0:01

Hey everybody!

0:19

Hi friends, well from beautiful Salt

0:22

Lake City, Utah. It's Thank

0:24

God I'm Atheist. A podcast exploring

0:26

religion, politics, and current events from

0:28

a couple atheists just trying to

0:30

live our lives in these United

0:32

States. I'm Frank Feldman. And

0:34

I'm Dan Beecher. And coming

0:36

up on the show today Dan.

0:40

Oh God. Lies,

0:42

lies, and the liar.

0:46

Okay, you know what? We're

0:49

gonna trigger warn everybody. And

0:52

I don't know what to trigger warn the most.

0:54

Is it just that we're gonna be talking about

0:56

Richard Dawkins? I'm triggered. Trigger

0:59

warning on that one. But even

1:01

more so that he had

1:03

things to say about trans people again. Yeah.

1:07

Not good. Not

1:09

great. Not. That's

1:11

at the end of the show. And we are going, and

1:14

don't worry trans friends, we're going to

1:16

be definitely not on

1:19

his side. Dear

1:21

God no. Spoiler alert. Dear God

1:24

no. Yeah.

1:27

Oh, all right Dan. Yeah.

1:30

I have a story coming to us from the Church

1:32

of England. Oh, I've heard of

1:34

that. Yeah, nice

1:37

outfit normally, right? They

1:39

got a king up at the top. Yeah,

1:42

they tend to be harmless.

1:44

Are they? No,

1:47

no, that's not right. They're still Christians. Yeah.

1:51

For Christ's sake. Yeah, they're Christians. What

1:53

are they? They're something. But

1:55

they kind of, they sort of seem

1:58

nicer maybe? Maybe it's just the end. accents

2:00

I don't know I'm not sure no

2:02

they are nicer definitely like you know

2:05

it's it's definitely like

2:07

if you're ordering Thai

2:09

food their spice level is zero

2:12

well yeah like

2:15

it's still it's still too much

2:17

flavor for some but like for

2:19

the most part it's still yeah

2:22

okay that's that that's nice so

2:24

Dan with all of

2:27

that sort of setting this this up I

2:29

guess it sort of makes sense that

2:32

when faced with a

2:36

priest more than

2:38

just a priest canon he's

2:41

a cannon cannon Andrew

2:43

Hindley right that's that's the

2:45

title yeah I think he's

2:48

he's like maybe a must

2:50

be a priest he's a priest he's a priest

2:54

musket yeah I

2:57

think there should be I think all of

2:59

their titles should be should be gun really

3:01

okay yeah but they under bus they are

3:03

not they're not so

3:07

when they had a touchy

3:09

feely priest by

3:12

the name of canon Andrew Hindley

3:16

who was definitely

3:19

a risk to children

3:21

and young people you know

3:23

like how do you handle this how does an

3:25

organization deal with this we know

3:27

how the Catholics have done it they just sort

3:29

of move people around right well

3:33

the the C of E

3:36

they they pay them a

3:40

six-figure settlement and pushed him out the

3:42

door oh

3:44

that poor guy the poor guy they he

3:46

had there were five

3:48

police investigations into this guy and

3:51

they couldn't get anything to stick

3:53

right there was the

3:55

time that in 1991 where there

4:00

was alleged sex with a 16

4:02

year old boy. I'm

4:04

sorry. 17 year old boy. That

4:07

makes it better. There we go. The

4:10

age of consent at the time was 21. So it

4:12

was definitely, it

4:15

was statutory. Then

4:17

in 2000, after the age of consent had

4:20

been dropped 16, he

4:23

decided to sleep with a

4:25

15 year old boy. Of course. It's

4:28

no fun if it's legal. That's

4:31

yeah, that's, that's the problem with lowering the

4:33

age of consent apparently for some people. Right.

4:37

Is they got, now they're just going to go,

4:39

go younger. Boy, maybe

4:41

we should trigger warned this one.

4:45

Look, our show should just come

4:47

with a blanket trigger warning. So

4:51

both investigations, both of those investigations were

4:53

dropped after the alleged

4:55

victims and

4:57

the cannon denied

4:59

the allegations. So, okay, whatever.

5:03

And then there were the, there was

5:05

the time in 2001 where

5:08

there was an allegation of sexual assault

5:10

of a teenage boy three years that

5:12

happened three years earlier. And

5:14

let's see, he was the cannon.

5:17

Hindley was accused of

5:19

giving the alleged victim alcohol and encouraging

5:21

him to watch

5:24

pornography and then like,

5:26

you know, touching and groping and

5:28

whatnot. And 2006 allegations

5:32

over remarks made to a 15 year old boy.

5:35

And then in 2018 allegations of sexual

5:37

assault at a party in the

5:40

cathedral garden. This man

5:42

was out of control. He

5:44

really was. He

5:47

was really, really truly out of

5:49

control. But the, so they're trying

5:51

desperately to get rid of

5:53

him. It

5:55

got so bad that the archbishop

5:57

of Canterbury, um, back

6:01

to plan to close this

6:03

guy's cathedral if

6:05

the priest returned to work. Why

6:08

can't they fire this guy? What's

6:10

going on? Well, wrongful termination, I

6:13

presume. Let's see. I

6:15

feel like if you've got that

6:17

many police investigations, I

6:20

feel like you've got grounds to terminate. I

6:23

know, I guess, but nothing. I guess you need

6:25

a conviction. I don't know, what do you? Right?

6:29

How bad does it have to be? But

6:32

the C of E, they

6:34

just kept trying. They tried multiple times

6:36

to pay him to leave, but

6:40

he just wouldn't. As recently as 2022, he

6:42

was offered 240,000 pounds. Good

6:47

move. But we do not know

6:50

how much he took this

6:52

time, how much they offered and he actually did

6:54

take because he

6:57

and the church both signed non-disclosure

6:59

agreements. What's it gonna take

7:01

for you to stop raping these kids? We'll

7:03

pay you. I don't know. Good

7:07

Lord. I'm just gonna stay. I'm

7:09

staying. We're paying the criminals

7:11

now. Yeah, yeah. Please leave the

7:13

church. We'll pay

7:16

you. So the Church of England

7:18

is saying that this payment was

7:21

in order to settle legal action that

7:23

was brought by the priest, but

7:26

yeah, it's in light of

7:29

the fact that

7:32

the church has tried several times to

7:35

pay him off. It's just like, it's

7:37

just wild. There

7:40

you go. Yeah, so apparently-

7:42

Apparently there's good money in

7:45

bad behavior. Yeah. And

7:49

thanks C of E, like that's fucked

7:52

up. Yeah, you've really

7:54

sent a strong message with that one, C

7:56

of E. Good job. Well, and because it-

7:58

What? It

8:00

feels like to me that

8:03

because churches and, you

8:05

know, in general are so

8:08

weird about their predatory priests

8:10

and clergy that they

8:13

probably missed multiple opportunities to

8:15

make some of these allegations

8:17

actually stick. Right. Because

8:22

they were probably had their

8:24

own internal problems with reporting,

8:26

right? Yeah. And people

8:28

feeling like, well, I don't want to rat

8:30

him out because, you know, he's the priest.

8:32

He's the priest. And, you know, like

8:37

if they were just good on the issue

8:39

to begin with, they could have saved themselves,

8:42

you know, three

8:44

or four hundred thousand pounds. Several hundred thousand

8:46

pounds. Yeah, exactly. So probably

8:48

half a million. Who knows? It's

8:51

yeah, it's absurd. I

8:53

mean, here's the one thing that I will say.

8:56

It is possible that

8:59

by doing this, they

9:02

actually in a very fucked up

9:04

way protected children. I

9:06

and going forward.

9:08

Going forward. Yes. And if

9:11

that is, yes, not the ones who

9:13

have already had the problem, but like

9:16

like they may have done a really

9:20

lousy action for

9:23

a good effect. And

9:25

that effect is like the protection of kids.

9:29

And so I'm not going to get all

9:31

the way down their throats about it because,

9:35

yeah, I mean, maybe they kind

9:37

of did the right thing sort

9:39

of in the end.

9:43

Yes. But I think it's it's

9:45

it's just testament to how poorly they've handled. They probably

9:47

handled it up to this point. Yeah, right. What

9:51

it means is that there's they have

9:53

they have no systems that

9:56

could have ended this the

9:58

second it like. It's

10:01

it even seemed like it might be a

10:03

problem. Yeah, they've got no system in place

10:05

for that whatsoever And one can

10:07

only hope that they're smart enough to now try

10:09

to put some of those in place if for

10:11

no other reason Just to save themselves some money

10:14

Yeah, so when the next that when the next time

10:17

And comes along yeah if

10:19

one you could hope that you could

10:21

go ahead and hope that I've I

10:24

am gonna hope it I'm hoping

10:27

and the history and I

10:30

have little hope I'm on

10:32

that front damn okay great Well,

10:35

I am going to fly us back

10:37

over the pond to Oklahoma here

10:40

in these United States That's

10:42

a culture shock Yeah,

10:45

yeah You listeners in the

10:47

UK come come to Oklahoma at some point see

10:49

what see what you think uh

10:54

Now this is this is a follow-up

10:56

so We had

10:58

reported we had talked about a months

11:01

ago a plan

11:03

that they had in Oklahoma to have

11:07

to fund through

11:09

public funds a Charter

11:13

school that was that

11:15

was an online Catholic

11:18

charter school. Yeah And

11:22

and that was dumb and bad

11:24

and very clearly against

11:27

our like countries

11:30

Constitution and But

11:33

it turns out it was also against the

11:35

Oklahoma State Constitution and

11:38

the Oklahoma Supreme Court Ruled

11:40

seven to one to block The

11:44

state from from opening this school

11:47

So set it was set to happen like

11:50

this week or this like this

11:52

year and the

11:57

the Charter

11:59

school board There's apparently a

12:01

charter school board. Took until now

12:04

to vote, to

12:08

actually obey that ruling by the

12:11

Supreme Court and officially nullify their contract

12:13

to open this school. So

12:21

they came down

12:23

to the wire and apparently, the attorney

12:26

general of the state, who

12:28

seemed like he actually cares about the law, unlike

12:32

the attorney general to the state, just

12:34

to the south, because the Texas attorney general is

12:36

just the

12:39

most corrupt human on the earth. But

12:43

apparently, Oklahoma attorney general, Gentner

12:46

Drummond, actually thinks that, church

12:51

state separation is real, and he's not really a

12:53

real person. And

12:56

should probably happen, et cetera.

12:58

And so he threatened to, he

13:03

basically threatened individual board members,

13:06

if they voted to

13:09

go against the Supreme Court. He

13:12

basically threatened with citations that

13:14

could have been like six months in

13:16

jail and a $500 fine. Oh,

13:19

shut up, really? So

13:21

they fell in line. Magically,

13:24

there was a unanimous vote to

13:27

actually obey the law on this one. But

13:32

of course, they've decided to appeal their

13:34

decision. They

13:37

haven't, they've promised they will appeal. They

13:39

haven't filed an appeal to

13:41

the Supreme Court of the United

13:43

States, rather than just that, their

13:46

dinky home state Supreme Court. That's not

13:48

enough for them. And

13:50

who knows? I mean, they're probably

13:52

right. The Supreme Court of

13:54

the US will say, do

13:56

what you want, you know, because we got

13:58

idiots. it's in our current

14:01

Supreme Court. It's just, they're sort of just

14:04

Supreme Court and for Jesus up there, so

14:06

who knows? You say

14:08

they're idiots, I think they know what they're doing. They

14:12

know what they're doing. Okay, fine. Retract

14:14

idiots and replace it with bad

14:17

jurists. There you go. Ding, ding, ding,

14:19

ding, ding. People who do not care

14:22

about the law, only about Jesus. Ding,

14:24

ding, ding, ding, ding. And sort of

14:26

like being in the can for a

14:30

sort of right-wing Christian

14:32

nationalism. Ding, ding, ding,

14:34

ding, ding. Yeah, totally. There you go.

14:36

All right. Well, Dan, actually,

14:39

my story, my next story, is

14:43

related to the story that

14:45

you just told. This

14:48

is serendipitous.

14:54

This is actually pretty great. So did

14:57

you actually say the name Ryan Walters,

14:59

State Superintendent Ryan Walters? I

15:01

didn't. I do have a quote from him. He

15:03

did have a tweet related to him. I didn't

15:05

really hear. Shall I read it? Yeah, yeah, yeah,

15:07

yeah. Just a little. So here's what he had

15:10

to say about my thing and then you can

15:12

move on to whatever you're thinking about. This is

15:14

his big pet project, this guy, right? He loves

15:16

this thing. Oh, Jesusifying the

15:18

schools is the only thing he cares about.

15:20

So here's what he had to say. He

15:22

tweeted, the Oklahoma Supreme

15:25

Court has failed Oklahomans in

15:27

their latest dismal ruling against

15:29

parents and kids. They

15:32

have chosen the path of

15:34

liberal extremism and, hold

15:37

on, Marxism. By

15:41

depriving parents of a choice, it's

15:44

shameful but predictable from a

15:46

failed judicial system. Well, we

15:48

agree on that. The

15:51

judicial system is largely in

15:53

the shit can but there you go. They

15:56

do not represent conservative Oklahoma values.

16:00

Which is what he's pissed off about. So,

16:02

yeah, so he's been all about this like

16:06

online Catholic school and it getting, you know,

16:08

state funds and all that. He

16:12

also was responsible for his

16:16

order. I guess he's not, of course he's responsible

16:18

for it. It was his order that

16:22

the Bible be placed in every

16:25

classroom in the state of Oklahoma. Right. And

16:27

that teachers had to like... Not that he

16:30

had the authority to do that. And that

16:32

they... Boy, did he order it. And that

16:34

they had to incorporate Biblical teachings into the

16:38

curriculum, right? So

16:42

that's state superintendent Ryan Walters.

16:46

Well, it

16:49

turns out that

16:52

some... The Oklahoma state

16:54

legislature may not be too stoked

16:56

about this guy. Now,

17:00

of course, he would expect that from the Democrats. But

17:04

21 Republican

17:06

lawmakers have

17:08

signed on to a

17:11

letter requesting an investigation

17:14

into state superintendent Ryan Walters, which

17:17

could potentially lead to impeachment.

17:22

Now, this is a procedural thing that's

17:25

happening right now. House

17:28

Speaker Charles McColl said

17:32

that if the

17:34

legislators could get at

17:37

least 51 Republicans to

17:39

sign the letter, that

17:43

he would consider the request. And

17:47

so I'm not quite sure

17:49

legally what the whole process

17:52

would be, but according to

17:54

Melody Huckabee Rowlett, who

17:57

is a political science professor, professor

18:00

at the University of Oklahoma. Let's

18:04

see, according to her.

18:11

For this kind of thing in Oklahoma,

18:13

you don't really need to prove that

18:15

a crime was committed, apparently, if

18:19

they were to impeach him, right?

18:21

Or to have and they doesn't

18:23

have to be a crime for

18:26

the Senate to remove Walters from office.

18:29

And this is her quote, what rises

18:31

to level of impeachment is a little

18:33

different. It's broader alleged

18:36

incompetence, alleged

18:39

willful neglect of duties. It doesn't

18:41

have to be high crimes, misdemeanors.

18:45

So there

18:47

is a chance that Mr.

18:53

Walters could find himself

18:55

being kicked out of office. Now, of course,

18:59

the Republicans, they're shy of there's

19:02

still 30 legislators shy

19:04

of, you

19:07

know, taking it to the next step

19:09

of the request being considered.

19:13

But it would be

19:15

it would definitely it's already signaling to

19:18

Ding Dong McGee. Shut

19:21

the fuck up. Shut up.

19:23

You're making us look bad. If

19:27

nothing else, right. Walters, of

19:29

course, is still defiant, accusing

19:33

Republican lawmakers of teaming up

19:35

with Democrats. These

19:38

are folks that do whatever the

19:40

teachers unions tell them to. And

19:43

they want to bring back an era

19:45

of the teachers unions controlling our schools.

19:48

It sounds like better than you. Would

19:50

it? Yeah. What you want

19:52

as a superintendent of schools

19:54

is someone who hates teachers

19:57

unions, someone who

19:59

someone who. really doesn't want to deal

20:01

with all these pesky teachers. Right. Yeah.

20:04

I will never back down to moderate

20:06

Republicans partnering with Democrats to overturn the

20:08

will of the people. We're

20:10

not going to allow it. And

20:14

so yeah, he's

20:17

got the grand standing down, man. He

20:19

he I think this guy this this

20:21

guy's going places. Oh, oh, hopefully

20:24

jail. This is like he's going

20:27

places. This

20:29

is clearly that's all any of

20:31

this has been about. He's

20:33

just trying to make a name for himself.

20:36

Yeah. And he has. He

20:39

has. I mean, we're talking about

20:41

it. Yeah, we know we know

20:43

is and we're we don't

20:45

give a fuck about Oklahoma. I

20:48

mean, I have to give a slight fuck

20:50

about you give it like a family fuck

20:52

about it. Yeah. A

20:54

family fuck. I give a family fuck. Well,

20:57

OK, that's that may have come

20:59

out. That may not sound great,

21:01

but it does sound Oklahoma. Oh,

21:04

how dare you. That's

21:07

Arkansas. And

21:11

all of the Arkansans on our listening

21:13

right now are like, no, it's Mississippi.

21:17

It's always Mississippi. It's always

21:19

you always know it's Mississippi.

21:22

All right. Well, I'm I'm

21:25

going to speaking of geography.

21:28

I've got a geography based

21:31

story now. Which

21:35

is that Pew are friends over

21:37

at the the Pew Pew have

21:41

done a new a new survey trying

21:45

to sort of get at what

21:47

countries in the world are

21:50

the most religious countries.

21:53

Hmm. And it's

21:55

it's an interesting one. Not tremendous.

22:00

no shockers here. Like you

22:02

will not be surprised to

22:04

learn that

22:06

you know Indonesia wins. Oh.

22:10

Right. Because if it had been Norway. If it

22:13

had been Norway. That would have

22:15

been a headline. Yeah. Yeah.

22:17

Yeah. I mean the one interesting thing is

22:20

sort of like the methodology that

22:22

they use because Pew

22:24

has not done a great job with the

22:26

methodology and they even admit that in their

22:28

own article. They basically say

22:31

we don't love how we did it because

22:34

it doesn't take into account because they what

22:36

they basically did was they asked two questions.

22:39

How important is religion in your

22:41

life and how often do

22:43

you pray. And those

22:45

questions are really they get

22:48

it something for say members

22:50

of an Abrahamic religion. Like

22:52

Christianity or Islam. But like

22:56

prayer isn't always the thing right in

22:58

a religion. You know what I mean.

23:00

So it's like how

23:02

do you determine how religious. You

23:05

know if a Japanese person is

23:07

Buddhist and Shinto but doesn't really

23:09

do much like. More like

23:11

how often do you practice your faith. Yeah.

23:14

But I mean that what does that even

23:16

mean. Like so it's I admit it is

23:18

a tricky question to ask

23:21

or it's a tricky concept to sort

23:23

of get at. How

23:26

often do you pray when one

23:28

of the world's religions requires it

23:31

five times a day. Right. Exactly.

23:33

And you'll be you won't be

23:35

surprised to learn that yes the

23:37

Muslim countries pray more than other

23:40

countries. But also like the

23:43

most Muslimist of all of the countries

23:46

are also the countries where it's not

23:48

legal to leave the religion. So. Yeah.

23:52

So you know it if it's

23:54

not legal to leave your

23:56

religion if you're a Muslim.

24:00

Yeah, and I get that that's what

24:02

they're trying to get around, right? Is

24:05

sort of with those questions. By asking

24:07

like how important is it, yeah. Yeah,

24:09

like how important and how often do

24:11

you actually do things, right? Rather

24:14

than what is your religion, you know? But

24:17

I mean, if you live in a country where you could

24:19

be beheaded for your religion not being

24:21

important to you, I think

24:24

it makes sense that 95% of the people in Indonesia are

24:26

going to

24:28

say, yeah, it's important for

24:31

me to pray. Woo-hoo, go

24:33

Allah. Yeah, right. Okay. So,

24:36

but I mean, who knows? Many

24:38

of them are very sincere in

24:40

their beliefs and in their, you know, and

24:43

of course, so yes, the top

24:46

countries are all very

24:50

Muslim. So you've got Indonesia

24:52

and then a bunch of sub-Saharan Africa,

24:56

including Nigeria, Senegal, you've

24:58

got, you know, Iraq, you've

25:01

got Pakistan, and then it

25:03

gets into like, so

25:05

then it gets into like South

25:07

America and the highly Catholic

25:11

countries down there, Guatemala

25:16

and Honduras, etc. And

25:19

then, you know, when you get all the way to

25:22

the bottom of the list, you have,

25:24

and by the way, the US

25:26

is basically smack dab in the

25:28

middle on both

25:31

counts, sort of right in the

25:33

middle, right in the, at that sort of median

25:36

for percentage on

25:39

both of these questions, which I think

25:41

is interesting. You know, of

25:44

people who say that religion is

25:47

very important to them, you

25:50

know, United States is sandwiched between

25:52

Moldova and Chile, which

25:55

is interesting. But like, when

25:57

you go down the list, it's no surprise to

25:59

anybody that at the very very bottom. I

26:03

interestingly Japan is at the very

26:05

very bottom on that question. Okay,

26:07

but then it's just. Europe

26:10

might as well just write the word Europe. You

26:16

I would be interested of all of

26:18

the European countries. Mm-hmm that are in

26:20

the bottom of the of like

26:23

people who say that religion

26:25

is very important to them. Mm-hmm.

26:28

What what would you say are the give

26:31

me some of the the very very bottom ones the

26:33

the ones that For

26:36

whom is the least important least

26:38

important? I'm what are

26:40

we calling it now? Just check Check

26:43

Republic. Yeah, or Checha Checha.

26:45

That's the one I'm

26:48

gonna go I think they're really low

26:50

I think I've heard that before they

26:52

are very low. Yes, they are the

26:54

second lowest European country really After

26:57

are you ready? Okay, it's not

26:59

what you think Estonia oh

27:04

That doesn't surprise me there There

27:08

you're gonna say that doesn't count There's

27:11

even heard of Estonia No,

27:17

I that doesn't surprise me

27:19

yeah, and then you're not

27:21

gonna be surprised by any of the Denmark

27:23

Switzerland UK Sweden Sure lot

27:26

via Lot

27:28

via Finland Anyway,

27:31

and then Taiwan and Hong Kong that's interesting too

27:38

So there you go Only

27:41

you know in the US of Of

27:45

adults who say that religion is

27:47

very important in their lives. It's

27:50

only 42% Huh?

27:53

All right, so that's that

27:56

feels good. Yeah, okay with that

27:58

like yeah, do you? Do they have

28:00

any sense of like how these numbers

28:03

have trended? Like

28:05

do they give any context? Like are they able to

28:07

say like, you know, in 10 years ago in the

28:10

US, it was, you

28:12

know, yeah, I don't have that here. Hmm.

28:17

Uh, but we just say 48%, 48%. It

28:21

was 42 42. All right. So

28:24

I don't have, I don't have that at

28:27

my fingertips currently, but let's just

28:29

say, uh, we,

28:31

it, we're sure that it's going down. We

28:35

know that. So, all

28:38

right, Dan, well, the

28:41

democratic national convention

28:43

is coming up, right?

28:45

Yeah. It's soon to happen. Um,

28:49

the best of the, the Natcons.

28:51

Um, they,

28:55

um, so back when

28:57

Biden was slated

28:59

to be the loser this November, um,

29:03

they had released a

29:05

draft platform, um, which

29:08

there's been no public update of

29:10

this and sort of judging

29:12

by some of the things that are in

29:14

this article about it, I don't, I can't

29:16

really see huge changes, uh,

29:20

coming. Uh, but what's, what's great

29:22

about this article that I found on,

29:24

uh, life news.com. Oh,

29:28

sounds like a trustworthy place. Oh, well,

29:30

of course, because it's all news. Uh,

29:33

it's news for people who care about, uh,

29:37

uh, life, right? This is

29:39

a pro life. Yeah. I

29:41

was going to say that sound, that

29:43

sounds like meaning anti-abortion, anti-abortion, uh, website.

29:47

Um, but, but

29:49

you know what? The one thing I do trust folks

29:51

like this to do is to really go

29:54

through a document

29:56

like this and find, uh,

30:01

All the outrage material. All the stuff

30:03

for outrage, exactly. So

30:06

let's see, the draft,

30:09

again, this is just a draft,

30:11

not adopted yet, the platform vows

30:15

to nationalize abortion on demand

30:17

across all 50 states, support

30:22

taxpayer-funded abortion, protect

30:25

the predatory transgender industry. I'm

30:28

quoting here. You

30:31

better be. Yeah. If that

30:33

came out of you, we would have to

30:35

quit the show. And

30:38

continue, quote, fighting against

30:40

parents who seek to keep pornography

30:42

out of their children's school libraries.

30:45

Right, because that's what we're all about.

30:47

So much pornography in these school libraries.

30:49

Give those kids their porn, you animals.

30:53

No, the kids have it on their fucking phones

30:55

if they want it. Yeah,

30:58

I know. I was relegated to the

31:00

JC Penney catalog growing up. So

31:04

this is the kind of document, or

31:06

the kind of article that I'm reading

31:08

here, right? Yeah. Let's

31:11

see, they say the word abortion is

31:13

mentioned 13 times. The

31:17

concept of reproductive rights is mentioned

31:19

14 more times. Again,

31:21

I'm reading their phrasing here. Right. Because

31:24

they're horrified. They're positively beside

31:28

themselves. The term LGBTQI plus

31:30

is mentioned 35 times. Oh,

31:34

won't someone save us? Climate change,

31:36

or climate in the context of

31:38

climate change occurs over 70 times.

31:42

Oh my god, they're trying to

31:44

protect the climate. But, and this

31:46

is according to Brent Keelan,

31:49

Vice President for Strategic Initiatives

31:52

at the Family Research Council.

31:55

He says, but I could not find

31:57

one mention of the word God. in

32:00

the platform draft. Oh no. I

32:02

also couldn't find one mention of

32:05

the word Christian.

32:09

Oh no. Oh, the tragedy of

32:11

it all. It's

32:14

devastating. It's truly devastating. Let's

32:18

see, the draft does

32:20

mention the Respect for Marriage Act,

32:23

which is an important piece

32:25

of legislation. It's federal legislation.

32:27

This is to safeguard against

32:30

a dumb, dumb scotis that might

32:32

overturn gay marriage.

32:35

So this would require all states

32:38

to recognize a gay

32:40

marriage, a

32:42

marriage license issued in any other state,

32:46

which would effectively

32:48

make gay marriage

32:51

sort of recognized nationally. Right. Because you could

32:53

just go to a state. It puts

32:55

a little bit of a burden on a

32:58

gay couple in say

33:00

Alabama, right? To have to

33:02

travel to another state to

33:04

get married. But once they

33:06

do, Alabama or

33:08

Idaho would have to recognize

33:10

it. Well, you know, what it does is it

33:12

just says, I don't

33:15

think that it will, I think it has a much better

33:17

effect than that, which is that as

33:19

of right now, gay marriage

33:22

is legal in all of these

33:24

places. So it just means don't

33:28

stop doing that because

33:30

you're just going to have to recognize it anyway. Right.

33:33

I mean, yes, but like

33:35

they're going to not, you

33:37

know, go forward with, you

33:40

know, ending gay marriage in their state,

33:43

right? Like, of course, of course, Alabama

33:45

and possibly like, you just

33:48

because it's going to be, they're going to have to

33:50

recognize it doesn't mean that they're going to be like,

33:52

Oh yeah. You know, let's keep

33:55

issuing marriage licenses. They're not going to do

33:57

that. They're going to take their more. stand

33:59

and they're gonna say we're not gonna do

34:01

it even if we have to recognize that

34:03

we're not going to that's

34:06

possible I just think you know why

34:08

bother yeah at that point just just

34:10

because they want to take the stand

34:12

right they want to yeah maybe I

34:14

think I think everyone's getting tired I

34:16

think our country's getting tired of all

34:18

of this bullshit yeah and after this

34:21

if if we come through and

34:24

we elect that you

34:26

know Harris and we elect you

34:29

know down ballot Democrats

34:31

the way we need to yeah

34:34

I think the nightmare

34:36

will start to be over like

34:38

the spell will be will start to be

34:40

broken the fever will break right

34:42

this this this

34:44

fever dream that's a great way of thinking

34:46

about it yeah yeah the fever will

34:48

break and we'll we'll all be this

34:50

this night marriage fever dream that we've been

34:53

living through yeah for the last

34:57

last little while yeah you know I

34:59

mean I'm I think

35:01

that you the the spell that

35:04

Donald Trump casts

35:07

on the Republicans will be broken

35:09

I think there's a really

35:11

good chance of that yeah and I

35:13

think and like moderate like reasonable people

35:15

want to retake control of the Republican

35:17

Party they mean that I yeah good

35:19

party it's going to still be it's

35:21

gonna be a mess right yeah it's

35:24

gonna be a fucking mess but hopefully

35:26

it just sort of hamstrings them for

35:28

for for a while and well and

35:30

and we can isolate out these Christian

35:32

nationalists and all the ding-dong I mean

35:34

we saw it we'll still have to

35:36

deal with SCOTUS I don't know what

35:39

to do about that but anyway we'll

35:41

see so they continue

35:43

being outraged about these kind of

35:45

things and they the

35:47

section on freedom of religion is not

35:49

good enough for them at all because

35:53

it's really about taking

35:57

actions to combat anti-Semitism which which does

35:59

nothing for them because they're Christian and

36:02

in square, in

36:04

scare quotes, Islamophobia. Or

36:08

maybe this is like questioning like does

36:10

that even, and whatever this Islamophobia is.

36:13

So wait, is antisemitism also

36:15

in scare quotes? Nope, just.

36:18

Okay, just. Antisemitism is real,

36:20

Islamophobia, whatever that is.

36:23

I don't think, I ain't heard of that.

36:25

Like, yeah, that's the whole

36:28

like, no, no, no, it's not a phobia,

36:31

right? Well, which is funny because, you

36:33

know, I

36:36

can get people saying, but I'm not afraid of

36:38

gay people. You are, but like I can get

36:40

people saying that, but these people

36:42

are very afraid of Muslims. Well,

36:45

I'm kind of afraid of Muslims.

36:47

So, well, there you go. I

36:50

don't know if it

36:52

fully counts as Islamophobia. I'm

36:55

afraid of Islam. I'm

36:58

afraid of radical. I'm afraid, I think it's

37:00

a shit religion and

37:04

I'm a little bit afraid of it.

37:06

But Muslims, that's

37:08

a different thing. Right, sure.

37:10

The people, I'm not bigoted

37:13

toward Muslims. I just

37:16

really dislike their religion. And

37:19

then. I mean, I dislike all of

37:21

the religions, but yeah. I dislike that one the

37:23

most, clearly. Right.

37:27

And I feel like I'm allowed to do that. Well,

37:30

I'm not stopping. I'm allowed to say which

37:32

one I think is the worst. Anyway,

37:37

it was a fun read, actually.

37:40

Because boy, they

37:42

just think that we're the devil.

37:48

But anyway. And their

37:50

terror feeds me. I do

37:52

love, I do relish Christian

37:55

terror. About that

37:58

kind of nonsense. Oh no, they're gonna be.

38:00

nice to gay people. Someone

38:02

think of the children. One

38:05

last thing, this one's actually pretty good. There's

38:07

this section on freedom of religion,

38:09

right? And it says, so

38:11

this is quoting from the

38:14

document, right? Right. It says, which

38:17

says, Democrats will protect the First Amendment, right

38:20

to free exercise of religion for everyone, and

38:22

we will maintain the separation of church and

38:24

state. And then

38:26

it, but it's like, they have to find

38:29

something to be outraged about. And so it

38:31

says the reference to separation of church and

38:33

state is the only time the platform uses

38:35

the word church. Yeah,

38:38

correct. Good. Good. If this

38:41

is for real, good.

38:43

Yeah. Like finally. Right.

38:46

Of course. Normally.

38:48

Yeah. Take a stand. And also, um,

38:51

where's your parties platform? Oh,

38:54

ooh, ouch. Where's

38:56

that? Ouch. Is it project

38:58

2025? Cause, uh, yikes.

39:01

Yeah. All right. Um, I'm

39:03

going to close this out with a little bit

39:05

of, a little bit of weird, but good

39:08

news, I suppose, which is, uh, do

39:11

you know, I almost said

39:13

Gordon Ramsey, Dave Ramsey. Have you heard

39:15

of Dave Ramsey? Do you remember him?

39:18

Yeah. He has a bunch of really good restaurants, right?

39:21

That's the other one. Dave Ramsey, uh,

39:24

is a Christian,

39:27

very, very faith-based finance,

39:31

uh, guru. He teaches

39:34

people how to like invest

39:38

Christianly, I guess. I

39:40

don't know. It's a really dumb concept and I,

39:42

I wouldn't listen to him if I were you.

39:45

And here's a good reason. Uh, he

39:48

doesn't care about, you know, reality

39:50

to the point where back

39:53

when in 2020, when, uh,

39:55

there was this whole COVID-19

39:57

thing happening. He,

40:01

not only did he

40:03

like downplay the risks of

40:06

that horrible disease, but

40:09

he like would refer to mask

40:11

wearers as wusses and

40:15

told employees that they

40:17

couldn't work from home and that they would have

40:20

to, and that his

40:22

company was guided by faith,

40:25

not fear. Which

40:28

didn't sit great with some

40:30

of the employees, including one

40:32

Brad Amos, who was

40:35

a video editor for

40:38

the company and wanted

40:42

to, you know, wear a

40:44

mask to protect himself and

40:46

his coworkers, which

40:49

apparently got him fired.

40:51

Oh, what?

40:57

I mean, of course it did. Which is

40:59

amazing. Like the

41:01

thought that you, so I mean,

41:03

like I get firing someone for

41:05

not being willing to wear a

41:07

mask when there's a deadly

41:10

disease killing millions of people.

41:14

But I don't know about someone

41:17

electing to take

41:19

precautions. That's

41:21

a fire in a fence. That seems a

41:24

little bit bananas. But

41:27

when he decided to sue, originally

41:32

the judge dismissed because

41:35

here's the thing. It's not

41:37

easy to figure out what to sue for because

41:40

you got to pick

41:42

a thing. You

41:45

got to pick a law that was broken in

41:47

this thing. And

41:49

what they went with was religious

41:52

discrimination because

41:55

Ramsey had very clearly tied

41:58

his positions on COVID. 19

42:00

and the positions on COVID

42:02

19 to their

42:04

religion. And

42:07

the thing about it is that like that

42:09

really, you know, so

42:11

this guy basically said, this

42:15

is discrimination against people who don't

42:17

have their religion. They called

42:19

it, some people are calling

42:21

it reverse discrimination, meaning

42:23

you're not of the religion and

42:25

therefore you're being discriminated against rather

42:27

than being discriminated against for having

42:31

an opposing religious belief. Cause it's not like

42:33

it was a hit one of his religious beliefs

42:37

to wear a mask. Although that's

42:39

how they framed it. They like his lawyers

42:41

framed it as like, he

42:44

has a religious belief of the

42:46

golden rule. Basically

42:49

saying, you know, if do unto others as you

42:51

would have them would do unto you. And

42:54

that required him to wear a

42:56

mask and to social distance and

42:58

to comply with the fucking CDC

43:01

recommendations, et cetera. Anyway,

43:06

that was dismissed in US district court.

43:09

They appealed and

43:12

the sixth circuit, the

43:14

court of appeals overruled

43:17

that district court judge and

43:20

said, no, this actually does

43:23

because the, the, the district court

43:26

judge basically said that he had

43:28

failed to, to

43:30

demonstrate that there was any discrimination.

43:36

And the sixth circuit said, no,

43:39

this is discrimination based on religious

43:42

non conformity, meaning not, you're

43:44

not forming to our religious

43:46

things. Yeah. And therefore, try

43:48

again, you have to,

43:50

you have to try this case. Okay.

43:53

So there you go. Man,

43:55

these things take a long time. Court

43:59

system is. Suing is

44:01

the worst. Yeah. Lawsuits

44:03

are the worst. Anyway,

44:05

there you go. A little bit of

44:07

triumph, a little bit of sense in the world. Hopefully

44:11

that goes well for that guy. And

44:15

there you go. If you would like to tell us

44:17

all about your encounters with,

44:20

I don't know, Dave Ramsey or bad bosses

44:23

or whatever, or anything

44:25

that we've talked about, please feel free

44:27

to write into us, podcast at thankgodimatheist.com.

44:30

Or call and leave us a voicemail message.

44:32

The telephone number is 424-666-8442. Stick

44:38

around. There's more show coming up. Well,

44:41

Frank, we do the

44:43

show and then people

44:45

write into us about

44:48

stuff. That's

45:00

how it works. We invite them to.

45:02

We just invited them to. So

45:05

here are a few things. We got in

45:08

a little bit of hot water with some

45:10

of our listeners. You'll

45:12

recall that we, a couple

45:14

weeks ago, we talked

45:17

about a priest

45:20

who was on Grindr, who got in some trouble,

45:22

who got outed. And

45:24

you and I had perhaps

45:28

not enough sympathy for him. I

45:32

think we, I mean, the tack that we took

45:34

was that like, you don't out

45:36

people. But if someone's

45:38

a horrible hypocrite and it's hurting everybody,

45:41

it's hurting a bunch of people. Yeah.

45:44

Meaning a priest, you know, our

45:46

anyway, some people wrote in, wrote

45:48

into us. I think we're going to need to clarify

45:51

whether that is still our opinion or not. Anyway,

45:53

here's a few things that people had to

45:56

say. This is from Casey who said, OK,

45:58

guys, you're going to have to explain this.

46:00

to me further. I don't understand

46:02

how outing a married guy for being

46:04

on Grindr is any different than outing

46:06

a gay priest. Both have

46:09

taken vows and are committing acts

46:11

against those vows in secret. Same,

46:14

same. Casey goes

46:16

on to talk about how they have

46:18

a family member

46:20

whose husband was

46:25

having illicit gay affairs behind

46:28

his wife's back. Anyway,

46:32

it's quite long, but Casey

46:34

says, sorry, but you cannot pretend to

46:37

be married and then fuck around behind

46:39

your partner's back no matter what your

46:41

sexual preferences are. That is

46:44

just bad practices as a person, as

46:47

an atheist, just all around decent

46:49

human. Cheating is wrong, it

46:51

just is. And

46:54

being a responsible human is about being honest. Anyway,

46:57

I think that, I

46:59

think, and I'll be interested to hear what you have

47:01

to say, but I think that it's

47:04

not the same. That being a priest is not the

47:06

same as, yes, they made vows, but

47:10

those vows are wildly different vows.

47:12

One vow is like, well,

47:16

it's to God, technically, but

47:19

the thing that a priest takes on

47:21

is public, is a public trust and

47:23

is something that affects thousands

47:29

of people. And

47:33

that is very different. If

47:35

someone gets married, one

47:37

person has to trust that person. And

47:40

the rest of us, it's none of

47:42

our goddamn business. Well, and also, let's

47:45

say you're privy to

47:49

the fact that somebody's cheating on their spouse, and

47:53

you going and telling the

47:55

spouse that's being cheated on,

47:57

you're informing them that that

48:00

they're being cheated on, right? You're

48:02

not publicly outing the cheater,

48:05

right, for

48:07

being gay, if they are, right? Or

48:10

for whatever they're doing. And if you

48:12

do that, you're going

48:15

a step too far. Yeah, going and

48:17

publicly announcing this kind of stuff, posting

48:19

about it on Facebook or something like

48:22

that would be wrong, right? Right.

48:24

Because that person has not, I mean, if

48:28

that person were in a, it's

48:30

different if they're in a public position

48:32

where they were taking a stand against

48:35

gay people. Correct. And they're secretly

48:37

gay. Right. You know what

48:39

I mean? A politician or a priest

48:41

who is taking a very public stance

48:43

against, that hurts all

48:46

gay people. Yeah. And

48:48

then they're actually gay, that's a different

48:50

thing. I'm not sure that I feel

48:52

like I'm still very uncomfortable with the

48:54

idea of outing them. Oh,

48:57

I'm not. I think that they deserve to

48:59

be outed. Because that is the, so

49:06

when you go to the person and

49:08

say, who's being cheated

49:10

on, right? And you sit them

49:12

down and you're like, hey, this is what's going on.

49:15

This is what I've witnessed

49:17

or have heard or

49:19

whatever. It's the exact

49:22

same thing as telling the public

49:24

that this person has influence over,

49:27

right? Right. Yeah, I

49:29

mean, the public who trusts this

49:31

person deserves to

49:33

know the believers and

49:36

the non-believers, the gay people and the

49:38

straight people. They all deserve to know.

49:40

I mean, what's important here is who's

49:42

the interested party. Because who's been violated

49:44

in this, right? Whose

49:46

trust has been violated, right? Yeah.

49:49

And it goes for politicians and it goes

49:51

for, I think probably more

49:54

senior type religious folk.

49:57

I don't think maybe your parish priest deserves

49:59

it. the

50:01

horrible consequences that this guy deserves. And maybe

50:03

that's going a little bit back on kind

50:05

of the rationale that I was just laying

50:07

out, but a

50:10

parish priest can be a little bit of a victim

50:12

of a system. Yeah. Whereas

50:14

if you're the head of that system,

50:16

you deserve to be called out for

50:18

it. And a parish priest who's part

50:21

of the system, but doesn't rail against

50:23

gay people or whatever. Right.

50:27

I mean, there probably is a

50:29

proportionality question in all of this.

50:31

And so for me, I have

50:34

serious empathy for anybody

50:37

who is closeted

50:39

and who doesn't know

50:41

the way out. I

50:44

don't have a lot of empathy if you're

50:48

a leader in an organization.

50:51

But I still do have empathy for

50:53

that person. What they're going through

50:55

on a human level ain't

50:57

great. But there's

50:59

a certain amount of if you're going

51:02

to be a leader in the Catholic Church, which

51:04

this guy was that we were talking about, and

51:07

then you're going and hooking up

51:09

on Grindr for Christ's sake. This

51:11

isn't about some quiet

51:14

affair somewhere. He's hooking up on fucking

51:16

Grindr. Right. Right. I

51:19

don't know. Like, I mean,

51:21

if you want to hook up on Grindr, great. Go

51:23

do it. But know that there's

51:26

a chance you're going to get caught. I

51:28

don't have a lot of sympathy for this

51:30

particular guy. He was doing something on a

51:32

fairly public, like anybody can get on Grindr.

51:35

Right. Now, I doubt

51:37

he was posting his picture. Right. In

51:40

fact, I'd be shocked to find out that

51:42

he was posting a picture of his face.

51:44

Maybe he was posting other pictures. Yeah.

51:46

But people are pretty dumb. A

51:49

lot of people. Usually, the guys who are looking for a hookup are

51:53

it's not their face. Right. They're posting

51:55

a picture of their junk or just

51:58

leaving it blank or whatever. So anyway,

52:01

body parts, they think, are going

52:03

to be played to

52:05

the best advantage. So I mean, that's,

52:09

I hear the writer's

52:12

concern, but I do

52:14

think it's different. Yeah. And I, you know,

52:16

we had another, uh, another email

52:18

from Joe that was, uh, you

52:21

know, basically saying that the same

52:23

thing that, that he

52:25

was shocked, uh, taken aback, uh,

52:28

by our comments. Uh, and

52:30

so I, and I, you know, I

52:32

get it, but I think we've answered it. I think,

52:35

I think, I think the idea, I think

52:38

the salient point in what, in what

52:40

you said that hit home for me

52:42

is yeah, who are the interested parties?

52:44

Yeah. Because it's important that, that they

52:46

know that their trust has been breached.

52:49

Yeah. And with a priest, the

52:52

interested parties are the public. Yeah. And

52:54

the same with a, with a politician. Yeah.

52:57

And so I guess for the parish priest,

52:59

I would feel, I would feel worse

53:02

for him than I would for the,

53:04

this leader guy. I don't really feel bad for him.

53:07

Right. Um, I, I,

53:09

I, I feel

53:11

bad that he's in

53:13

a tough situation that

53:15

he's denied himself. Um,

53:18

the happiness that living,

53:20

uh, a life out of

53:22

the closet could be. Yeah.

53:25

Um, but he'd have to give

53:28

up, um, a

53:30

lot in order to do that. See,

53:32

he's in a tricky, he's in a

53:34

tricky, awful position. Right. But the fact

53:36

of the matter is, is leaders in

53:39

an organization like the Catholic church who

53:41

are out cavorting and

53:44

whatnot, I think they deserve it. There.

53:46

I've said it now five different times.

53:49

They deserve it. That's that, that, that's

53:51

our position and we're sticking with it.

53:53

Apparently. Uh, Alexandra wrote

53:55

in to say, Hey, Frank and Dan, or

53:57

well, Frank eel and Danlin is. is

54:00

what she wrote. Okay. The

54:02

Christians have already given us the perfect symbol.

54:04

This is in relation to our conversation

54:07

about an atheist symbol, which

54:09

by the way, I'm

54:11

gonna say, you and

54:13

I, after we recorded last

54:15

week, had a delightful

54:18

little back and forth. As

54:22

we were looking up the null set

54:24

thing, because I really liked these, not

54:26

the oval one, but the circle with

54:29

the slash through it, and

54:31

I was Googling it, and I was looking at all these

54:33

different things. I think I might make merch.

54:35

I think we really might make merch. There's

54:38

no announcement happening yet, but I'm in

54:40

the process of getting merch with the

54:42

null set. Because

54:45

one of the things that's great about

54:48

it is that that symbol is also

54:50

just a letter in several of the

54:52

Scandinavian languages. And when

54:54

we clicked on, I texted you and

54:56

said, you

54:59

have to click on the sound that

55:01

that makes, because it is

55:03

the sound of atheism, because

55:06

that letter is ee. Like

55:10

literally, on the Wikipedia page for that letter, it

55:16

just, you can click on the little thing, and

55:18

it has a guy that goes ee. Which

55:22

sounds like you just

55:24

heard something disgusting. It's like, well,

55:26

and then you and I were joking that it was

55:29

like, oh, the missionaries have come to the, you open

55:31

the door after you hear a knock, and it's them,

55:33

and you just go ee. You

55:39

find out that you're on a date with

55:41

someone who's super Jesus-y, and then you're just like ee.

55:44

Ee. Anyway,

55:49

this is what Alexandra has to say, which is

55:52

that the Christians have already given us the perfect

55:54

symbol we need to wear as

55:56

jewelry and tattoos. 666,

55:59

or if you prefer. one of the more subtle versions a

56:01

barcode or a QR code will do. I can't

56:05

quite remember off the top of my head

56:07

which crazy Christian end times movie it was

56:09

but I once saw one that had a

56:11

really cool stylized mark of the beast with

56:13

the three sixes arranged like a trefoil knot.

56:16

Uh, you know, I get that

56:18

but to me that's just an

56:20

anti Christian one. Yeah symbol rather

56:22

than a pro us one. And

56:25

frankly, I don't want to identify myself

56:29

in opposition to another group. Yeah, I

56:31

don't want to. Yeah, I find with

56:34

it like get a 666 tattoo if

56:36

you want to freak out

56:38

the Christians around you do it. Which is

56:40

a that's funny a worthwhile thing to do

56:42

with your time. Absolutely.

56:46

But but yeah, I think that we we

56:49

need something that is not

56:51

connected somehow to stuff that already

56:53

has meaning because it's already a

56:55

sort of a symbol for

56:58

something else. Right? Yeah, I mean,

57:00

I'm I look if you are

57:02

an anti Christian and anti Christ

57:05

if you will. Yeah, please feel

57:07

free to take on that symbol.

57:09

I think that that's that's fine.

57:12

But I don't think I don't think it

57:14

quite fulfills our brief. Which

57:18

is fine. Joe has

57:20

written in Joe in Alaska has written in

57:22

saying Frank and Dan listening to your latest

57:25

episode where you covered failed

57:27

Rapture prophecies reminded

57:29

me of a prank of

57:31

an army buddy and I pulled his

57:34

neighbor was all about crazy religious beliefs

57:37

and just knew that the rapture was coming

57:39

on a predicted date. The neighbor

57:42

was very judgmental surprise and would tell

57:44

my buddy that he would burn in

57:46

hell for divorcing his wife and not

57:48

being a member of their church. Oh,

57:50

wow. So on the day of the

57:52

expected Rapture, I went to my buddy's house, he and I

57:54

made a point of saying hello

57:56

to the neighbor that morning while standing in

57:58

the front yard. We stayed

58:01

there for a while and watched the neighbor go

58:03

into their house. My buddy and I ran into

58:05

his house, changed clothes, placed

58:07

our other set on the

58:09

front lawn, and used tang

58:11

powder. Do you remember tang?

58:13

Yeah, delicious. Orange tang powder

58:16

to draw our heads and arms where

58:18

our body parts would be. We

58:21

also sprinkled some powder on the clothes to make

58:23

it look like we turned to dust. Oh, wow.

58:25

We sat in his house looking out the window

58:27

and saw the neighbor gaze into the lawn at

58:30

our clothes. Crazy neighbor looked around

58:32

and then up at the sky.

58:35

They were quite irate when they saw us

58:37

very much alive. Then

58:41

they also completely stopped speaking to my

58:43

buddy after that. I bet they did.

58:45

Yeah, probably no great loss. Yeah,

58:48

that's a fun prank. Not great

58:50

for neighbor relations. I

58:53

hope he didn't have any fence disputes

58:55

after or anything like that where they

58:58

had to work

59:00

together on something. Indeed.

59:02

Well friends, if you are

59:05

enjoying the show, if you're a

59:07

fan of us doing this, because

59:09

this is the thing that we do, we

59:12

would greatly appreciate it if you would

59:15

either consider giving us your

59:17

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59:19

that is the only way that, you know, we don't

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you can do that by going to

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not this. It's just us. Uh,

1:00:00

Todd talking about things that interest us

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that aren't this show. Anywho,

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uh, that's free. That that's, that's not

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and I think we have one person

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indeed Dan our top donor, our

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Lord and savior, Davis.

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More show coming up. All

1:01:00

right, Frank, listen, Richard

1:01:03

Dawkins is done. Uh,

1:01:06

well, yeah, we knew that we fired

1:01:08

him a long time ago and he

1:01:11

did not get the memo. Uh,

1:01:14

yeah, for those of you who don't know, maybe

1:01:17

there are some people don't know who Richard Dawkins

1:01:19

is. He was a, he

1:01:21

was a hero of the atheist movement

1:01:23

for a while. God. He wrote, he

1:01:26

wrote, uh, uh, the,

1:01:28

the God delusion. Yeah.

1:01:30

That, that was him, right? Yeah.

1:01:32

Yeah. That sounds right. He's a,

1:01:35

he's an evolutionary biologist. So, uh,

1:01:37

but he's also like a

1:01:40

old dude. Um, and

1:01:42

the thing is that, uh,

1:01:47

he has stopped being good. Uh,

1:01:49

he doesn't produce anything like that

1:01:52

forwards the atheist thing anymore. What he

1:01:54

does now is be

1:01:56

mean to trans people on Twitter. It's

1:01:59

free. remarkable It's

1:02:01

all I ever hear about him now. Yeah

1:02:05

Yeah, I this is this

1:02:07

is a bad retirement Dawkins Stay

1:02:11

off my lawn is perfectly reasonable at

1:02:13

your age. Just yeah do that. Yeah,

1:02:16

and But

1:02:18

instead he has decided to chime in on all

1:02:20

sorts of things Including

1:02:22

a recent tweet where he said where

1:02:25

he commented on Uh No,

1:02:29

and this has been a whole thing. Yeah Olympic

1:02:33

Woman boxer Iman Khalif

1:02:37

mm-hmm an Algerian who

1:02:40

won the gold, right? She

1:02:44

has very masculine features it's true

1:02:47

but this woman was assigned

1:02:50

female at birth because

1:02:54

she had female parts

1:02:58

she was raised a Girl,

1:03:01

she grew up to be a woman. She

1:03:04

identifies as a woman. This is a cis

1:03:06

woman Yeah, now a

1:03:09

few years ago. She had an issue where she

1:03:11

where she was competing in

1:03:13

a net in an international thing

1:03:16

in Russia and the

1:03:19

Russian Organization

1:03:23

that that was sponsoring the event Accused

1:03:27

her suspiciously after she

1:03:29

had beaten their Russian

1:03:34

Entry into this tournament or whatever was

1:03:37

they they they came out and said that she

1:03:39

had tested xy chromosomes

1:03:41

and They they

1:03:44

disqualified her now

1:03:47

listen human beings

1:03:49

are complex creatures and biological

1:03:51

sex and gender are Really

1:03:55

complex issues and there's not just a

1:03:57

binary. We know this you

1:03:59

can be X Y and have

1:04:02

you know a vagina and breasts and

1:04:05

and you know be

1:04:07

a woman X Y

1:04:10

chromosomes do not determine your biological

1:04:12

sex there's a

1:04:14

lot of stuff that goes

1:04:16

on that determines biological sex

1:04:18

hmm anyway one

1:04:21

person who should definitely know

1:04:24

that biological sex is

1:04:27

has many many different things

1:04:29

that determine it is Richard

1:04:31

Dawkins evolutionary biologist who

1:04:34

ends up say who ended up

1:04:36

tweeting recently two men masquerading

1:04:38

as women are being allowed

1:04:41

to box against real women

1:04:43

in the Olympics these

1:04:47

are neither of the people that he is talking

1:04:49

about are men or have

1:04:52

ever been men or were assigned

1:04:54

male or female male

1:04:56

at birth or anything they're not

1:04:58

trans people right these

1:05:01

are women they literally

1:05:04

what drives me crazy about this and

1:05:06

of course you know JK Rowling

1:05:09

jumped on this thing and yeah

1:05:12

like the entire twitters twittersphere

1:05:15

the ex exoplanet

1:05:20

was was a all abuzz and

1:05:25

it's what's hilarious to me about this

1:05:28

is that this is going

1:05:30

literally against everything that

1:05:32

the anti-trans people have been saying this

1:05:34

whole time because what the

1:05:37

anti-trans people have been doing this whole

1:05:39

time is we know

1:05:41

what a woman is a woman is

1:05:43

a person who has a vagina when they're born

1:05:45

and who is raised a girl

1:05:47

and blah blah blah that's what a woman

1:05:49

is we know it and

1:05:53

now they

1:05:55

see a woman who is you know

1:05:58

whose face looks man masculine

1:06:01

whose body is very

1:06:03

powerful and They're

1:06:05

like Mmm, I

1:06:07

don't like it. I don't think it's a woman.

1:06:09

I just think

1:06:12

it's just literally

1:06:14

you're they You

1:06:17

know to some extent like You

1:06:19

know, these these are the same assholes

1:06:21

who made that that movie. What is

1:06:24

a woman? Matt

1:06:26

what's his name? Have

1:06:28

you heard of this? Hmm? Yeah, there

1:06:30

was a film called. What is a woman? Matt

1:06:33

Walsh made it this is a far

1:06:37

right nutball connected to

1:06:39

the Daily Wire Mm-hmm,

1:06:42

and it was just supposed to be this

1:06:44

gotcha question. What is a woman and And

1:06:48

all the liberals are having trouble Defining

1:06:51

it but we conservatives know exactly

1:06:53

what it is Well,

1:06:55

guess what? This woman

1:06:58

who was a this this boxer Meets

1:07:03

all of your definition. It's your

1:07:05

own definition and and

1:07:08

even that XY thing Is

1:07:10

spurious it came from

1:07:13

one source that source had a

1:07:15

vested interest in getting her disqualified Like

1:07:19

it's spurious and the Olympic and the

1:07:21

Olympic Committee doesn't fucking care about it,

1:07:24

right? So

1:07:26

anyway, I just think it's

1:07:29

so It's that whole

1:07:31

thing about like what's porn? Well, I I can't

1:07:33

define it, but I know it when I see

1:07:35

it. I Know

1:07:37

a woman when I see it. It's like It's

1:07:41

so it's like they refuse

1:07:43

I I

1:07:46

Here's what I think this proves. I Haven't

1:07:48

let you get a word in edgewise. Yeah, but here's

1:07:50

what I think you're doing fine. Here's

1:07:53

what I think this proves What

1:07:55

it proves is that they don't actually care about

1:07:59

genetics about chromosomes

1:08:02

about any what they care

1:08:04

about the science part of it. They don't care about

1:08:06

the science part of it at all The

1:08:10

nut they can scream and they

1:08:12

scream science words Mm-hmm

1:08:14

from like at the tops of their

1:08:16

lungs, but all they care about when

1:08:19

it comes right down to it is their

1:08:22

widow feelings That

1:08:24

this might that this gives them the

1:08:26

ick Mm-hmm, and

1:08:28

they can't handle it. They don't know what to do

1:08:30

with their feelings And so when

1:08:32

the science isn't on their side,

1:08:35

they don't care Right

1:08:37

the science that they've been spouting

1:08:39

suddenly doesn't matter anymore Because

1:08:42

all they care about is that

1:08:45

this has is that

1:08:47

they've decided that it's weird and they don't

1:08:49

want to deal with it well, right, I

1:08:51

mean because when

1:08:55

When somebody like this boxer comes

1:08:57

along She

1:09:01

transgresses their Against

1:09:03

their idea of what a woman is Right.

1:09:06

Yeah, and and that's that's all it

1:09:08

is and then they don't they have no

1:09:10

idea how to respond but

1:09:13

they they they have an idea in their head of

1:09:17

Woman and actually they mean

1:09:19

wife right teenage girl

1:09:22

or wife Yeah, they

1:09:24

mean baby factory and

1:09:26

sex object. Yeah, exactly and And

1:09:30

and that's that's what they want. And

1:09:32

so here's this here's this

1:09:34

woman who doesn't fit that

1:09:36

doesn't look like she fits

1:09:39

that right and That's

1:09:42

the problem they don't like it and and to

1:09:44

be honest, I think somebody like Richard Dawkins at

1:09:46

this point He's decided this is the hill he's

1:09:48

dying on and so he just keeps retweeting everything

1:09:51

Yeah, and he's like, well, this is me

1:09:53

now This is my

1:09:55

new thing. Unless do you think that it

1:09:57

was just that one thing he? He

1:10:00

went all in on it. He kept tweeting

1:10:02

things like, you know, a picture of a

1:10:04

motorcyclist in front of a bunch of like

1:10:07

bicyclists That says

1:10:10

biker who identifies as a cyclist

1:10:12

wins the Tour de France. Yeah,

1:10:14

you know Another

1:10:17

picture of a bunch of Men

1:10:21

in a foot race and it says first

1:10:23

biological cheetah who identifies as a man

1:10:26

set to take gold for the blah

1:10:28

blah blah blah Yeah, it's it's

1:10:31

such a bad argument and

1:10:33

a bad faith argument Yeah, and

1:10:36

the fact that he's willing to make it so

1:10:40

Deeply tarnishes his credentials I

1:10:42

know and his bona fides

1:10:45

as a serious person as a scientist

1:10:47

as everything that he had like built

1:10:50

His brand around right now that

1:10:53

like it's like well, I Don't

1:10:56

care how good his atheist books are at this

1:10:59

point. No, I want nothing to do with

1:11:01

them Right. I mean though they're from the

1:11:03

80s anyway, like he's Who

1:11:07

the fuck cares what he thought like he

1:11:09

was important for his time. Yeah, and I'm

1:11:11

actually really grateful for him. Mm-hmm For

1:11:15

that for being outspoken at that time.

1:11:17

Yeah, that was a really bold Powerful

1:11:20

thing that he did then and

1:11:23

now he's just shitting all over his

1:11:25

legacy. Yeah Which

1:11:27

okay by the by

1:11:29

I guess I you

1:11:32

know, we want to revere you Richard

1:11:35

But don't have heroes people. That's

1:11:37

I think that's the I

1:11:40

don't know that he was ever a hero of mine,

1:11:42

but He was somebody who?

1:11:45

There was a lot of people's here. Yeah. Yeah.

1:11:48

Yeah. Yeah, and and

1:11:50

I don't I'm very picky with my

1:11:52

heroes What you should

1:11:54

don't have I actually that's so

1:11:57

yeah, I probably yeah, it's

1:11:59

hard for me to even think of somebody that I would

1:12:01

consider a hero. Yeah, let's

1:12:04

just realize that people can do good things

1:12:06

and then also do awful things, the

1:12:09

same person. And

1:12:11

that's just how humans work. Yeah. Woohoo!

1:12:15

And then you have, yeah, all right.

1:12:17

Well, anyway, I don't care about

1:12:20

anyone's feelings about trans people. That's

1:12:24

none of anybody's business except to love them.

1:12:26

Just be nice to trans people. They're great.

1:12:29

That's your problem. So yeah, but

1:12:31

also just this whole thing about, he's

1:12:35

lying about these boxers. And

1:12:38

then his Facebook page,

1:12:41

he loses access or it gets

1:12:44

taken down momentarily. And

1:12:46

he freaks out and just starts

1:12:49

accusing Facebook of having censored

1:12:51

him. And

1:12:53

Facebook is like, no, no, no, no, no, no. Your

1:12:57

account was hacked. That's

1:12:59

what we do when your account

1:13:01

gets hacked. We shut down your account

1:13:03

because we noticed you were being hacked

1:13:05

and you're too dumb to change your

1:13:07

password. And

1:13:10

then, yeah, so there you go.

1:13:12

He's an old man, get

1:13:15

off of his lawn and

1:13:17

don't listen to him anymore.

1:13:20

That's the end. All right. Well,

1:13:23

thank you all so much for listening.

1:13:25

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1:13:28

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1:13:30

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1:13:39

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1:13:43

And thinking of thankgodimatheist.com, go

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1:13:51

episode was edited by Roger Goudy

1:13:54

and music was provided by the Red Rock Hot

1:13:56

Club and Gordon Johnston. Hey,

1:13:59

thanks all. for tuning in we sure

1:14:01

do appreciate you thanks so much bye

1:14:03

bye thank

1:14:21

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