This midweek live hangout mixes humor with real questions about religion and belief. The host, Kelly and the chat discuss medieval holy foreskin relics, Mormon dietary rules, Bible fanfiction like the child gospels, and why people trust persuasive videos. They also share a warning about nonprofit loopholes.
What was the Feast of the Holy Foreskin?
The host says that in medieval Europe there were thousands of holy foreskins and nearly every town had one. He says January 1st was the Feast of the Holy Foreskin in the Catholic Church, when the local church put its relic on display, held a big party, then put it away for another year. He adds that the church slowly moved away from the practice until only three were left, each supposedly the real one, and all three were stolen. He also mentions Catherine of Siena describing the relic as a wedding ring motif in a letter.
Is the Book of Mormon Bible fanfiction?
The host, who was raised LDS, jokes that the Book of Mormon is the ultimate Bible fanfic, though not an authorized sequel. A guest points to other Christian fan fiction, including child gospels in which the boy Jesus kills another child just to raise him from the dead, dated to around 200 or 300 A.D. They also mention the Gospel of Judas and the Gospel of Thomas, which is mostly sayings. The hosts argue that filling in the blanks is what Christianity and other God beliefs do best.
Can Mormons drink hot chocolate?
A guest explains that Mormons are not supposed to have coffee, alcohol or tobacco under the Word of Wisdom. The original text says no hot drinks, but that was later clarified to mean caffeinated drinks. So hot chocolate and milkshakes are fine, while cold coffee is not. The guests note that households vary: one friend was never allowed hot chocolate, and another guest says only their dad could drink Coke. A guest adds that hot chocolate contains theobromine, a drug similar to caffeine.
Why are so many science fiction and fantasy writers Mormon?
A guest notes that a shocking number of fantasy and science fiction authors are Mormon, including Orson Scott Card, who wrote Ender’s Game. They suggest LDS families strongly encourage the arts, such as music, dance, writing and visual art, as long as the work is not subversive. Because missionary work is central to LDS life, putting wholesome, edifying literature into the world counts as part of that mission, even when it has nothing to do with Mormonism. The guest also sees parallels with Catholic ritual and Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Why do people believe persuasive videos and charming speakers?
The hosts discuss a chat regular, Marlon, who was raised to believe certain things and so accepts videos that reinforce them as truthful without good reason. One host admits to checking whether the videos that wowed them have any basis in fact, and says even the smartest people can be taken in by someone persuasive and charming. The hosts agree belief is emotional as well as logical, so people trust those who resonate with them, which is why cults of personality often appear in politics.
Transcript highlights
Selected passages from the live stream, lightly edited for readability. Click a section time to jump to that part of the video.
Relics, Holy Foreskins and Stream Small Talk
The host opened the first DAM Random Chat and Chill on YouTube, with Kelly filling in as co-host because Bob was too exhausted from his wife being sick to join. Viewers were invited to call in, and the conversation turned to a mummified hand relic that Kelly had shared an article about but had not yet read.
The host said that he knew a lot about the holy foreskin, which he had discussed on a weekend show the previous week. He claimed that there were thousands of holy foreskins at one time in medieval Europe, and that literally every town had one. He also said that on January 1st, the Catholic Church would bring out its holy foreskin and put it on public display so everybody could see it, because January 1st was the Feast of the Holy Foreskin.
He added that a holy foreskin supposedly kept in the Vatican was believed to be the real one, and that it was lost when the Holy Roman Empire sacked Rome. He said it was supposedly left in a small church in Italy until the first part of the twentieth century, when it was stolen from the church.
Guest lineup and testing multi-caller chat
[Commercial break]
Listen, guys, we are not restricted to one caller at a time. Not on Wednesdays, not on Chat and Chill nights. We are testing the system a little bit, and I want to get so many callers up here that we find out exactly how many we can have before we overwhelm the system. So people, please call up Jada, call up Bob, call up that local guy, call up that Fisher of Men. If you are up to being a very chill guy while we check, come up. I want to get to know you guys better. That is the whole point of Wednesday.
Also, the weekend after next, I’m going to have guests on the weekends. I don’t have exact dates yet, but I have commitments from Scott Dickey. I’ve also talked to Steve Gacatus, who is a humanist author and a really awesome guy. And Greg James has said he’d be my guest. He’s the executive producer at the ACA. He doesn’t go on camera much, so that will be a rare treat.
Jada has been a little worried about her chats not being seen. I’ve been there every single day this week, and I told you that on Saturdays and Sundays I can host or co-host, and I’ve mentioned it in chat a few times. Chris has just been saying he hasn’t seen me for a couple of days. Maybe you need to uninstall and reinstall your YouTube. I think it’s your YouTube, because I have not been seeing you lately in the chat.
She did announce that her father passed a couple of days ago, so our hearts are with her. She is going to need a few weeks, so in the meantime I’m doing a little interim show with Jada. I think a three person show would not be a bad thing, but let’s talk about that off screen. I’m just saying, get hold of me.
Right now the stream is still being tested with several guests at once, and Jack has had to step away because his battery was dangerously low. Espresso, Jack and Flock Meister are being brought back on, and everybody is trying to talk one at a time while Chris works on the setup.
County nonprofit spending scandal and nonprofit loopholes
The speaker had just returned from a county commission meeting and said it had gone better than expected. The state had learned that one of the community nights the county planned to fund, at about $26,000, would mostly benefit a nonprofit run by one of the county commissioners. There is now an investigation, and when the commission voted on giving the money to the community night, nobody touched it, because it was poisoned.
Another speaker pointed out that nonprofits don’t have rules limiting how much the people running them can get paid, and that those salaries don’t count as profits. They also noted that the commissioner’s daughter was the head organizer of that same nonprofit. A friend who had been putting together a nonprofit several years ago had told them things that made them rethink assuming that a nonprofit is automatically fine to give money to.
Someone else said they had run a nonprofit for a while, and that people can’t simply assume a nonprofit is good. The lesson, as they put it, is that you have to research an organization beyond knowing that it is a nonprofit, or even a not for profit. There are so many loopholes.
[Commercial break]
Shakespeare’s Edmund, Chat Rules and Debate Policy
Bill, are you quoting the Bible, trying to quote the Bible? Indeed, I am. Despite my appearance, I am a man of culture and know many things, not just Shakespeare. Really? So you have a Shakespeare monologue related to atheism or skepticism? Indeed, I do. Bear witness. Oh, this is going to be good.
“This is the excellent foppery of the world, that when we are sick in fortune, often the product of our own behavior, we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars, as if we were villains on necessity, fools by heavenly compulsion, knaves, thieves, and treacherous by spherical predominance, drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforced obedience of planetary influence, and all that we are evil in by a divine thrusting on. An admirable evasion of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish disposition to the charge of a star. My father compounded with my mother under the Dragon’s Tail, and my nativity was under Ursa Major, so that it follows I am rough and lecherous. I should have been that I am had the maidenly star and a firmament twinkled on my bastardizing.”
Wow, that really is spot on about what we cover here on the channel, about how people blame the stars for what they did themselves. So, here’s a quick rundown of the situation. Bill, this non-believer ignores the teachings of his learned father and ends up getting four people killed. Bill, that’s not… Okay, carry on. Shakespeare was a heathenistic non-believer bound for the fiery pits of hell, just like yourselves.
In order to throw the murderous church of the time off his heathen trail, he writes the skeptic as a sneaking, lying, adulterous father and brother, a hating and betraying villain, who ends up getting his comeuppance for his sins. That is the reading I’m giving you tonight, and it is the one I’ve been building up to.
On Wednesday nights, the chat is for hanging out. We do not debate on Wednesday nights. Wednesday nights are just to hang out and have fun. If you want to debate, there are places to debate. But our Wednesday night chat and chill, our damn random, is sacred to being kind and having fun and getting to know each other on a friendly level. There’s no brainwashing involved.
Anyone is allowed up if they are willing to follow the rules of being nice. That’s all you have to do is just be nice and follow the YouTube terms of service. That’s all. And I will be nice too, but I do match energy. So if you start seeing not nice, I will be not nice, and then kick you.
There’s a link to call in on the show description. I will actually post it in the chat for you. It’s also up at the top, where it says call in now, at thedamnshow.com/call. Tomorrow morning, you may call Aaron and Beard of Empathy. Beard of Empathy is going
Past lives, Mensa and holy foreskins
At least one or two of them were absolutely lying. But I’ve met a couple of people who have shown me, proven it to me, that they were. That is another lifetime type of dream for me. I know I’m not going to reach it in this one, but I’m going to shoot for the stars. So maybe next lifetime, once I’ve had practice in this one, I can reach it.
Our friend Jada is not an atheist, folks. She asked who said, oh, just to mention, because you mentioned past and previous lives. And while that doesn’t directly announce that you’re not an atheist, I wanted to say Jada is not quite an atheist. We have a whole different perspective from Miss Jada. I’m here to be the middle ground.
I’ve got to admit, I was really disappointed when I finally realized I didn’t qualify for Mensa. I need a study guide, and then maybe once I can regurgitate things, I could fake being intelligent. We were just talking about this. If you can fake it, that means you can do it. I don’t know about that point. It just feels like faking because your brain is messed up like ours is. I love my messed up brain when it messes up things, because then I could struggle a little bit more, and struggle breeds character.
It is a bunch of puzzle tests, and I’m really good at puzzles, and I still didn’t manage it. I’m a problem solver, except when it comes to my own problems. I can tell you, hey, I think you should do this, and that’s good advice. But as soon as I’m in the same situation, I’m like, what do I do? I can’t do anything. I need someone’s help.
The church really tried to move away from the whole holy foreskin thing. The Catholic church did, and they slowly started. I mentioned it was like thousands of them in medieval Europe. They slowly started disappearing all over the place until there were only three left, and all three of them were supposedly the real one. And surprisingly, all three of those were stolen.
In the 14th century, Catherine of Siena mentioned the foreskin as a wedding ring motif in one of her letters. It was about Jesus’s foreskin. She wore it as a ring. Isn’t that crazy? At one time in medieval Europe, almost every town had a holy foreskin. January 1st was actually the Feast of the Holy Foreskin in the Catholic Church. It was a real feast day. The local church would bring out their foreskin, put it on display, have a big party, and then put it away again for another year.
If you think about it, Jesus did heal. So he could have just cut one off and grew a new one, and cut one off. Exactly. That’s why they could all be real. I figure some people must have used them as calamari, because eating the flesh of Jesus was what they did every Sunday. And they drink wine and they call it the blood of Jesus. Would
Audio Problems and Multi-Guest Testing
This stretch was mostly technical trouble as the host tested the stream’s dashboard with several guests at once. Aaron, Jada, and Michael Fisher had trouble being heard, and the host had them refresh their browsers and rejoin, with Michael’s audio never fully working. The host ended Michael’s session for the night, invited him to return tomorrow morning at 9 AM Eastern when the show will take calls with Beard of Empathy, and planned to retry the multi-guest format next time. The rest was light banter about heights and redheads.
Counting on Fingers and Using Tools
Did you guys see me using my fingers? I don’t care. Manipulables are totally okay to use for math, especially when it’s late, and I think that’s why I can count up to 14 on all my fingers and toes. But seriously, using your fingers to count really isn’t anything to be ashamed of, and teachers shouldn’t try to stop kids from doing it.
Math isn’t my strong suit. What about it? What are you going to do about it? If I use my fingers, I can usually bring simple math right to my head, but every so often, why shouldn’t I use the tools that are literally right at my fingertips? There’s also that nine multiplication trick, where you can multiply any digit by nine by putting down the finger that matches that digit. Yeah, that is so easy.
Of course I’m going to use the nine trick. Nine is a weird, awkward number, and as a disabled person, I’m not going to learn those multiplications without my fingers. I’ve learned that I have to be okay with using the tools at my disposal. I cannot be ashamed of using every tool I have, or I’m not going to make it, and not everyone can do the math in their head anyway.
Deathbed conversion Bibles and atheist show talk
Chris Mallard and the chat start with a joke about the vote, then the commercial break leads to a run of parody ads, which are cut short here. [Commercial break]
Chris asks the chat about a bit he wants to do: a deathbed conversion Bible for atheists. He says he might make his own fan art out of a sketchbook, and that it would be an excuse to buy more crafting supplies. Jada says that it would be an awful lot of fun, and that she has a husband and so has to justify her spending to him.
The conversation then turns to marriage and money. One speaker says that he and his wife keep separate accounts, and that she does not have to tell him what she spends her money on. Another says that he is glad to hear how much the speaker loves his wife, and that it makes his heart happy.
Chris reads the parody ad for the deathbed conversion Bible, in which a Father Flanagan line of products promises that loved ones will not “meet their resolution without absolution,” with extra large type for failing eyes and a post-mortem baptismal kit that Mother Teresa would have approved. He then talks about his week, including a county commission meeting and a political group he is part of, and says that the worst part of being single is having nobody to share the chores with.
A speaker describes discovering the Anthony Magnabosco videos on street epistemology, in which Magnabosco talked with two college kids from a Christian youth group. One of them, Dan, later called him back for a second conversation that was filmed, and he watched Dan’s deconversion unfold across the two videos. Dan then appeared on The Atheist Experience, and later started hosting Truth Wanted. The speaker says he posted a lot of backup content for Truth Wanted, and that after Dan’s accident he was asked to take Dan’s place, and more recently to take over as producer.
Chris responds that he knows how the speaker feels, since he had been asked to appear on Truth Wanted himself. He then points out that he had more live viewers on the Sunday morning episode of The DAM Show than the speaker usually gets on Truth Wanted, although the speaker usually gets more viewers over the course of the week.
Gullibility, YouTube Videos and a Keyboard Debate
Someone in the chat mentioned that Chris was ecstatic about the number of people watching, and the hosts joked about hyping him up. One host said he has never had a chance to talk to Chris personally but considers him clever and enjoys his short form content. The conversation then turned to Marlon, who was described as very gullible. The host explained that Marlon was brought up to believe certain things, so when he sees videos that reinforce those ideas, he accepts them as truthful even though there is no good reason to trust them.
One host admitted that they watch some of these videos and then go look up whether anything they were wowed by is based in fact, even a little bit. They said they realized they can be taken in by these videos very easily and felt bad when someone else has to disprove something they believed. Another point raised was that even the smartest people can be taken in by someone who is persuasive and charming. The hosts agreed that belief is not just logical but emotional, so people are more likely to believe someone who emotionally resonates with them, which is why cults of personality often appear in politics.
One host said they would probably steal that idea and would credit the friend who first put it that way. The conversation then shifted when a viewer sent a Super Chat of five dollars, with a line stating that no one is immune to propaganda or the allure of a winning, smiled and honeyed word. The hosts celebrated the donation and the chat.
Marlon then joined the call, and the hosts asked him to lighten his typing because his keyboard was very loud and sounded like a rabbit chewing. Viewers offered suggestions, including a joking GoFundMe for a quieter keyboard, and one host described a budget keyboard that died within three months. Someone else described their own gaming keyboard and mentioned a brand called Royal Kludge. The group ended by joking that Marlon could start an ASMR channel where he types for viewers.
Bible fanfiction, Mormon culture, and hot chocolate
Look at how good the Book of Mormon did. I mean, I’ve related certain stories of the ultimate Bible fanfic, the Book of Mormon. It’s not an authorized sequel. It is. That is exactly what it is. Oh my God, I’m so funny. If anybody doesn’t realize why that’s so funny for me, it’s because I was raised LDS, the mainstream Mormon, not the prairie Mormon, the regular Mormon. There is a whole bunch of Christian fan fiction besides the Book of Mormon, too.
There is a child gospel. You know about the child gospels of Jesus. The child Jesus, who is like eight or 10 years old, kills another child just so he can raise him from the dead. It’s an old one. It dates back to like 200 or 300 A.D. It was one of the gospels that came up at the Council of Nicaea that they tossed out, decided that it wasn’t real. So it didn’t make it into the Bible, but it’s out there. Those stories were discovered in Egypt, you know.
Have you heard of the Gospel of Judas? It’s a text that has conversations between Jesus and Judas that are not in the regular Bible. And the Gospel of Thomas is mostly just a bunch of sayings. It’s like Jesus said this, you know, so it’s mostly just quotes from Jesus. It’s got a lot of missing pieces, but there’s a whole page pretty much that has been recovered. You can make a story out of that, right? Just fill in the blanks. And filling in the blanks is what Christianity and all other God beliefs do best.
Orson Scott Card is a science fiction writer. He wrote Ender’s Game, and he’s Mormon. There are a shocking number of fantasy and science fiction writers who are Mormon. Look it up, you will be surprised. If you’re into science fiction and fantasy at all, look at some of your favorite authors. Why do you suppose that is? I’ve been aware of it for a long time, but it’s only recently that I’ve been starting to think about why it is. One thing is that LDS families tend to be very into the arts in general. Children in LDS families are very, very encouraged to pursue artistic interests, playing instruments, dancing, writing, creating art, as long as it’s not in any way subversive. They definitely see it as a way to be a missionary. One of the major things about LDS is being a missionary, getting out there and converting other people. Putting wholesome, edifying literature out there, even if it has nothing to do with Mormonism whatsoever, is part of that mission.
What I’ve been noticing recently is the parallels between Mormonism and Catholicism, and there are more than you would think. They are similarly interested in ritual, just really, really obsessed with ritual. The one Mormonism is always compared to, because we have a lot in common, is Jehovah’s Witnesses, and the parallels there are obvious. Are Mormons still not allowed to drink coffee? No, they’re not supposed to drink coffee or alcohol or smoke tobacco. What about chocolate? Chocolate is okay. Hot chocolate in particular is absolutely… is not okay. No, no, hot chocolate is super okay. Even though the original text of the Word of Wisdom, which is where all these rules come from, says no hot drinks, that was later clarified to mean caffeinated drinks. Chocolate did not make the list because its caffeine was too small. Sodas don’t make the list because they’re not hot. Cold coffee does make the list, even though it’s cold, and hot chocolate doesn’t make the list, even though it’s hot, because it’s hot chocolate. What about milkshakes? Milkshakes are totally okay.
My best friend in real life was raised Mormon, and in his house he was not allowed to have hot chocolate. Some Mormon households are more strict than others. In my household, nobody except my dad was allowed to have Coke, because it was against the Word of Wisdom. Now, my dad was allowed, for reasons. So I was told. I got a reason why I’m allowed to do everything I do. That’s what I was told when I was a kid. That’s convenient. We didn’t drink caffeine because caffeine was bad, but hot chocolate didn’t have enough caffeine to matter. Coke was okay for Dad, and he drank Diet Coke, too. Hot chocolate has theobromine, which is another xanthine drug, just like caffeine. Wait, I thought it was theobromide. Oh, it could be. Now that you mentioned it, I think you’re right. Theobromine is in hot chocolate, because that’s what dogs can’t have. So you’re right, my bad. He’s right, I’m wrong. See, you are the smartest guy in the room.
Did you know about the magic underwear? They can survive house fires and bullets. Okay, okay, okay, okay. That’s not true.
Mormon Martyrdom Jokes and Guest Plugs
Joseph Smith’s underwear did not save him from the bullets, and the hosts joked that divine wisdom might have told him to wear special garments that day. The conversation then turned to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the idea that Smith’s martyrdom helped propel the Saints across the plains to the Great Salt Lake Valley. Marlon, a regular commenter, had just joined the stream, and the hosts agreed he was respectful and not confrontational. They hoped to bring him around to secular humanism one day, since they saw him as a nice guy who wanted to do good things. Secular humanism, one host noted, is not required by atheism but is a really nice complement to it.
The hosts then asked about Steve Kakedis, a secular humanist author from Canada who wrote Humanism from the Heart. One host had appeared with him on Truth Wanted and said he was really cool, and he had agreed to come on the weekend show. A link to his Truth Wanted appearance was posted in the chat.
Jada announced that she would be co-hosting a temporary call-in show focused mostly on women’s issues, with chemical squirrel joining sometimes. The conversation drifted into personal life, with the hosts comparing their situations regarding children and spouses. One host offered a simple lesson on the subject: everyone has their own path, and nobody should feel behind or ahead. Even without kids, a person still has their own life to spend wisely, since you only get one.
Before signing off, Jada thanked a viewer for a Super Chat on the stream’s first night and asked viewers to follow her on TikTok and YouTube. She hopes to grow her audience so she can host more debates. Espresso Jack said he might appear on the Daily Atheist Media Network, and he urged viewers to check out Gretchen and the whole Async network. Kelly then introduced herself as the producer and host of Truth Wanted, where she first met Chris, and as the new host of the weekend Damn Show on Saturdays and Sundays.
Viewer Histories, Richard Julliver, and Early Show Days
I was there before that. I’m actually a subscriber, and I think it’s now 23 months. I have about two more months until my two-year anniversary. Before I subscribed, I was watching the show for several months, because I’m very reluctant to pay anybody money for anything. I’m super broke. I remember seeing you in the chat, and I had also seen you in the chat over on the ACA shows, so when I saw you here I thought, oh, Kelly is here too.
Yeah, I’m just some guy. I don’t know why you’d get excited that I was in the chat. Kelly, you’re not just some guy. You’re the guy. Cool, I’m the king. I did tell you that you’re Ken Kelly.
Cafe wrote that he’s been meeting, and he hasn’t seen Richard Julliver on in a while. He’s been working on his doctorate, and he’s been really, really caught up in it. That’s why we haven’t seen a lot of Julliver lately. I like Julliver a lot. He and I both started podcasting around the same time, and he was a big supporter of me in the early days. Julliver is awesome.
Oh, yeah. I’ve enjoyed his work. I first found the line, and then through the line I found the Atheist Experience. After that I kind of left the line for a while and hung out in the Atheist Experience for a lot of months. It was like a friend to your chat, frankly.
We used to do a show at the ACA called Nonprofits. It was a weekly prerecorded show, and it was like a news show. We talked about news articles or stories from the week, which is something we should be doing here on the network, honestly. Especially with Chris’s websites, which have those types of things. Yeah, exactly. That’s where Julliver and I co-hosted that show together for a long time. That was before my time, though. I’m really not sure. That was like six years ago. I’ve really only been on the atheist scene for about three years, so it’s kind of amazing that I’m right here next to Kelly now.
Yes, it was the flagship show of the ACA. It’s so funny that she’s put that up there. This community really is amazing, and the things it can do are amazing too. It can give lots of people opportunities.
[Commercial break]
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