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

The left doesn't like Trump's plan for dealing with the migrant caravan, but what's their plan? They have criticisms, they don't have answers. As always, we'll talk about that, also I'll answer a mailbag, and finally, Ben Shapiro said something that was massively wrong, horribly offensive, and obscene.


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.