Join editor-in-chief Kyle Mann and creative director Ethan Nicolle for the sixth-ever Babylon Bee podcast. This week's main topic is faith and politics. (8:22) Impressed Military Drops Portland Antifa In Hostile ISIS Territory To Continue Doling Out Justice (14:10) Christians Should Be More Like Jesus, Who Was Loved By Everybody And Never Divisive (20:10) Women's Soccer Team Sues To Overturn Unjust Law Of Supply And Demand (25:50) Topic of the Week: Faith & Politics (39:09) Hate Mail (45:33) Subscriber Exclusive Segment (46:23) Genetically Engineered Dinosaurs Break Out Of Creation Museum, Live Peacefully With Humans (51:15) Food Possessed By Demons After Family Forgets To Pray (55:40) Unpublished Headline reading Become a paid subscriber! at https://babylonbee.com/plans
In a world of fake news, this is news you can trust.
You're listening to the Babylon B, the only inerrant news source.
Here are your infallible hosts, Kyle Mann and Ethan Nicole.
I'm Kyle Mann.
And this is Ethan Nicole.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Second guy.
We're like the Kool-Aid man, busting through a wall, except instead of Kool-Aid, morbidly obese, full of juice.
Instead of Kool-Aid, we are bringing you the week's news.
Kind of.
We're in audio format.
The week's commentary, meaningless commentary on the news that really has nothing to do with anything, just us trying to entertain ourselves.
Yes.
So you get to listen in while a couple of guys hang out.
We're on our third or fourth coffee.
In our air-conditioned studio.
Not really.
We are broadcasting live, but not actually live, from a 150-degree garage in Southern California.
Yes, we have a garage that we record in, and today is like a 100-degree day, and the garage is closed, and we're recording from...
So, Phil, sorry for us.
This is our white privilege.
We're crying because we don't have an air-conditioned studio to record from.
It's not actually that hot if you can get the recording done before 5 a.m.
But we're a little behind.
Well, and we just started.
So we just turned the fan off.
So it's slowly going to get more and more.
It's going to like, you know how coldness gets to your bones?
This is where like the hot meltiness, like your flesh starts to feel like a sack of raw chicken.
Yeah, so we're starting.
We're starting out very energetic.
And then as the podcast goes on, you're just going to hear us slowly starting.
Melting.
We could die by the end.
You never know.
Yeah.
Okay.
So how was your week, Kyle?
You've been gone a lot.
Yeah.
So we've been on vacation and it's been a great time.
By we, you mean you, not me.
No.
I've not been.
But you will be.
Yeah.
So we just concluded kind of a couple of weeks of various vacations.
We were in the desert, then we were in the mountains, then we were at the beach.
Which is a that's a white privilege right there Multiple vacations.
That's California.
That's California privilege.
That's great about it.
I still think California is like the most amazing place on the planet.
It is pretty amazing.
Even though some people are trying to ruin it.
Except for the price.
It's really just the prices and some of the people suck.
Yeah.
So we did all that, but then it culminated with a very on-brand conclusion to my vacation.
And that was on Saturday night, me and my wife went to the Five Iron Frenzy concert.
Oh, this episode brought to you by Five Iron Frenzy.
They're back.
They're not really back, but yeah.
Well, they played a show.
They do this sporadic.
So anyone who doesn't know, Five Iron Frenzy is a Christian ska band.
Yes.
Lest you think Christian Ska is extinct.
It is not.
Still holding on.
It's holding on for dear life.
I mean, it's kind of on life support, you know, and the family members are gathered around Christian Ska holding hands and kind of saying their last words.
So everybody at this concert had hired a babysitter, probably.
It was grandparents.
Okay, so I saw Five Iron Frenzy at the same venue like 20 years ago.
Okay.
You know, when I was in junior high.
And then I saw them again, you know, a few years after that.
And so, but as we go, you know, the concert goers are aging.
And so now it's kind of sad.
It's like all these guys who are maybe 40, 45, wearing Converse.
They all work in IT and stuff now.
Yeah, and the crowd was like almost so dead.
No skanking?
Well, there was kind of a skank pit right in the middle.
Okay.
Everyone was skanking, doing a little bit of moshing, you know.
But it was kind of low energy.
And I wasn't over in the pit.
I was kind of off to the side and I was, but I was right up front on the gate and I was doing the skanking.
Yeah.
And people around me were kind of glaring at me.
Like, why are you moving?
Where are the chairs here?
We're old.
Yeah, it was.
I was kind of depressed, but then I realized, like, I'm aging too.
So, you know, you're on the young end of Five Iron Fans, I'd imagine.
Yeah, I probably am.
I guess.
I don't know.
I was one of the younger people there.
They were huge for me and my group of friends because I was in multiple bands.
I was actually in a band that was pretty much attempting to be a Five Iron Frenzy ripoff.
It was a ska band.
And it was called the 12 Multicolored Frozen Christian Rubber Chickens.
And they could never find a bass player, so they had me play bass.
And I had rubber chicken on a football helmet and like a Lone Ranger mask and a cape and like knee pads.
And so I played this disguised character named Chicken X.
I played bass in this band.
That's kind of always the qualification for a bassist, right?
Like you exist.
You just barely exist.
Yeah.
So you're the bassist.
Yeah, so yeah, we love the Five Iron Frenzy.
My cohort that was in the band, I was in like multiple bands, and he was in almost all of them with me.
My friend Anthony was like Reese Roper obsessed.
And we finally got to play a show with them at one point.
We played with Roper, his band Roper.
They played in our hometown.
And it was a really awkward moment.
He finally got to meet Rhys Roper.
And they were just kind of this casual conversation.
And our drummer walks up and he goes, Hey, man, he's like obsessed with you.
And then walks.
He didn't even think about how awkward that made the whole thing.
Yeah.
Ruined the moment.
I do like how, Ethan, you had to one-up me.
Because I'm sitting here like, I'm all excited that I got to go see Vive Ernst.
You're like, oh, yeah, I played with Five Iron.
I still can't remember if I, well, that's, but it's Roper.
Does that really count?
Yeah.
Roper's like the him covering old, like, covering pop country songs.
Yeah.
Anyway, we have to do a whole Five Iron show at some point.
Yeah, we do.
We do need to.
Christian Sky, I said on Twitter this morning, I'm going to be the guy who brings Christian Ska back.
Like, if you ever saw La La Land, I'm going to stop you.
Ryan Gosling was like trying to bring jazz back, and he was like, I'm going to save jazz.
Oh, yeah.
And that was his thing in La La Land.
So that's me, but for Christian Ska.
Okay.
Okay, we have one other note before we get into this week's stories, and that's an astute Twitter follower pointed out to us that that bad submission we read about Kavanaugh.
Yeah, back in episode four when we had Frank Fleming on, we were reading strange headlines, and it was the first one we read.
And the bad submission we read was it confused all of us, even Frank.
I still can't even read it without cracking up.
Judge Kavanaugh kicks pregnant woman in her stomach multiple times over a period of weeks.
One day he gives it his all.
Now screaming at her, he starts crying and is crushing her chest with his weight.
And it's so bad.
And then a Twitter follower said, oh, he's like, it took me a while, but I figured out it's Kavanaugh's mom.
Yeah, it's talking about his birth.
It's talking about he kicked the pregnant woman from inside.
And then he bursts out crying because he gives it all, gives it his all.
And he's crushing.
He's crushing her with his chest with his weight.
That would be a heavy baby.
I just.
That part really throws you off.
You know it's a good joke.
You know, it's a good joke when it takes you nine months to understand.
Well, my, yeah, I felt like that maybe in this case, this joke, it actually makes it really profound that it took about nine months to punch line.
It took that one to develop.
It's the most pro-life joke ever written.
Yeah.
And you know, it's funny.
So that joke actually was going around quite a bit during the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings.
That he abused his mom?
Yeah.
Like a baby.
Like people would say, oh, he, you know, new scandal, Kavanaugh was, you know, with a naked woman, you know, like, I don't know.
It was all those kinds of jokes.
Yeah.
And, yeah.
So this is something where they were kind of making the same joke everyone else was, but in a really, really convoluted way.
So we apologize.
We semi-apologize.
Yeah, because we didn't get it.
Because we didn't get it, but it doesn't make it any.
I don't know if it makes it better, but now we understand.
Yeah.
And we get it.
The universe is right again for a little while.
All right.
Let's do our weekly stories.
Every week, there are stories.
These are some of them.
Our first story this week.
There's new employment opportunities for Portland Antifa.
That's good to hear.
Yeah, so the military was so impressed with Antifa's violence that they dropped Portland Antifa off in hostile ISIS territory to continue doling out justice.
That's great.
That's great to hear.
I'm glad that, you know, our young men can be proud and serve their country off in the Middle East.
That's just great.
I like the idea of them just waking up, like they're in a helicopter, and then they just get dropped.
Yeah.
What you've done is great.
There's like a loud chopper in the background.
They're like, good job, son.
And then they just drop.
They're like, where are we?
What are we doing?
Just keep doing what you were doing.
You're doing what you're doing, but now you're in hostilisis territory.
So this story, again, we're on a little bit of a delay because of the recording schedule, but this should still be relatively fresh when you hear this.
So there was a journalist in Portland who got beat up by ISIS.
Yeah, Andy Know.
Yeah.
And yeah, it was not a good situation.
Did I say beat up by ISIS?
I meant beat up by ISIS.
Beat up by Antifa.
I kept messing that up when I was writing this.
I kept messing up and switching Antifa and ISIS.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
Maybe there's some commentary.
The similarity.
They're kind of like diet.
ISIS light.
ISIS zero.
Yeah.
Zero, zero calorie.
Yeah, one thing I forgot to leave out here was that they were going to be going into hostilized territory with bike locks and what are their other weapons they like to use?
Yeah, milkshakes.
Oh, yeah.
I did put in the vegan coconut milkshake because that was specifically what the New York Times article.
Oh, yeah.
Like listed all these weapons.
It's like batons, mace, knives, and then it's vegan coconut milkshakes.
And they actually call out that they're vegan.
They're vegan and they're coconut flavored.
I saw they were passing around.
They like when the Antifa organizes these protests, they like pass around, this is the approved recipe that we're going to use.
Did you see that?
Yeah, for their milkshakes?
Yeah.
Like this is the recipe.
There was something going around.
Yeah, I don't know.
Something about whether or not they had some chemical in the milkshakes or something.
Yeah, I think that was a little different.
But yeah, someone was saying, the police were saying that they were adding cement to the milkshakes.
So you hit the person with a milkshake and they suddenly immediately freeze up like a Batman bad guy's weapon.
Like instant cement.
Yeah.
And then you have to say like a pun, like, just chill out.
Or yeah.
Freeze.
Freeze.
Yeah, those are all icy ones.
Yeah.
Hey, it makes sense.
Kind of.
Yeah.
I do like the idea that you're going out in order specifically to commit violence against people.
Yeah.
And you're really concerned about the milkshake being vegan.
Yeah, that's what I imagine the conversation they're having.
Like, hey, it might be cheaper just to do some 2% and just some powdered stuff from Costco.
Like, what the heck are you, man?
Do you even stand for anything?
Yeah.
I mean, where does this milkshake thing come from?
Can you throw anything?
Can't you just throw anything like milk?
Why does it have to be milkshake?
It doesn't say milkshake.
I don't know.
It sticks in a certain way.
I mean, I don't get it.
I don't get it.
We should try it.
Let's kill milkshakes.
It is cheaper.
I was thinking maybe guacamole, but that'd be expensive.
Oh, yeah, that would be an expensive protest.
32 ounces of guacamole.
You're way more vegan, though.
32 ounces of guacamole would be like a $200 protest.
You have to really hate the person in order to guac them.
One criticism that always comes up when you talk about Antifa is you have to talk about Proud Boys and the alt-right and everything equally, otherwise, you're a jerk.
Yeah.
So, yeah, those guys are jerks too.
So there you go.
We should just have a pre-recorded disclaimer.
Also, Antifa and the Proud Boys are jerks.
Yeah, the Proud Boys and the Alt-Right and all those other guys are jerks too.
I just want to say that there's good people on all sides.
Whoa, Kyle.
Whoa.
I just want to say there's evil people on all sides.
Everybody's evil.
Wait, you can't say that.
You have to pick side.
Yeah.
So anyway, we're now when I think Ethan wrote this article and Photoshopped it and stuff.
And I think when he pitched it, I was like, is ISIS still a thing?
And I had to do that.
They're pretty messed up.
Yeah, they're pretty wiped out.
They're pretty much gone.
But the jokes still work.
Well, apparently they're like, yeah, they're apparently in a lot of underground cells now.
They still exist, but they're much more hidden.
And they're not as like.
So I worked that in the story that they were in suspected areas that they could be.
Anytime they crop up, we got Antifa there to take him out with their bike locks.
And that's why we always have to be careful with our satire to get the facts right because there's always going to be some jerk in the commons who says, actually.
Yeah, I feel like I could go off on Antifa.
There's something about it because I'm from Portland and it just drives me crazy.
The attitude, just the complete, just the complete hypocrisy of it all.
I don't know.
Whatever.
It is crazy to me that they've kind of like, in some of those videos you see, it seems like they've taken over the city, you know?
Yeah.
Yeah, and the bizarre thing that the mayor isn't really doing much about it, and the police seem to be kind of standing off the side.
Like, what the heck?
Yeah, it's weird.
It's very strange.
That's Portland.
That's just Portland.
Just Portland for you.
All right, let's move on to our next story.
We have an opinion piece that ran this week.
Op-ed.
It's an op-ed written by a fictional character.
And he has some really astute words of wisdom for us.
He says, Christians should be more like Jesus, who was loved by everybody and never divisive.
Well, that's some wisdom right there.
That is indeed some wisdom.
Now, is this at all in response to the fake Christian hashtag that came out?
Like on Twitter for a day?
Yeah, I believe so.
There was a full day where Twitter was just going straight Christian hate for like just a mad, like Tasmanian devil tornado.
Yeah, so what was the bulk?
What were the bulk of the complaints about Christians on the fake Christian hashtag?
Most of it was linked to what was going on at the border.
Okay.
And they had this image of I'm like blanking out on the vice president's name, Mike Pence.
He's standing there looking at a fence, and there's always people in the fence.
It's very crowded.
And he, I've found it very interesting.
People I've noticed on Twitter, Mike Pence just kind of never says a lot, and he's just this kind of this quiet guy in the background.
Like you just kind of see him every once in a while.
Like my analogy is he's kind of like John Locke from the first episode of Lost.
He's just standing there.
Just kind of cuts to this old guy every once in a while.
You're like, what's up with this old guy?
He's got an orange in his mouth.
Orange smiles.
Yeah, he just smiles with an orange in his mouth.
He doesn't really do anything.
But everybody's got all these theories.
Yeah, if you watched it with somebody and if they were like, that guy's Hitler and he wants to kill babies and he's a murderer.
And it's like, how do you get all that?
He's just smiling at the camera for a minute.
Yeah.
But uh, so yeah, in fact, there's that photo of him looking at a fence with all these people in it, and then it's juxtaposed with a picture of like, I think it's Himmler and a concentration camp.
As if because they're both standing in kind of the same position and there's a fence there and there's people behind it makes it the exact same thing.
Yeah.
Yeah, I think Alyssa Milano, our favorite A-list actor, was shared that.
Yeah, it was very popular.
It was very profound.
Yeah.
The weird thing for me is it feels like people are sharing all that to try to make this point that there's all this racism in the Trump administration and they hate Mexicans.
It seems like Trump's, the Trump administration's main point is that there's a big crisis at the border.
And when I see that video, I go, man, there really is a crisis at the border.
They have these facilities and they can only hold so many people.
When I look at that, I go like, maybe a fence isn't such a bad idea.
There's a ton of people there.
So you're saying you're a racist.
I mean, it's like, that's not the, my immediate reaction isn't like how racist all this is.
Like I, I, I, I, The immigration equals racism argument drives me crazy.
Yeah.
And also the flipping illegal immigration for immigration.
It's like the most disingenuous argument you can use.
Right.
Well, it's not the most disingenuous.
It's pretty bad.
There's probably more.
You're Hitler.
Yeah, you know, I do like the idea of Christians going on Twitter or social media and then just like wringing their hands and desperately wanting to be liked by the world.
Like, why don't all these people like me?
And then you kind of, you look at Jesus and you're like, well, they didn't really like Jesus.
Yeah, he wasn't like the Johnny Depp of his time or anything.
Well, I guess Johnny Depp's a good, not a good example now.
The rock.
Yeah.
Who's like loved, who's universally loved.
So what was really funny about this article, Christians should be more like Jesus, who is loved by everybody and never divisive, is that Ben Shapiro graced us with a retweet on it.
And like right away, we ended up with all these confused commenters.
Like, wait a minute, Jesus got crucified, man.
You know, because we've got our small little Twitter reach, and then you get Ben Shapiro's got, what, 5 million, 6 million followers or whatever.
Yeah.
Whatever crazy number of followers he has.
Plus, he mostly posts real news stories.
I think we're probably the only satire site that he shares.
I mean, he's often joking around and stuff on his Twitter, but and so people are commenting like, Jesus was loved by everyone?
Tell that to him as he suffered through his crucifixion.
It's like, thank you.
Yeah.
Really appreciate you explaining the joke there.
That was nice.
Yeah, I saw a lot of Christians jumping on the bandwagon of the fake Christian hashtag.
Yeah.
Like, yeah, let's just say it.
Most Christians are homophobic bigots and blah, And that drives me crazy.
It's like, do you really know that many Christians that are just these like seething homophobe bigot?
Yeah.
Like, sure, they exist, but it's like the crazy uncle that says the moon landing didn't happen or whatever.
Like, it's just this, like, it's this pocket that's not even worth probably talking about.
Yeah, we amplify it by giving that kind of thing so much attention when most people aren't like that.
Yeah, and it just reeks of like begging to be accepted by this culture.
Like, yeah, I hate Christians too, guys.
I'm not one of the bad ones like them.
Yeah, and Twitter is such, it's like a small fraction of the population.
Twitter is a bubble.
And it's such a bubble, you know, and everybody tries to virtue signal and be, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm jumping on the hashtag fakeChristian bandwagon.
It's like, you know, I hate those hashtags.
And just the idea that all these blue checks from Twitter are like going to lecture me on what real Christianity is.
Yeah.
Yeah, I don't.
Nah, no thanks.
I don't need your opinion on that.
I'll go listen to some Robbie Zacharias.
They're like, yeah, they're like, I think the Bible is false and Jesus didn't exist.
But you're not a good Christian.
They're like, oh, okay.
Interesting.
Interesting.
Tell me more about what the Bible says.
Why don't you tell me more about Christian morality?
All right, shall we move on?
Our third story of the week.
The women's soccer team sues to overturn unjust law of supply and demand.
And this is in response to the U.S. women's soccer team has created some controversy over how much they're paid versus the men.
It's the whole thing.
They won something, right?
I don't follow sports.
They did something to kick the ball.
I don't know.
I don't follow sports.
Well, actually, I only involuntarily follow soccer a bit because my stepson is obsessed with soccer.
So does he follow, did he follow the women's team or what kind of soccer does he follow?
Yeah, I don't think he follows women's.
And that's why women aren't making us much because your stepson is a bigot.
Yeah, what a jerk.
Doesn't watch the women's soccer.
He plays FIFA non-stop.
I can never tell if he's watched when he's watching soccer or if he's playing FIFA.
That's how old I am.
I'm like, are you watching soccer?
Oh, that's a video game.
Oh, that's one of them.
Those are real people.
That's one of them new video games.
It looks so real.
Are you really shooting somebody in the face right now?
Oh, no, that's just one of them.
That's one of them video games.
Man, you are dating yourself.
Yeah, so the women's soccer team was complaining about the pay gap.
And it's funny because it's kind of a complex situation, and they might have a little bit of a point because they do have a much more winning record than the men, and the men make more than they do.
But men's soccer worldwide brings in so much more money.
It's like $4 billion versus $170 million.
Yeah, it's like, is that the measurement?
Like if you have a softball team from the Hanson Hills Trout Baptist Church and they have a 100% winning streak, should they get paid more than they have a better record, man.
Yeah, than a major league soccer team that doesn't do so well.
Are there church soccer teams?
I don't know.
I just made that up.
Doesn't that sound real?
The Hansen Hills Trout.
Well, we know real Christians don't play soccer, so that's not true.
That's the devil's game.
It's the devil's game.
The Lord made arms for a reason, boy.
You don't just leave your arms out of a game.
Yeah.
Soccer is for women and Europeans.
But I repeat myself.
Yeah, we had the joke also that Megan, how do you say her last name?
Rapineau?
I've been saying Rapineau.
Rapineau.
She had this quote where she said that she's willing to have an open conversation.
But then she kind of like said that basically she'd be willing to have an open conversation with anybody that already agreed with her and everything.
That was wild.
That's so weird.
She said she'd never talk to Trump, but she'd be willing to have an open conversation with somebody who, and then basically agree with her and everything.
Yeah.
It was like, who wants the same things we do?
Who agrees with the cause?
It's like, oh, so you're only going to have an open conversation with someone who's exactly like you.
Yeah.
And so our article was, I think it was Ethan's.
Megan Rapineau says she's totally willing to have an open conversation with a perfect genetic and ideological clone of herself.
And then we've got her sitting next to herself talking to herself.
Talking to herself, yeah.
That's what open civil conversation is all about.
Welcome to the spotlight, Megan Rapineau.
You've just got a Babylon B.
Well, she's got a couple of them, I think.
Now she's going to get famous.
Yep.
All thanks to us.
You know what's crazy to me?
So all this civil about these controversies and all the conversations and the conversations about civility that come afterwards, it's just wild to me that they might have a point in all of their complaining about the pay.
There might be some bit of a point there, but then the point just gets totally drowned out in all this outrage and doubling down and tripling down and dividing everybody.
And it's like, oh my gosh.
Yeah, on its face, the thing about these debates every time for me, because you can't both make the argument that like these are greedy corporations and they choose to spend more money on men because if they're greedy, they would go with the cheapest option.
And if women are willing to work and do the same, produce the same results for cheaper pay, then the greedy guys would go for that, right?
Yeah.
And so that's where it always like that's never addressed in these conversations where it gets like the idea that there's just some evil guy in a dark closet somewhere and he's paying men more than women because he just is evil and he likes to spend that he likes spending extra money on men because he hates women.
Yeah.
Yeah, I almost wonder if it's social media is kind of the root cause of a lot of this.
I mean, I know that people have always made bad points and people have always been outraged.
It's true, bad points.
You get to be seen more on social media.
And then if you're like living your life on Twitter, that's all you're seeing is these crazy talking points.
And, you know, I envy people like my dad who doesn't go on social media.
You know, I mention a controversy like this and he's like, what?
Who's that?
I didn't even know the women had a soccer team.
It's like there's this bliss that comes from not being in those places.
I have noticed that crapping on soccer gets us a lot of shares.
Like there's one that we said soccer controversy.
I'm going to butcher this headline, but reveals that people get paid to play soccer.
Everybody's shocked.
Yeah, everybody's shocked.
Wait, people get paid to play soccer?
We're paying money for this?
Yeah, where do they get paid from?
I mean, is that like our taxes paying for this?
Because I now have a whole other issue with that.
Yeah.
What the heck?
All right.
Should we go to our main topic, Kyle?
Let's do it.
And now, the Babylon Bees topic of the week.
And here we are with our main topic.
Flum in my throat.
As we slowly melt to death in the soccer, I'm melting through and through.
My brain cells are slowly shutting down.
Which is good because we're going to talk about something that doesn't really require that much thought.
Christianity and politics.
Something we can just breeze through.
Breeze through that.
No big deal.
It feels like I thought it'd be interesting to talk about this because it's kind of like taboo for Christians to talk about politics, right?
Yeah.
I feel like there's either like in Christianity, there's either like you're like Ann Coulter Christian, who they always, they mentioned every once in a while they're Christian, but then they mainly just own the libs all the time.
Yeah.
And then there's like the John MacArthur type guys.
Yeah.
They pretty much never talk about politics as far as I know.
Like it's just kind of, you know, you don't talk about it.
Yeah.
And the weird thing about the B, and the one thing I like about it is.
And it's made a lot of people mad.
Yeah.
Yeah, not that it makes people happy, but that we do go into politics, but we're also, I would say, we aren't that jerk voice that's trying to just be snarky and mean.
And there's a lot of those on the conservative side.
Right.
So yeah, so what do you think, Kyle?
Is it wrong for Christians to talk politics?
I will come out and boldly state that we are not jerks.
I will agree with that.
Or we try not to be jerks anyway.
Yeah, you know, it is weird that there are so many Christian ministries and websites that I don't even know if it's weird.
It's about what I'd expect is that they don't want to alienate, you know, so they stay away from the political stuff.
And I kind of appreciate it, depending on the source.
Actually, I agree with it from the sense of that it's like a holy place.
Church is like a place to go and be with your family, be with Jesus, be with, you know, just worship, and all that mundane political stuff.
It's just not, you know, it's below it.
And on that, on that sense, I agree.
Yeah, well, for the church, I was talking more like ministry websites, not necessarily the churches specifically.
I 100% agree, like a church, a guy from the pulpit, he should be preaching the gospel and he shouldn't be, he shouldn't be really talking politics.
Now, Christianity is always going to touch all aspects of life, whether that's politics or if you really believe Christianity is reality and not a thing that you just do on the side with your life.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Then it's going to, it's going to touch everything.
You know, one thing that struck me, you know, people complain a lot, the Babylon Bee does too much politics or you should stay out of politics and just make jokes about worship leaders.
And I was, you know, I go back and I was reading, I've been reading essays by like C.S. Lewis this week.
And, you know, a bunch of them aren't even Christian.
You know, like he assumes God and he assumes the truth about the Bible and Christ in his from the outset.
Yeah.
You know, but what he's talking about is he's just talking about what are the implications of that for how the Christian lives out life in politics and lives out life in society.
So I think it's interesting that it's like you guys should not talk about these things.
Other people should talk about these things.
It's like, well, who do you want to talk about these things?
Who do we want to control that conversation?
Yeah, and I'm a big Chesterton fan.
Obviously, we've been through that many times.
So don't try to one-up dismention with Chesterton.
Lewis, he was a Chesterton fanboy.
Yeah.
But he was a journalist, so obviously he commented on things all the time of his day.
And that's the thing that I do feel like that's the calling.
He talked about things in a timeless way.
Like he believed in that eternal wisdom, that the Bible is built on this idea that there is a wisdom built into this world by its creator.
That's why it's worth writing a book by all these different authors over like thousands of years because we believe there's like a real story being told of mankind and a wisdom behind it all that's timeless.
And I believe when you are, you know, and we're just making dory jokes, but like a, but somebody like Chesterton, I think what was amazing that he did is he could write an article about something going on contemporary in his time, but he's actually making an eternal point.
And that's why his articles are still so a lot of them are so readable still today.
Yeah, I got to admit, I have some trouble reading Chesterton, but yeah, well, it also, it is hard because certain stuff that he writes is so contemporary.
It's referring to things going on if we don't have any references.
Yeah, it was at that time.
Yeah.
Now it's retro.
That is the hardest part for me with Chesterton.
And his style of writing is so different than what we're used to.
Yeah, I agree.
The same thing with Lewis when you'll read some of his radio addresses and you won't know the names that he's talking about or who he's responding to or why.
But the eternal truths that he might point to still resonate today.
And I think that's the unique thing that Christianity has to offer.
It's like we believe in eternal truth.
Yeah.
You know, and that's going to play out in politics much differently than someone who doesn't believe in eternal truth.
Yeah, that's another, not to be on Chesterton the whole time here, but he talks about how he talks about how people think that if you have a worldview that just is nice and tidy and it all kind of comes back on itself like a circle, like a nice clean circle.
He says, you know, who has a nice clean worldview is the madman.
Like in the asylum.
That was one of his big things, wasn't it?
Yeah.
And so he talks about how, like, you know, if you can see everything through the narrow, you know, lens of evolution or nature or something.
Rationality.
Maybe it all fits together, but you've created a small little world that you live in.
Like, it's a tiny, and he says that the madman has the most tidy of all, like a tiny little world he lives in.
And he says that he sees the symbol of Christianity as the cross.
It's four arms are reaching out in all different directions.
There's a paradox at the center.
That there's more mystery to it and that there's that it's it's not nice and tidy, like that there's mystery in God.
And anyway, I'm like trying to preach here in the middle of a Madman B podcast.
We need to put in the organ, like slowly coming into the background.
I just think it's interesting to think of that idea.
And I feel like I see it all over our culture, the little narrow way of seeing things.
Like they see everything through race.
They see everything through pay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think another thing that Christians need to think about with politics, and I hope this is what most of our satire does, is it's really important, I think, to not put trust in politics.
Like I know some people are more politically involved and some less politically involved.
Some are more politically aware.
Some are less politically aware.
And that's fine.
I think God uses all types.
But I think sometimes we put so much trust in politics.
Yeah.
You know, like government is going to save us from this problem.
You know, and you'll bring up a problem like poverty or homelessness or, you know, the immigration crisis.
And our first question is, well, what are we going to do about it?
And by we, we mean what is the government going to do about it?
You know, and that's what we ask our politicians.
Like, what are you going to do to address this?
And so I think the disconnect for me and a lot of people on both the left and the right is my question isn't like, what is this politician going to do?
What is your party's answer to this?
But it's like, that's not even a question.
I've checked out before that point because I'm like, your party doesn't have the answer.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, I believe in almost every case, the answer is almost always just people doing the right thing.
You know, government tends to kind of tag team off of that half the time.
But I think that also what happens with politics is people create teams, us versus them.
And I think as a Christian, that's not what you're supposed to be doing.
You're not supposed to be playing us versus them games.
You're not supposed to be turning half the population of the United States into some drooling idiot people that are not worthy of respect or whatever.
Just that whole idea that if you voted this way, then you're not worth my time.
It's like, sorry.
I think everybody was created by the same God and he loves them all.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that's definitely infected the church where you see people saying, you know, how can evangelicals support Trump?
Yeah.
And it's like, if you support Trump, you're not a true Christian.
And people do it the other way.
They did the same thing with Obama.
I mean, you can make arguments about certain policies or certain issues.
And there's obviously hot topic stuff like abortion where you're like, well, there's like a literal massacre happening on our hands.
But sometimes you've got to attribute that also to people's ignorance.
And we've got to educate people on what exactly that is without necessarily demonizing people and saying you're evil for voting for a Democrat.
Yeah.
Yeah, I think that's kind of a, I don't know if it's always missed, but I feel like we make a lot of jokes about how the idea is that like Christian politics are right wing.
And right wing does happen to fall on the side of pro-life and certain issues that we agree with.
But in general, we find that it kind of funny that Christianity has a set of politics.
We make fun of that a lot.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's a big amount of the humor we get out of the right is you take Trump and you make him into a Jesus character.
I think we had one where a missionary goes out and he's converting tribesmen to republicanism.
He's putting the Make America Great Again hat on these tribesmen.
Yeah, and that's definitely the feel you get a lot of times from Christians on the right.
Yeah, and I think one thing that I'm proud of that we do is that we do kind of sit back and we try to make light of it all, like the politics.
People are so serious about it.
It's their everything.
And I think that's for that's for to me, that's like our job is to kind of like point out the humor as much as we can on both sides.
But I think that also because there's so many jokes from one direction, we do tend to make jokes in the other direction more.
But that we're finding that the absurdity in it all and just trying to keep that reminder that most every generation has gotten most things wrong.
So the fact that this one thinks they're so right about so many things, they're probably wrong on a lot of stuff too.
Yeah.
One article we ran this week was Nation Relieved as politicians too busy bickering to push their terrible ideas on the country.
And the image we used was Ocasio-Cortez and Pelosi because they've been snipping at each other.
But in the article we're talking, we all talk also about Trump and he's firing tweets off at Elon Omar and then she's firing tweets back at him.
And then all the news articles are like, watch this powerful clapback as Trump swings back on Twitter against, you know, and it's just.
What a time to be alive.
So I like when an article like that can go, you know, you know what?
You guys can fight.
Yeah, go ahead.
Just stop bugging me.
Yeah, so I don't know.
I mean, I think it's, I actually really sympathize with the opinion that we shouldn't be, or, you know, that we don't need more politics.
Yeah, I get that.
To one extent, I completely agree.
But I also do appreciate that the B makes jokes in areas that most other people aren't touching.
So I feel like that's a good thing to do.
Yeah.
I'll just finish with one other thing.
I'll just mention, like, I was thinking about this a lot this week.
I've been reading through the book of Acts.
Wait, you read your Bible?
No, Acts, A-X-E.
Oh, okay.
Acts cop.
Oh, nice.
The comic book.
I thought you meant the body spray.
No, I've been reading through Acts, and it just amazes me how at the same time, subversive and political the disciples were.
You know, like they subvert the expectations of politics because they're not going around saying, you guys need to support my candidate.
Not that they necessarily had candidates back then, but they're not going around supporting particular policies for the nation, but they are going around saying, Caesar's not the true king.
Jesus is the true king.
And it's like, that's one of the most political statements you can make.
So I like when we can touch on stuff like that.
All right.
So we'll just conclude by saying.
Yeah, we're not going to solve this.
We will go ahead and resolve all of the political squabbles in the nation right now by saying Jesus is king.
Yes.
Right.
All right, we got some hate mail.
Is it that time?
It's that time again.
We don't have a good hate mail intro music, but we do have Dave saying, I really miss Adam Ford.
We'll get a jingle going.
Maybe it could just be, I really miss Adam Ford and the little ding-a-dinga ding-ding.
We should auto-tune the figure out to do that.
I don't know how to do that either.
I really miss Adam Ford.
Okay, so.
Yes.
Hate mail.
What's the context here?
Another angry Trump.
Every hate mail we get is angry about Trump.
We have done a lot of Angry Trump hate mail.
I do have a few from the other side.
We'll get those read soon.
Okay, so here's one.
I don't remember what the context was, but they say this.
President Trump is a great president.
Great as in all caps.
Great as in all caps.
And your Christian, quote-unquote, quote unquote, self-righteousness will walk you right off the cliff to the fiery gates.
God raised an imperfect man to lead, just like he raised Moses.
Who are you never Trumpers to question God?
So we, last week, we did this great swashbuckling Dave.
Yeah.
He did this awesome read because we kind of pre-recorded that he was going to do that.
But he also, in the subscriber portion, we work in.
If Dave sends me other takes that are great, I work those in and give them to the subscribers.
And he did this amazing taken one where he's like Liam Neeson.
Oh, yeah.
That might be worth doing a take-in take on this one.
Yeah.
You guys attacked President Trump, and I have a very particular set of skills.
And if you don't take it back, I will find you and I will kill you.
The fiery gates.
Yeah.
So maybe we'll have him do that.
President Trump is a great president.
And your Christian self-righteousness will walk you right off the cliff to the fiery gates.
God raised an imperfect man to lead.
Just like he raised Moses.
Who are you, never Trumpers to question God?
I like that every time we criticize Trump, the immediate comparison that he's drawn to is like King David.
Or Moses.
I haven't heard Moses too much.
Yeah, I haven't heard Moses as much.
Was Moses imperfect because he had a speech impediment or something, right?
Yeah, and he made a mistake, like leading everyone through the.
He killed a guy or something.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
He killed someone.
That's not a big deal.
No big deal.
NBD.
NBD.
So, yeah.
Who are we to question God?
Yeah, I had that or like, or they all bring him back to Israel because he's pro-Israel, then like you just have, like, it's just, it's in the Bible.
It's ingrained into the Bible that you have to support him with all, without any criticism.
Yeah, or like, and then, you know, just, I know this is like a logical fallacy, but take this hate mail and apply it to like, if we're in Nazi Germany, God raised up Hitler.
He's an imperfect man.
Yeah, right.
If he's in charge, God raised him up, right?
Who are you to question the great Adolf Hitler?
Now, I'm not actually comparing Trump to Hitler, just to head that off before we get into angry emails.
But I'm just pointing out your logical arguments.
Not very sound there.
Also, I don't know that we're technically never Trumpers.
Yeah, and that's the weird thing too.
People always say, you know, they'll immediately call you one if you don't praise Trump with every breath that you breathe.
I see that on Twitter all the time.
Like there's guys that, you know, say something and someone replies, ah, you never Trumpers.
You know, it's like, I don't know.
I think that was a good idea.
Maybe a maybe Trumper or something.
That was a big divisive thing during the election.
People broke off and said, we are never Trumpers.
Most people didn't.
Yeah, some people did.
But then if you criticize Trump, you're a never Trumper.
And we've done articles in support of Trump, or at least making fun of the crazy criticisms that people give.
Yeah, totally.
I don't think you can really read our website and go, you are a never Trumper.
But most people who send this stuff don't read our website.
It's true.
And probably definitely don't listen to our podcast.
Yeah, I hope not.
Hope not.
One of these days we'll read a hate mail and then we'll get a hate mail response.
Hate mail, and then it'll just be every week we're reading from the same guy.
Yeah.
Oh, we do need to mention one other phenomenon is that we have now started getting fake hate mail.
Have we?
Yeah.
Did you see you see this in the email?
Maybe.
We've started to get, you never check your emails, Ethan, but we've started to get like this like fake, like people trying to get on the podcast to get Dave to read their.
Oh, yeah, because they want to be read by Dave.
But it's like very obvious because they hit right at the end.
They're like, love you guys.
Yeah.
No, but they hit on all the tropes that we say.
Oh.
You know, it's like, oh, hey, you know, your newspaper is so bad.
Yeah.
Trump is amazing.
Sent from my iPad.
And it's like, okay, I get what you're doing.
So stop sending us fake hate mail.
Only real hate mail will be read by Dave.
Yeah, it's kind of like bad movies.
Like they have to be made in utter sincerity.
Otherwise, it's just not as good.
You can't make a bad movie trying to be a bad movie.
All right.
So we are going to move on to our subscriber portion now.
We're going to talk about a few different things, including genetically engineered dinosaurs, food possessed by demons.
And we're going to do a part I'm really excited about.
We're going to read rejected headlines from the last week.
We're going to go through some from the forum, some from our writers, ones that they're still funny, but they just weren't quite there.
Yeah, and not all of these are necessarily rejected.
Some of them are maybe still in the world.
Yeah, they still might be used someday or whatever.
It's just kind of like a fun, just it's a way to give them a little more life.
If you would like to subscribe and hear the remainder of the podcast, you can go to BabylonB.com slash plans, pick a plan at any level, and you will have access to the full podcast where we go on for another large chunk of time discussing a bunch of good stuff.
So please do that.
Yes.
All right.
So, but with that, I'm Ethan Nicole.
And I'm Kyle Mann.
Kyle and Ethan would like to thank Seth Dylan for paying the bills, Adam Ford for creating their job, the other writers for tirelessly pitching headlines, the subscribers, and you, the listener.