I'm Probably Going to Hell For This! By Little Scotty

 The Absurd Laws of Ancient Texts

 
Welcome to the podcast that dares to ask: "Who wrote these rules, and were they having a laugh?" Join us as we dive headfirst into the most bizarre, outdated, and downright ridiculous laws from religious texts that somehow made it into the "divine guidebook."
 
Ever wondered why mixing fabrics is apparently a cosmic crime? Curious about the death penalty for wearing polyester-cotton blends? We've got you covered! From the Old Testament's oddly specific rules about haircuts and shellfish to papal decrees that banned everything from chess to showering, we're serving up religious absurdity with a side of serious side-eye.
 
Each episode, we'll explore gems like:
 

• Why God apparently has strong opinions about your shrimp cocktail
• The Vatican's historic ban on forks (yes, forks)
• Biblical fashion police: Why your mixed-fiber jeans are sending you straight to hell
• Pope Gregory IX's crusade against cats (spoiler: it didn't end well)
• The cosmic importance of not boiling a goat in its mother's milk
• Why medieval popes thought bathing was basically devil worship

Whether it's ancient Israelites getting worked up about beard trimming or medieval popes declaring war on musical instruments, we're here to laugh at humanity's most creative attempts to control behavior through divine bureaucracy.
 
Warning: This podcast contains excessive eye-rolling, uncontrollable laughter, and may cause you to question why anyone thought these rules were a good idea. Side effects may include existential crisis and an overwhelming urge to eat bacon cheeseburgers while wearing a polyester shirt.
 

Transcript

Speaker 00: 0:00

Hi everybody, my name is Little Scotty and I'll be starting this new podcast called I'm Probably Going to Hell for This and I Probably Am. These are my opinions on religion, God, Jesus, anything revolving around a deity of some sort that helps our daily lives run smoother. I don't believe in massive punishment for things that are, you know, as simple as I'm looking at some girl's ass on the way out of a building and now I'm, you know, in big trouble for looking at a woman when I have a wife. I don't buy that. That's not right. So, anyways, I decided to basically just wing this. I had a script, but I can't read... to you guys and make it work. It's just too hard for me. So let me tell you a little bit about myself. I'm 63 years old. I was born and raised Catholic and had very Catholic parents who demanded that we go to Sunday school up until eighth grade. That's when Sunday school stopped for us. So Sunday school was an interesting experience. The nuns came in at about third grade. Up until that point, we had some nice teachers who liked to sing songs and tell stories and everything like that. And they were considered stories. They weren't considered the word of God or something that had definitely happened in the Bible. They were just stories to try to make us better people as we grew up. And I appreciated that. When we got to third grade... Obviously things started to change. We got the penguins in, or I shouldn't say penguins, that's disrespectful. But I don't care because they were pretty disrespectful to me. And what I'm talking about is nuns. They were rough, and I'm talking about very rough. I got my hand whacked with a yardstick several times just for answering things the wrong way, or some way that they didn't think was proper. I believed in speaking my mind. I didn't believe in making up something just to please them. I was one of those guys who said what was on his mind, and sometimes it got me in trouble. We had a guy teacher for eighth grade because he thought he could control everybody because he was a guy. He went to whack me with a yardstick for a smart-ass remark, and I caught the yardstick and snapped it in half over my knee and threw it on the ground, which got me a visit from the father and the priest and just about everybody else in the general vicinity of the, you know, church. And they weren't happy with me, so they made me stay out of CCD for two weeks, and I had to make up all the work, but... At the time, I was not going to take any more shit. At the end of 8th grade, my father still insisted that we go to church, even though CCD was done. I didn't mind going to church, but I found it extremely boring, and depending upon who was doing the Mass, it just sometimes was... terrible was hard to listen to the opinions the priest was given you know we're from the Old Testament and he's telling a story that I obviously can't believe because it's physically and whatever you want to call it it's the nature of it is impossible so I went I did what my father said because he was six foot five and 260 pounds now When someone like that is your father and he says you need to go to church, then you need to go to church. So we all went. When I got my own car, we used to just run in and grab the missile, I think it was called, and run out. And that worked for about five or six weeks until one of the priests told on us. And from that point on, he made sure that we stayed for the whole Mass. But I stopped at 18, did not want to go anymore, and finally told my father that I'm not going, and if you don't like it, I'm sorry, but it's just not for me. Now, that didn't stop my wife and I from getting married in a Catholic church. Even though we hadn't been to church in a long time, Both of us were raised Catholic. I had a favorite priest who used to get up there and tell some jokes and make people laugh a little bit and do a good... They used to call them homilies, I think, and do it well and made people interested in what was going on and what he was talking about. He never... pushed things like Noah's Ark or stuff like that on us. It was more about the day-to-day workings of your life and how you can improve it. It was just good stuff. So we decided that we wanted him to do our wedding, and he did a great job. He was fantastic. He preached about how great it was to see two people who were in love and young and... were willing to get married in a church and all that other good stuff. I could have gotten married outside in the backyard. I didn't really care, but both of our parents were insistent on getting married in the church, so we did, just to make them happy. Anyhow, what goes on from there? Well, let's look. After being raised Catholic, my wife and I Stopped going to church right after our wedding. Now, does that make us bad people? No. That makes us people who were very bored with Mass. So we just stopped going, and it was just the way it is, you know. Now, I guess getting down to the main reason why I'm doing this podcast is I tried to prepare for it. I tried to... Listen to the Old Testament. I am not a person who sits down and reads a book. I listen to books, and I've listened to well over a thousand books. So I'm pretty good at it by now. And the thing that always is amazing to me is that some people can just put a book together and just keep you riveted to it. Now, I decided for this podcast that I was going to read or listen to the Old Testament. I got about a quarter of the way through it and face-planted into my spaghetti at the dinner table. It is one of the most dry, boring books you could possibly read. There's no other way to say it. I probably am going to be hit by lightning. I'm looking forward to maybe going outside when there's a thunderstorm out and see if I get hit. It's just... kind of a test you know run i already have gray hair so it's not going to change my hair at all but it's just a boring book it's hard to read there's so many things in it that just don't make any sense and i've been covering you know that in my mind for the last couple weeks trying to listen to a little bit more and a little bit more, and it's just impossible. It's so hard to understand, and it's so hard to keep your mind focused on this book that was written 5,000 years ago, maybe 6,000 years ago. They're not sure. The Old Testament and the people who believe in everything that was written in the Old Testament... say that the earth is between six thousand and ten thousand years old and they can back that up with some uh... like family tree stuff that's in the bible but the truth is we all know that if you hold a fossil up you know that the basically the earth is much older than ten thousand years uh... we all know that it's so many more you know the first human appeared 250,000 years ago is what I think I remember from something on the... I don't know. What's one of those good channels you watch when you want to fall asleep? The History Channel. Yeah. So let's say that one was on there. I, myself, you know, feel like this is just ignorance and it's just not believing science in any way. You know, I mean... I know you think that the Bible is this do-all-say-all perfect thing that has been written, but when something is proven to be wrong, you should accept it and just move on. I mean, this is the way it is. We know that the earth is much older than 10,000 years. If I remember right, it's 3.4 million years old or something like that. I could be wrong. In fact, I'm sure I'm wrong. But if you look at it from a point of view of science, this isn't even a thought process anymore. The Earth is a certain amount, you know, and that's the way it is. But the people who read the Old Testament, they still believe that the Earth is basically... 6,000 years old at the most, and I find this hard to believe. The New Testament is much easier to understand, but it's still 2,000 years old, and I think it wouldn't hurt to kind of rewrite some of the New Testament stuff. I find it hard to believe some of the things that are written in there, and I also look at how many times The Bible, both New and Old Testaments, have been rewritten from one language to the other. It was rewritten four times before it got to English. So, if I remember right, it's Aramaic, and then Greek, and then... I want to say Italian, but I could... No, Latin, and then English. Henry VIII. When he wasn't cutting off his wives' heads, he made a rule saying, translate that into English so we can make up for the... I think that's how they started the Protestant religion. So, now that it's in English, we're all supposed to be able to read it and understand everything, and the truth is that it's impossible to understand. So I took a look at some of the things that are in the New Testament and found... Some things that I think I can believe would be possible in Jesus' life. They think that the first gospel from the New Testament was the gospel of Mark, and it's probably dated from around, let's say, A.D. 70. Matthew and Luke were written between A.D. 85 and A.D. 90. And John from 90 to 110 A.D. Obviously, when I said Mark, I meant A.D. too after him. So Mark would be the only one who could possibly be in the mix when Jesus was alive. And that's saying a lot because the average lifespan back then was probably about 50 years old. For this to be the mark as, you know, the disciple mark or the apostle mark and have him writing down everything is probably not what happened. This is probably another mark who was maybe a disciple of the original mark writing this down because that would fit more in the age group and the possibilities of, you know, just the way things were back there, you know, about 98% of the population back then was illiterate. And to find people who could write was very unusual. They were usually people like, you know, from Rome who, you know, had found a way to teach and write and get their people to actually understand the Italian language. And also, you know, Latin became popular in the church for the longest time. In fact, when I was little, the Mass was said in Latin, which was really stupid because no one would understand what the hell they were talking about. But back to the, you know, the Apostle Mark as being, you know, maybe the one who wrote the actual gospel. I believe that it was someone down the line and they were probably the closest thing to the real life of Jesus and the miracles and everything else that goes along with them because there wasn't a lot of people in between the actual event and the writing down of the events. When you get down the line and you're writing something, I don't know if you ever remember playing Chinese telephone when you were a kid, where they would line you up in a big line and there'd be 40 kids or something like that, and they would whisper a sentence in the ear of the first kid, and by the time it got to the 40th kid, it was a completely different sentence. So it's something that probably happens a lot in... the Bible and also some of the other big books that we see you know that revolve around history and what was said and you know when the quotes aren't taken directly from the person there's always the risk of someone making something up or someone not remembering how everything happened so I think with Jesus and his apostles you know they They spread the word pretty good for Jesus' life and his ministry and how things worked. I mean, they went as far as India and then things started to take off. Unfortunately, about all the apostles were crucified except for James, I think. He was exiled to an island and spent the rest of his life there because they wouldn't let him off. So I will, in fact, maybe the second episode of this, I found it very interesting. I looked up how each apostle was crucified, and boy, you may not want to hear this. It was pretty nasty. But look at the big picture here, you know. When things were written down, there was a chance that someone was going to embellish something, just because they felt like, well, this isn't miracle enough. It needs to be more of a miracle. So they added to it. I look at the Lazarus story, and I think, that's pushing it. Four days being dead, and I know what happens to a body after four days of being dead. Now, being that Jesus was the most well-known miracle worker in the world, and still probably is, could he raise somebody from the dead after four days? I think probably he could, but it's a little iffy from a scientific point of view. So really, just looking at this, you know, not only scientifically, but also from a miracle standpoint, this could have been something that was embellished. You know, maybe it was one day in... Then it became two days, and then it became three, and then it became four days. If it had kept going on, it could have been three weeks. It just stopped at four days, thank God. Maybe that's all they needed at that point, and it stayed at four days. It wasn't messed with anymore. But there are other stories that probably were just added to the... text that these monks got that were writing the Bible you know because back then they didn't have printing presses everything was handwritten so you were given you know the Old Testament and it was your job to write down everything in the Old Testament in your book that you were writing so it's supposed to be an exact copy but if you're a monk who thinks that that miracle isn't quite as good as it should be or that Maybe the fear of God should be put into people's minds a little bit more. You may add a story to it, and that story is maybe a little bit hard to believe, but you think it's important to put it in there to put the fear of God into somebody so that they do the right thing and be good people and everything like that. I took a close look at Noah's Ark. The reason I did was because it's one of the stories that I just never could believe. First off, I don't care how bad God thought everybody was on the earth. There had to be some decent people around there that didn't deserve to be drowned, including children and women. And I think that It's probably just a story to show that God has the power to do whatever he wants, including flooding the world. You know, supposedly it rained for 40 days and 40 nights, and then a dove showed up with a plant, and they docked the big boat and let everybody out, and they all went to the places they were supposed to go. Well, first off, the ark itself... was measured in cubits, which always cracked me up because I thought, you know, what the hell is a cubit? But the cubit is actually a measurement from the elbow to the end of the middle finger. It's about 18 inches on average, and that's what they measured things by. The other thing you have to look at is Noah's Ark was about 90 feet longer than a football field and it was, I want to say, 60 feet less in width and it was about four stories high. Now, someone had to put this together and they didn't have sawmills back then. They also didn't have the ability to put together things maybe with, you know, nails and also They had to put pitch on the inside of the boat, which is kind of a tar thing that sealed the boat, made sure water didn't get in. Plus, the size of the boat just doesn't match with the amount of animals that are in our world. And I'm talking about if you just took the big animals. I'm not talking about insects or anything like that. Just the big animals. You know, there's... Elephants, right? We think of elephants. Well, there's Asian elephants and there's African elephants. So there's two different types of elephants, which means you've got to get two different types of elephants, both male and female in both types. So just think about that. Put them, all four of them, in a pen in the ark. How much space is that going to take up? And then, you know, you're going to get tigers. And you can't put the sheep next to the tigers because that's going to be a problem. And all the other animals that come into the ark and end up being just a disaster if things go wrong. Plus, somebody has to clean the ark out. Because there is going to be so much shit all over the place in the bottom of that ark. And it is not going to smell pretty. They also have to put all the food in the ark that's going to feed the animals. So, let's think about that. That would take up about half the ark, probably. It's just, you know, I'm okay with it being a fable. I'm all right with that. I'm all right with it being something to show that God brings down his wrath and kills all the people in the world, and the only one who lives is Noah and his family, and he has three sons. They are all married, and they are in charge of repopulating the earth. Now, this is a lot to take in. three couples that are forced to repopulate the earth is going to take some time, like a lot of time. And it's just so hard to believe. And it was taught to me as being, you know, real. And I think that it is still taught a lot in probably, um, you know, the Jewish upbringing, the schools, that it may be taught the same way, because they believe just in the Old Testament. So, I'm sure that there are other priests out there who teach it as being, you know, the Word of God, and so it happened. But it couldn't have happened, and we all know that, and it's just a fable. And there are so many fables in the Old Testament, things that couldn't have happened, just because of the way the world works. Also, the God of the Old Testament caused more murders than you'd ever believe. Invading cities, having armies that came in and killed just a complete set of human people. I mean, just a complete country. would be taken out because God said it should be, and they would kill everything. In fact, there's basically a passage in the Bible that says God said, go in there, kill everything in that city, including the animals, which meant men, women, children, and animals, and walk away and pretend like nothing happened. I don't get it. It doesn't make any sense. It can't be right. I can't believe God would be that mad if there is a God at all. Because in the Old Testament, I have a hard time believing that there's a God. Because it can't be the way it is. It just can't be. The New Testament, I have a little more faith in. And I think maybe some of those things did happen. But the truth is, what I'm getting at in this podcast is... Why can't we get some scholars together, some theologians? There's a guy named Bart Ehrman, and if you have never read one of his books, it is fascinating what he's talking about in order. in all his books. I think he's written eight books and talks about the life of Jesus and the life of the apostles and Mary Magdalene and everything. It's just amazing what this guy knows. He's a professor and I think he's at Wake Forest, but I could be wrong there, but he's just amazing and really puts a lot of information in his books and I've enjoyed every one of them that I've listened to. Now, let's look at the big picture here and, you know, take somebody like Bart Ehrman, who is an agnostic, but, you know, I don't hold that against him. I don't hold that against me either, but, you know, he is really researching this stuff and he's really looking at, you know, what the possibilities are and, you know, how stories get told back then and how, The percentages of, like I said, how many people were actually literate. And the translations and what was lost in the translations. Because some languages don't translate to other languages. The words are different or the words are non-existent. So I think... Somebody like that, Bart Ehrman, I want to recommend strongly to anybody who becomes one of my listeners. Pick up one of his books. It doesn't matter which one you pick up. It's going to be interesting, and you're going to find it very interesting. So reading it will make you really think about things. He's not anti-Christ or anti-God. He's just telling the way it is and the way it was and how... Things could have changed or been different than the stories in the Bible. He's just that good. But if we got together, somebody like him, a lot of theologians, experts in language, everything of that nature, those type of people, and have them sit down and actually... look at the Bible page by page, and try to think of a way of wording it so that we can understand it today. This is what my whole process and my whole thought was on doing this podcast, was we really need to understand this better if it's going to be considered the book of all books. We need to have it rewritten because If a 63-year-old man who's educated and actually pretty well educated can't listen to this Old Testament and understand what's going on, that's wrong. That's just really wrong. It needs to be at least put in a form where we can read it and understand it and make it available to the children that we're trying to teach this stuff to so that they can understand it. But again, I wish for a lot of things. One of them is I wish I was thin. That's not happening anytime soon. So it's a wish for me. And I'm hoping that someday someone says, you know what, I think it's time that we rewrote this and made it easier for everybody to understand. So I think in the long run, something like that is going to be important to to the world and may change things if people can understand the Bible and what was written in it and how some other things were considered fables more than truths and it will make the understanding of God or religion or whatever you want to call it easier and that may convert people into the religions that they want to go into because they read passages in the Old Testament and said, wow, that's easy to understand. I can see why this is a religion I want to be in, especially the Catholics. The Catholics are 100 years behind as it is now. I don't mean to upset the Catholics. I was one. It's just that everything in the Catholic religion is about 100 years behind, so... There's a lot of things that need to change. Pope John Paul II changed a lot of stuff, and I think he should be in the running for sainthood really quickly, because he made being a Catholic person kind of nice again. So let's look at this from a point of view of doing this to help people, not just doing it to... mess with the word of God. That's not what I'm looking for. I'm looking for a translation that I can understand. So I wanted to make this about 30 minutes long because I think anything past 30 minutes is too much. So we're about at the 30 minute mark right now and I figure I'll wrap up and I'm going to try to do one of these a week, see how well I can put one together, you know, Next week I'm going to do the one about the apostles, how they were all crucified, and what went on, who started the church in Italy. We think it was Peter, but we're not sure. Go over some of that stuff, the apostles and where they went and where they preached and how things went for them. So I'm hoping you'll stick around and maybe come back and listen to my next podcast. Again, my name is Little Scotty. I'm going with that moniker just because I don't want everybody to know my last name because I'm afraid of what the crazy people will do. And I hope to make you sit down and listen to this next week too. So we'll see you then. Take care of yourself. Bye.