

Speaker 32 Geometrically, I don't know if that's smart, but I like your sentiment.

Speaker 30 She's related to a victim of irritable bowel syndrome.

Speaker 57 So there's a lot.

Speaker 89 All right, so back to the the chorus again.

Speaker 48 I get down.

Speaker 38 He lifts me up.

Speaker 48 I get down. He lifts me up.

Speaker 38 I get down. He lifts me up.

Speaker 3 I get down.

Speaker 14 And this is where we're going to revisit our friend on the scooter, right?

Speaker 48 So as Keith mentioned, there's been a guy on a scooter just riding around.

Speaker 73 And at this point in the video, a bunch of kids bombard him with water balloons, leading me to believe that this video is just a camera crew following this band around for their day and everyone hates them.

Speaker 16 Oh, wow.

Speaker 37 Absolutely.

Speaker 15 Yeah, they're trying really hard to make it about Jesus Christ here, but very clearly, it's actually about a Christian band of like 25-year-old guys getting viciously bullied by the little kids in the town where they live.

Speaker 58 Yeah.

Speaker 87 And then angrily writing a song about how those kids are super mean and fucking godless.

Speaker 13 And we're going to write a song about it.

Speaker 7 Exactly. Yeah.

Speaker 57 I mean, from what it sounds like, the kids are an allegory to the devil. Like, they're there.

Speaker 51 I thought you were going to say they're an allegory to this podcast. And I was like,

Speaker 57 not on.

Speaker 99 The kids are the devil.

Speaker 6 They're Antifa.

Speaker 37 Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 We get a bridge here. Yeah, down.

Speaker 47 I get down.

Speaker 3 I get down.

Speaker 60 I get down.

Speaker 75 And we're watching the band meet up and discuss their day.

Speaker 94 Like, did everyone hate you today too? Me too.

Speaker 33 Oh my God.

Speaker 69 We are a Christian band.

Speaker 66 You're all wet.

Speaker 16 You're all wet.

Speaker 27 Water balloon kids.

Speaker 13 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 101 And then they all do a slow-mo walk to the camera as a band, as one of the shots here.

Speaker 27 And they definitely all agreed ahead of time: okay, guys, we're doing a slow-mo thing.

Speaker 32 We're just going to walk slowly to the the camera and everybody can see us.

Speaker 57 But then one guy does a crazy aggressive dance move and they 100% hate that guy. I mean, so many.

Speaker 60 You said we agreed we were all just going to walk, Chris God.

Speaker 57 Drummer energy.

Speaker 43 Yeah, real drummer energy.

Speaker 63 Thank you, Anna.

Speaker 49 Brave enough to say it.

Speaker 89 So we get some more choruses here.

Speaker 64 A total of eight.

Speaker 17 He's more than a drummer.

Speaker 48 He's also our friend.

Speaker 16 He's

Speaker 57 a percussionist.

Speaker 3 So we get a total of eight. I get down.

Speaker 23 He lifts me up here.

Speaker 43 And the Lord lifts me up there at the end.

Speaker 57 Oh, yeah. Every time I'm down, the Lord lifts me up.
And then it stops, ends with a bunch of applause.

Speaker 57 And if we're going to stand at the very end here with our final count, that would be 26 times the Lord has gotten him down.

Speaker 57 And only 18 in which he was raised back up again.

Speaker 60 Market. I'm

Speaker 60 not sure.

Speaker 91 Hall of Fame numbers, if it's baseball, but it's not baseball.

Speaker 57 It's not baseball.

Speaker 12 When you're omniscient and omnipotent.

Speaker 89 But here's the weirdest part.

Speaker 99 The video's over.

Speaker 20 The song is over.

Speaker 14 There's no music, but we watch about 40 seconds of footage of them helping someone fix their car.

Speaker 94 So

Speaker 47 they're God,

Speaker 9 I guess. I think it was a forgiveness thing.

Speaker 63 The guy that they're fixing his car just by chance happens to be the accident guy.

Speaker 24 It's the karate guy from the accident.

Speaker 6 Yeah. And then they like run across him on the highway.

Speaker 57 By chance, he's broken down.

Speaker 18 And they're like, Christian charity,

Speaker 74 you tried to karate us, but we'll still fix your car because

Speaker 15 our religion's dumb.

Speaker 102 This is a great movie. I take it back.

Speaker 16 Okay.

Speaker 37 We're landing in different places today, and that's okay.

Speaker 88 And that's okay.

Speaker 10 I'll turn the other cheek and forgive you, Eli.

Speaker 49 You go hang out with Ben Foltz.

Speaker 16 I will hang out with Ben Foltz.

Speaker 30 It's awesome. The rock of the suburbs.

Speaker 16 Just like Quiet Riot did.

Speaker 11 And we made it through.

Speaker 100 Whatever that was.

Speaker 80 So,

Speaker 37 Anna,

Speaker 73 whatever that was that we just did.

Speaker 94 Yeah.

Speaker 78 Anna, how did you go about fixing

Speaker 33 that?

Speaker 57 Yeah. Well, first

Speaker 57 of all, I called in help from the pros. I asked our very own Morgan and his band, Moody Boy,

Speaker 57 if they could step in and help me out with this one. And they came through big time.
Go check out Moody Boy. They're on all the streaming platforms, they've got some amazing fucking music out.

Speaker 57 So, highly recommend Dreams. They're just a dream.
So, basically, it turns out that this song, all this song needed was new lyrics, new drums, new guitar, new bass, and a fiddle.

Speaker 57 So, you know, so take it away, me.

Speaker 104 Yeah, it's long.

Speaker 104 Yeah, it's hard. Yeah, this song, I'm going to give you 10 guesses.

Speaker 82 What you think this is about?

Speaker 104 You're not going to guess it.

Speaker 37 It's bad.

Speaker 104 I'll give you that.

Speaker 33 Here we go.

Speaker 105 If you've ever met a Christian, even one not on a mission, then you probably had the same discourse

Speaker 105 that even if you don't believe about the Bible, we agree it's just as good as other legends, Egyptian, Greek, and Norse.

Speaker 105 So sit right down and give it a weave

Speaker 105 and see why this opinion is objectively wrong.

Speaker 105 It's long, but if you keep on reading, it's dumb. But if you keep on reading this song, it's good fucking Greek.
Good luck suspending that disbelief.

Speaker 105 Now you gotta find your friend and ask them why would they pretend to have read the book when clearly that ain't right.

Speaker 33 Yeah,

Speaker 105 turns out most people have agreed to skip the genealogies and cherry-pick the verses that they like.

Speaker 105 But seems to me if my religion were based on nothing but this text, I'd be a bit more concerned about

Speaker 105 the slavery murder and the rapy sex.

Speaker 105 It's long, but if you keep on reading this dumb, but if you keep on reading this long through the fucking Bible, I'm numb in the brain cause it's it's indescribably bad. Ain't a book of poetry sad.

Speaker 105 How folks don't know they're mad when you say this shit isn't even good for a book of myths.

Speaker 105 No morals, no story, no overarching messages of peace.

Speaker 105 It's really

Speaker 105 dark and gory. Why the fuck would anybody ever wanna be a priest? It's long, but if you keep on reading, it's dumb.

Speaker 105 But if you keep on reading, it's love through the fucking Bible. I'm numb in the brain, cause it's indescribably bad.

Speaker 105 Ain't a book of poetry sad, how folks don't know they're mad when you say this shit isn't even good for a book of myths. I'm bored, but I keep on reading, I'm floored by the misogyny, good lord.

Speaker 105 The old and new testaments are equally wack-a-doodle. It sucks, and I keep on reading my books.
There's none to see here, I'm stuck. Gawking at the pages, don't even get me started on my Mary's ages.

Speaker 105 It's long, but I keep on reading it. It's dumb, but I keep on reading it far.
Through the fucking bottle, I'm not in a hand. Cause it's indescribably bad.
Ain't a book of poetry sad.

Speaker 105 Our folks don't know it. They're mad.
When you say this shit isn't even good for a book of this.

Speaker 25 Fuck.

Speaker 98 Hell yeah.

Speaker 87 And that's all the blasphemy we've got for you tonight.

Speaker 15 We'll be back in 10,022 minutes with more. You can't wait that long.

Speaker 32 Be on the lookout for a brand new episode of our sister show, The Skepticrat, debuting at 7 a.m.

Speaker 15 Eastern on Monday.

Speaker 31 An even newer episode of our sister show's hot friend, God Awful Movies, debuting at 7 a.m.

Speaker 32 Eastern on Tuesday. And an even newer episode of our half-sister show, Citation Needed, debuting at noon Eastern on Wednesday.

Speaker 28 Big thanks to Anna, big thanks to Eli, and of course, a big thanks to all the Patreon donors, new and old.

Speaker 41 Your magnanimous munificence, mammoth mental mastery, and majestic mammalian magnetism mesmerize mere mortals like

Speaker 91 mus

Speaker 11 me.

Speaker 101 So close.

Speaker 15 And you will be complimented next time around.

Speaker 15 And if you're feeling financially benevolent like those fine people, you can make a per-episode donation at patreon.com/slash scathingatheost, and that'll get you early access to an ad-free version of every episode.

Speaker 32 You can also make a one-time donation by clicking on the donate button on the right side of the homepage at scathingatheost.com.

Speaker 15 And if you don't have the money for giving away money, we get it.

Speaker 32 You can also help a ton by leaving leaving us a five-star review, telling a friend about the show, and following us on social media.

Speaker 41 And speaking of social media, Tim Robertson handles that for us.

Speaker 5 And our audio engineer is Morgan Clark, who also wrote all the music used in this episode, which was used with permission.

Speaker 32 If you have questions, comments, or death threats, you'll find all the contact info on the contact page at skatingatheost.com.

Speaker 58 No, I won't hold on, Heath Enright.

Speaker 20 At Factor, the chefs do the shipping and the chopping to bring you fresh, never-frozen, fully cooked meals right to your doorstep.

Speaker 56 All you have to do is

Speaker 7 I was doing it.

Speaker 58 I was doing it.

Speaker 98 You hold on. I will plow right through this.
Don't you silence your fucking face.

Speaker 8 Slur word.

Speaker 37 At factor.

Speaker 21 No, no.

Speaker 98 Oh, no.

Speaker 98 It's all happening. I got it.

Speaker 58 I got it now.

Speaker 98 I got it now. Don't let it build him steam.

Speaker 69 He already had to listen to 10 minutes of

Speaker 98 momentum.

Speaker 69 I think we owe him a raise after this episode.

Speaker 34 At Factor, their chefs do the shopping and the chopping to bring you.

Speaker 58 I'm taking my headphones off.

Speaker 98 I'm taking my headphones off.

Speaker 13 Proceeding podcast was a production of Puzzle in a Thunderstorm LLC, Copyright 2024.

Speaker 69 All rights reserved.

Speaker 103 You're listening to Leaf Filter Radio, and the guru of gutter protection himself, Chris Kunahan, is here to take your most pressing leaf-related questions.

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Speaker 103 You're listening to Leaf Filter Radio, and the guru of gutter protection himself, Chris Koonahan, is here to take your most pressing leaf-related questions.

Speaker 70 Hey, everybody, Chris here. I understand we have Ron on the line.
Ron, where are you calling from?

Speaker 2 Uh-oh.

Speaker 2 Ron, are you calling from a ladder?

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Speaker 84 I wanted to ask Chris what I need to do to get my gutters ready to have Leaf Filter installed.

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