Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 529 ｜ Why Bad Ideas Deserve to Be Mocked ｜ Guest： Seth Dillon

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable Happy Wednesday. Hope everyone has had a wonderful week. Tomorrow

00:00:14.720 is Thanksgiving, so I know that you're probably busy cooking, baking, preparing, hanging out with

00:00:20.580 your family. We'll have a short episode today, and it's going to be a fun one that'll get you

00:00:24.820 in the mood for, you know, a lighthearted, enjoyable time with your family on Thanksgiving. I am talking

00:00:31.080 to Seth Dillon. He is the CEO of The Babylon Bee, the satire site. I have had the honor of writing

00:00:39.240 several times for The Babylon Bee over the years. I have loved them, been a fan of them for a very

00:00:44.880 long time. They're Christian, conservative, just all out funny people, and they're just genuinely

00:00:52.100 good people. Like, the people behind The Babylon Bee are as great as their headlines, and so you're

00:00:57.680 going to enjoy this conversation. We're not just going to talk about the woke scolds and the pearl

00:01:01.840 clutching that now tends to come from the left side of the aisle and the importance of satire and humor

00:01:06.960 and all that kind of stuff. We're also, towards the end of the conversation, going to talk a little

00:01:10.800 theology. We're going to talk about predestination. We're going to talk about Calvinism versus non-Calvinism

00:01:17.420 or Arminianism, and where we disagree. He and I disagree on the topic of predestination,

00:01:24.640 and yet, obviously, we share very important things in common, namely Christ. And so it's a fun,

00:01:32.160 productive conversation that I know you guys are going to really enjoy. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone.

00:01:40.040 Thank you so much for listening to Relatable. I am so grateful for you all. We will be back next week

00:01:46.960 with all new episodes covering all the craziness that is bound to be going on in the news. So

00:01:53.280 for now, without further ado, here is my guest, Seth Dillon.

00:02:00.840 Seth, thank you so much for joining us. First, just in case there are a few people out there who

00:02:07.580 don't know you, can you tell everyone who you are and what you do?

00:02:10.900 Yeah, thanks for having me, Ali. I am the CEO of the Babylon Bee, which is the world's best and

00:02:19.560 greatest, most factually accurate news source. It is.

00:02:23.300 Fake news you can trust. Yeah, I mean, I run the business side of things. You know, Kyle Mann,

00:02:29.140 who you know, our editor-in-chief, runs the content team and is really responsible for that side of

00:02:35.940 things. I run the business and represent the company. And so, yeah, I've been doing that since

00:02:41.480 I took over in 2018. So going on four years now, which is pretty awesome. And yeah, The Beast started

00:02:48.900 in 2016. So I took it over from Adam Ford, its founder. Yeah. And it's really exploded under your

00:02:55.140 leadership over the past few years. Has it surprised you how much it has taken off or did you see the

00:03:01.700 potential right away before you decided to join? I mean, I saw I saw potential. That's why I got

00:03:08.920 involved. It was already kind of taking off. It was going viral. And, you know, people are sharing

00:03:13.800 these articles millions of times and the site was getting millions of views. So it had a huge amount

00:03:18.400 of potential. I didn't I didn't necessarily think that it would get to where it is. I mean, I'm like

00:03:23.920 I'm going on Tucker Carlson now every now and then. And he's talking about how we're the funniest site

00:03:27.960 on the Internet. I mean, I wasn't expecting that kind of stuff. Elon Musk is retweeting us and

00:03:34.460 talking about us quite a bit. Yeah, he's a big fan. So I never expected any of that. I don't think

00:03:39.520 anybody did. And, you know, you never know what you're getting into with this stuff. But there's

00:03:43.360 clearly a reason the B is successful. The B is successful because it's it's pushing back on the

00:03:48.540 left's ideology. And obviously, you know, we make jokes at the right, too. We make fun of, you know,

00:03:53.560 even ourselves, Christian church and culture. But but what what resonates the most and what gets

00:03:58.820 shared the most are these jokes that we're making that you're not supposed to make. You know,

00:04:03.200 nobody's willing to make them. They're politically incorrect. The targets of them are very well

00:04:08.760 safeguarded and protected. And people are really hungry for real kind of natural raw humor that

00:04:14.600 isn't filtered through the whole PC thing. So, yeah, I think that's really part of the main reason

00:04:20.080 that the B has really taken off is that it's this refreshing take on satire and mockery and ridicule

00:04:25.340 from a perspective that, you know, not a lot of people are doing it.

00:04:28.840 I think my favorite reaction from typically the left to you guys is just that that's not funny

00:04:35.580 and explaining why it's not funny, especially if it's something about AOC, maybe being unintelligent

00:04:40.860 or something like that or a headline that they see as racist. And they take this whole Twitter

00:04:45.800 thread to talk about why the Babylon Bee is not funny. And I love how you guys respond to that.

00:04:51.680 It's never, oh, let me explain this joke or, well, let me put a caveat behind that. It's just like,

00:04:57.080 well, if you don't get it, we're not going to explain it to you. And then you just double down

00:05:01.700 and keep going. I think that maybe as much as just the humor behind the Babylon Bee is what people

00:05:07.500 love is the attitude behind it. Just like we don't care. We don't care what you think. We don't care

00:05:13.560 who gives us pushback. We're going to keep telling these kinds of jokes, don't you think?

00:05:19.040 Look, it's in character for us to respond that way. I love the way Kyle handled that interview

00:05:23.240 that he did with The Atlantic.

00:05:24.280 Yes, me too.

00:05:25.160 And they were asking him, they're like, OK, you wrote this joke. Why is this funny?

00:05:29.660 Tell me why this is funny. I mean, what a weird, like, you come across as such a humorless scold

00:05:34.820 to tell a comedian to explain to you why his joke is funny.

00:05:38.840 And the really interesting thing is that there are obviously millions of people who think that

00:05:43.560 our site is funny and that our content is funny because they read it, they share it, they laugh.

00:05:47.440 So if you don't think it's funny, well, that's your opinion. It's one of those subjective things.

00:05:51.320 It's like somebody saying, somebody who likes vanilla more than chocolate ice cream,

00:05:55.440 demanding that you explain to them why chocolate is better. It's like, well, that's my personal

00:06:00.440 preference. So it is fun to just kind of like repeat the joke and say, well, here's the joke. This is why

00:06:06.380 it's funny. And then let them stay stupefied and dumbfounded about it. It's kind of fun to do that.

00:06:11.640 But there are times we have to take it seriously, like when we had to send a demand letter to the

00:06:16.620 New York Times, for example, because they call us a far right misinformation site that traffics

00:06:20.460 and misinformation under the guise of that tire. You know, that's that's the kind of thing where

00:06:25.120 it's like, OK, we will make jokes about that. And we have made jokes about New York Times and CNN

00:06:29.700 and some of the stuff that they've said about us. But there's also there comes a place where you have

00:06:33.740 to like draw a line and say, OK, our business could legitimately be threatened by these

00:06:38.540 misrepresentations, because if the social networks are taking fake news really seriously

00:06:42.600 and we're being characterized that way, we could get booted off the social network. So, you know,

00:06:47.580 that was a situation where it's like that demanded a response.

00:06:53.340 Let's analyze that a little bit, because I've noticed that the leftist media will do this,

00:06:59.820 not just with the Babylon Bee, but when I made that little satirical video with AOC back in like

00:07:04.560 2018, I got all of these very incensed and serious emails the next morning, totally unexpected to

00:07:10.800 me from the Atlantic BuzzFeed, these mainstream outlets saying, you know, how do you feel about

00:07:18.080 spreading this kind of disinformation? Like, how do you feel about duping so many people? You know,

00:07:22.700 they're very serious and they're acting very mad about this. And then they act like it wasn't

00:07:27.360 intended as satire, that I actually intended for people to think that I was interviewing AOC, 0.91

00:07:32.900 which is just ridiculous. But they know, like the journalists know that the Babylon Bee is satire.

00:07:38.640 They knew that the video that I did was satire. So why did they do this? Why did they pretend

00:07:43.320 to not know? Why did they pretend that they don't know that it's supposed to be a joke? What do you

00:07:50.600 think is behind that? Well, I, it's nefarious. I mean, like with the, the word I use for the New 1.00

00:07:57.520 York Times, you know, I said, it's, it's actually malicious because they do know better. I mean,

00:08:01.960 they do. We had, in the case of the New York Times, they actually did a profile piece on us where

00:08:06.080 they came to our office, they interviewed our guys, they took pictures of us, like they had

00:08:10.340 written about us before they covered us before. And then yet over the course of time, continued to

00:08:14.880 just keep going back to this, you know, Ooh, maybe they're this undercover misinformation outlet.

00:08:19.880 That's just pretending to be a satire site, you know, trying to get the termotives. I mean,

00:08:23.660 in that case, it's really obvious why they're doing it. It's if they can get you labeled misinformation,

00:08:28.560 then they can get you de-platformed. It's really, it's really that simple. And so it's,

00:08:33.640 they try to act like there must be some, if they just treat it as satire, like satire is very

00:08:38.160 permissible. It's very allowable. It's not harmful. So they have to try to find a way to make it seem

00:08:42.840 harmful. So they'll either treat it as misinformation or they'll treat it as hate

00:08:46.480 speech. Those are the two things that, you know, it's punching down. You're making fun of people

00:08:50.440 that you're not supposed to make fun of. Punching down. That's the phrase that they use constantly.

00:08:55.140 Even if you're, even if you're criticizing or making fun of like a congresswoman, you're

00:08:59.420 punching down somehow. Yeah. Yeah. You're punching down on people. You know, the whole idea there is that

00:09:06.160 these people are marginalized and oppressed and you have all the power and you're making jokes at them.

00:09:11.120 And that's not fair. And, and really, I honestly, it's the other way around this whole situation

00:09:16.120 with Dave Chappelle perfectly illustrated it. You know, he's one of these people, he's got it. He's

00:09:20.240 got enough of a platform and a position and enough of a following that he's like anybody else would

00:09:24.520 have been completely canceled. And, and, and, and when you have this situation where the people who

00:09:29.360 are complaining that they're marginalized or oppressed have to have the power to get you canceled,

00:09:34.140 they are actually the oppressors in that situation. I've said it before. Like if you have the will

00:09:38.540 and the power to punish people who merely make jokes about you, then you're the one who's really

00:09:43.700 in control there. The power dynamic is really flipped on its head and they're trying to act

00:09:47.600 like victims. So they're actually creating a bunch of victims in their wake with all that nonsense.

00:09:52.360 Yeah. I remember you saying that. I watched you say that on Tucker Carlson. And I thought that that

00:09:56.220 was such a good point. You know, who has at least the cultural power, but probably the political and

00:10:01.180 institutional power too, uh, by looking at who you're not allowed to make fun of. And Dave Chappelle

00:10:07.380 made that point when he responded to all of the backlash about his special, he said, well, I'm the

00:10:13.640 only one that's not allowed in the Netflix building. All of these people showed up to work. He's the only

00:10:18.480 one that's not even allowed to go in. And yet people are accusing him of punching down by saying that a

00:10:25.360 woman is a woman. And I think because of that, I am seeing what seems like a shift. People used to

00:10:31.300 think that everyone on the right, that, you know, we were the pearl clutchers. Like we were the ones

00:10:35.840 that couldn't take a joke and that you're not allowed to make fun of our faith. You're not allowed

00:10:39.920 to make fun of our values, whatever it is. Um, and we were the ones who were no fun. And it was

00:10:45.880 everyone on the left who was just like, Oh yeah, you know, we're going to be crass. We're going to push

00:10:50.280 the limits. All the comedians considered themselves on the left. But now you're seeing people,

00:10:54.780 Joe Rogan, Dave Chappelle, other comedians. I think a lot of people who probably still identify

00:11:00.820 as independents being like, you know what? I I'm still probably not a Republican, but I know I'm

00:11:06.480 not on the left who are at least coming out as anti-woke. And now it seems like really the only

00:11:12.580 people who can tell a good joke are people on the right, because people on the left will freak out.

00:11:17.640 Even if you use a euphemism, like let's go, Brandon, they can't even take that. They can't even take

00:11:21.860 it. Um, do you see that shift happening too? That it's really kind of conservative to now

00:11:26.480 almost have the monopoly or not even conservatives, but just non leftist like Bill Maher, even now is

00:11:32.340 kind of part of that camp who are the ones telling the good jokes. The, I love Bill Maher, by the way,

00:11:39.260 and some of the comments that he's made about, about cancel culture, he's right on the money.

00:11:42.200 Um, it's one of these situations. Look, our new book, the Babylon Bee Guide to Wokeness is a top

00:11:48.080 seller in religion categories, a bunch of different religion categories, which I find is kind of funny.

00:11:52.640 It's like, it's like, it feels like confirmation to me that wokeness really is a religion that we're

00:11:57.260 telling so well in these religion categories. It really has, it's flipped, you know, you've got this

00:12:02.440 situation where, um, one of these people's really tightly personal value, tightly held personal

00:12:08.960 values, um, are, are really guarded closely by a lot of people. They don't like to see them held up

00:12:13.900 to scorn or mockery or ridicule. The left has adopted all of these values that have really become

00:12:18.500 very religious for them. Um, and so it really is like the shoes on the other foot here, where they're

00:12:23.160 in a situation where they're at, the pearl clutching is happening from that side, but they've created 0.71

00:12:27.300 all these rules about things you can and can't say and things you can and can't joke about that are

00:12:30.940 really stifling comedy. And I think, I think there's going to be a revivaling comedy from the

00:12:34.840 other, from the other side. People are going to find, um, that there's plenty of

00:12:38.480 demand for real jokes that really don't care if they're offensive. You know, comedy is offensive

00:12:44.000 by nature. It's going to, it's going to make somebody bristle, but you want to, you want to

00:12:48.660 be able to laugh at yourself. It's a healthy thing to be able to like, look at yourself and the silly

00:12:52.500 things that you do or say or believe and like laugh at yourself a little bit. That's fine. That's a

00:12:57.000 healthy exercise. Um, so I think it's important for people to kind of push back. I love what Chappelle

00:13:02.500 is doing. I love how Bill Maher is doing it. Um, I'd like to see more people really push back on that

00:13:07.660 and then kind of hopefully bring things back to the middle because they've gone very extreme

00:13:11.740 where there's so much you're not allowed to think and you're not allowed to say.

00:13:14.580 Yeah. I think that those comedians, even though I, as a conservative Christian, don't have all the

00:13:21.500 same values as someone like Joe Rogan or Dave Chappelle, they play such an important role though,

00:13:26.540 in the so-called culture wars, they inject sanity into these insane conversations and people listen to

00:13:33.520 them that wouldn't necessarily listen to me because they don't agree with me theologically

00:13:37.840 or even politically. But when you have someone who is liberal and in most ways saying, Hey, you know,

00:13:44.340 everyone here came out of a woman, like everyone here was born from a woman. Um, then I do think 0.99

00:13:51.440 that there's a really important cultural role that they play in kind of shifting the Overton window

00:13:58.920 back over. It gives people cover. And I think the Babylon Bee does that too. Like it gives people

00:14:04.020 cover. They feel like, Oh, okay. So it's not just me who thought that this whole thing was absurd.

00:14:09.140 Other people think that's absurd too. Um, and so even though the Babylon Bee, I mean, you tell jokes,

00:14:14.900 I think that there is a very serious role and a very seriously important role that the Babylon Bee,

00:14:22.000 uh, takes on in these culture wars and in changing the political narrative. Do you think so?

00:14:30.280 Yeah. Well, I mean, the way that I describe it, when I like, there's kind of a twofold mission with

00:14:34.960 satire, you know, you want to make people laugh, but you also want to make them think you want to

00:14:38.220 challenge, you know, the status quo. Um, there is a lot about satire, you know, one of the main

00:14:43.260 effective things that it does is it challenges the power structures and, um, speaks truth to power.

00:14:49.020 Um, but I, I try to summarize our mission statement as really being very simple. It's

00:14:53.040 to ridicule bad ideas. And that's exactly what you're saying. It's a, it's a, it's to go after

00:14:57.460 these things that are really, they have harmful effects in society. Um, it, it results in speech

00:15:02.360 depression, even like self-censorship. People are censoring themselves and doing the tyrant's work

00:15:06.560 for him. And, uh, and so, you know, I think anybody who's out there ridiculing these ideas

00:15:11.200 and ridiculing this kind of rigidity that's there, uh, and, and all this, all these restrictions

00:15:16.360 that are there, uh, is going to embolden other people to speak out and feel comfortable

00:15:20.780 believing what they believe and having a right to say what they believe. Um, so yeah, there

00:15:26.320 is, there is some to that, um, that, that it's a little bit more, you know, um, uh, the onion,

00:15:31.440 um, says, define satire as being a smart saying it's for a higher purpose. Yeah. I don't know

00:15:38.800 if I can say that on your show. Can I say that on your show? We'll have to believe it out.

00:15:41.620 Well, but yeah, you know, there really is in a sense, a higher purpose to it. There really is,

00:15:47.760 because in our case, at least we are trying to ridicule bad ideas. And I think that's a moral

00:15:51.040 good. You know, I think so too. And there are a lot of Christians, like when I've done those fake 1.00

00:15:55.560 DNC ads in the past, of course, it's fun. Like you guys know this, the left makes it super easy

00:16:01.420 to ridicule their ideas. It's actually hard to even make them satirical. All you have to do is say,

00:16:07.400 this is what their ideas are. And they're ridiculous. All you have to do is put them on 1.00

00:16:11.700 display, sans all of the euphemisms that they use to try to kind of like sanitize and normalize 0.94

00:16:18.220 their ridiculous, absurd views, like defund the police. You don't even have to lie or exaggerate

00:16:23.300 to do a satire about left-wing proposals. And so when I do the DNC, it's hard to, it's hard to

00:16:28.920 exaggerate it. You know, it's actually challenging to exaggerate it. It's easier to just uncover it and

00:16:33.480 expose it for what it is. Yes. And I think that's one thing that makes people mad is that,

00:16:39.740 and they'll just kind of give you general anger that that makes me mad. But if you ask them,

00:16:44.480 well, what was incorrect? Was there anything that I said in this particular video that was

00:16:50.520 not a democratic policy or not a position that someone on the left holds? And also a reaction

00:16:57.780 that I get, and I'm sure, actually, I know you guys do from people who profess to be like progressive

00:17:03.560 Christians or whatever, but Christians will say, well, that's mean. You might be right, but that 1.00

00:17:09.480 satire or that sarcasm is mean, and that's not loving your neighbor, and that's not kind. And then

00:17:15.300 I take such issue with the tone police who are actually angrier about someone making fun of this

00:17:22.740 really bad, really destructive, and sometimes evil idea, like men having access to women's 1.00

00:17:28.260 bathrooms. They're more mad about making fun of that and the tone that someone uses to make fun of

00:17:33.580 that than they are the evil idea itself. And that really bothers me about some Christians. 0.99

00:17:39.800 Yeah. I think that's an important point, too, is that it's, you know, what is your goal? Is your

00:17:44.760 goal to hurt people and make them feel stupid and bad about themselves? Or is your goal to protect 1.00

00:17:48.820 people and actually push back on something that's harming people? In our case, you know,

00:17:53.500 when I'm talking about ridiculing bad ideas, I'm not talking about, like, ridiculing people

00:17:58.060 mercilessly and making them feel terrible about themselves. I'm talking about ridiculing ideas

00:18:01.940 that are going to actually hurt people. And so, yeah, you're absolutely right. It's silly to care

00:18:07.040 more about the fact that someone's making those jokes. And first of all, on the other side of it,

00:18:10.680 they are perfectly happy to make jokes at your expense that completely make you look silly or stupid 1.00

00:18:15.280 or even hurt your feelings personally. They don't care about your feelings. It's just 0.99

00:18:19.160 certain people in protected groups, their feelings matter more than everybody else's feelings for

00:18:24.700 some reason. So that's not fair either. But really, yeah, from that perspective, the Christian

00:18:30.380 perspective of, you know, this isn't loving your neighbor, this is nice. It's not loving to your

00:18:34.920 neighbor to lie to them either. It's not loving to treat skin color like it's the most important

00:18:40.940 thing about somebody. It's not loving to deny the differences between the sexes. It's not loving to

00:18:47.180 teach people to deny reality, to teach little kids to start transitioning just because they once played

00:18:52.360 with a doll. That means they must be a girl. It's not loving to put them on that path. And so to ridicule 1.00

00:18:58.680 the act of putting them on that path is immoral good.

00:19:01.640 I just wonder what Bible sometimes these people are reading, because I know for me, like when I read

00:19:12.880 Jesus's words to the apostles, when people ask him what I think are legitimate questions,

00:19:18.260 and he responds in a way sometimes that's super off-putting, sarcastic, or he doesn't answer

00:19:22.200 directly. He responds with a question. He uses different rhetorical devices in order to get his

00:19:28.320 point across. We see that throughout Scripture. And it's not the 11th commandment that we should be

00:19:35.420 nice. We can be kind. We can be loving. We can speak the truth without this kind of euphemistic,

00:19:42.080 overly nice, but won't say what's real language that I think a lot of Christians resort to

00:19:48.160 at the expense of the people who are suffering on the other end of these bad ideas.

00:19:54.340 Yeah. No, I think you're right. There's plenty of examples of it in Scripture. There's

00:19:58.300 examples in the prophets, too. It's replete with examples of exaggeration being used, hyperbole

00:20:05.480 being used, ridicule and mockery being used. And I mentioned before, I said something recently about

00:20:13.220 how we need to bring back shame in the sense that there is shameful behavior. There are shameful

00:20:19.360 things that people are doing. And rather than talking about that or calling that out, we're trying

00:20:25.680 to act like in this present moment in our culture, like nothing is shameful, like there is no shameful

00:20:30.580 behavior, like anything goes. And I think, you know, satire has a role to play in kind of keeping clear

00:20:37.620 in our minds, like moral boundaries of what's good, what's right, what's what's too extreme. And so,

00:20:44.200 you know, that's kind of it's one of the important elements of it. I mean, obviously, you want it to be

00:20:48.400 fun and funny. You really want it to be fun and funny. But sometimes, you know, you got to hit on

00:20:51.820 these issues, you know, with with kind of a deeper purpose. Yeah, we're definitely in this cultural

00:20:56.920 season of wanting to destigmatize and normalize every kind of egregious behavior. And some things

00:21:03.420 need stigma, like some things have a stigma because they should be stigmatized, not everything,

00:21:07.360 maybe some things do need to be destigmatized, that's fine. But some things have a stigma for a

00:21:11.860 reason. Some things aren't normalized, because they're not normal. And we don't need to make them

00:21:15.580 normal. And I think healthy shame does play a role in kind of giving us those boundaries.

00:21:22.480 All right, let's look at your book, Wokeness, the Babylon Bee Guide to Wokeness. I said that I'm

00:21:28.340 triggered by the cover just because the raised communist fist and shake of era, his face really

00:21:33.180 triggers me. And there's a lot in this book that really triggers me because I mean, it's just funny.

00:21:40.640 It's just funny. The animations are funny. But I am reminded that,

00:21:45.580 that the ideas that you guys are making fun of really are as bad as they seem. Tell me about

00:21:52.220 creating this book, everything that went into it, why you guys made it. Also, how long did it take?

00:21:57.800 Because it looks like it's pretty extensive. Okay, you'd be surprised. I mean, the guys that we have

00:22:04.520 working for us are so productive creatively. That is awesome. They can put out a lot of material

00:22:12.500 in a very short period of time. Some of this is just kind of tapping into a lot of ideas that

00:22:17.660 we've already dealt with and exposed and talked about on the Bee quite a bit. So, you know, but this

00:22:23.520 was really a joint effort between Kyle, our editor in chief and Joel Berry, our managing editor. And

00:22:30.420 then all of the illustrations, everything are done by our creative director, Ethan Nicole. And so the

00:22:34.840 three of them just worked together on structuring this thing. And it's just, I mean, like at this

00:22:39.400 moment in time, when you have like, wokeness, just surging and popularity, and also at the same time,

00:22:45.980 like the left trying to distance themselves from it now, because so many, there's been so much backlash

00:22:49.740 to what's going on here, especially with like, critical race theory being taught in schools,

00:22:53.400 everything that just happened in Virginia with that election. The conversation is like coming to a head

00:22:59.320 right now where people are trying to decide is wokeness a good thing or isn't it? Yeah. And so

00:23:03.900 to have a satirical guide come out by the Babylon Bee that just kind of ruthlessly ridicules wokeness

00:23:11.440 and, but like you said, like you don't even really have to exaggerate it that much. There's a little

00:23:16.820 bit of exaggeration in this book, but when you read it, it's really, we're doing what you did in

00:23:20.280 those videos where you're, where you're exposing a Democrat platform. We're really just saying what

00:23:24.480 they say. Like they have really said that two plus two is saying, insisting that two plus two equals

00:23:29.440 four is true, is racist. You know? Yeah. They literally treat your skin color and your gender

00:23:36.200 and sex as being the most important things about you. They literally do that. So this book is just

00:23:41.120 kind of highlighting that in a really kind of obnoxious way without any euphemisms or anything,

00:23:47.540 exposing it for what it is. Oh my gosh. I just opened to page 104. So if you're listening with kids,

00:23:53.480 maybe don't listen to this part and maybe this also isn't a book to read to kids. I'm just going

00:23:57.780 to read this, this one part. Okay. Earth rape, how it works. Warning, disturbing. Inhale. Attacker 0.99

00:24:04.760 premeditates crime. He, she will perpetrate on victim. Prepares for assault. Rest. Attacker charges

00:24:10.580 up CO2 blast from inside the black empty void that once held a soul. Exhale. Earth is raped.

00:24:18.260 Just breathing. Yes. But it actually, I mean, it makes a point. It makes a point about how 0.97

00:24:23.080 ridiculous these climate extremists are about the toll on the earth that human beings are making. 0.67

00:24:28.180 This is basically what they say. Yeah. You're evil for existing and breathing, right? That's 0.97

00:24:33.400 basically what they say. Same thing for being white. You're evil for being white, you know, 0.75

00:24:37.020 just your skin color. So yeah. But that one that you just read, it's like, it's illustrated too. It's 1.00

00:24:42.300 like this whole graph and illustration. It's, you know, that adds a lot to it. So it's a fun book. It's a

00:24:46.720 great gift, especially for the holidays that we got it out in time, but it's selling like crazy. So

00:24:50.500 people need to buy them before they're off the shelves. That doesn't surprise me at all. So

00:24:54.680 definitely everyone get the Babylon Bee Guide to Wokeness. Y'all's first book, I think, was How to

00:24:59.760 Be a Perfect Christian, right? Yeah. How to Be a Perfect Christian. That was back in like 2017.

00:25:04.940 Yeah. That was a while ago. That was a while ago. Yeah. But everyone should get both of them. You can

00:25:09.020 get it, you know, wherever. I'm sure that you get your books. Okay. Let's talk about a little bit with

00:25:14.320 the time that we have left. One disagreement that I know we have, which is a different subject than we've

00:25:19.000 talked about. Calvinism. Calvinism. I am a Calvinist. I believe in predestination. You do not.

00:25:28.280 And I don't expect this to be necessarily this long-winded theological conversation,

00:25:32.920 but I'd love for the audience to just hear kind of the differences in what we believe about that.

00:25:37.640 So you can start. What's your position on predestination and Calvinism?

00:25:41.060 Well, so, I mean, part of the problem is there's a lot of like misunderstandings of what the other

00:25:48.780 side believes. A lot of caricatures people throw around and, you know, people aren't always the

00:25:53.080 most charitable in treating the other side of this. You know, this is a long debate that goes back

00:25:58.100 centuries. There's been Christians on both sides of it for a long time. I think it's really, I think

00:26:03.080 it's healthiest if we come to this conversation, conversations like this saying, look, you know,

00:26:07.300 I'm not going to assume that you have ill motives or that you haven't read the Bible or that you're

00:26:11.600 uneducated and that's why you believe what you believe. I think we need to give each other the

00:26:14.900 benefit of the doubt and say, hey, look, you know, honest Christians who've studied their Bibles for

00:26:18.440 a long time and reached different conclusions on this stuff. As far as like predestination election

00:26:23.540 goes, you know, I believe that the Bible is very clear that election is a thing. It is a biblical

00:26:28.340 thing. The question is whether or not election is unconditional and individual as opposed to corporate,

00:26:35.060 for example. Like when you try to answer the question, well, who has God chosen to save?

00:26:38.980 I would say that the Bible is pretty clear on that. He's chosen to save anyone who believes

00:26:42.160 in Jesus Christ. That's who he's chosen to save. So belief in Jesus Christ is what puts you in that

00:26:47.180 elective body, not some unconditional decree of God from before time began that there are certain

00:26:52.600 people that he would select, certain individuals that he would select, and then sovereignly regenerate

00:26:57.540 them and bring them into that fold. 0.60

00:27:00.120 So you read, and I totally agree with everything that you said. By the way, I have a lot of

00:27:05.040 good, awesome Christian friends that I learned from who are not Calvinist and who, you know,

00:27:09.800 aren't, who don't believe in every point of TULIP. And so completely agree with you. We have more in

00:27:15.480 common than we disagree on. So that's why it's kind of fun to talk about the disagreements.

00:27:19.340 And the most important thing in common, we have Christ in common, which is the most important

00:27:22.460 thing. So the differences are out on the periphery. Yeah.

00:27:25.080 Right. We both agree that it's by grace through faith. It's kind of what precedes that,

00:27:29.480 um, that I think that we disagree on. Whereas I read something like Ephesians one in love,

00:27:35.060 he predestined us for adoption as sons. And I read Romans nine to mean, um, I guess you could call it

00:27:41.660 corporate, but it is individual, uh, predestination that there is an elect and elect sounds like elite,

00:27:49.180 but of course that's not what we mean by it. We just mean that God predestined the people that he's

00:27:54.560 going to predestined. And while we do believe it is by grace through faith, we believe that he gives

00:27:58.960 grace that then leads to the faith, um, of salvation and that there's nothing that we can

00:28:05.540 add to our salvation. So me saying that, well, if I hadn't believed, or if I hadn't mustered up the

00:28:11.840 strength to believe that I wouldn't be saved, that to me is kind of giving myself credit for my

00:28:16.720 salvation. Whereas Calvinists would say, no, no, no, no. It is only because God predestined you.

00:28:23.520 And here's the, like, here's the conundrum that I find myself in when I try to see like your

00:28:28.620 position. And so maybe you can kind of work this out for me. Yes, you can try because I haven't been

00:28:34.920 able to either. So we agree that God is all powerful, that God is all knowing and that God

00:28:42.580 is omnipresent. We believe all of these things about God. So if that is the case, then how can he,

00:28:52.220 if he foreknows something, which we know that he does because he is all knowing, and if he is not

00:28:57.660 limited by time and space, he's everywhere at once, then how is his foreknowledge not the same

00:29:04.540 thing as predestination? Because he can do anything he wants to, if he can do anything that he wants to,

00:29:10.220 then he could, uh, cause someone to believe in him, but he is choosing not to, like he could cause

00:29:18.480 anyone he wants to believe in him. We know that he turned, uh, Pharaoh's heart into a heart of stone.

00:29:24.220 And so if he can do that and he chooses not to do that for some people, and he chooses to do it for

00:29:29.740 other people, then how is that not predestination? That's a very big question. Wow. A lot loaded into

00:29:37.960 that. Uh, well, where to begin? Okay. So first, let me take a step back first of all, and address

00:29:42.600 something that you said earlier, because this is, I think one of those caricatures, and some of it is

00:29:45.900 just like a way of thinking about things, but when we talk about like somebody exercising faith

00:29:50.820 in, in, you know, you meant, I think you used the words like mustering up the strength or something

00:29:54.760 like that. Um, it has nothing to do with personal strength. First of all, you know, people who

00:29:58.560 disagree with Calvinists about, uh, predestination election, um, you know, the, the point, the five

00:30:03.480 points of tulip, they would still say that salvation is all of God and it's by grace alone. Um, and that

00:30:08.760 God, you know, God has to initiate, God initiates, man merely real yields or resists, right? So if,

00:30:15.560 if I'm yielding and no longer fighting the lifeguard, who's trying to save me while I'm

00:30:20.400 drowning, I'm not saving myself. He's still saving me. I've just stopped resisting him

00:30:24.260 so that he can actually get me out of the water. So, you know, when you yield to God,

00:30:28.480 who's drawing you and wants to save you, that's not a situation where you have anything to brag

00:30:32.300 about. You know, Paul contrasts faith with works. He doesn't, he doesn't say that faith

00:30:35.680 itself is a work. It's literally just saying, I can't do anything to earn my salvation. I need

00:30:41.320 you to save me and yielding to him and allowing him to do that. And that's a response to God's

00:30:46.640 drawing on, on people's hearts, the Holy spirit, the power of the gospel unto salvation being preached

00:30:52.260 to them. Um, that's a response to that. It's not man initiating saying, you know what, I've decided

00:30:57.120 I need salvation and coming to God on his own. Um, so that's one point, um, on, on the point of like

00:31:03.140 God's foreknowledge and him knowing, I agree that God knows everything. Um, I would say that

00:31:09.120 God, uh, whatever you freely decide to do, God infallibly foreknows. So, you know, God knows

00:31:16.380 everything that's going to happen. And that's just the nature of him being God is that he knows

00:31:20.980 everything that's going to happen. Um, I don't think that that amounts to fatalism where, uh,

00:31:26.200 you know, because God knows that it's going to happen means that God determined it. There's a very

00:31:30.060 big difference between, um, God knowing what you'll infallibly and knowing infallibly what you will

00:31:36.060 freely do and God determining that you do it. I think there's a massive difference between those

00:31:40.260 two things. But he could stop anything, correct? He could stop anything from happening that he

00:31:44.340 wanted to stop from happening. And so if he's choosing not to, then this is not necessarily

00:31:51.240 a question that I have a perfect answer to, but if God chooses not to stop something, which we know

00:31:55.900 that is within his power to do, then isn't there a bit of responsibility? Isn't there a bit of

00:32:02.040 predeterminism in that? And him withholding, like choosing not to act?

00:32:08.480 You say that there's, that there's a big difference between foreknowledge and predeterminism. And I do

00:32:13.300 agree with that. I agree that the Bible speaks to that, that the Bible shows God is completely

00:32:17.720 sovereign, but also holds man responsible for his actions. So there's a little bit of like

00:32:22.320 concurrence there. And Romans 9 talks about that sovereignty of God kind of in this tension with

00:32:28.980 what human beings decide to do and their responsibility for the things that they do.

00:32:32.800 What I struggle with is if God is totally like, I think of it like this, like I love, I thought that

00:32:37.660 your lifeguard analogy was really, really good. I think people are going to benefit a lot from that.

00:32:42.140 The analogy also that I think of has to do with drowning in a pool, actually. So if you have a

00:32:48.160 babysitter who is babysitting a child and the child walks outside, walks into the pool and drowns,

00:32:57.180 parents come home, obviously awful thing. The only way that you would not hold that babysitter

00:33:02.540 responsible for what happened is if that babysitter was constrained in some way, so that babysitter

00:33:08.880 didn't have the power to save that child. Or if somehow the babysitter didn't know, or the babysitter

00:33:15.360 wasn't there, all of those would be irresponsible things. But those three things we know were not true

00:33:20.280 about God. Like we know that God is all powerful. We know that God is there. We know that he is

00:33:24.660 capable, that he has the knowledge to do something. So in the same way that that babysitter would still

00:33:29.260 be held responsible, even though the babysitter didn't push the child into the pool, their

00:33:34.560 capability of being able to save that child from the pool does hold them responsible.

00:33:40.560 So wouldn't God...

00:33:41.720 Interesting argument you're making.

00:33:43.020 Yeah.

00:33:43.280 Yeah. So like Alvin Plantinga, if you're familiar with him, he put together this argument

00:33:48.040 called the free will defense. It's not really original to him, but he really formulated and

00:33:51.540 structured the free will defense to explain how there can possibly be evil when God exists

00:33:56.340 and he's omnipotent, omniscient. You know, like how is it possible that we have evil?

00:34:03.080 The answer, the one possible answer, an answer that I think is biblical, is the fact that he's

00:34:07.660 decided to create free creatures. So when we talk about like sovereignty, you know, a non-Calvinist

00:34:13.640 like me would agree that God is sovereign. But when it comes to like human freedom, a lot of

00:34:17.720 Calvinists think, okay, well, if he's sovereign, it means he's got to control everything. He's got

00:34:22.200 to determine everything that happens. I don't see any reason why God couldn't in his sovereignty

00:34:26.540 exercise divine self-limitation and allow for free creatures to exist, to live in an environment

00:34:33.820 where love and goodness and joy and suffering are all possible because he sees some great

00:34:40.280 good in that. And if he decides to do that in his sovereignty, decides to do that, I don't

00:34:44.840 think that you can fault him for that if he's determined that he thinks that there's some

00:34:48.480 good to that, that it's better to have that than to not have that. And so, you know, when

00:34:52.720 God is being patient with us because he's not willing that any should perish and desires that

00:34:58.960 every man and commands that every man everywhere repent and believe, I think he's being genuine.

00:35:04.960 He's being sincere. He wants everybody to repent and believe. And I think that Romans is a beautiful

00:35:09.500 picture. If you zoom out of like specific passages that focus on, you know, God will harden whoever

00:35:14.280 he wants to harden. And, you know, if you zoom out from those specific passages, he'll have mercy on

00:35:20.940 whoever he wants to have mercy. Later on, it talks about how he wants to have mercy on them all in

00:35:24.620 chapter 11. What Paul's burden is there is to show, you know, that the Jews are really objecting

00:35:29.580 that Gentiles are being grafted in, that they're enjoying, that they're being, entering into this 0.96

00:35:35.840 covenant with God too, through Jesus Christ. It's supposed to be this exclusive thing. It's being

00:35:40.440 opened up. God is arguing, who are you to question me? How can you question me that I've opened it up

00:35:45.000 to everybody that I want to have mercy on more people? The election was originally with Israel, 0.93

00:35:50.220 and that's a corporate thing. And then it became in Christ and opened up to Gentiles. That's a 0.99

00:35:57.200 corporate thing. It's a larger corporate thing. And the one led to the other. So I see Romans 9 as

00:36:02.380 really being Paul's burden to widen the scope of God's mercy and include the Gentiles in it, 0.57

00:36:09.320 not just the Jews, and to do so through Jesus so that anyone who believes can be saved. And it's

00:36:14.480 ultimately his desire that all be saved and he'll have mercy on all.

00:36:21.000 So, and the reason that they're not is because he's not being deterministic. He's not forcing

00:36:25.160 Christ on anyone. He's allowing you to either yield or resist. So I think that's really comes

00:36:30.560 down to the key differences. And it's just, you know, what is God's desire? I think it's really

00:36:34.080 clearly stated biblically that God's desire is for all to be saved.

00:36:40.840 Like I said, I think we agree on so much more than we disagree on. When I look at Romans 9

00:36:45.040 and those surrounding chapters, when he's not just talking about Israel and he's not just

00:36:50.660 separating Israel and Gentiles, he's separating faith from lack of faith because he says not all 0.86

00:36:55.740 Israel is Israel. And he talks about how it is, you know, by grace through faith, even though it

00:37:02.200 doesn't use the same terminology that it does in Ephesians 2, talks about how it is through faith

00:37:07.540 that both Gentiles and Jews are now coming together and are reconciled to God and are reconciled to each

00:37:12.980 other. So because of that, because the distinction there is not primarily between Gentiles and Jews

00:37:18.200 in those chapters, but between those who have faith, Gentiles and Jews, and those who do not.

00:37:22.880 And then he says, he says that people are going to say, okay, but how is that fair that he makes

00:37:28.040 vessels of wrath and vessels of mercy unsaved and saved? Who can, who can resist his will? How is that

00:37:34.920 fair basically? And Paul answers kind of like what you said, who are you? Who is, who is the clay to

00:37:41.580 answer back to the potter? Why did you make me this way? Now, I think, like you said, we're, we have

00:37:46.540 maybe differences in, in interpretation there and, you know, there are other passages and love he

00:37:52.320 predestined us. And I guess you would interpret that as meaning kind of collectively. He predestines

00:37:57.400 the saints. He predestines, I don't know, the Gentiles to be saved. Whereas I would look at that 1.00

00:38:03.860 more individualistically, but I think, I think that's where we'll leave it. I really, really

00:38:09.600 appreciate you taking the time to so clearly articulate your thoughts. I think people will

00:38:13.440 benefit from it. Maybe one day we can have a longer exclusively theological conversation. That would

00:38:19.420 be fun. Okay. Yeah, it would be. I, you know, I appreciate you giving me the chance to talk about

00:38:23.700 it. You know, a lot of people don't want to touch these things because it can get so heated, but I

00:38:26.460 think if you, you know, if you just have an open heart and mind to hear what other people have to say,

00:38:30.780 it doesn't have to get that way. Yeah, definitely. Especially when you have Christ in

00:38:34.640 common. All right. Where can everyone find you, support you, the Babylon Bee, your book,

00:38:40.780 all that good stuff? Bee, we're easy to find. We're all over everything. Babylonbee.com. We're

00:38:45.600 on Twitter, Instagram, everything. Myself, I'm Bee Chief on Instagram and I'm on Twitter as Seth

00:38:52.940 Dillon. Yeah, I think the main thing I'd want to push is our book. Go buy the Babylon Bee Guide to

00:38:58.240 Wokeness. It's a top seller right now. We actually hit 14, number 14 on the all, on all books on

00:39:04.420 Amazon. That's awesome. That was pretty impressive. Our publisher's thrilled with that. Go make it

00:39:08.420 number one. That would be pretty cool. Yes. Well, thank you so much, Seth. Thanks for talking to us.

00:39:13.060 Thank you, Allie.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - November 24, 2021

Ep 529 ｜ Why Bad Ideas Deserve to Be Mocked ｜ Guest： Seth Dillon

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