The Mark of the Best

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

Hello, everyone, it's Takuya here.

Dan McClellan (0:02)

And I'm Gabby.

SPEAKER_1 (0:03)

And we are the hosts of History of Everything, a podcast which you can probably guess by the name is, well, I mean, it's about everything. Do you want to know why people thought potatoes were evil and would give you syphilis? Are you curious about all the stories of the terrible and stupid ways that people have kicked the bucket over the years?

Do you want to hear tales about all of the different badasses of history and the lives that they had brought to life? Well, if so, then look no further.

History of Everything is just the right podcast for you. It's available on Spotify, Pandora, and anywhere else that you get your podcast from. Join us for some fun and just see how weird and wacky history can be.

Dan Beecher (0:42)

The Mark of the Beast. Now, if you've read the Book of Revelation, which I assume, Dan, that you have...

Dan McClellan (0:48)

A long, long, long time ago, yeah.

Dan Beecher (0:50)

You have to admit that what happens in Chapter 13 bears a striking resemblance to Gates putting cell phone-enabled nanobots in our bloodstream, right?

It's basically verbatim. It's word for word.

Dan McClellan (1:03)

As long as you ignore the details and just genericize it so that it becomes very, very fuzzy, then yes, they're the exact same thing.

Dan Beecher (1:13)

Right? All you need to do is fuzzify everything.

Dan McClellan (1:15)

Hey, everybody. I'm Dan McClellan.

Dan Beecher (1:21)

And I'm Dan Beecher.

Dan McClellan (1:22)

And you are listening to the Data Over Dogma podcast. Where we combat the spread of misinformation about the Bible and religion and try to increase public access to the academic study of the same.

How are you doing today, Dan?

Dan Beecher (1:36)

That's true. That's what we do. That's our whole thing.

Dan McClellan (1:39)

That's all we have.

Dan Beecher (1:41)

That's what we got. So we're going to do that.

Dan McClellan (1:43)

And we've got a great one for you today, I think, anyway.

Dan Beecher (1:46)

Yeah, absolutely.

I'm going to start us off with Conspiracy Watch. We're going to talk about some...

Dan McClellan (1:52)

I need a keyboard or one of those little button things.

Dan Beecher (1:57)

A little soundboard.

Dan McClellan (1:58)

Yeah, have a little boing, boing, boing, boing, boing, something like that.

Dan Beecher (2:01)

Yeah, we'll have a whole bunch of things. Anyway, yeah, we're going to talk about Conspiracy. And this one's one of the good ones. It's juicy. It's meaty. It's The Mark of the Best.

SPEAKER_1 (2:14)

Boing, boing, boing, boing, boing.

Dan Beecher (2:18)

And then you're going to do some amazing stuff. You're going to introduce us to some of the things that made you a doctor.

Dan McClellan (2:27)

I am going to talk about some of the linguistic principles that I bring to the Bible that helped me when I was writing my second master's thesis and my doctoral dissertation and things that I think any close reader of the Bible or person concerned about how the Bible is interpreted should know. And it also has application to contemporary discussions today about how we categorize things.

Dan Beecher (2:58)

And I am going to do my damnedest to make sure that I understand everything that you're saying and thereby hopefully we'll all understand everything that you're saying because you're a smarty pants.

You might lose me. You might lose me. So we're going to make sure, I'm going to make you define literally everything.

Dan McClellan (3:16)

Well, by the end of the segment, you're going to know why I don't like definitions.

Dan Beecher (3:22)

Ah, okay. So I'm going to make you clarify things then. Fine, fine, whatever.

Dan McClellan (3:28)

And if this doesn't let everybody know that we have not talked about this beforehand, I said, oh, I'm going to talk about this. And Dan said, okay, whatever.

And so he does not know what's coming. And part of the segment is going to be me putting him on the spot.

Dan Beecher (3:42)

Okay, that sounds exciting.

Dan McClellan (3:45)

Yeah, we'll get there in a moment.

Dan Beecher (3:47)

You will all learn exactly how dumb I am later in the show. But for now, let's get on Conspiracy Watch. Alright, Dan, it's conspiracy time. I know that on your TikTok, you delve into a lot of different conspiracies. That is what inspired me to launch into this one.

We kind of live in the Golden Age of conspiracy theories, actually. Literally, there has never been a moment in human history more primed for the rapid and widespread dissemination of garbage thinking.