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  • Everybody seems to think that Obama is in his heart an atheist and in his heart a skeptic.

  • The church he belonged to in Chicago is a whack-job church. It's about equal to Palin's

  • church. Granted, he hasn't been as religious as... do we know off the top of our heads

  • the most religious president in history in terms of references... referencing to god...

  • references to god and in terms of appearing in churches? Who the most religious president

  • in history was? It's an interesting answer and I got this information from NPR, so it's

  • probably not slanted in the way you think. The most religious president in history in

  • terms of appearances in churches and mentions of the bible was Clinton.

  • Bill Clinton is the most religious president we've had. He beats George Bush hands down

  • and he beats Carter, who we know was a born-again Christian. He beats him hands down. So Obama

  • does that too. I mean at the 9/11 thing, maybe appropriately he read from the Bible. But

  • you have two choices with Obama. You either believe that he is a man of Christ who prays

  • for decisions in the White House, which he said he was or you think he's a liar. And

  • I'm surprised by the number of atheist free thinkers that support Obama and their argument

  • is essentially, he's lying about being religious 'cause you have to do that to be elected.

  • I'm not happy with either one of those. I mean, Obama is wicked smart, he's a wicked

  • good talker, there is no doubt in my mind that his heart is in the right place, unfortunately

  • I think that about almost every president we've had, but I think he wants to do good.

  • I don't think there's any malicious quality to him at all. But I think in some sense,

  • he's a believer or he's a liar. So one to 10? I rate him pretty high on the skepticism,

  • maybe a six or a seven, but I rate him that way because somewhere in my heart I think

  • he might be lying about being religious and that's horrible. It's a horrible reason to

  • like somebody. I like him because he might be a liar. Horrible.

  • Question: Michele Bachmann.

  • Penn Jillette: Michele Bachman's blasphemy is greater than anything I've ever accomplished.

  • I have tried with friends to say the most blasphemous sentence I can possibly say and

  • it does not come close to the blasphemy of Michelle Bachman saying that earthquakes and

  • hurricanes were the way God was trying to get the attention of politicians. I cannot

  • imagine a serious religious person reading that quote or hearing that quote and saying,

  • "Yeah, right on." It is solipsistic, it is opportunistic, it is cynical. It is deep and

  • it is wrong and it is an insult to religious people everywhere.

  • For an atheist, it's a burlesque; it's a little bit of a joke you can dismiss her. But I can't

  • see it as an atheist. I see it through my father's eyes, you know, my father was a Christian

  • his whole life. And if he had heard Michelle Bachman say that, he would have looked away

  • from the TV. The idea that you would lightly state that people were suffering and dying

  • in order to, to prove that God was on the side of one politician is sickening. The only

  • reason that Bachman and Rick Perry are able to say this stuff is because of a magic word.

  • And this magic word is, "Christian." And if you look back in history, the word "Christian"

  • doesn't really appear in the way we use it today until the anti-abortion debate in the

  • '60's. When you had 1890, end of the 19th century, you're top three highest paid speakers;

  • the highest paid speakers were atheists speaking about atheism. It was Ingersoll, Robert Ingersoll,

  • number one, Mark Twain, number two, Huxley, number three. Ingersoll was the, the great

  • infidel, the great skeptic, the atheist, Mark Twain of course. And these were people speaking

  • on... he was not reading from Huck Finn, he was reading from Letters from Earth, he was

  • reading atheist stuff. And Huxley, of course, Darwin's pit bull, I guess bull dog at that

  • time, I think he was a pit bull.

  • There was a real sense of atheism being an important point. They were invited to the

  • White House. And the reason was that Catholics were terrified of Baptists who were terrified

  • of Pentecostals who were terrified of Lutherans who were terrified of Evangelicals, the whole

  • list. There wasn't a feeling of Christian. The founding fathers were very afraid of Baptists

  • taking over from the Pentecostals. Everybody was afraid of the Catholics. So you had this

  • divided thing.

  • If we still had that, if we still were dividing people by sects like we should be... sects

  • like we should be, one of the largest groups in this country would be atheists. By the

  • USA Today poll, I think it was 22 percent, 20 percent. Even the lowest polls put it as

  • eight. Okay? The next highest would be Catholics. And they'd be knocking around 20, you know.

  • Then you've got all your divided up categories. And then abortion happens, legalized abortion,

  • and some very smart people, very forward thinking people decided we can never fight abortion

  • if it's the Catholics fighting the Protestants who are fighting the Baptists, fighting the

  • Pentecostals, fight the... we have to get them under one tent. And there's a great book

  • on this called The History of Free Thought, these are not my ideas. This is my understanding

  • of the ideas in that book.

  • They pulled this tent together and they kind of create the word, "Christian." And then

  • Carter with born-again Christian really helps with the word, "Christian." So what they've

  • really done is they've taken very different philosophies, I mean Catholicism and Protestantism

  • are very different philosophies, very different. You know, and they've pulled it together to

  • make this term, "Christian." Which are people that don't agree at all and they say I'm doing

  • a Christian message.

  • So Michelle Bachman and Rick Perry just 40 years ago, really recently, would have been

  • terrified to speak about their God and their church because the second they said they were

  • Baptist, the second they said they were Pentecostal, the second they said they were Lutheran, all

  • the other people fall away. But now they've got this magic word, "Christian." And I am

  • helping make it worse. Because by using the word, "Atheist," I am separating that even

  • more from "Christian," I'm doing a broadening umbrella and I'm making theist, atheist. And

  • if you do theist, atheist, the theist's win completely.

  • You know, what I should be doing, if I were a political thinker, if I were someone who

  • was interested in movements, which I'm not, I'm against them. If I wasn't for individual

  • thinking, I would be one of those people who was saying, using a term like "free thinker,"

  • or "open-minded." And I would be gathering this umbrella that included people who self-identifies

  • agnostic, atheist, against organized religion. I would get the Wiccans in there. I would

  • get as many people as possible and I could probably pump that up to 25 percent. And then

  • I would be also saying, "Well, you know, the Muslims are very different from the Jews,

  • who are very different from the Catholics, who are very different from all of that."

  • But what's gonna happen, and because I'm not interested in tactical play, but rather than

  • telling the truth. We are going to get theist to atheist. But you can't imagine, we can't

  • imagine in 1965, a Baptist talking... Baptist politician talking about religion and where

  • they go to church if they have to use the word, "Baptist." It's using the word "Christian"

  • that allows this craziness to happen. Also because I am an optimist, to the point of

  • being incorrect, to the point of not being realistic, that's what flushes over me, that's

  • what I feel in my heart is optimism. I tend to go with something Christopher Hitchens

  • said, and I don't remember where he said it, it could have even been in personal conversation,

  • I don't know. But Hitchens said that what we're seeing with this incredible crazy religious

  • stuff is the death throws. I mean, since 9/11, free thinking atheism is growing so quickly

  • because of the internet and people who are seeing it first with those who are called,

  • and I realize this is a racist term, but it's the easiest one to use, so please forgive

  • me, Gypsies. We're seeing it with the Amish; we're seeing it with the Hasidics. All the

  • groups that try to stay as a subset of America and keep their own traditions are going away.

  • And Elvis chipped away at them and malls chipped away at them, but the internet is going to

  • take them down.

  • It is just too hard to keep your children cloistered. They're going to hear Katy Perry.

  • There's just no way to stop it. They're gonna see video like this, you know. Once you've

  • gotten on the internet to see Katie Perry, it's not hard to fall over to the Big Think.

  • It's the same keyboard, it's the same screen. It's the same everything. And those... that

  • information gets out there. And I think that everybody knows that and everybody feels that,

  • so then those who are religious, you're seeing a desperate, terrified, clawing. And that's

  • the only way you can explain Michelle Bachman and Rick Perry is the combination of desperation

  • coupled with the magic protective word of "Christian."

  • And I think... I think that's what we're seeing. And whether they can pull together, you know,

  • the problem is a movement of individuals is not going to have the muscle of a cohesive

  • movement of people who believe they're right. And I'm not willing to lie to fight them.

  • I want individuals who disagree on everything. And I want us to learn to band together for

  • freedom. Band together in order to be different. And that's a much harder thing to sell, but

  • it's all that matters, so we have to do it.

  • You know, I... I stick up for Mormons. I mean, Mitt Romney is wearing crazy underwear. He's

  • wearing magic underwear. He is. I mean, under his pants, he is wearing magic underwear.

  • Magic underwear. And he believes that a convicted con man got golden tablets that no one else

  • could see, and sat with an angel to find out that the original Jews of the Bible were living

  • in North America. Crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy. But... just more modern, not more crazy, than

  • other religions. Not more crazy than Islam, you know, with your... not more crazy than

  • virgin births and resurrections. Not more crazy than any of that stuff. What's really

  • fascinating to me, fascinating, is that... and I cover this in my book when I say signs

  • you may already be an atheist, it fascinates me that you can have the Bible Belt and you

  • can have a court trial, and we've seen this. I'm going to use it hypothetically, but you'll

  • know the specifics I'm talking about, I just don't want to talk about that kind of pain

  • too directly, it's too unpleasant for me. But hypothetically, in the Bible Belt, where

  • you can have a born-again Christian Judge, born-again Christian Judge. I believe the

  • Bible is the literal word of God, there were talking snakes, there were talking snakes

  • and virgin births. Burning bushes and Abraham being willing to kill his son for God. He

  • believes that.

  • The jury is made up of 12 people who, let's say 10 of them believe that. And two of them

  • believe that, but a little less. You're Prosecuting Attorney believes that. The people that are

  • sitting in the courtroom believe that. These are all people that know each other in church.

  • And the person on the witness stand says that she killed her three children in cold blood

  • because God told her to. And every single person in the courtroom decides whether she

  • is guilty or not guilty by reason of insanity. Those are the two choices they weigh. And

  • nobody, not the Defense Attorney, not the Judge, not the jury people, not the people

  • in the gallery, not one person stands up and goes, maybe God told her to. It's less weird

  • than the talking snake. Maybe God told her to.

  • And in this country, which they say over and over again is founded on Christian values,

  • and I'll give them that; founded on Christian values. Okay, it is, fine. This country, founded

  • on Christian values has guilty, not guilty, not guilty by reason of insanity, end of list.

  • There is nothing that says, not guilty because God told me to. And why? Why isn't that there?

  • Why isn't this country allowing in the court system someone to go on the witness stand

  • and go, "Snake walked up to me, snaked opened his mouth, snake said, 'go into McDonald's,

  • pull out an AK15, kill 10 people, walk back out,' snake told me that. It's that snake

  • there, he's not talking anymore. I throw myself on the mercy of the court. Aren't you all

  • good Christians? Don't you believe in the miracles of the Bible? You're seeing one now."

  • And that's the part that amazes me is that kind of stuff. So Mitt Romney comes along

  • and at some level doesn't he know what he believes is crazy? At some level, isn't he

  • going, "There weren't Jews in North America." You know, that's not where the Garden of Eden

  • was. Doesn't that go through his mind? And that's the part of that whole thing that kills

  • me. If Mitt Romney really believes what he says he believes, he is bug-nutty, bat shit

  • crazy. And he's not, bug-nutty, bat shit crazy. He's the same as Obama. If Obama believes

  • what he was being taught in that church in Chicago, okay, he is bat shit crazy. And Obama

  • is demonstratively not bat shit crazy.