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The Cognitive Dissonance (CD) podcast is an explicit podcast that hosted by two self-proclaimed atheist skeptics called Cecil and Tom. They review news articles they find interesting through the hosts' unique commentary which includes irreverence and copious amounts of cussing all while constantly laughing at their own jokes.

Before Cognitive Dissonance
Cecil and Tom were in another podcast before the CD podcast that was called Everyone's a Critic (EoC). It lasted for almost 5 years from April 10, 2007 to March 18, 2012 for 82 episodes. 80 of those episodes (episodes 1 and 2 are missing) are available for download at the Cognitive Dissonance website. EoC constisted of movie reviews, but Tom and Cecil also had a segment for critiquing the news which was similar to what their CD show is now about. On March 17, 2011 of the EoC podcast, they announced their new Cognitive Dissonance podcast and after that point EoC focused solely on critiquing movies while their new podcast would focus on their liberal, atheist, skeptical view on the news. They soon found their new podcast was outpacing EoC. That and the fact that EoC took a lot more work to watch and critic each movie, they ended EoC and focused on building the CD podcast.

Growth
The users from the beginning of Cognitive Dissonance have been calling and sending in clips and ideas that get used on the show either as a segment focus or as a bumper between segments. Even their studio's name, Gloryhole Studios, comes from episode.

In episode 10 at 2:50, it was announced that out of all their podcasts they reached the 10 thousand download mark. In episode 183 at 3:53, it was announced that they "ticked over the 3 million download mark". In the same episode, they reference a user created subreddit called Well Water Drinkers which was created from an inside joke spawned from a prior episode.

The average episode length is about 78 minutes (total minutes divided by 241, up to episode 240 which includes one short at episode 15).

Some common somewhat inside jokes include Hillbilly God and Jesus, mispronunciation, Tom's inability to add 1, Google Voice errors, Islamic call to prayer parodies, and local dairy council.

Guests
Guest on the show include (list may not be exhaustive):

• Patrick Redmond from Birmingham Skeptics in the Pubon episode 24

• Reap Paden from the ReapSowRadio podcast and The Angry Atheist on episode 32

• Thomas from the Thomas and the Bible podcast on episode 34

• Mike Hall from Skeptics with a K on episode 36

• Karl Mamer from The Conspiracy Skeptic podcast on episode 37

• Hemant Mehta from the Patheos blog Friendly Atheist on episodes 38 and 88

• Dumbass from the Dumbass Guide To Knowledge! podcast on episode 40

• Jake Farr-Wharton from The Imaginary Friends Show podcast on episodes 46, 61

• Matt Dillahunty from The Atheist Experience on episode 47

• George Hrab from the Geologic Podcast on episodes 53 and 74

• Jacob Fortin from The Good Atheist podcast on episode 55

• Greta Christina from her FreeThoughtBlogs blog on episode 59

• Andy Wilson from the Merseyside Skeptics Society and the InKredulous podcast on episode 64

• Steven from the Religion Poisons Everything page on episode 72

• Chuck from the irreligiosophy podcast page on episode 76

• Seth Andrews from The Thinking Atheist podcast on episode 89

Some shows they were on: - The Conspiracy Skeptic http://www.yrad.com/cs/index2012.htm#mar13 http://www.merseysideskeptics.org.uk/2012/09/inkredulous-episode-015/

All of their episodes begin with the line, "Every episode we blast anyone who gets in our way. We bring critical thinking, skepticism, and irreverence to any topic that makes the news, makes it big, or makes us mad. It’s skeptical, it’s political and there is no welcome mat." They also end all of their shows with what they call the Skeptic's Creed.