From viral alibis to a Coke can ban, Nate tackles the internet's biggest controversies of the week.

Flock Camera Hero Goes Viral, Coca-Cola Bans Jesus & Does Deuteronomy 22 Condone Rape?

What happens when a West Virginia man accused of destroying license-plate cameras becomes an unlikely internet folk hero, Coca-Cola picks a fight with the name of Jesus, and a viral TikTok claims the Bible condones sexual assault? All three land in the same episode. Nate, Steph, and resident Canadian atheist Michael start with the flock camera saga before pivoting to Coca-Cola’s personalized-can controversy, then settle into the episode’s real weight: whether the Deuteronomy 22 rape allegation against the Bible actually holds up under scrutiny. Spoiler—the TikTok influencer skipped a few verses, and skipping verses is basically a contact sport on this show. Here’s what unfolded.

Deuteronomy 22 Rape: The Biblical Bottom Line

The TikTok clip Nate reacted to claimed the Deuteronomy 22 rape law forces a victim to marry her attacker for fifty shekels, then stops reading. Deuteronomy 22:28-29 says the man who seizes an unbetrothed virgin owes her father fifty shekels of silver—about a year’s wages in the ancient world—and can never divorce her. Nate walked through Tractate Ketubot 39b-40a, which spends pages dissecting these two verses and confirms both the woman and her father hold the right to refuse the marriage outright; the payment still stands either way. GotQuestions.org reaches a similar conclusion, framing the passage as protection rather than a sentence. Nate also drew the line skeptics keep erasing on this Deuteronomy 22 rape debate: laws given to national Israel under the Mosaic covenant were never binding on Gentiles, which is why nobody at the table is stoning anyone for anything.

The Internet’s Ironclad (and Increasingly Ridiculous) Alibis

Before the theology, Nate pulled up the Facebook thread defending Wesley Jackson, the West Virginia man accused of cutting down flock cameras, and it does not disappoint. Within minutes strangers were vouching that he was welding steel panels onto a bulldozer, canoeing, sweeping a parking lot, and helping rescue senior cats from a tree—all, apparently, at the exact same hour. Nate read them straight-faced until the room lost it completely. Somewhere between the barbecue alibi and the snake-tank alibi, even Michael admitted he had not been listening. Coca-Cola fared no better once Michael—an actual shareholder—started testing which phrases about Jesus the can generator would allow.