The Matt Walsh Show - November 02, 2018


Ep. 135 - What Else Are We Supposed To Do With The Migrant Caravan？


Episode Stats

Length

34 minutes

Words per Minute

180.86668

Word Count

6,244

Sentence Count

357

Misogynist Sentences

1

Hate Speech Sentences

19


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Today on the Matt Wall Show, the left doesn't like Trump's plan for dealing with the migrant
00:00:03.600 caravan, but what's their plan? They have criticisms. They don't have answers. As always,
00:00:07.280 we'll talk about that. Also, I'll reach you to the mailbag, answer a few interesting emails
00:00:11.140 that were sent to me. And finally, Ben Shapiro said something that was massively wrong,
00:00:16.820 horribly offensive and obscene. And I'm going to address that today as well.
00:00:21.340 That's all coming up today on the Matt Wall Show.
00:00:23.260 There was an article in BuzzFeed asking today whether Joe Biden is too old to run for president.
00:00:33.300 And I think he'll be 77 years old in 2020. I think, listen, of course, at 77, you're too old
00:00:39.000 to run for president. The life expectancy for men is, I think, what, 84 or something like that.
00:00:45.900 So you're not too far from that. If there's a lower age limit for president, like you can't run
00:00:50.820 for president before you're 35. Well, then, shouldn't there be an upper limit as well? I mean,
00:00:55.060 can we cut it off at some point, maybe 75 or something like that? To be for your first term,
00:01:00.680 you can't run for a first term after 70. I think we should at least think about that. Would you feel
00:01:05.060 more comfortable having, say, a 32-year-old in the White House or an 82-year-old? Like, who do you
00:01:10.480 think will be more physically and mentally capable of handling the most high pressure and important job
00:01:16.660 in America? Someone who's 82 or someone who's 32? I mean, if there's, I just think we should think
00:01:22.880 about whether or not there should be a limit, which, of course, would require an amendment to
00:01:27.300 the Constitution, which will never happen. But it's a thought anyway. All right. So we know that
00:01:32.500 the media and the left are very upset about Trump's plan for dealing with the illegal immigrant
00:01:38.960 caravan, and they call it callous and heartless and racist, and so on and so forth. But I would
00:01:47.820 like to turn this question around for a minute, because we have, we've heard liberals criticize
00:01:52.580 Trump's plan for dealing with the caravan. We haven't really heard their plan. So you know what
00:01:59.920 you think, we know what you think we shouldn't do. What do you think we should do? 5,000 people show
00:02:06.000 up at the border all at once. You don't like Trump's plan, fine. But what's your plan? I mean,
00:02:10.920 it's kind of amazing that so few Democrats or prominent liberals, even as they blast Trump for
00:02:16.900 his way of addressing the problem, they haven't given us an alternative. What would they have us do?
00:02:23.860 Would they have us just unfurl the red carpet and let this unchecked horde of unknown people into the
00:02:31.080 country? Just because they showed up? Now, yeah, I know that that's what they would like to do. But
00:02:37.140 we should at least require them to come out and say it. If that's actually what they want us to do,
00:02:40.960 then come out and say it. Come out and say that you think that if a whole group of people, 5,000
00:02:46.420 people show up, we should just let them in. Or maybe you'll say, no, well, they should be able to
00:02:54.420 claim asylum. Well, there are problems with that. For one thing, if 5,000 people from Central America
00:03:00.260 can claim asylum, then we've really expanded the idea of asylum to the point where it just is
00:03:04.860 meaningless. These are people looking for better jobs and better living conditions, which I totally
00:03:10.160 understand. I would want that too if I was in their position, but that's not what asylum is for.
00:03:15.280 Also, they were offered asylum in Mexico and they turned it down. So why should we give them
00:03:20.260 asylum? If they didn't take asylum when it was offered, then that would seem to mean that they
00:03:24.800 don't really want asylum. It seems like what they really are looking for is, because what I'm saying
00:03:29.380 is, in their country of origin, if their lives were threatened, which is really what asylum is
00:03:35.260 supposed to be for, then they would, they should take asylum from any other country that would offer
00:03:40.060 it to them. If they don't want asylum in Mexico, then that shows that what they really are after
00:03:44.620 is just kind of a better way of life, which again, in principle, I understand that, but that's not
00:03:49.840 asylum. That's just immigration. But more to the point, so fine, they, they, they apply for asylum,
00:03:59.060 they put in their asylum applications. Well, those applications have to be processed. If we're not
00:04:03.540 going to process the applications, if all they have to do is just fill it in and then they're good to
00:04:07.700 go, then there's no reason to even have the application in the first place. Then you really
00:04:11.360 are unfurling the red carpet. But so, so, okay, so they're applying for asylum. They have to have an
00:04:20.040 application. The application has to be processed. That takes time. What do we do with them in the
00:04:25.620 meantime? We, we, we've been told that detaining them is some great evil. We can't, we can't, we can't
00:04:33.080 lock them in cages. That's what we were told. Well, um, which they were never locked in cages.
00:04:39.340 Um, that was, that was, that was not the policy under the policy under Trump was not to quote,
00:04:44.960 lock them in cages, but the policy has been that we have to detain them in some way while the
00:04:52.020 application is processed. What other option is there? Do we just take their application and then
00:04:58.420 let them go into the interior of the country on a kind of honor system and say, Hey, check back.
00:05:03.080 Uh, check back in, in, uh, in, in six weeks and we'll let you know what's going on. Well,
00:05:08.620 that's stupid, obviously, because again, that's, that's, you might as well just open up the gates,
00:05:14.640 let them in and not even worry about it. If that's what you're going to do. So we do have to detain
00:05:18.500 them. You don't like the way we attain them. Well, so how do we detain them? You want better
00:05:24.120 detainment facilities. You want whole families together. Um, so you want us to house, feed,
00:05:30.400 shelter, these people in nice facilities, facilities equipped to take care of and protect
00:05:33.920 whole families, which is an issue by the way, because when you've got, you know, it's one
00:05:39.880 thing if you're going to, if you're going to put all the grown men together, um, and that has been
00:05:44.700 the policy in the past where you've got all the grown men, you're detaining them. Um, and then
00:05:50.100 you've got the children separate, but now if you're putting families together, that means you're
00:05:52.820 going to have, you're going to have these facilities where you've got children and, and grown men
00:05:57.340 and adults all mixed together, which could be a dangerous situation. So now you've got to protect
00:06:02.240 and separate and provide for, how are we doing all this? And then what happens when the next
00:06:06.980 caravan comes in and the next, after that, or the next, after that, where are we getting the money
00:06:10.900 and resources and space and facility to offer this nice, temporary safe housing to entire families
00:06:17.740 for, um, for, you know, indefinite periods of time? Have you thought about that? It seems like
00:06:27.380 most liberals have not thought about this. All they've thought about is how terrible and evil
00:06:33.520 Trump's policy is. All right. Um, because it's Friday, I'd like to go to the mailbag and I had some,
00:06:41.340 some, uh, a few interesting, uh, questions that were emailed to me that I wanted to answer.
00:06:46.420 And all right, so here we go. This first one is from Nick. Um, it says, Matt,
00:06:51.600 I've often heard you say that it's okay for Christians to be judgmental because we are
00:06:57.040 judging sin, not sinners. But what about the petty judgments of Christians? Like the people who are
00:07:01.940 criticizing that Christian singer you linked to on Facebook? Don't you think people are driven away
00:07:06.500 from the church by petty judgmental Christians who just want to show off their theological knowledge
00:07:10.940 and appear pious all the time? All right. I think I need to, um, I think this requires
00:07:17.980 explanation. I linked a few days ago to a performance from a Christian artist named Lauren
00:07:22.860 Daigle and she performed on the Ellen show. And I thought that her performance was, was she did a
00:07:29.240 nice job. Uh, I'm not really into that kind of music, pop music, not my thing, but I thought it was a
00:07:33.900 nice song. She's a talented artist, great singer. It was, it's a, and she had a relevant sound, uh,
00:07:39.540 actually relevant music, which is, which is, which is often a struggle for Christian music. It, it,
00:07:45.640 it, it just doesn't sound like the kind of stuff people listen to. It doesn't sound relevant. Um,
00:07:52.400 oftentimes Christian music just sounds outdated and corny and, and, uh, and all that, but this,
00:07:58.460 but this didn't, I mean, it's, it's a, so it's a relevant, nice sound. And the lyrics were a
00:08:02.960 beautiful expression of faith. So I, I shared it, but as Nick is alluding to here, there were a number of,
00:08:08.060 number of people who left comments about the, the song, just tearing it apart and tearing the woman
00:08:16.460 apart. They had their theological critiques of her, of her lyrics. They said that, um, well,
00:08:22.180 she's not really preaching the gospel because she's forgotten to mention this or that theological
00:08:26.280 point. This is actually not the first time that's happened where I've, I, some Christian
00:08:30.300 performers performed a song that, you know, is getting attention. And I think it's a nice song.
00:08:34.400 Um, and then, and then it's very common for Christians to respond by saying, well, this isn't
00:08:41.120 preaching the gospel. It doesn't mention anything about atonement. Uh, it, it, it, it, it doesn't,
00:08:47.500 doesn't, it doesn't specific, it doesn't quote the Bible. It starts, starts going, you know,
00:08:52.920 offering this kind of theological critique of a Christian pop song. Um, as if, as if every Christian
00:09:03.280 statement or song or anything, as if all of that must always mention every essential theological
00:09:09.540 point, it's just ridiculous. They, they, they couldn't just enjoy a nice song about faith. Like
00:09:16.200 they had to find a reason to complain. You've got this, this woman singing just a nice song about
00:09:23.000 her Christian faith and that's it. And there had people couldn't just enjoy it. They had to find a
00:09:28.140 reason to critique that. And these are the petty, petty judgments that I think Nick is talking about.
00:09:34.080 And I agree with him. I think, um, I think as Christians, we're called to stand up to evil.
00:09:39.820 We're called to speak truth. And I think that many times Christians are labeled as judgmental when in
00:09:44.700 fact, they're just trying to defend the faith and defend biblical values. But there is also a
00:09:49.760 tendency among certain Christians and probably among all of us to one degree or another to be petty and
00:09:55.980 pompous and, um, and, and to try to show off our theological knowledge. Like we think it makes,
00:10:06.300 make us seem like better Christians if we can find some theological or exegetical reason to
00:10:14.500 criticize something that to everyone else appears to be perfectly fine. Um, and I just,
00:10:20.580 I think what happens is that outsiders see that like they'll look at, for instance, the thread under
00:10:28.080 that, the, the, the song that I post on Facebook and they'll say to themselves, I want nothing to do
00:10:33.180 with these insufferable, boring, petty people. Another example from this past week would be Halloween.
00:10:41.240 Um, now some Christians celebrate Halloween. Okay. Some Christians don't celebrate Halloween and
00:10:48.400 that's fine. Everyone makes their own decisions and, and I respect it either way. It's perfectly fine.
00:10:55.100 Now me and my family, we went trick or treating. We had a great time. My son dressed up as St.
00:10:59.040 Michael, the archangel. That was his, that was the costume he wanted. Um, so it's not, you know,
00:11:04.120 we're not one of those families that said, well, no, if you're going to go trick or treating,
00:11:06.540 you have to dress up as something Christian. Uh, it'd be perfectly fine. If you wanted to be
00:11:10.140 Spider-Man, he could have been Spider-Man, but he, but he wanted to be, uh, wanted to be
00:11:13.240 the archangel Michael. And, and it was a nice costume. It was, and it was a fun family time,
00:11:18.480 but some Christian families don't like Halloween and they don't celebrate it, which, which again,
00:11:22.640 is totally fine. I respect that. But there are also Christians who don't celebrate Halloween
00:11:28.500 and they like to announce it to the world. They like to put it, put on, they like to trumpet
00:11:34.320 their own piety and make sure that everybody knows, um, that they're, that they don't celebrate,
00:11:40.520 which is kind of in the same vein as the people who, who, who, uh, you know, are giving up something
00:11:46.500 for Lent and they make sure that everybody knows that they're giving up something and what that
00:11:50.540 thing is. So it's sort of in the same vein, but I think this is even worse. So there are Christians
00:11:54.980 that they announced, they make sure that they announced that Halloween is the devil's holiday.
00:11:58.600 It's a pagan holiday, a celebration of evil. Um, and they make a big show of their heroic
00:12:03.200 refusal to allow their kids to knock on doors for candy. Now, leaving aside the fact that
00:12:10.400 Halloween has Christian origins, not pagan. Um, and, and leaving aside the absolutely absurd idea
00:12:20.420 that families are out trick or treating because they want to celebrate evil. Like, do you really
00:12:25.160 think you see all these families out and these kids dress up in superhero costumes and
00:12:28.580 girls and you know, little girls and princess costumes and they're going around with their
00:12:32.480 buckets of their little pumpkin buckets and, uh, and they're getting candy and they're having
00:12:37.200 a great, you think that these families are, are, are, are looking to celebrate evil and gore.
00:12:42.820 That's what someone told me is that it's a celebration of gore and blood and violence.
00:12:46.600 Really? Is that what you think? That's what these families are intending to do is celebrate
00:12:51.380 gore, blood and violence. I can tell you, I don't think there, there's, there's, there are not very
00:12:58.140 many people who on Halloween say to themselves, let's go out and celebrate gore and blood and
00:13:02.760 violence. I think they just think of it as an excuse to have a good time. But again, um,
00:13:09.360 it's fine. It doesn't bother me that some people feel that way. We could have that discussion
00:13:14.320 and that's fine. But the issue is pettiness. The issue is the insistence upon trying to make other
00:13:20.740 people feel bad for not coming to the same conclusion as you on this small and irrelevant
00:13:26.240 issue. Another example, tattoos. Um, I have tattoos myself, so you know how I feel about the subject,
00:13:33.660 but again, it doesn't bother me that, that someone would disagree. There are plenty of Christians who,
00:13:40.360 uh, are people in general who don't like tattoos. Perfectly fine. It doesn't offend me. It doesn't hurt
00:13:45.500 my feelings. Completely fine. And I can even have a discussion, a debate about tattoos or, you know,
00:13:52.160 the, the, the, the prudence of getting tattoos. And I can listen to both sides of it. It doesn't
00:13:55.980 hurt my feelings. Perfectly fine. But still on a semi-regular basis, I'll get emails from Christians
00:14:02.160 telling me what a sinful, worldly, fraudulent Christian I am because of tattoos. And then they
00:14:08.480 proceed to quote Old Testament verses to try to prove why my tattoos are sending me to hell. Uh, and of
00:14:14.100 course they take the, the, the, the Old Testament verses out of context and, um, they take them in a
00:14:19.720 context that if they're being consistent, then they would, then they themselves would have to make sure
00:14:24.000 to never cut their beards. They'd have to eat kosher. Uh, don't, don't wear mixed fibers because
00:14:29.080 the, the, the, the tattoos, tattoo regulations are in that same vein. So they themselves are completely
00:14:36.420 cherry picking. Um, and so it's just, and any tattooed Christian knows this. They, um, because we
00:14:45.140 all deal with this on occasion, it's petty, it's silly. It makes the church look ridiculous and small.
00:14:50.820 And there are so many examples. Alcohol is another example. Um, on a few occasions, uh, in fact,
00:14:58.340 we're going to talk about this later on in this very show, but you know, I enjoy bourbon. Um,
00:15:03.540 and when I say enjoy it, I, I, I, I'm not going to call myself a connoisseur. I'm not nearly at that
00:15:10.440 level, but that's sort of where I'm heading. I enjoy the taste of it. I enjoy, uh, the different
00:15:15.260 kinds of bourbons and trying them and everything like that. And so on occasion, because it's an
00:15:19.420 interest that I have, I'll mention it on Twitter or something. And, uh, and you can always count on
00:15:25.300 having the Christians come in and, uh, not just share their opinion about it, but, but, but again,
00:15:30.440 just in this petty kind of way announcing that any Christian who would dare to drink alcohol is not
00:15:35.860 a real Christian and is in, is in danger of the fires of hell. Uh, and then they'll proceed to,
00:15:42.420 to explain how they know with absolute certainty that the wine that is mentioned all throughout
00:15:48.700 scripture, especially in the new Testament, the wine that was part of Jesus's very first public
00:15:53.480 miracle. They know for a fact that it was non-alcoholic, the absolute fact they're a hundred
00:15:57.960 percent sure. And so on that, with, with that certainty, they can declare that any Christian
00:16:04.700 who would drink alcohol, even though Jesus himself, his first miracle, uh, was, uh, was,
00:16:08.700 was to make alcohol. And at the last supper, um, he, he, he shared alcohol, you know, with his,
00:16:15.320 with his apostle, but they know there are certain, absolutely. It could not have been alcoholic.
00:16:20.440 And they know that because that is their personal preference. And so they take their own personal
00:16:26.080 preference and they try to declare that anyone who does not share that preference is not a real
00:16:32.920 Christian. Um, that's something we have to look out for. I know I've been guilty of it. We've probably
00:16:39.920 all been guilty of it at certain points. And it's something we really need to watch out for because
00:16:43.600 that is when, as much as I really don't like the term judgmental because it is so overused,
00:16:50.980 that is when we earn the term judgmental because judgmental in the sense that we look like people
00:16:57.460 who are just, just searching for a chance to cast judgment. Um, and we also look like people who are
00:17:07.520 going out of our way to alienate others and make sure they know that they aren't welcome,
00:17:13.480 um, for the dumbest reasons. All right. Um, let's see what time. Okay. I had a few questions about
00:17:21.780 the Kanye thing. People were asking me what's, what's my opinion on now that Kanye has, uh, has,
00:17:27.240 uh, his, his love affair with the right appears to have ended. And he, uh, now he said on Twitter
00:17:32.380 this week that he's been used by people for their political agendas. And then, uh, you know,
00:17:37.400 he proceeded to lay out his own political opinions, most of them very liberal. And then he donated to
00:17:43.080 an extremely liberal socialist candidate in Chicago, uh, gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to that
00:17:48.560 campaign this week. So my take on that, I'm not going to harp on this. I've already, I've already
00:17:54.600 made my opinion clear. I said from the very beginning with this Kanye, this is like, I'm not
00:17:58.360 going to get into, uh, I told you so's because I just said, we're not supposed to be petty. So I'm not
00:18:02.500 going to do that. But just as a matter of historical accuracy, I did say from the very beginning that I
00:18:12.200 really think this Kanye thing is a publicity stunt on his part. And we as conservatives have a tendency,
00:18:20.500 although usually we try to be rational and not only that, but usually we were the ones going around
00:18:27.380 announcing that the opinion, the political opinions of celebrities don't matter and they need to shut
00:18:32.060 up and stick to the music, stick to the shows, whatever they do. Right. Um, we're the ones usually
00:18:37.580 saying that, but then a celebrity comes along and says one thing that appears to be even slightly
00:18:44.220 conservative. And we fought trip all over ourselves, uh, in, in, in admiration, we fall at the person's
00:18:52.280 feet, kissing their feet, uh, because they said one conservative thing, because it appears that
00:18:58.560 some of us really are, you know, as much as we say, we don't care about the opinions of celebrities.
00:19:03.100 I think it's actually envy. We're jealous that the, that the cool celebrities aren't on our side.
00:19:08.000 That appears to be the case for some of us, because if any celebrity says something that we're,
00:19:11.460 you know, we fall over ourselves. So I just think we need to, we probably need to slow our roll a
00:19:15.900 little bit with that. And this is a good case study. Um, there was reason to be skeptical of
00:19:23.140 Kanye's conservative conversion in the first place. And even if it was a sincere conversion,
00:19:28.780 and now he's just changed his mind, it's still, it's just, he's just, I've got nothing. I have no
00:19:35.360 problem with him personally, but I don't think he ever was a very effective spokesman for conservative
00:19:45.060 values in the first place. Um, he's free to say what he wants. It's fine. But it never made sense
00:19:52.620 to take this guy and put them on a pedestal and say, yeah, see, listen to him. He's explaining it.
00:20:01.220 All right. Uh, one more mailbag question. This is from Lindsay. She says, hi, Matt,
00:20:06.040 you often criticize atheists and atheism, but you, have you ever actually researched and listened to
00:20:12.620 their arguments? How can you claim to be some sort of apologist? If you won't even listen to the other
00:20:17.440 side, are you willing to admit that atheists have any good arguments at all? I think you're a smart
00:20:22.480 guy, but the dismissive way that you handle atheism really detracts from your credibility.
00:20:26.280 First of all, I don't claim to be an apologist. I don't claim to be anything,
00:20:28.860 but I have listened to atheist arguments. Uh, I have researched them quite a bit. In fact,
00:20:33.840 I think Christopher Hitchens was a brilliant man, extremely quick witted and clever. Uh,
00:20:41.960 so if you watch any debates with him on, on YouTube, even though I disagree with everything
00:20:46.920 you're saying, it's just kind of a joy to, to watch and to listen to him because the guy's just,
00:20:51.640 it was an artist with the way that he used words and framed arguments and everything. Um,
00:20:56.940 and so we, and those are arguments that we should take seriously, not just him, but Sam Harris,
00:21:02.560 Daniel Dennett, Michael Shermer, Dawkins, Dan Barker, Sean Carroll, Bart Ehrman, uh, Richard Carrier,
00:21:08.420 Robert Price. Oh, you know, I've, I've listened, listen or read quite a bit from all these guys.
00:21:15.760 And I fully believe, and I agree that we need to engage with the other side. We have to take
00:21:20.580 their positions seriously. I don't believe in staying in a bubble and hiding. I don't think
00:21:25.880 we should do that because how, how strong can our faith be? How truly can we really believe
00:21:32.640 if we're too afraid to listen to the very best arguments from the very smartest, most gifted
00:21:38.100 people on the other side? And we certainly are not going to be effective defenders of the faith
00:21:42.380 if we don't even know what the detractors are actually saying. If our, if our impression of the
00:21:49.020 atheist position is just what we've gathered from YouTube comments and, um, and just maybe a few
00:21:55.920 people we know around us who are atheists and the discussion we have, if, if, if that's our,
00:21:59.860 if that's all we know about the atheist perspective, then we really don't know anything
00:22:03.820 about it. And so therefore we cannot be effective defenders of the faith. So we, I, I, again,
00:22:12.100 I fully believe we need to go and seek out the smartest atheists. There are plenty of very smart
00:22:18.420 ones, very insightful ones. Listen to what they're saying. Um, so that, so that we can engage.
00:22:29.860 And, and, and we can think and think for ourselves as well. Now, as for good atheist arguments,
00:22:37.240 I've already, um, and when I say think for ourselves, you know, the point here is
00:22:41.180 it's important as Christians, obviously we want to read and listen to Christian apologists,
00:22:48.000 legitimate ones, real ones, not me, but, um, you know, listen to and read Christian apologists,
00:22:54.360 defenders of the faith. So we need to equip ourselves in that way, strengthen ourselves
00:22:59.500 in that way. Um, but that, I don't think that can't be the only way that we encounter
00:23:07.880 the atheist arguments because you can encounter them that way. You can go and read a William
00:23:13.800 Lane Craig book and you can encounter the atheist arguments and see how he deals with them,
00:23:17.340 which is good, but then you're, you're not really, you're not really thinking through
00:23:22.580 the atheist objections on your own. And you're, he, he, he, Craig or whoever is giving you
00:23:28.260 the response. And so, which is, which again, it's fine, but then we also have to go and listen to
00:23:34.740 what they say, listen to how they frame it so that we can also think through it ourselves as well.
00:23:40.740 Uh, now, as far as good atheist arguments, I've already done a show where I engaged with, uh,
00:23:45.400 what I think is the best atheist argument because it's the, it's the simplest and that is the
00:23:50.980 hiddenness of God. I think this is, if not the best, one of the best atheist arguments. Um,
00:23:56.200 and the reason why it's a good argument is because it kind of says the very fact that we need to have
00:24:03.340 an argument about the existence of God seems to indicate that there is no God. That's their position.
00:24:07.880 Uh, you know, if there was a God, they would say, why doesn't he make himself more plainly,
00:24:15.400 uh, apparent to us. That, that is a formidable objection. And I, and I think that, in fact,
00:24:22.900 when I did that show on this and I explained how I think through the hiddenness of God,
00:24:28.520 there were, you know, quite a few people who responded and said, well, that's not even a
00:24:32.480 problem. God isn't hidden. What are you talking about? I hear him in my heart. I can pray. I have
00:24:36.600 the Bible. He's not hidden at all. You know, again, when we, when, when, when we, when we respond to
00:24:42.920 objections that way as Christians, then atheists just, they're going to shut us out because they're
00:24:46.520 going to say, you know, you're not taking this seriously. Yeah. You can pray and all that,
00:24:49.640 but he is obviously in a very real sense, hidden as well. You can't look and see him. You can't
00:24:55.740 hear, you know, you pray. You don't, you don't literally hear his voice in your head. At least
00:25:00.100 I don't, I've, I've never met a Christian who, who, who did. So to act like this is not a problem at all.
00:25:07.060 And it's just not even a, you can't even understand why anyone would even bring it up.
00:25:11.380 Well, then again, we're just turning people away when we do that. It is a formidable objection.
00:25:15.700 Another one is the problem of suffering. Any Christian who scoffs at the problem of suffering
00:25:21.320 as if it presents no challenge is not a serious person and not a serious Christian.
00:25:27.300 And I think probably has a pretty weak faith because if they've never actually even thought
00:25:30.920 about this, then they're how strong can their faith be the best theologians in the history of
00:25:36.120 Christianity. All of them, all the best ones, every single one you can think of. They have all
00:25:40.180 taken this objection seriously and, and, and tried to deal with it. And you could spend your whole life
00:25:46.480 reading Christian apologetics about the problem of suffering, the problem of God's hiddenness. These
00:25:52.360 are big, serious issues. Now, the problem of suffering is only really a problem. It's only a theological
00:26:00.140 difficulty when it comes to non-human cause suffering, because as for man on man, evil and suffering,
00:26:05.640 the theist response is, I think, obvious and logical, which is free will. God gives us the
00:26:10.360 ability to choose because only in choice, only in free will, can we really have love and joy?
00:26:16.700 Compelled love, compelled joy is impossible. Or at least it wouldn't really be love. If you had no
00:26:24.180 choice but to love, no, no choice but to have joy, then, then, then, you know, in what sense can we say
00:26:29.880 that it's real? So that deals with, I think, a lot of the suffering we see in the world. But it doesn't do
00:26:38.520 much to explain why children die of cancer and why people drown in tsunamis. And the Christian, there
00:26:49.000 isn't going to be an answer to these objections in the sense that we're not going to be able to present
00:26:53.080 some neat little response that settles the question once and for all. And then we can all go home happy
00:26:58.320 and not think about it anymore. There is a mystery here. We have to accept that. But I think we can
00:27:04.960 get ourselves on the road to understanding. We can at least partially faintly understand these problems.
00:27:11.360 So for the hiddenness of God, as I said before, you can go and watch that show where I, where I talk
00:27:15.680 about this, but I think that part of the answer, possibly, is that God remains, for us, behind the
00:27:25.660 veil, out of view, as it were, because this is our time of choosing. If he were to burst through that
00:27:33.580 veil and appear before us in the sky or something, whatever atheists say they would want him to do so
00:27:38.720 that he could prove his existence. If he were to, he would be perfectly capable of putting on some
00:27:45.380 awesome celestial performance that would make it almost impossible to disbelieve. But if he were to
00:27:55.360 do that, then I think it would remove or seriously hinder our ability to choose. Because very few mortal
00:28:03.820 people, except the absolute most prideful would be able to look upon God or look upon whatever he would
00:28:12.460 do to demonstrate himself undeniably to us, very few could look upon that, witness that, and do anything
00:28:20.340 but fall down in fear and awe and worship. Which is an appropriate response, don't get me wrong.
00:28:30.840 But then there's not, the possibility of choosing at that point is basically gone.
00:28:41.180 Because we will be so overcome with fear and awe and just indescribable feelings that we can't even
00:28:49.280 imagine that we would not have the sort of calm, reasoned mindset that we need to actually choose
00:28:58.380 whether we want to love God or not, whether we want to follow and obey and listen or not and serve.
00:29:06.240 So for lack of a better term, I think that he gives us space in this life to actually choose
00:29:12.200 so that we're not just cowed and stupefied before him, but able to make a decision.
00:29:16.600 As for the problem of suffering that's caused by disease and natural disaster,
00:29:21.260 what we know is that God has set up the laws of nature and he allows those laws to work mostly on
00:29:28.480 their own. On their own in the sense that he's not intervening constantly to circumvent them. Though
00:29:32.540 he can and does intervene sometimes, but he's not constantly always doing it. He mostly allows
00:29:37.580 them to work on their own. That's how he set up the system. And I suspect that that has something to do
00:29:44.300 with what I just said a moment ago. These two issues I think are linked. That if he was constantly
00:29:49.920 running in and putting up his hands to stop the tsunami from coming or doing all these various
00:29:55.840 things, then again, I think it creates an almost pointless world because now we don't have that
00:30:05.820 ability to choose and decide for ourselves. So I could spend another five hours on these questions.
00:30:12.160 The answers that I just provided obviously aren't sufficient. And even if I had five hours,
00:30:15.780 they still wouldn't be sufficient. But it's just a few ideas I wanted to give you in terms of how we
00:30:20.680 might think through these things. But the point is, I do think we need to think through them. And that
00:30:25.400 means engaging with atheist ideas and objections. And I encourage everyone to do that. Okay, there are
00:30:30.300 more mailbag questions I could talk about, but I'm going to have to do those later because there's one
00:30:35.440 other thing I wanted to mention. And this is difficult, difficult for me to say. But yesterday,
00:30:49.140 Ben Shapiro sent out a tweet that has made me reconsider my affiliation with the Daily Wire
00:30:57.460 and my affiliation with the planet Earth in general. This is what he said. He said,
00:31:03.020 get ready for my hottest take of the evening. Whiskey tastes like turpentine. All who pretend
00:31:08.100 otherwise may be safely categorized with those who say they just love salad. Then later, he said,
00:31:14.480 here for the ratio. And you all know I'm right. No sane person prefers whiskey to a strawberry daiquiri.
00:31:20.900 I am literally shaking right now. I am actually shaking. Look, see, I'm literally shaking.
00:31:31.960 You think you know someone, and then they say something like this.
00:31:37.140 First, let me just say that I really think it's time to rethink the First Amendment because I'm a fan
00:31:43.780 of free speech generally, but this is not what the founders had in mind. They never imagined that
00:31:49.040 somebody would use and abuse their free speech rights to disseminate this sort of obscenity.
00:31:56.200 I agree about the salad, but the idea that strawberry daiquiris are better than whiskey
00:32:00.640 is just, it's bigoted. You know, it's actually bigoted. It's racist against the Irish,
00:32:08.320 for one thing. Ben is coming out as anti-Irish.
00:32:12.160 And it's factually incorrect. Sugary, sweet alcoholic drinks are repulsive. They taste like a
00:32:19.560 drunk unicorn's vomit, is what they taste like, okay? Whiskey, especially bourbon, on the other
00:32:26.840 hand, is, I think, not only delicious, but it's one of the best theological cases we can make for
00:32:32.320 the existence of God, which is what Benjamin Franklin said about wine, but I think it applies
00:32:35.960 even more to whiskey. Now, here's the thing that Ben Shapiro doesn't understand, I think,
00:32:41.560 apparently. Almost every good thing in life as an adult is something that you have to learn to like,
00:32:49.880 something that children won't like. So I hated beer. I hated wine, coffee, whiskey the first time
00:32:55.840 that I had them. But as I matured, I learned to love them. Just like I remember being four or five
00:33:03.300 years old and watching football with my dad and being bored to tears, thinking like, what's the
00:33:07.040 point of this? But now I realize that football is man's greatest invention. When I was a child,
00:33:11.340 I hated sleeping. Going to bed was a travesty. Now I just, all I want to do is go to bed all day. I
00:33:17.900 live each moment longing for the dark embrace of a long and dreamless sleep. When I was a child,
00:33:24.100 I didn't like going to church. Now I do. When I was a child, I would rather watch cartoons than the
00:33:28.200 old Westerns that my dad would bring home from Blockbuster. Now I love old Westerns. I could watch Shane
00:33:33.140 beat up the bad guys with a broken beer bottle and ride off into the sunset every single day and
00:33:37.160 never get tired of it. When I was a child, I hated olives. I hated Brussels sprouts. I hated gravy.
00:33:41.160 Now I love olives and Brussels sprouts and gravy to me is its own food group. I could have it with
00:33:44.800 every meal and on and on and on. One must earn the joys of adulthood. One must work for them. And
00:33:51.800 whiskey is, is, is one of the greatest rewards of adulthood. And frankly, through his attack on
00:34:00.280 whiskey, Ben Shapiro has come out as anti-adult, anti-man, anti-Irish, anti-human, anti-truth,
00:34:07.620 anti-taste buds, anti-joy, anti-life. And I will have to seriously consider resigning my position at
00:34:12.700 the Daily Wire. Uh, though I expect, even if I do that, that I'll still be paid regardless because I
00:34:18.120 am the aggrieved party here and the victim. Never forget that. All right. Have a great weekend,
00:34:23.020 everybody. And, um, have some whiskey and have, have a whiskey in Ben Shapiro's name
00:34:27.520 this evening. I'll talk to you on Monday. That's me.