AS300: The Scathing Atheist, Plus a Personal Message and Announcement!

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:28 Thomas: Hello, and welcome to Atheistically Speaking, this is episode 300, wow, 300 episodes, incredible, I'm in disbelief myself. I'm very excited, I've got, as I've alluded to in previous episodes, building up to this, I got all my favorite guests, all my podcasting friends to celebrate this with me, and here's the format, I have several different guests, slash, group of guests. I've got scathing atheists who you'll hear today. They're the first ones up. I have Cognitive Dissonance, I've got Jake Farr Wharton, I have got Ishmael from Angry Black Rant, and Andrew Torrez, and each of us are doing, each group is doing sort of a mini-episode, so, So.

0:01:17 Thomas: Tons of content coming at you, like I said, today's episode, part one, is Scathing Atheist, and then after that, I've got an exciting announcement, I got some words for you, I have got some stuff to share, and that'll be part one. Part two, is Is going to be Ishmael from Angry Black Rant and Jake Farr Wharton, and then part three is going to Andrew Torrez and Cognitive Dissonance. We'll be right back. But let's get to my first guess of this episode 300 three-part extravaganza. It's about three hours of content. Scathing Atheist. I've known these guys for quite a while. Of course, I knew Scatthing back when it was just Noah and Heath, and then they They started adding on things with the funniest person that I had heard in podcasting, Eli Bosnick, and that from there, they propelled to incredible, incredible lengths in podcast.

0:02:09 Thomas: It's really cool what they've done, they're an example to me, something in their work ethic, their humor, and their intelligence, they're people I really look up to, so, Here's part one, with the scathing atheist crew, rule. Joining me are, uh, Scathing Atheist and God Awful Movie, but, but all that crap aside, joining me is one previous waterbed owner, and that's what I really wanted to have you guys on for, I actually did, I wasn't gonna have you on, like, at all, but then I heard that one of you previously owned a waterbed, and I was like, that is the coolest man, so I just need to talk to you, like I need to,

0:02:55 Guests: Yeah, I got to say, man, it feels like falling asleep every night on top of the standings in your fantasy football league, despite having lost three games in a row early. It's an amazing feeling that I love.

0:03:07 Thomas: Wow, I can't even imagine what that would feel like. That's well, thanks for the description, but yeah, I can't relate to that. So I mean, I guess I'll try to

0:03:14 Guests: Oh, you were there early, early, this year. You were at number one back when I was at 11, before I made this incredible eight-game winning streak here.

0:03:15 Thomas: Yeah, I was crushing it it wouldn't be a recording with No Illusions, Heath Enwright and and Eli Bosnick without talking fantasy football for the first 10 minutes while Eli tries to find different ways to kill himself like just, yeah.

0:03:35 Guests: Cree-shaw-mankins. He's on my bench this term, but I got Marsha-marshons.

0:03:43 Guests: I love that all of them are, they're always derivatives of Marshawn Lynch.

0:03:47 Guests: Every single thing that you come up with, not only are they all wrong, but they're all derivatives of the same, the one player whose name you almost know. Vaguely racist. I don't know how vague it is.

0:03:56 Thomas: Vaguely too well it varies vaguely to outwardly, I would say, like, so on that continuum. So also, Eli, while you're making up names, you can tell me where where Andrew worked, uh, what his law firm was that he

0:04:10 Guests: He worked at Burbage, Crank, and Stindleplack. As an alcohol producer, he was a stillery, and one day they came to him with the Pelican Brief, which is a special suitcase, and he said, not today, and drove away in his 1992 Citation with a wheelchair in the backseat.

0:04:11 Thomas: Quit so funny there's There really is a special thing that Eli is able to do, which is just make up your personal history, and it becomes what he actually thinks it is, too. Like, it's amazing, and he just, he'll keep it forever, like, he'll be, oh, you live yeah

0:04:39 Guests: Yeah. Yeah, right. As like what regions of New York you do and don't know, where are, for example.

0:04:55 Thomas: That's definitely one of them that would be exactly what I mean, so

0:04:58 Guests: How many, how many boys you smuggle in your boy smuggling ring from Manchester, England, for example, yeah. Yeah, I've done.

0:05:06 Thomas: So yeah thank you guys for coming on the show, kind of celebrating episode 300. Uh, I would say could not have gotten anywhere anywhere at all where I am without you without guys, I mean it, um, just your influence and, and, uh, you know, your support and coming on the show and all that, really appreciate it. I, I certainly look up to Scathing and God awful Movies, and you, I think you have another one, but I don't know if you do it anymore. So it's just something like that, but, uh... No, I'm just kidding. But thank you for coming on.

0:05:34 Guests: Two in a row now, two in a row, oh, they've all been in a row.

0:05:38 Thomas: Yeah, they've been in a row. Yeah. I'm pretty sure even incredulous, you could say those are in a row, technically. They're just, yeah.

0:05:41 Guests: No, I did three of them out of order, it was weird. Marsh is dead, we don't have the heart to break it to people.

0:05:51 Guests: See, that's a thing I've made up, but people are starting to believe it.

0:05:54 Guests: Is Marsh dead? When's the last time you saw Marsh?

0:05:57 Guests: He was at QED, but have you heard from him since then?

0:06:00 Eli: Oh, he's in Australia, another made up country.

0:06:04 Thomas: Okay, I agree with you on that one, actually. That is true. But yeah, so I thought it would be cool to talk to you guys a bit about... Well, it's something that, Noah, I know you recently talked about in your diatribe. And And you also mentioned you gave a talk on this, on like whether or not your approach, and mockery and all that, whether that's the best way to go. Can you talk a little bit about that? And then we can talk about some of the issues surrounding that.

0:06:05 Guests: Yeah.

0:06:29 Guests: Well, I think there are two important caveats to kind of throw out there to begin with when you talk about mockery or, you know, or using ridicule as a tool within atheism.

0:06:41 Guests: And the first is, you know, there is no approach that is always right in every circumstance. And obviously like any other approach, there are circumstances where mockery would not be the right approach. But also there's no approach. That's just like always going to be good.

0:06:48 Thomas: Really?

0:06:57 Guests: No matter how bad you are personally at it, like any other approach.

0:07:01 Guests: You know, if you want to use mockery as your way of, it's sort of you're in in the atheist movement, you have to be good at it.

0:07:07 Guests: If you suck at it, you're going to suck at It.

0:07:10 Guests: But I think that's, you know, again, that's true of any approach that you're gonna use.

0:07:15 Guests: And I've been actually kind of speaking out on this a little bit. It's sort of my thing. You know, obviously, I have a job to protect here by justifying it. But I feel like there is an increasing tendency to just say, hey, you're like, there's this evidence that shows that when you're mean to people or when they feel attacked, they just shut down and stop listening to you.

0:07:35 Guests: So let's not be mean to People. Let's not make people feel attacked. And that obviously isn't just limited to atheism.

0:07:40 Guests: Well, that's a bit of a misrepresentation of the data, right?

0:07:43 Guests: The data shows that if you are mean to someone or they feel attack, they retain less information than they otherwise would have, right. That's what the evidence actually shows. But the same thing is true. If you use logic.

0:07:57 Thomas: Interesting.

0:07:57 Guests: Yes. The evidence also shows that But if you use logic as part of your argument, people retain less. So what's what's halfway in between?

0:08:02 Thomas: Okay, so we can't mock people. Yeah.

0:08:06 Guests: No, no, no logic, no ridicule.

0:08:08 Thomas: No mockery. Yeah.

0:08:09 Guests: You have to be media extra medium with all your arguments for them to retain. Well, but yeah,

0:08:13 Thomas: Yeah. Well, maybe we're seeing it with Trump. Maybe that's kind of in a weird way. Way. Like his, he look, cause like he does mock, I guess you could say he mocks, but, but most of his speech is just this bland. It's going to be great. It's going to be huge. It's going to be amazing. Like that's not logic. That's not really mocking. Maybe that's what we're seeing. Maybe that's the best case scenario for retention. Like, yeah, I remember. I remember remember yeah yeah

0:08:33 Guests: I don't see anything. Yeah, I'll remember everything you didn't say. Well, no. But I think the takeaway from this is that, like, no matter what approach you use, you're going to have to recognize the strengths and weaknesses of that approach. So in other words, a lot of people are trying to use this bit of evidence to shut the door on something that they already have sort of a feeling that isn't right or they don't like it anyway.

0:08:38 Thomas: Yeah right

0:08:59 Guests: And what I'm saying is if you look at the same evidence and you saw that, well, it turns out that when you use logic as sort of the crux of your argument, people retain less, you would never say, well it looks like we should stop using logic, right?

0:09:10 Guests: It's like you would say to yourself, So we should add a storytelling element as well, you know, so that that because that will reach more people. But the logic should still be there. And in the same way, you Know, the evidence also shows that social pressure is an extraordinarily effective, if not the most effective way of changing people's minds, especially on things that they're like really generally intransigent about.

0:09:17 Thomas: Well

0:09:33 Guests: If they feel that there's social pressure for them to change their mind, they will reexamine their opinions in a way that they won't with most other approaches. And since ridicule is a tool of social pressure, I don't think we can throw that out. Maybe a logical rhyme would help. We should do the scathing rapariats.

0:09:49 Thomas: Only sort of sort of logical yeah

0:09:54 Guests: I mean, I've pushed this before. I'm just trying to plug it in again. Yeah, you even bought the website. I'm not giving up my atheism. I've not given up my... That's a Hamilton reference, which several people listening to this loved.

0:10:07 Thomas: That's I'm boycotting it because they were mean to Mike Pence so I

0:10:11 Guests: Yeah, I'm boycotting it too because it's like 11 months to get a ticket, I mean, because of Mike Pence, as Well, I'm

0:10:12 Thomas: Yeah no I totally had a ticket I had one and I was just like no man I'm not doing it making a to stand.

0:10:24 Guests: To my girlfriend, and she's in Canada. Now you don't know her.

0:10:27 Thomas: I have a picture of her in my wallet that's suspiciously well done, like it seems a little too professional. Yeah, so let me ask you, and maybe I'll move over to Heath picking of it? Because there is a really, I guess it's not exactly new, but it really is taking off sort of the movement of like infotainment kind of shows, you know, like John Oliver, you Know, previously The Daily Show. I don't think that exists anymore, more. Uh, but no, I'm just kidding. I don't want you, but, uh, but do you guys kind of put yourself in that vein?

Are you, and do you think of yourselves, are you trying to entertain more? Are you trying To convince more of a combination of both? Like, what do you, what Do you think of day and like weekend week out? Are You just thinking let's make people laugh who we already pretty much know. I mean, it's called the scathing atheist.

It's not like you're getting likely a ton of religious people checking it out, but at the same time, it seems like sometimes you've mentioned like, oh, someone changed, you changed someone's mind or whatever. So what's the balance you're going for there?

0:11:23 Guests: I'd say we're going for some kind of a balance, you know, it's somewhat informational, but we're trying to entertain as we do it, as much as possible. Um, I think that helps just with the movement in general, if there's lots of people listening to a show and they're entertained by it, and that's going to make a lot of them listen to it, then there's that many more people who might repeat a thing and have a useful discussion with somebody in the future, that kind of things, you could be helpful. Um, and I think the get, going back to the the ridicule part of it, if people get, you know, they hear a joke and then they model it, they mess with it and they say something funnier the next time they're in such a discussion, they might send somebody home, you know, I'm going to take my ball, I'm gonna go home, they're gonna be mad about it, but then, then they're going to think about it because they were mad that they got ridiculed.

0:11:44 Thomas: Hmm.

0:12:05 Guests: I think that's, you know, I think that's useful.

0:12:07 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Do you guys ever worry? And this is something I worry about, too, even with John Oliver, which, you know, I'm a big fan of that show. But I sometimes worry, is this is both sides doing this something that may be leaving us with this huge, you know, like what's been the theme of this election, you know, which is this giant divide between, you you know, us and them or left and right. Like it seems bigger than ever. And it seems harder to communicate that with the other side than ever, do you worry that, that shows like John Oliver show or mockery to any, any sort of mockery? Is there a worry there that that would contribute to that at all?

0:12:43 Guests: I don't really have that concern because in a sense that's always been there, right? There's always been political lampooning from the left and right.

0:12:47 Thomas: Hmm.

0:12:51 Guests: What's really changed is the fact that the actual news sources have lined up left and right, by and large. And that there are, you know, so I don't think that it's right to blame the infotainment so much as the information outlets.

0:12:56 Thomas: Right.

0:13:05 Guests: And, even though there are still good, more or less objective sources for the news, you know, obviously when you give people all of these not so reliable sources that just tell them whatever the hell they want to hear, you know, market forces push that quite a bit.

0:13:23 Guests: So, you know like I think you could go back in time and maybe you can't find the direct parallel to John Oliver, right? You can't something in comedy that's that popular, that's It's that partisan, but you can find, you know, Saturday Night Live making plenty of jokes politically and meaningfully politically, not just, gee, that guy looks funny or isn't he clumsy or whatever, but like meaningful political jokes.

0:13:31 Thomas: Yeah.

0:13:47 Guests: That's always been there.

0:13:48 Thomas: That you make an excellent point about the, the main news source. Cause I, I would say like, if anyone's getting their main news from any sort sort of, I don't know, entertainment joking type show. If that's the only place you're getting news, it's probably not the best idea, but it makes sense to me what you said, where it's like, yeah, back in the day, mainstream news used to be a little more objective. I mean, the amount of people that are getting their news just from Facebook is clearly a problem. So maybe that's more, that's a good answer that maybe that'S more of the problem than simply making fun of the other side, which has always been there. That makes sense.

0:14:21 Guests: If you think about it, like the you know whatever, the six o'clock evening news is probably relatively speaking as objective as it was in 1990. It's just that that's, you know, back in 1990, that's where the majority of people were getting their news.

0:14:37 Thomas: Right, so I now I'm gonna I'm gonna pull Eli in here for a question, and Eli, you're gonna hate this question, but I want to I want your answer to it. You were recently quoted on some podcast called Atheistically Speaking, is that we know, we were talking about how trolls are making the world a worse place, and there was, you've gotten, I've seen a little bit of pushback in the comments, I was gonna see if you wanted to address it here, that uh, some people are alleging that that that that god awful movies where you're lampooning people, that's in the same way as trolling is making the world a worse place. I was just wondering if you wanted to respond to that.

0:15:11 Eli: Yeah, I mean, I honestly, like people heard my bafflement on the air idea that like people don't understand the difference between like what we do on our like what it means to go on even a Facebook thread, which is not a like mess with people to get them riled up.

0:15:16 Guests: At the time, but the comedy show and

0:15:33 Eli: And what I think is so weird is like, South Park, which I completely disagreed with represented this really well in that like Kyle's dad is a troll and he just like very genuine argument of like it's just funny to see people get riled up, like he just likes to push people's doesn't understand like why it's a big deal because it's It's just so funny to see people overreact, and

0:15:29 Guests: Comedy show, and last year, has he keeps making this buttons, and he it's called a sense of humor, and why don't people get it?

0:16:00 Guests: And the fact that we seem really, or at least some people seem really unable to tell the and like, ha ha, sure am glad your wife cried, tweeted at me, I don't ... Again, that conversation went wrong for a bunch of reasons, but you know the irony of for us to take in information, and people's reaction being, I don't have enough empathy so I didn't understand what

0:16:06 Eli: Difference between a sketch where I pretend to dig up and fuck Phyllis Schlafly, me saying in a conversation, like, we've lost all empathy and that's why it's hard

0:16:37 Guests: You said is really, really hard. It's been a it's Been a rough couple days hearing from the least empathetic people in my life. It's just like, I didn't get it.

0:16:51 Guests: This just seems bizarre to me of all the ways that Eli is making the world worse. It's not the Phyllis Schlafly thing, yeah.

0:16:58 Thomas: Good point. There's a long list that we could. I mean, probably the four of us could come just brainstorm right now.

0:16:59 Guests: Right? Just traffic alone. Just traffic. There are owners of an all-you-can-eat buffet in several states who have curses on me. I mean, people you don't have to reach. I

0:17:16 Thomas: Because, you know, now that I think about something that occurred to me while you're talking about that is as much as, you know, you or I, all of us, like as much as we target people on the, I don't know, on the Christian right a lot of times and criticize what they're doing, I can't think of a time where, or we criticize trolls, for example, but I can think of time where I've ever had a problem with like a comedy version of that. You know, like, is there a right-wing comedy? Well, there's just no right wing comedy, but but if there were. Right.

0:17:46 Guests: I just watched Joe Rogan's special Triggered, right? I just watch it on Netflix.

0:17:49 Thomas: Yeah.

0:17:51 Eli: And like, did I think any of it was funny?

0:17:53 Guests: No. Did I like those jokes? No, but like, it's a comedy show, it's not my thing. Like he's, he's up there and he's like, "Oh, look at me, I am so sad," or whatever the horrible next level thing he's doing, because he can kick you in the neck real high. And just my response was to like make it 10 minutes in and be like, "Huh, that guy's not funny." But that's like, because if Joe Rogan walked into my living room or wrote on my Facebook, it's a totally - and like the fact that people and those two is baffling to me. And I would say that if someone was like, "Joe Rogan's comedy special crosses a line," I would be like, "No, you are wrong. Stop taking in that art. I know you don't like that art, and here's the a solution. Stop taking in that art."

0:18:09 Thomas: Yeah. Right.

0:18:26 Eli: Again, I don't believe them, but like the fact that people pretend not to understand the difference between

0:18:48 Guests: Don't take in that art anymore. Solved it. To not draw a line between, "I have put this out there in the world," and, "I am giving this to you directly," now seems just wantonly ignorant.

0:19:08 Thomas: So wait, you're telling me you haven't tweeted at all the filmmakers that you've been trying to make fun of, trying to putting, like.

0:19:13 Guests: I don't feel like I said that.

0:19:14 Thomas: Insulting. Jokes. In. There yeah.

0:19:16 Guests: I can go back. We're recording this. He doesn't fuck corpses on anybody's Facebook page.

0:19:19 Thomas: Yeah. Victimless.

0:19:22 Guests: He just talks about it on a show, it's different, Thomas.

0:19:24 Thomas: Crime according. To. The law.

0:19:28 Guests: Gets it, it.

0:19:31 Thomas: So, but, but actually I want to ask you guys that just in, just, just to get your thoughts, because I, you have actually mentioned that you think, uh, I don't know, one or two of the filmmakers you've made fun of has actually listened to your episodes. What did that, I mean, what did that feel like to you? Did you, I I can imagine that would be a weird experience. Like what were your thoughts on that?

0:19:50 Guests: It was hilarious. I mean, the director of one of our film, of one of the films, who is an atheist, like reached out, several of our films, several of our films reached out, and was like, love your guys's show, and like, me and him got into a little conversation where he was like, you know, David's a good guy, he was talking about David, he was like, David's a good guy, he's just like down the wrong path, bloody blah, but like, and I know Leap guy, yeah.

0:20:13 Thomas: Down the wrong path. Did he go down a redemption Revelation Road? Is that the

0:20:17 Guests: Yeah, that's it, that's the question, but it's like, you know, I, I

0:20:18 Thomas: Path? Yeah. Yeah. That is the wrong path.

0:20:23 Guests: Doubt they have to come a really long way to get to us, they've really got to walk. And look, there

0:20:29 Eli: Are some people who I'm like, go fuck themselves, I don't care how you feel.

0:20:32 Guests: Like, vax, if Andrew, if I get a really heartfelt, heartfelt That's like, I want you to know I'm really hurt.

0:20:35 Eli: Email from Andrew Wakefield. I'm going to be like, Oh my God, Andy, meet me somewhere private and don't tell anybody so I can apologize.

0:20:44 Thomas: And he's like trying

0:20:47 Guests: Well, and that's the thing.

0:20:48 Thomas: To convince you like, look, just the filmmaking though was really good. You can't make fun of my filmmaking.

0:20:54 Guests: Well. And, but see, and that's just exactly the thing.

0:20:57 Guests: Like in the, on the one hand, you know, it's just like any, any kind of a troll situation.

0:21:01 Guests: If the guy was sitting in front of you, you would, you would say something a little bit different, but when the guy says, Hey, you know, it turns out that David A.R.

0:21:07 Guests: White is a really nice guy and everything and it's like, yeah, but you know he puts a lot of hate into the world, that's how he makes his living, right? By misrepresenting the other side of arguments and making them seem less reasonable and standing between us and and an informed conversation, um, and also a lot of the shit he does is like super anti-gay and then he he's got a a super anti, um, uh, medicine, uh, theme to a lot his movies and stuff, so, like, you know, it's it's like you're putting hate into the world.

0:21:13 Thomas: Right.

0:21:37 Guests: The fact that I'm going to hate on that, I just feel like we'd be caught in some weird loop if I didn't. Right.

0:21:43 Eli: And that is truly what we make fun of about these movies.

0:21:46 Guests: Like there are lots of sort of quote unquote, I guess you could call them Christian movies that it wouldn't really be worth it to do. Like, I don't know if we'll ever do Miracle on 34th Street.

0:21:56 Guests: You know, that might not be the best example, but like if they were a Christian movie, it was just awesome.

0:21:59 Thomas: Okay. Okay, I have to tell you, Andrew and I just decided we might do that for the Lawn Awful Movies for December. Like literally an hour ago. Go. Yeah.

0:22:07 Guests: Seriously?

0:22:11 Thomas: So we might

0:22:11 Eli: Well, you'll be hearing from our lawyer.

0:22:12 Thomas: Do that. Yeah, but go on, go on.

0:22:15 Guests: You will. Hold on.

0:22:17 Thomas: Sorry, I just had to

0:22:18 Eli: But, like, we make fun of the poisonous thing.

0:22:18 Thomas: Tell you that.

0:22:21 Eli: Like, the things that we rip on, yes, we talk about their physical appearances because that's our shtick.

0:22:26 Guests: But, like, when we talk about Pat Robertson, we don't talk about Pat Robertson because he looks like

0:22:32 Eli: He got kicked out of Gringotts for putting gold up his butt.

0:22:35 Guests: But we talk about Pat Robertson because he's an evil, homophobic, terrible human. And it's interesting. Well, I talk about him because of the first thing a lot. Go ahead. Sorry to interrupt.

0:22:48 Eli: It's interesting because like one of the differences that I think that really comes between the three of us

0:22:53 Guests: Is that Noah and Heath tend to go much more after evil people who mean what they say. Like they tend to go much more after people who are truly causing like great harm to the world, who mean it. And I tend to go after people who maybe aren't doing as much harm but I think are liars.

0:23:15 Thomas: Hmm,

0:23:15 Eli: Like we're set off by different things.

0:23:17 Guests: You know, Noah really hates Joel Osteen because Joel Osteen truly believes like, yep, yeah, brothers and sisters, you're going right to hell. And I really hate, you know, YouTube takedowns of feminists because I don't buy any of it.

0:23:30 Eli: And you're just you're this is just the way to get more clicks from Big Daddy 69.

0:23:34 Guests: All right. I would just I just want to, like, distance myself from the implication that I believe for a second that Joel Osteen believes any of the shit that he says.

0:23:41 Thomas: I was gonna, that was gonna be my next question. Like, it's pretty easy to believe what you're saying when you're speaking from that mansion that you have. Like oh yeah, I totally, totally believe in this.

0:23:49 Guests: Yeah, right. Right. Yeah. No, I believe that if there is one, you know, if there is anyone out there in the universe that is clearly just talking shit to make money off of their religion, And it is Creflo Dollar, followed closely by Joel Osteen.

0:24:04 Thomas: Yeah his message has done really well for him.

0:24:07 Guests: He's a football player, right?

0:24:09 Thomas: He can, he can definitely say like, I believe my message works for me to you

0:24:09 Guests: Yes, absolutely. Well, but here's the thing, though, and this is the really poisonous environment that we wind up in here, is that you can look at Joel Osteen's message, which is, old lady, give me money and God will love you more.

0:24:15 Thomas: Somehow.

0:24:24 Guests: And as despicable as that is, if you compare him to gay conversion therapy or disown your kids if they celebrate their birthday or whatever other poisonous shit is out there, like Joel Osteen is relatively harmless because he's just stealing money from indigent old women.

0:24:43 Guests: To pay for his team of dentists, yeah. They have scaffolding, though. It's like Mount Rushmore. It's the whole thing.

0:24:50 Thomas: Yeah. Somehow he's got, he's had his teeth enhanced. Is that something that they normally do? He's like teeth enhancement surgery.

0:24:56 Guests: Toothster. I don't know. You saw Million Dollar Man. Man. It's like that, but just dentists. Every time he opens his mouth, it goes, Well,

0:24:57 Thomas: Yeah.

0:25:06 Thomas: Oh, but man, don't you wonder how anyone can take that seriously? I mean, separate topic, but I'll, I will never understand that. I will Never understand how people look at him and the the money is made and the fake teeth and the teeth that, uh, actually there was just a Futurama joke I saw that was like teeth that can eat other teeth. And that's a giant guy that crunches, but it's like that teeth that could eat other teeth. And then his, you know, his makeup face and his nice suit and his giant thing. I don't get how people take that serious. I will never understand it. How could you not just think, oh, this guy is making money off of his message. Like that's clearly what all he's doing.

0:25:38 Guests: But all the religion stuff, I have that same response to basically all the religious stuff. Because, you know, in these holy books, you finish the Bible, you know there's so many moments in the Bible where it's so just blatantly, and then this prophet decided it was okay for me to do this.

0:25:43 Thomas: Yeah.

0:25:53 Guests: And the Quran is even worse with that, you know? Where it's just constantly being like, Like, I decided that here's another person that Muhammad can fuck.

0:25:54 Thomas: Yeah.

0:26:03 Guests: And they're all in the Book of Mormon.

0:26:05 Guests: They're all like that, where it's just, it's very clear at a certain point that you've just got someone abusing power.

0:26:10 Guests: Every time I look at any kind of, like, I listen to a pastor in his little sermon or whatever, I can't, I look around at the people and I'm like, how in the world are you not seeing how self-serving this is?

0:26:23 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. My favorite is I was watching a Mormon documentary one time and then nothing beats that. Nothing beats when it was like, I think they said like Brigham Young. Oh yeah. He was, you know, he was, uh, he was distressed that God told him, you know, you need to fucking marry other women. He was just, he didn't, he was confused. He didn't get it, but you know he was like well, fuck, all right. I guess I have to do it. It's God. I don't make the rules.

0:26:47 Guests: I've got to take one for the team, and occasionally three or four. I at ReasonCon. This is about community, Anna. This is a positive community. An HIV positive community?

0:26:48 Thomas: Yeah.

0:27:04 Thomas: Be like, someone said I was making the world a worse place with my show. So this is how I can make it a better place. Okay. This is the way.

0:27:11 Guests: It's not an Eli appearance until the AIDS joke comes out. It's like the fat lady in opera.

0:27:17 Thomas: Yeah. But are there places where you guys try to, Eli mentioned it a little bit where you try to to target your humor a little differently? Are there things that you, I'm kind of laughing as I'm asking this, but are there things you guys even consider like too far, don't want to touch that? Or are you pretty much just game on? If it's funny, it's fun. I'm doing it.

0:27:34 Guests: Well, except for Eli, I definitely can't speak for Eli about lines. Lines, but dead people, dead children is actually one of the lines that Noah and I, uh, often draw. Yeah. I tend to avoid any story with dead kids in it.

0:27:46 Thomas: Hmm.

0:27:52 Guests: Cause I just don't want to make a joke about that. Um, the other, the only big one for me is that, um, you know, I don't wanna do anything if I'm, if, if it means I'm drawing attention to something that's, that's bad, that otherwise wouldn't go unnoticed or is more likely to go unnoticed, it's

0:27:54 Thomas: Yeah. Oh yeah. That's interesting. Yeah, sort of like Dan Dennett with his like, you know, if you knew free will didn't exist and you knew it would cause harm to get people to be, it sort of like that thing you don't want to call attention to something that otherwise might not do as much harm the.

0:28:21 Guests: The Bill Nye principle, yeah, the retroactive, yeah, well, and that's exactly it, right? So, like, if there is, uh, like with God Awful Movies, for example, if there was a documentary out there, uh, pushing an anti-vaccine agenda that no one had ever heard of and we just happened to get a hold of it, or whatever, we probably wouldn't do that because we wouldn't want to draw attention to it, we wouldn't want to up their numbers of downloads or views or whatever, um, but when it's something like Vaxxed, where, you know, Robert De Niro got out there and said, "Oh, that's pretty good," right here, um, you, you kind of have to, you know, at that point, like, someone has to do it, you know, someone has to come out and and attack this, and obviously we weren't the only ones who felt that way, uh, but that's

0:28:24 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We.

0:29:04 Guests: Sort of where my line is, you know, like I'll make fun of Pat Robertson, I'm not going to make fun of like Joe Schmoe who's got nine followers on his YouTube channel or whatever.

0:29:14 Thomas: We leave. Eli.

0:29:14 Guests: I think that would be fun.

0:29:15 Thomas: For. That. Yeah.

0:29:15 Guests: Yeah, exactly. Unless he's in a wheelchair. Jews?

0:29:20 Thomas: Oh. That's interesting, yeah, I'm glad I said that, that's that's interesting to know, kind of what you guys are thinking behind that, and I I I, that logic makes sense to me. What about you, Eli? It's just anything goes.

0:29:32 Guests: I try to stay away from Jews. I don't think it's that bad.

0:29:34 Thomas: You. Mean. Just stay away. From them in general? Yeah, gosh, you're right.

0:29:37 Guests: That's our No, I generally I'll often, like if there's if I feel like something is much more more sociopolitical than it is bad thinking, there'll be times where I'm just like, how much of this could be filled by anything?

0:29:52 Guests: You know, there are moments where we'll cover a story and I'll just be like, this area, like the religion seems minor in this specific case or story.

0:30:02 Eli: And so I'll often shy away from that.

0:30:05 Thomas: Interesting. Thank you guys so much for coming on once again. That's Noah, Heath, and Eli from Scathing Atheist, from God Awful Movies, and from The Skeptocrat. Two.

0:30:14 Guests: Thank you. Congratulations on 300, buddy.

0:30:15 Thomas: In a row. Thank. You. Very very much.

0:30:17 Guests: 300 episodes! Yeah, dude, 150 consecutive half episodes.

0:30:18 Thomas: I really appreciate it.

0:30:21 Guests: Well done. Well

0:30:24 Thomas: Some of them longer than your episodes. Weird. My half episodes are like, yeah. No, thanks for coming on. I really appreciate you guys. You're doing great work. And I'm a huge fan. So thanks. Thanks for making the appearance.

0:30:27 Guests: Yeah thanks for having us

0:30:53 Thomas: All right, it's announcement time, and this is something that is mainly, of course, going to affect me, but I think will also affect you, because it's going to make the show ten times better. I'm really blown away looking back through my episode history, just how many different people I've gotten to talk to, topics, just, you know, multi-part shows on different things. It's just, it's so fun. It's been amazing to learn so much. It is so crazy to think back on what a little idea it was to just start this show and what it really has developed into, and largely with your support and your listenership. And I have to say, it's after three years of doing this that I can announce that I'm finally retiring from my job.

0:31:40 Thomas: I've been making a lot of jokes about being of retirement age and stuff like that. I'm quitting my job, I'm going full time. I've already told my patrons, so So, they already know this, however, I actually told them something that I have now revised. Originally, I was going to work through February to try to give myself a good breathing room, money-wise, I mean, it's a complicated thing, I'm paying off student loans, trying to pay off all my debts so that it wouldn't be as scary to be podcasting full-time. Well, recent, don't know how much I want to get into it, but recently, recently things have been pretty hard managing all this. Guys I know how much I do. People joke about it. I think scathing just roasted me on it. Maybe it'll be today's episode.

0:32:27 Thomas: Maybe it will be next week's. I'm not sure. But it is kind of true. I've actually barely been getting along lately because opening arguments in this show have been so engrossing. And I want so badly to do a good job all the time. Putting out anything mediocre is not an option to the best of my ability. And it's been really hard and I've gotten to the point where I don't think I can manage it. I had a bit of an anxiety attack or two and haven't been able to sleep. It's been been rough lately. And it was so rough, in fact, that today, just today, I decided to just see what I could do, crunch some numbers, figure it out to quit as soon as I could on my job, because it's been that bad, actually.

0:33:15 Thomas: I'm calling in sick all the time. I can't keep up. It's pretty interesting, I call in sick in order to work all day, that's what I end up doing, sometimes I am actually sick, because I don't know why, I'm prone to getting sick all the time, and getting a cold, but I'm still just working all day and I'm, still, not able to keep up, this is a pretty recent thing, it's been the last few months that, I don't know how I've been doing it, I want to make it absolutely clear, though, that I'm in no way complaining about what I've been able to do with your help, I, it's, it is truly amazing, unfortunately, there is a limit to hours in the day, that's the limit I've run into, and sleep is the first thing to go, and then quality of life goes right after that, but fortunately, I figured some things out.

0:34:05 Thomas: And I figured out that I actually can if I sort of slow down the incredible student loan payment plan I was on, if I kind of slow that down a little bit, I can actually quit my job this month. So at the end of this year, I'll be done. 2016 was a bad year for everybody else in the world but me, apparently, and I'm sorry for that. But hey, I was pretty affected by Trump's election too. So it wasn't all great for me. But 2016 will be the last year of me working a real job for now until this all crumbles. I'll have to go back to it. But no, it's been so difficult lately that I'm going to find a way to leave my job at the end of this month. The first thing I want to say is thank you so much to people who supported the show, to listeners of the show to people shared the show.

0:34:56 Thomas: To everybody, but especially thank you so much. To people who have provided financial support to this show. It's obviously it is the reason that this is happening. It is the reason that I'm going to be able to, you know, see my wife a couple of times a week now. Maybe if I quit my full time job, I'll be able to put out better content. And I already have with the hiring of Haley. I think that that has helped a lot. She's really been amazing in helping make the show better. And I want to keep that trajectory up. But it's scary. It's very scary to think about. So I'm just gonna say this one time. I'm gonna do this one time, I'm gonna let you ask me about my business. No. One time I am going to make this plea.

0:35:42 Thomas: And it's simply this. I don't, if anybody does not want to give to the show, I'm not trying to get you to give to the show. My only plea right now is if you were ever on the fence about getting on patreon.com/atheist, if you're ever just close, you haven't gotten around to it, you've got the extra whatever, you know, eight bucks a month or whatever it ends up being. And if you've ever thought about it and you just haven't gotten around it, I would just ask that you please make that plunge because it's vital vital right now. It's, it's scary what, what I'm trying to do and I'm excited about it, but, but it is scary. And that's all I ask. If you've, if you got the extra couple bucks lying around, if you're someone who's already a patron and you could bump it up $1, bump up your goal, anything like that, any small, anything, I will really appreciate it.

0:36:32 Thomas: And I don't want your charity in exchange, I'm releasing these parts two and three that are incredible episodes, some of the most fun recordings I've done. I'm going to release those early to patrons. So this was part one of my 300 Spectacular, but part two and 3 are going to be available early. Part two is ready right away. As soon as you sign on to patreon.com/atheist, you will find part two ready for you. And part three, unfortunately you can blame Andrew Torrez for this. His audio was messed up. So I'm actually gonna have to rerecord with him to get you part three. But as soon as we do, that will also be available early. They're nice, juicy, hour-long episodes, hour plus, Each part is pretty much two episodes in one, so they're over an hour. Thank you for watching.

0:37:22 Thomas: I hope you enjoy them, I really, I, I... really do, I hope, you're getting a lot out of being a patron, and, going full-time, in the, in, the model of the Scathing Atheist guys, following in their footsteps, they did, they were able to do this a long time ago, very and it's incredible what they've been able to.

Following in those footsteps, this is going to give me, nothing but time to make the show better, and and make the Patreon rewards better, more content, better interviews, all this stuff, show development, that's what I'm trying to do here, that what I am going to do with the time I will now have, so, thank you so much, I just want to give a big, huge, thank-you guys, I, really, this is incredible, I'm in disbelief every day, probably why I'm having anxiety attacks, that I'm going to this, That, that I would somehow be able to do this, it blows my mind, it really does, so thank you, thank you for listening, and go get those early parts two and three over at patreon.com/atheist, and I truly hope you enjoy them.

Thank, as I'm here in disbelief that I'm about to do this, that I am able to do it because of you, I'm remembering that when I went to Milwaukee and I saw a bunch of you, the first time I've gone to a conference and had people who knew my show come up and say hi, it was mind-blowing, but it was the first thing.

One thing, so many people ask me, I get asked this all the time, time, is, "How did you do it?" Is, "What do I do?" They'll come, people will come up to me, "Yeah, I want to start a podcast, what do I do?" Well, now that people have given me the opportunity to do this, as a full-time job, I will pay it forward, and return the best wisdom that I can to anyone out there who wants to do any creative project, not just podcasting.

0:39:09 Thomas: First off, though I, hate patreon, in so many ways, though it's given me, so much trouble, things, I've never been able to get the right response from their team or whatever, whatever tractor beam operator they have inside Patreon joke. That site and things like that, although I mean, that's pretty much the one everybody's on, that has really enabled the kindness of people like you to give to people they support of all kinds, doing everything, every which thing, music, YouTube videos, podcasts, everything. And people ask me, how did you do it? How did you get, how'd you do? How do you get listeners? How do you, whatever. And there is, here's the secret that I'm going to tell you. There is no secret. I know it's the stupidest message, the worst message.

0:39:55 Thomas: If I had a message, I would give it to you. If I Had a Secret, I Would Give It to You. What you need to do is stop asking people what you need do. You need to just do it. Just do it! It's like that video online. But really, it is. I did Thomas and the Bible for years for no reason. There was no conceivable reason to do that show. I, for the longest time, I had 25 listeners. 25, literally. I've, I've had FeedBurner is what I had it on. I would look at my feed and I was like, oh, I'm up to like 48 listeners now. There was no reason to do that, but that's what I did. I did it because I wanted to, I guess.

0:40:42 Thomas: I don't even, I can't, it's such a weird thing to think about, but that's which you need to do. If you, it is, not everybody has this, I don't think, but maybe there's a way if you're on the fence, maybe you can force it. If you have a creative project, if you have something you feel needs to be done, you have have to do it for that reason. You have to do it because you want to do it and you feel it and you need it out there. You need the content out there, that's why that's what you need to do. Now there's technical tips, there's podcasting tips, there's microphone selection, there's video editing, all that stuff. Yeah, you gotta learn that, you Gotta get good at that. You gotta do your best to put out a professional product, of course, but at the core of whatever you're doing, it needs to come from a strong desire to to do it.

0:41:29 Thomas: You know how much Noah writes? Noah Lugens, who was a guest on this. I remember he told me a long time ago, a long Time ago before I knew him really well. He told me about his writing technique and what he would, he, he would just, he just writes. He just writes all day forever for nothing. I can't even relate to that because I'm not a writer, but, but it's that kind of thing. I suppose I'm a little bit that way with podcasting. You need to be that way. You You need to stop asking people what to do and just do it. So I don't know. I hope that wasn't too high-minded or weird or something of me to say, but that's just what I was thinking of when I realized I had a lot of people ask me what the secret is. There's no secret. You do it, and There's, of course, luck involved, I got insanely lucky, but it's also persistence, it's, also, staying true to what you think is interesting, what you thing is good, and, if you think it's good, there's a good chance other people do.

0:42:23 Thomas: If you're doing something because you're trying to please other people, it, it not gonna work. I mean, unless you're really good at it. In which case, it might work, I don't know. All All right, I'll get off my high horse and stop talking about this stuff, but I thought it might be interesting in light of what you guys have allowed me to do, And, speaking of that, I have an enormous number of new patrons to thank, I'm so grateful, I am going to try to do it really quickly, but I have pledged, and I have to thank every single one.

Thank you, Cosmos Vigilante, uh, Vigillante, David Goldfrank, Brant Ronning, Taylor, John W. Alley, Sman9, Emily F., John Harrelson, Taylor Zach Halapiska, thank you, Allison Harold, Kenna Tervo, John Ambrose, Michael Schrader, PurpleBaconTaco, thank you, Dan Ellis, Logan Burch, luke boucher, Satan SwampyAhole, Ethan Firestone, thank you, Johnny Brown, Horacio Chagas, Zachary Getz, Mark Smith, Emily Burke, Zorin Dobson, Jim Sabatowski, Ray CumFart, Michael Schaefer, Robert Hubert, Cindy Abawi, Adam Hicks, Andrew Citarella Thank you guys so much. I'm blown away. Yeah, this is the reason I'm able to go full-time now, I cannot wait to try my best to live up to your expectations and to exceed those expectations and show content and even bonus stuff. Now I gotta thank my all-time greats. And they are Matt Garrett Dale, Brian Garefort, Peter Skelton, Steve Sigmund, Blackhawks Greater Than... Oh man, I said it. Blackhawks Greater Than Sharks. Shoot. I let that one slip. It's episode 300.

0:44:49 Thomas: Thank you guys so much. I can't say it enough. Thank Thank you so much for for 300 episodes of this show, thank you.