[irrelig]For episode 103, we have selected some of the most basic and oft-repeated crazy-ass stories found in the Book of Mormon, including Lehi’s vision of the Tree of Life, Nephi’s “acquisition” of the brass plates, the origin of GPS devices, and what happens to two atheists in ancient America under the Nephite prophets and judges.

All that, and a new candidate for Skunk Dick of the Year.

[chuck]So given the amount of questioning going on about the source of our Hate Mail #2 and similarities in tone, content, and concerns with the E4F debate and particularly Kirk Hastings’ various emails, I followed the advice of one of our posters and checked the headers:

From: KirkHastings5@aol.com
Message-ID: <55b03.43193a8d.3adf0d24@aol.com>
Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2011 12:07:00 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: A brief note from an Irreligiosophy listener
To: irreligiosophy@gmail.com
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=”part1_55b03.43193a8d.3adf0d24_boundary”
X-Mailer: AOL 9.6 sub 130
X-AOL-IP: 108.25.154.141
X-Originating-IP: [108.25.154.141]

From: GrantGardner44@aol.com
Message-ID: <63321.1885153b.3ae318b2@aol.com>
Date: Fri, 22 Apr 2011 13:45:22 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: Your website
To: irreligiosophy@gmail.com
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=”part1_63321.1885153b.3ae318b2_boundary”
X-Mailer: AOL 9.6 sub 130
X-AOL-IP: 108.25.154.141
X-Originating-IP: [108.25.154.141]

Now, I’m not a techie, but those originating IPs look exactly the same to me. Anyone in the know care to expound on exactly what that means?

PS: The IP address traces to … New Jersey, headquarters of Evidence 4 Faith.

UPDATE: Lying hypocritical Christian Kirk Hastings of Evidence 4 Faith has admitted his sock-puppetry in an email reply to one of our posters, copied to us (the header of that email exactly matches the headers of the previous two). I’m going to give Kirk the benefit of the doubt and assume that this behavior is the absolute bottom of the barrel for him. Given past history, though, I will not be surprised if it isn’t.

[chuck]Two years, four months, and today we get our second piece of hate mail, from an attorney named Grant. I guess we’re just mostly too darn loveable to generate much hate mail. This particular piece is from a concern troll who would like us to change our attitude because gosh darn it, we just might be harming the cause of atheism.

Grant doesn’t like us, but he’s mighty impressed by Lee Strobel, who apparently was so curious about Christianity in his hard-hitting investigative Quest for Truth that he only talked to conservative evangelicals. Grant’s bit about thermodynamics and evolution is also priceless, betraying a fundamental lack of knowledge about both. You can read it yourself after the jump. Not surprisingly, it originates from an aol.com email addie.

In this episode, Joemma discuss Zoroastrianism; the world’s first “revealed” religion (meaning a prophet pulled this shit out of his ass/arse). Zoroastrianism’s theological innovations provided the backbone for the Abrahamic faiths as we know them today. It is admirable for its emphasis on celebrating life and its optimistic perspective, as opposed to the asceticism and self-loathing promoted by more emo religions of yore like Manicheanism.

Joe knows a fair bit about this shit, so he takes the lead while Emma says “OK, yep, interesting” a lot, and leaves the more linguistically dextrous Joe to pronounce all the foreign words just right.

Good thoughts, good deeds, good words and a good time will be had by all. Rev up your Mazda, you’re in for one hell of a ride.

Joemma

[leighton]I have to ask considering their iTunes account hasn’t been updated since their conversation with us. I’m sure Dr. Mike has distanced himself from the show as best he can, but does it still exist? This is a question which doesn’t really keep me up at night or even cross my mind until I randomly receive an email from Kirk Hastings with his signing the show in his title(Is he to be the new Dr. Mike?).

You all will have to forgive me my absence. My new place doesn’t have Internet yet so coming to the website and answering emails is a bit of a difficulty for me, but when Charley called me this morning about this inanity, I made an effort.

What you will see below is a polite email request to take down my postings……And then a particularly long email exchange wherein Kirk does his best to throw dust in the eyes of his readers by tossing up excuses as to why they lost the debate. You know, the one thing I can’t quite put my finger on is why that email exchange was attached to the request. Did he just accidentally properly format it, type out his request, send it to me, and is going to realize the mistake and send another request about my not ever, ever posting up his “well-laid” list of excuses? There couldn’t possibly be an ulterior motive to his request…he’s a Christian. They don’t hide their lights under a bush.

Well, it’s a good thing he has morality on his side otherwise I might have had to sit him down and explain to him there’s no need to attempt to manipulate my atheistic and Neanderthal brain, all you have to do is ask. Oops, hold on for a second. I have to answer to my basic instincts and scratch my balls.

There’s nothing like a shorn and suntanned scrotum to make a man really feel like a man in those morning breezes. Makes you feel like bursting into song and dance just like in The Sound of Music…

Scrotum, scrotum, you’re just a bag of skin.
Scrotum, scrotum, you keep my testes in.
Wriggly, squiggly, and covered with hair,
What would you do if it wasn’t there?

Second verse, same as the first, sorta.

Scrotum, scrotum, we all love you.
Scrotum, scrotum, you imprison that special goo.
Warm and cuddly and ready in spite,
Of that Christian girl we regretted last night…

Almost forgot I was here to do something. Oh yeah, here’s Kirk at his finest in an email exchange dated at more than a month ago with Kirk complaining about getting swamped with emails from our site…from more than a fucking month ago:

[irrelig]For this episode we have President of American Atheists David Silverman on the show, talking about growing up Jewy, deconverting at an early age, his experience on Bill O’Reilly, and the importance of the atheist movement. And oh yeah, a little atheist convention in Des Moines, Iowa.

The 2nd Law has died, the 2nd Law has risen, the 2nd Law will come again (lucky 2nd Law).

Yes, we’re back from the dead with an episode all about Easter. Well, it’s more about all the goriness of The Crucifixion and the Stations of The Cross. Then, we spend about 1 minute on Jesus’ resurrection. That’s just how The Gospels roll.

Be sure to check out the freaky floating Jesus face (Veronica style) under the Second Law thread on the Irreligiosophy forum. Seriously, Joe is scarred for life. Emma is just quietly amused, and maybe a tad frightened.

Between gadflies, bilbies, a whole lotta Marys and some random dude named Simon, we hope this episode floats at least a small portion of your boat. We know we haven’t nailed it yet, but please don’t be too cross (LOL).

Our loins are girded, so bring it, bitches.

Emma

The 2nd Law RSS feed can be found here

[irrelig]We have Ray Garton back on the show to spotlight a book signing of his that in the meantime unfortunately fell through. But who cares about that when we have Ray talking about such wide-ranging topics as Twilight, Michelle Bachman, and hooker vampires! I mean, really, what else could one ask for in a podcast?

Skunk Dicks, you might respond. Yeah, suck it, we’re busy.

[chuck]Okay, here’s the deal. We’re still alive, though barely. This week, Leighton and I signed a lease to a building in which we will house our haunt. We spent the last 2 days moving most of our Halloween stuff to the new digs and I hurt in places I didn’t even know I had. Now I’m working 24 hours out of the next 48 while my body complains about the sudden usage after years of neglect.

We have 3 interview episodes in the hopper. I’ve nearly completed editing one, which I hope to finish tonight after work (no lunch or dinner breaks on this shift), add a quick intro, and then collapse in a stupor until I have to work at the crack of dawn tomorrow.

For future episodes with actual content, we’re planning on crazy Book of Mormon stories, a primer on Q, and the BYU honor code. If you’d all like to vote for what you’d like to hear first, leave a comment in the thread.

Meanwhile, here’s a picture of our new digs, which Leighton will be busy sweeping, cleaning, and replacing ceiling tiles for what might amount to be the rest of his life.

Due to literally overwhelming negative feedback and consternation, you will be pleased to hear that we will not be recording any more episodes of The Second Law. We were asked to help Leighton and Chuck out, but it seems our time and effort was anything but helpful.
 
To those who gave us some encouragement and were willing to give us a go, thank you. To those who used words such as “horrible”, “an abomination”, “shit” and “horrendous” (amongst other words I will not repeat here) to describe our first attempt at putting an episode together, I guess we are sorry you didn’t like it, and fuck you.
 
Apart from our voices and accents (which we can’t change), no one really specified what made our first show so awful. Please don’t tell us now – we’ve had about as much feedback as we can take! It’s a shame because we had fun recording it and were looking forward to doing more until it became evident that it wasn’t worth it.
 
Anyway, at least we tried, but it didn’t work out how we hoped. Shit happens.
 
We’ll see you on the forum.
 
Emma & Joe