The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 191 - Media Suddenly Won't Report Unsubstantiated Rape Allegations

00:00:00.000 Today on the Matt Wall Show, Justin Fairfax, the lieutenant governor of Virginia, is accused of sexual assault.

00:00:05.800 The media didn't want to run with this story. They said it's not corroborated, so we're not going to run with it.

00:00:10.740 But wait, they did run with the Kavanaugh story, even though the Kavanaugh allegations were far less credible than the allegations against Fairfax.

00:00:19.600 So we'll try to sort through this, talk about that today.

00:00:21.580 Also, I'll answer your emails, including a really interesting email from someone who wants to know how to respond to claims that Jesus never existed.

00:00:28.900 So we'll talk about that today as well on the Matt Wall Show.

00:00:41.180 Welcome to the show, everybody. Thanks for being here. Thank you for listening.

00:00:45.640 Justin Fairfax, lieutenant governor of Virginia, as you've heard, has been accused of sexual assault. 0.94

00:00:52.240 The accusation comes in the midst of all the Ralph Northam stuff and the governor in the midst of his, you know, people calling for him to resign because of his sordid history of blackface and moonwalking, when really he should just resign because he supports killing babies after they've been born.

00:01:14.120 Now, personally, I don't think it's a coincidence that all of this, I don't think it's a coincidence, first of all, that the Northam stuff came out with the blackface stuff and the yearbook, all of that, that came out only days after Northam had committed the cardinal sin of embarrassing the pro-abortion position.

00:01:34.360 Embarrassing it by, by actually being honest about it and taking it to its logical conclusion.

00:01:40.300 So he committed that sin. That's not going to go unpunished if you're a Democrat. I don't think it's a coincidence.

00:01:45.480 And then, of course, it's obviously not a coincidence that, that as Fairfax is on the, on the eve of potentially being elevated to this position, that this comes out about him.

00:01:54.080 So it would seem like Democrats maybe leaked the, uh, the stuff about Northam in order to get Fairfax in there.

00:02:00.840 Then Northam leaked the stuff about Fairfax in order to keep himself in there. And then, so it's just, I don't know, you know, I don't know, but it's just, it's a mess all around.

00:02:08.860 Um, so what are the allegations against Justin Fairfax? Basically the accuser says that she was forced to perform sex acts on Fairfax at a hotel during the 2004 Democratic convention.

00:02:22.760 Um, she apparently went into his room. Um, they started kissing and then she was forced to perform the act. That's what she claims, right? Allegedly.

00:02:36.700 Uh, it's, it's worth noting that the Washington Post was told about these allegations a year ago and decided not to run with the story because it's uncorroborated.

00:02:47.760 Hmm. Now as for Fairfax, he forcefully denies it. He, he, he even, I would say angrily denies it. I mean, he's, he's angry in his denials of this, of this, um, of this charge, which really raises questions about temperament.

00:03:05.500 I mean, you have to ask, is he fit to be governor with a, with a temperament like that? A guy who would get angry at, at rape allegations if he didn't do them. That's just, well, we can't have that, right? That's, that's, that's, that's scary. That's weird.

00:03:18.780 Uh, and of course that's the inevitable comparison here, um, to Brett Kavanaugh. I mean, I'm being, now, obviously I think it makes sense if you are innocent of a rape accusation, it makes a lot of sense to be angry about it.

00:03:36.100 Um, so I think actually anger and emotion, that makes me even more convinced of your innocence because that's how a regular guy who, who is innocent would actually respond.

00:03:47.780 But that's not what the left said about Brett Kavanaugh, is it? Um, and remember the post had no problem running uncorroborated claims about Brett Kavanaugh. No media outlet had a problem with that.

00:04:01.920 Yet with Fairfax, they suddenly have this great caution. They suddenly are, oh, well, we can't, we can't do that. It's uncorroborated. You know, we, we, what the post said is that they looked into it.

00:04:11.780 They tried to find other witnesses and people that could back up the story and they couldn't find that. So they didn't run it.

00:04:17.780 Well, they couldn't find it with Brett Kavanaugh either. In fact, it's worse than that. Not only could they not find corroborating witnesses for Brett Kavanaugh's accuser, but they actually found witnesses who were more on Brett Kavanaugh's side, who, who actively denied ever being, ever seeing this happen or being in the same room as these people.

00:04:39.120 So they actually found witnesses that, that actively contradicted Christine Ford's claims. Yet they ran with that anyway.

00:04:46.480 Um, and, but not only did the, was the media uninterested in these allegations against Fairfax a year ago, they still are uninterested.

00:04:56.960 The media has already tried to move on. I went to CNN's homepage this morning and I don't know, as of this morning on CNN's homepage, there was not a single word about Justin Fairfax on the entire homepage.

00:05:09.920 And we're talking about dozens and dozens and dozens and we're talking about dozens and dozens and dozens of stories get crammed onto a homepage on CNN's homepage and they couldn't find room for this story at all.

00:05:19.800 Uh, which is insane, of course, because this is a big story. This is a big, meaty, twisted, kind of weird political story.

00:05:29.780 This is the definition of news and it's happening in Virginia in the media's own backyard. Yet they've already tried to move on from it. How long did it take them to move on from Kavanaugh?

00:05:41.020 They were talking about that for weeks, but for Fairfax a day later, they're already done with it. How do these allegations, because now that we're in the middle of this comparison, how do these allegations stack up against Kavanaugh?

00:05:53.700 Well, let's think about it for a minute. Christine Ford didn't know the year or the location of her alleged assault, and she waited 30 years to tell anybody.

00:06:08.480 Um, this accuser waited only 13 years, and she knows the exact date, time, and location. And on top of that, Fairfax, I believe, admits that he knew the woman, that even they had a sexual encounter. Um, only he says that it was consensual.

00:06:29.700 Whereas in Ford's case, Kavanaugh denies even really knowing her, being around her, and they couldn't find anyone that could even corroborate that they'd been in the same room together.

00:06:41.560 Okay. So, you see, that's the problem here. Uh, that it's, it's very clear that the allegations against Fairfax are certainly more credible than the allegations against, um, Justice Kavanaugh.

00:06:58.380 On every level. There, there is no, when you do a point-by-point comparison, there is not even one single point where it would seem like Ford's story is more credible than the story, um, that Fairfax accuser is giving us.

00:07:12.680 Now, all things being equal, I, I would have no problem with the Washington Post passing on Justin Fairfax's story, passing on, on the story of his accuser. I would have no problem with them passing on that.

00:07:30.540 In fact, again, all things being equal, that would be the right thing to do. That would be the responsible thing to do.

00:07:36.860 Because even though these allegations are certainly more credible than the allegations against Kavanaugh, they still are uncorroborated. Um, she has no witnesses. She has no evidence to provide, apparently, at least none that she's, she's come forward with yet. So, it's only, it's only one accuser. I mean, how, how could you, you run with this?

00:07:56.140 So, it's the responsible and right thing to do to, to, to say, no, we're not, we're not going to do anything with that. Um, the problem though, is that of course, they don't pass on similar stories about Republicans.

00:08:11.960 So, their decision not to run with the Fairfax thing, that wasn't them being responsible or them being cautious or them, them trying, you know, it wasn't that at all. It wasn't journalistic standards. No, it was just, this is the wrong political party.

00:08:26.140 The media wields sexual assault allegations as weapons, uh, against their ideological opponents, which is so despicable that it is almost beyond description.

00:08:38.800 You know, I'll sometimes, I, I will sometimes talk to people, uh, people who are more on the left end of the, of the spectrum and, um, people who don't really, who still don't really understand why conservatives hate the media so much.

00:08:53.060 And, um, and they think of it as kind of this silly thing that we're always complaining about the media and, um, and they think that we're kind of fabricating this, this conspiracy, like we're just, we're all a bunch of paranoid lunatics who have this conspiracy theory that the media is out to get us.

00:09:10.000 Um, they really just don't get it.

00:09:13.640 Well, if that's, if that's the case for you and you're watching this and you want to understand why conservatives hate the media so much, well, this is the reason right here.

00:09:22.820 Okay.

00:09:23.300 Just compare the way justice Kavanaugh's accuser was treated and the way those allegations were treated and the way that they were amplified and then compare that to more credible allegations against Fairfax.

00:09:39.320 But the way that those are treated and rather than amplified buried, just look at that and then tell me, I mean, can you honestly tell me that there is not political bias at play here?

00:09:51.760 What other explanation could you come up with other than that?

00:09:56.400 All right.

00:09:59.040 One other thing, uh, I wanted to mention in this realm related to the Virginia mess yesterday.

00:10:03.840 I said that, um, I don't think Northam should resign because he wore blackface 30 years ago. 0.97

00:10:10.880 I don't think he should resign for that reason.

00:10:13.040 I think he should resign because he advocated infanticide last week.

00:10:16.920 That's the reason I think he should resign.

00:10:18.880 Um, I heard from, and I wrote about this as well.

00:10:22.280 And I heard from several people who said that, uh, who kind of took issue with that and they accused me of downplaying the blackface thing, uh, or even justifying it.

00:10:32.460 And I was accused of justifying blackface, which of course is not what I said.

00:10:37.480 Um, my point simply is that once again, all things being equal, I would not support the political destruction of a guy over insensitive behavior from his college days.

00:10:52.280 Uh, decades ago.

00:10:55.920 Now it is very bad to wear blackface, of course, and he was old enough to know better. 1.00

00:11:02.080 And the incident was recent enough.

00:11:04.240 It's not like this happened 70 years ago.

00:11:06.100 I mean, this was in what the, the eighties.

00:11:08.700 So that was recent enough that the whole, well, it was a different time excuse, uh, doesn't hold up as well.

00:11:16.040 I mean, it was a different time, but it was still the eighties and everybody knew in the eighties that you weren't supposed to wear blackface. 0.90

00:11:22.280 Um, so that's all true, but I still think that a man can do stupid, offensive, inappropriate things, even racist things when he's young and then he can grow and change and he can become a decent, respectable adult. 0.95

00:11:39.160 Um, we have to allow as a, as a country, we have to allow people to grow. 0.89

00:11:45.260 We have to allow them to change, especially over now.

00:11:49.040 It's one thing if someone does something horrible yesterday and then the next day there's, they're claiming that they've undergone some sort of, uh, some sort of epiphany or, or whatever.

00:11:57.980 Um, people don't change that quickly.

00:12:01.360 So that's true.

00:12:02.340 You know, you have to understand human nature, but people do change over the course of 30 years.

00:12:06.520 And it's very common for a guy in his fifties to be completely different, to be a comp almost a different person entirely from the person that he was in his early twenties.

00:12:17.880 Um, or even for someone in their early thirties to be totally different from how they were in the early twenties.

00:12:23.720 It's a, it's, it's a, it's a very common thing.

00:12:25.560 People, people grow.

00:12:28.040 Um, and sometimes you can, sometimes it can, it can be pretty sudden and happen pretty, not, not overnight, but, uh, you know, oftentimes that you just look at the difference between someone who's say 28 versus someone who's 23.

00:12:43.740 It's only a five year difference, but it could really be night and day.

00:12:49.100 Um, and so we, we have to allow that.

00:12:51.760 We can't always be forcing a person's younger self on their older self and trying to put them in this box, uh, keep them contained in the box that they built when they were young and never allow them to break out of it.

00:13:07.860 The difference though, with Northam is that we know that he never grew into a decent and respectable adult. 0.77

00:13:14.760 Um, now perhaps he stopped moonwalking with shoe polish on his face, although who knows, but he has since graduated to much worse offenses and now he's out there advocating for killing babies.

00:13:26.280 So in his case, we know that he, that he, uh, uh, didn't grow that much, at least not morally if he's advocating infanticide.

00:13:34.940 But I do think it's an important point generally for the next time something like this happens.

00:13:40.480 Because the truth is, even though he's a Democrat, if it weren't for the infanticide thing, even if he, even though he was a Democrat, um, if this thing had come out about the blackface, I would be saying, no, I don't think you should resign over that.

00:13:51.460 Now, if you can prove to me that he was wearing blackface yesterday, then we have a different story. 0.91

00:13:57.800 But if, if it, if it become, if it's apparent that it happened back 30 years ago, hasn't happened since then, then he's just changed it.

00:14:05.560 You know, he, he changed it, let him apologize, let him repudiate his past and then move on.

00:14:12.260 But again, it's different in this case because of, um, because of the infanticide issue.

00:14:19.520 But I do feel the need to stipulate that when I call for him to resign, and I do call for him to resign, not that it matters what I say, but it's because of the infanticide thing.

00:14:29.340 And that's what I think we should all be focused on.

00:14:32.020 Uh, speaking of infanticide, let me see if I can pull this up really quick here.

00:14:37.760 Um, Daily Wire has the story on Monday, Senator Patty Murray, um, blocking a Senate bill that would require doctors to give aid to babies who survived abortions, objected to the Born Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act.

00:14:56.980 And her one vote was enough to prevent the Senate from passing the bill in a unanimous consent vote.

00:15:02.380 Um, so we don't, we don't need to dwell on that because this is, we, we know this is where the Democrat Party is, but this is just to highlight the fact that this is where, this, this is what the Democrat Party has become.

00:15:22.020 Um, that you can't even, this was a bill that was, it wasn't an anti-abortion bill.

00:15:29.040 This was just, if a baby is born alive, you have to give it basic medical care.

00:15:34.680 That's all.

00:15:36.260 It's really got nothing to do with abortion. 0.91

00:15:37.980 But even that couldn't get past the Democrat Party, which is just terribly despicable.

00:15:47.260 All right.

00:15:47.800 I want to get to the, uh, to the inbox now and check a couple of emails.

00:15:51.840 Um, actually I'm going to answer two emails, both theological or one theological and one more historical, I guess.

00:15:58.100 But they're really interesting questions and I want to leave myself time to really get into them.

00:16:04.280 So, uh, we'll do that.

00:16:05.360 Now, if you want to send an email to the inbox, mattwalshowatgmail.com, mattwalshowatgmail.com.

00:16:11.780 All right.

00:16:12.040 This is from Maddie.

00:16:13.520 Uh, she says, Matt, I really appreciate your show.

00:16:16.380 Thanks for what you do.

00:16:17.120 I had a sort of random question that maybe you won't feel like answering on your show.

00:16:20.760 So, I was recently talking to a Calvinist friend of mine who claimed that some babies who die, uh, end up going to hell.

00:16:29.100 She said that the Bible backs her up.

00:16:31.680 As someone who has had miscarriages, this was very upsetting to hear.

00:16:35.100 I then went and researched it and found that she's definitely not the only Christian who thinks this.

00:16:40.160 Apparently, even some of the great theologians in history have taught this.

00:16:43.820 I find the idea very hard to stomach.

00:16:45.720 What is your take?

00:16:46.340 Well, first of all, I have also encountered this idea.

00:16:51.460 And, Maddie, I hope you don't mind.

00:16:52.380 I mentioned your email, uh, on Twitter last night.

00:16:55.180 Not, not by name, but just, um, that someone had brought this subject up.

00:17:00.440 And what I found is that, now, you know, just, this is just kind of anecdotal.

00:17:05.540 But most of the people responded on Twitter were, were definitely against this idea.

00:17:10.080 But there were, there were certainly a few, uh, more than, maybe more than a few, who, who also feel the same way.

00:17:17.220 Not only believe that babies could be sent to hell, but are, seem to be somewhat attached to the idea.

00:17:23.800 They insist on it.

00:17:25.980 Insist that we must at least be open to the idea that this could happen.

00:17:28.800 Which is very strange to me, that somebody would, um, not only believe it, but, but insist upon it, passionately.

00:17:38.360 Now, also, this is not exclusive to Calvinists.

00:17:41.600 Uh, and I think that most Calvinists probably reject it.

00:17:44.460 I, I, I, I think most members of any denomination or branch or type of Christianity reject this idea.

00:17:51.140 Uh, but there are people, as I said, Christians of all stripes who do feel this way.

00:17:56.040 Um, or who think that babies might not go to hell per se, but are denied entrance into heaven.

00:18:03.580 And so, uh, essentially they enter into some sort of cosmic solitary confinement for all eternity, which is the same thing as hell.

00:18:12.420 That's as much a hell as hell.

00:18:15.280 So, um, you know, this effort to find an in-between spot for all eternity where the babies will just linger there forever, separated from, from, from God.

00:18:26.640 Well, that's, that's the same thing as, as them going to hell.

00:18:29.600 Here's what I'll say.

00:18:31.500 Um, I absolutely reject this notion.

00:18:36.080 Uh, and I think that you should too.

00:18:38.020 And I think everyone should.

00:18:39.440 And I think you're perfectly safe in rejecting it.

00:18:41.280 And not taking it seriously. 0.66

00:18:44.080 I find it to be repulsive, insane, incoherent.

00:18:48.140 I don't care what theologian taught it.

00:18:51.900 I don't care that St. Augustine held this view.

00:18:56.300 St. Augustine was very brilliant, a lot smarter than me.

00:18:58.400 But I think he was horribly wrong about this.

00:19:02.160 And so, the fact that, well, you, you, you, you know, just start, when people start name dropping theologians.

00:19:09.480 Okay, well, that's, they can be wrong, right?

00:19:11.640 They're, they're, they're fallible.

00:19:12.660 They're not right about everything.

00:19:14.960 And this was an idea that was, you know, gained popularity, I guess we could say, if we could call it that, in the Middle Ages.

00:19:21.500 And has since fallen out of favor.

00:19:25.260 So, I would look at it more as just a kind of trend of thought in the Middle Ages, and that's all.

00:19:30.440 We don't have to lend it any more credence than that.

00:19:32.280 Now, it's true that the reason why there are some Christians who say, well, I don't think that God would do that, but I have to be, I'm open to the idea that maybe he does. 0.98

00:19:42.960 And the reason why Christians say that is because the Bible doesn't explicitly address this question.

00:19:48.300 And that's true, that the Bible does not.

00:19:50.360 It doesn't explicitly answer.

00:19:51.900 Now, there are a few verses you could cite and go to to talk about God's approach to babies and all of that kind of thing.

00:20:00.520 And that's fine, but I also, but I feel like I'm not going to start throwing verses at you, because verses can be thrown back and forth.

00:20:06.980 And when you have an issue like this, where the Bible doesn't explicitly answer it, then you end up with this quote mining, this kind of cherry picking, proof texting thing, where people are just throwing verses out of, just ripping verses out of context here and there and throwing them back and forth like a food fight.

00:20:24.580 And I think it's totally fruitless, and it leads to nothing in the end.

00:20:27.920 So I think with a question like this, rather than proof texting and ripping out quotes and just throwing them and saying, there, you see, I think we can use our faculties of reason, actually, to figure it out.

00:20:43.060 Because God does give us our faculties of reason.

00:20:46.760 This is something that God has given us, so we can use it.

00:20:49.980 Now, that doesn't mean that our faculties of reason are infallible, or that we can always trust what we happen to think.

00:20:56.000 But we can use our reason.

00:20:59.300 And in fact, even when you go to the Bible, you're using your faculties of reason to understand what it is telling you.

00:21:07.200 So someone who says, well, we can't trust our reason at all, well, then what do you even do?

00:21:11.180 Why are we having any conversation about God?

00:21:13.780 Why would you ever read the Bible?

00:21:15.520 Because you're using your reason to...

00:21:17.240 Look, dogs and cats can't read the Bible, because they have no faculties of reason, at least not in the way that we do.

00:21:22.180 So you must be able to trust that, or there's no point to anything.

00:21:29.180 So using our reason, I think we come to a definitive answer.

00:21:32.480 And it goes like this.

00:21:35.280 God is all-merciful, all-just, all-loving.

00:21:38.320 If he is not those things, then our faith is wrong, and our faith is hopeless, and everything is hopeless.

00:21:46.160 So if we have our faith, then we must believe that God possesses those attributes and possesses them perfectly.

00:21:54.300 We must also believe that we as humans have some understanding of what those words mean.

00:22:01.740 Now, people will say, well, we humans can never know what God's mercy is like.

00:22:07.220 We can never understand God's mercy.

00:22:08.880 Well, we can never fully understand it.

00:22:11.360 That's true.

00:22:12.460 But when we say we can't understand it, that's a matter of degrees.

00:22:16.960 We're not saying that we literally have no idea what the word mercy or love even means at all.

00:22:22.820 We're not saying that, or we shouldn't be saying that.

00:22:24.860 Because if we don't know what those words mean at all, it's true we don't have a full understanding.

00:22:31.680 We may even have just a small smidgen of understanding.

00:22:35.900 But if you're saying that we have no understanding of those words, then it's incoherent to attribute them to God.

00:22:41.840 If we have no clue what the word mercy even means, then to say that God is merciful is like saying God is flippity-floop.

00:22:49.240 It's a word that has no meaning.

00:22:50.920 Why are you even saying it? 0.54

00:22:52.440 It's nonsense.

00:22:53.220 It doesn't mean anything.

00:22:55.100 Also, if we don't know what those words mean, then we have no business saying that we love our kids.

00:23:01.680 We have no business calling others to be merciful.

00:23:05.160 We have no business punishing anyone in the name of justice.

00:23:10.880 Also, if we have no idea what those words mean, then Jesus was incoherent in what he said.

00:23:17.440 Then it was incoherent for Jesus to exhort us to be loving and to be merciful and to be just, which he did.

00:23:23.520 The fact that he's telling us to be those things must mean that we can understand what those words mean.

00:23:29.300 Otherwise, again, he might as well have just said, yada, yada, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:23:34.000 That's basically what if you say we have no idea what those words mean, that you have reduced Jesus' words to that.

00:23:39.820 Just complete nonsense because we can't even begin to grasp them.

00:23:44.080 But the main point, again, is that if we don't know what love and mercy and justice are, if we don't know at all on any level,

00:23:54.900 then we cannot have any confidence that God actually is loving and merciful because those words are meaningless to us.

00:24:01.820 So we must trust, we have to trust, that our fundamental basic understanding of those words contains some framework of basic truth.

00:24:11.260 And according to that framework, a framework that, again, we must be able to trust on some level or else everything is nonsense,

00:24:18.600 a framework that God himself gave us, an understanding that he endowed in us,

00:24:24.120 according to that, it is the very definition of unjust, unmerciful, unloving,

00:24:30.160 to punish infant children with an eternity of conscious torment or even an eternity of cosmic separation.

00:24:40.800 To punish infant children eternally, according to any definition we can conceive,

00:24:49.020 is totally unjust, unmerciful, unloving.

00:24:51.820 It is, in fact, abjectly evil.

00:24:57.140 If it is not evil, then how can we call anything evil?

00:25:02.880 We have no business calling anything evil if that is not evil, because then our idea of evil is also, who knows?

00:25:12.860 And if we must have a definition of mercy,

00:25:16.160 if the definition of mercy has to include trillions of years of separation or torture for babies,

00:25:24.880 then the word mercy ceases to have any meaning at all.

00:25:30.120 So, that's all.

00:25:33.160 Because of that whole progression of what I think is logic,

00:25:36.100 we can conclude that

00:25:38.720 if we believe that God is loving, merciful, and just,

00:25:43.520 then

00:25:44.540 babies go to heaven.

00:25:47.440 I mean, that's because

00:25:48.380 there is no...

00:25:50.720 anything else would be the opposite of mercy and justice.

00:25:56.940 And I don't...

00:25:57.940 just because the Bible doesn't explicitly say something,

00:25:59.640 I don't think we need to entertain the notion

00:26:02.080 that God would do something horribly evil,

00:26:05.800 like punishing babies for eternity.

00:26:11.760 By the way,

00:26:13.220 there's another problem here, you know.

00:26:16.580 Because imagine that babies are sent off to hell or to,

00:26:19.780 you know, wherever,

00:26:21.480 all floating in space somewhere,

00:26:23.380 separated for all eternity.

00:26:24.460 and then you get to heaven.

00:26:28.940 And,

00:26:29.500 you know,

00:26:30.420 you're looking around for your children that have died.

00:26:32.960 And they're nowhere to be found, right?

00:26:34.940 Now, I know I'm speaking in human terms here,

00:26:36.440 but you get what I'm saying.

00:26:38.160 And then at that point,

00:26:39.420 I assume you would have some knowledge of the fact that,

00:26:41.960 oh, babies are actually being tormented for all eternity.

00:26:46.220 Well, heaven is supposed to be a place of perfect joy

00:26:48.940 and perfect love

00:26:49.620 and perfect happiness.

00:26:51.780 How could you possibly

00:26:53.620 as a thinking and compassionate person

00:26:56.960 find joy

00:26:58.380 knowing that every moment of joy

00:27:00.580 that you experience,

00:27:01.900 there are babies suffering eternal torment?

00:27:05.780 In order to still have joy, 0.99

00:27:07.460 you would have to basically be a sociopath. 0.93

00:27:09.040 You would have to say, 0.97

00:27:09.800 yeah, yeah, I don't care about that.

00:27:11.380 I got mine.

00:27:12.240 I'm good.

00:27:15.080 So again,

00:27:15.700 there's another logical problem here.

00:27:18.260 That the sort of people who would get to heaven

00:27:20.540 would be exactly the sort of people

00:27:22.420 who could not possibly have joy

00:27:25.400 knowing that that is happening to babies.

00:27:29.680 And then what do you do?

00:27:32.100 Are you cast out of heaven too

00:27:33.520 because you can't figure out how to have joy

00:27:35.320 because you're too worried about the babies?

00:27:37.000 And so you're punished then for your compassion?

00:27:38.500 It just doesn't make any sense.

00:27:39.560 It's totally illogical,

00:27:41.160 totally irrational,

00:27:41.860 and I would absolutely reject it.

00:27:44.360 All right, from Ashley,

00:27:46.560 she says,

00:27:47.440 hi, Matt, love the show.

00:27:48.480 I was hoping you could help me with something.

00:27:50.420 I was talking to someone yesterday

00:27:51.540 who claims that Jesus never existed at all.

00:27:54.060 I've heard people claim before,

00:27:55.740 obviously, that Jesus was just a prophet

00:27:57.820 or a revolutionary or whatever,

00:27:59.480 but not the son of God.

00:28:00.760 This is the first time I found myself

00:28:01.980 arguing with someone who denied he existed at all.

00:28:04.440 He had a lot of facts that seemed impressive

00:28:06.080 and I didn't have a good response

00:28:07.440 because I hadn't studied

00:28:08.400 all the arguments he presented.

00:28:10.040 I'm wondering how you would deal with this argument.

00:28:14.000 Thanks.

00:28:15.640 Hi, Ashley.

00:28:16.580 Yeah, this is called the mythicist position

00:28:18.920 or mythicism.

00:28:20.800 It definitely is a minority position,

00:28:22.620 even among liberal New Testament scholars

00:28:24.980 and historians.

00:28:26.280 Almost everyone who studied this issue

00:28:27.920 has come to the conclusion

00:28:28.980 at a minimum that Jesus existed.

00:28:31.440 Even guys like Bart Ehrman,

00:28:33.020 who's an atheist

00:28:34.340 and one of the most prominent New Testament scholars,

00:28:36.440 he believes at least that Jesus existed.

00:28:39.100 So that's the first thing I would point out

00:28:40.740 to your mythicist friend.

00:28:43.120 It's not an argument from authority.

00:28:44.920 It's not like you're saying,

00:28:45.700 well, all these people over here believe it,

00:28:47.260 so you must.

00:28:48.220 It's just a way of putting their position into perspective.

00:28:50.880 They might not realize

00:28:52.100 how out there their position is.

00:28:55.780 And I do think that when you don't

00:28:57.740 have a lot of knowledge

00:28:59.060 and you're not very informed,

00:29:00.440 and then you go and you look

00:29:01.620 and you see that people

00:29:02.380 who are very informed on this topic

00:29:03.920 disagree with you,

00:29:05.280 we can call it an argument

00:29:07.080 from authority, fine,

00:29:08.180 but that should,

00:29:09.700 if you're a smart person,

00:29:11.060 that should give you a reason

00:29:11.920 at least to think twice.

00:29:13.860 When you look and you say,

00:29:14.880 oh, everyone who knows more about this

00:29:16.820 than me disagrees,

00:29:18.140 you know, maybe I'm wrong.

00:29:22.080 But aside from that,

00:29:23.020 as far as the arguments,

00:29:23.700 I've read the mythicist arguments,

00:29:25.400 I've read guys like Robert Price,

00:29:26.740 Richard Carrier,

00:29:28.200 probably the two most well-known

00:29:30.040 mythicist historians,

00:29:30.840 I don't know any others,

00:29:31.840 I know those two.

00:29:33.280 And here's what I'll say about them,

00:29:35.280 about this idea that Jesus never existed.

00:29:37.900 I actually agree to an extent

00:29:39.700 with the way that they frame their argument.

00:29:41.440 Obviously, I don't agree

00:29:42.320 with the conclusion, of course,

00:29:44.080 but I agree with this part,

00:29:45.520 okay, because this is what they say.

00:29:48.120 If you are,

00:29:49.100 this is basically their argument,

00:29:50.400 that if you're going to reject

00:29:52.060 the supernatural elements

00:29:53.700 of Jesus' life,

00:29:55.500 if you're going to throw out

00:29:56.380 the miracles and the resurrection

00:29:57.860 and the atonement and everything,

00:29:59.180 if you're going to throw all that out,

00:30:01.180 then you really have to

00:30:03.260 throw out Jesus, too.

00:30:05.360 You can't really separate him

00:30:07.120 from the supernatural.

00:30:08.080 That's what a mythicist would say.

00:30:10.600 It just doesn't make any sense

00:30:12.040 to do that.

00:30:13.580 And this effort to kind of sculpt

00:30:15.620 a regular, non-supernatural,

00:30:18.260 non-miraculous Jesus

00:30:19.700 from the big stone block

00:30:21.680 of the Gospels is absurd.

00:30:25.360 That's what mythicists would say,

00:30:26.800 and I agree with them on that.

00:30:29.980 I was listening to a debate

00:30:31.340 recently with Robert Price,

00:30:33.600 and I forget who he was debating.

00:30:35.000 It might have been

00:30:35.280 William Lane Craig.

00:30:35.980 I can't remember.

00:30:37.160 But he basically said,

00:30:38.580 he basically said,

00:30:39.740 look, once you get rid

00:30:40.820 of the miraculous stuff,

00:30:42.080 there really isn't much left.

00:30:43.700 There's not much left

00:30:44.800 to work with there after that.

00:30:46.780 And that's true.

00:30:48.180 Because think about it.

00:30:49.520 Let's go through

00:30:50.480 Christ's life for a second.

00:30:52.660 So you start with the infancy narratives,

00:30:55.100 obviously.

00:30:55.500 Well, if you're a naturalist

00:30:57.340 rejecting the supernatural,

00:30:59.200 then you got to,

00:31:00.560 that whole thing is miracle

00:31:01.440 top to bottom,

00:31:02.160 the whole infancy story.

00:31:04.020 So you got to throw all that out.

00:31:05.560 You know, virgins, 1.00

00:31:06.480 virgin birth,

00:31:07.740 angels appearing,

00:31:09.000 stars traveling across the sky,

00:31:10.580 so on and so forth.

00:31:11.620 So you got to get rid of that

00:31:12.720 if you reject the supernatural.

00:31:16.720 And then we have nothing at all

00:31:17.920 for Jesus for the first 30 years.

00:31:19.600 We have that one incident

00:31:20.480 when he's 12 years old

00:31:21.340 in the temple.

00:31:22.000 But again,

00:31:22.540 from a naturalist perspective,

00:31:23.640 you got to get rid of that

00:31:24.840 because without divine,

00:31:26.720 without any kind of divine involvement,

00:31:29.660 it doesn't make any sense

00:31:30.420 that you'd have a 12-year-old boy

00:31:31.680 teaching rabbis in the temple

00:31:33.400 for three days.

00:31:34.020 So you throw that out there.

00:31:35.880 So we've got nothing

00:31:36.740 until we get to

00:31:37.280 Jesus's public ministry.

00:31:38.900 Then you have the baptism.

00:31:40.020 Well, maybe you keep the baptism,

00:31:41.200 but then you have God

00:31:42.200 from the heavens saying,

00:31:43.620 this is my beloved son.

00:31:45.260 Obviously, you get rid of that.

00:31:46.560 So then the baptism

00:31:47.640 just becomes sort of a non-event.

00:31:49.300 It's just one baptism

00:31:50.220 among many others.

00:31:51.980 Then Jesus goes

00:31:52.880 into the wilderness.

00:31:53.700 He's tempted by the devil.

00:31:54.520 So you throw that out

00:31:55.340 if you're a naturalist.

00:31:57.940 And then in John's gospel

00:31:59.440 around this time,

00:32:00.300 we have him cleansing the temple,

00:32:01.560 which I think you have

00:32:02.320 to throw that out too

00:32:03.220 because without divine intervention,

00:32:05.020 it doesn't make any sense

00:32:05.740 that Jesus wouldn't have been arrested 0.96

00:32:06.920 right there on the spot

00:32:07.700 and killed right then and there 0.99

00:32:08.980 for doing it.

00:32:11.140 So that's gone.

00:32:14.380 And then we have

00:32:14.980 the Sermon on the Mount.

00:32:16.100 And this is where

00:32:17.020 the kind of liberal historians

00:32:18.800 who still believe

00:32:19.580 in a historical Jesus,

00:32:21.000 this is where they kind of

00:32:21.900 latch on to this sort of stuff.

00:32:23.280 And they say,

00:32:24.180 well, okay,

00:32:24.960 now here's where we have

00:32:26.420 a real Jesus,

00:32:27.220 where he's giving his teachings

00:32:28.300 and Jesus was just a teacher.

00:32:30.200 He wasn't the Son of God.

00:32:31.600 Well, there's a problem there too

00:32:33.140 because the full Sermon on the Mount

00:32:36.040 given in Matthew

00:32:36.820 is several pages long.

00:32:39.180 Matthew's gospel wasn't written

00:32:40.420 until 30 or 40 years later.

00:32:42.100 So unless we believe

00:32:43.660 that Matthew had a big papyrus scroll

00:32:46.600 there on the hillside

00:32:47.980 and he had his pen

00:32:51.240 and he had brought up a table

00:32:52.380 and was transcribing everything

00:32:54.340 as it was happening

00:32:55.200 right there on the hillside,

00:32:57.200 which probably didn't happen,

00:32:59.440 then it wouldn't make any sense

00:33:00.460 from a naturalist perspective

00:33:01.640 that 30 or 40 years later

00:33:03.020 he could remember verbatim

00:33:04.540 this three or four page speech

00:33:05.960 that Jesus gave.

00:33:07.440 It makes sense from a supernaturalist.

00:33:09.420 If you're a believer,

00:33:10.440 if you're a Christian,

00:33:11.000 then you believe the Holy Spirit

00:33:12.040 guided him.

00:33:12.900 But again,

00:33:13.220 I'm saying from a naturalist perspective,

00:33:14.820 that doesn't make any sense.

00:33:15.780 So I think you have to throw that out too.

00:33:19.080 And then, you know,

00:33:20.560 then we have a whole bunch of miracles.

00:33:22.140 We have exorcisms.

00:33:23.260 So all that goes out.

00:33:26.820 In the end,

00:33:28.180 what are you left with?

00:33:29.360 You're left with a guy

00:33:30.140 who got baptism,

00:33:31.480 got baptized,

00:33:32.380 got into some arguments 0.99

00:33:33.220 with the Jewish mucky mucks, 1.00

00:33:35.620 high priests of the time, 0.99

00:33:36.680 and then was killed.

00:33:37.540 The end.

00:33:37.900 That's your whole story.

00:33:39.620 But why would such a person

00:33:41.460 inspire all of these extra legends?

00:33:43.820 Why would you need

00:33:45.440 such an irrelevant,

00:33:46.720 simple,

00:33:47.400 boring life

00:33:48.240 as the template

00:33:49.380 for the extravagant mythology

00:33:51.620 that followed him?

00:33:52.360 It doesn't make any sense.

00:33:54.160 Think about it.

00:33:54.960 In the ancient world,

00:33:56.180 you know,

00:33:56.380 you had guys,

00:33:57.020 because this is the liberal

00:33:58.020 kind of theory,

00:33:59.260 is that Jesus was a normal guy

00:34:00.780 and then legends attached to him,

00:34:03.420 like barnacles on a ship

00:34:04.900 or something.

00:34:05.680 Well,

00:34:05.960 that would happen

00:34:06.600 with guys like Alexander the Great,

00:34:08.460 someone like Cleopatra

00:34:09.540 or Julius Caesar,

00:34:10.600 people that were already

00:34:11.920 significant and great

00:34:14.340 and known throughout the land.

00:34:17.080 Those are the kinds of people

00:34:18.500 that you have

00:34:19.280 this legendary embellishment

00:34:20.600 that gets attached to them.

00:34:21.860 It didn't happen

00:34:22.660 with just normal guys.

00:34:25.280 It didn't happen

00:34:25.800 with like just the Joe,

00:34:27.060 the plumber of the ancient world,

00:34:28.540 which is what Jesus would be

00:34:29.780 if he was not the son of God.

00:34:31.100 So it doesn't make any sense.

00:34:32.700 Not to mention,

00:34:36.780 if you reject the supernatural,

00:34:37.980 then why would you trust anything

00:34:40.400 in the Gospels

00:34:41.480 in the first place

00:34:42.380 because there's supernatural stuff

00:34:43.980 on every page

00:34:45.260 and every paragraph.

00:34:46.360 So my point is,

00:34:47.500 what we really have,

00:34:48.820 rather than C.S. Lewis'

00:34:50.160 famous trilemma

00:34:51.380 where he talked about

00:34:52.300 Jesus was either liar, 0.99

00:34:54.440 lord, or lunatic, 1.00

00:34:55.500 we actually have a dilemma. 0.89

00:34:57.280 I think it's more of a dilemma.

00:34:59.000 Jesus was either lord

00:35:00.480 or he didn't exist.

00:35:02.800 I think those actually

00:35:03.640 are the only two options,

00:35:05.080 lord or legend.

00:35:06.500 The middle ground

00:35:07.620 is non-existent

00:35:10.460 for reasons I've explained.

00:35:11.620 So you have to choose

00:35:12.280 between the two.

00:35:13.480 But if you choose the latter,

00:35:15.100 if you choose legend,

00:35:16.700 you've got serious problems.

00:35:18.100 First of all,

00:35:19.160 how is it

00:35:19.980 that a person

00:35:21.220 could have been invented

00:35:22.260 out of whole cloth

00:35:23.300 that quickly

00:35:24.100 and then his existence

00:35:25.440 believed by everyone

00:35:26.920 and this character worshipped

00:35:29.320 all just out of the blue

00:35:31.280 and practically overnight?

00:35:32.980 That's not how

00:35:33.640 mythological characters

00:35:34.800 are usually,

00:35:35.420 that's not how it works.

00:35:36.580 With characters

00:35:37.180 who are really invented

00:35:38.280 and then later believed,

00:35:39.740 it doesn't happen that quickly.

00:35:41.680 Like someone just makes them

00:35:42.620 up out of the blue

00:35:43.060 and then everyone says

00:35:44.460 immediately,

00:35:45.240 oh yeah, sure, okay.

00:35:47.220 Second,

00:35:47.900 why is it that we have

00:35:48.920 no record

00:35:49.540 of any critic

00:35:50.540 of Christianity

00:35:51.120 in the ancient world,

00:35:52.540 and there were a lot

00:35:53.140 of critics,

00:35:54.100 ever accusing

00:35:54.960 the Christians

00:35:55.540 of inventing Jesus

00:35:56.820 out of whole cloth.

00:35:57.800 Nobody ever accused

00:35:58.720 them of that.

00:35:59.960 They accused Christians 0.96

00:36:00.880 of lying

00:36:01.500 or hiding the body

00:36:04.320 or whatever,

00:36:05.260 but nobody,

00:36:06.220 nobody in the ancient world

00:36:07.700 argued that Jesus

00:36:08.520 didn't exist.

00:36:09.740 That wasn't a theory

00:36:10.820 that anyone held,

00:36:12.020 even people who hated Christians,

00:36:13.700 and there were a lot of them.

00:36:15.020 Nobody ever said,

00:36:16.000 well, this guy never existed.

00:36:16.980 What are you talking about?

00:36:17.460 You made him up.

00:36:18.760 Nobody said that.

00:36:20.300 Third,

00:36:20.620 how do you account for Paul?

00:36:21.940 No rational person

00:36:22.940 denies that Paul existed.

00:36:24.520 No serious scholar

00:36:25.660 denies that Paul

00:36:26.600 authored at least

00:36:27.340 six or seven

00:36:27.940 of his epistles,

00:36:29.000 although really

00:36:29.400 he authored all of them

00:36:31.620 that are attributed to him.

00:36:33.060 Everyone agrees

00:36:33.740 that Paul was operating

00:36:35.120 as a Christian

00:36:36.200 within a few years

00:36:37.140 of Christ's death.

00:36:38.540 Everyone agrees

00:36:39.220 that Paul knew

00:36:40.200 and worked with Peter.

00:36:41.820 So how did Paul

00:36:42.760 come to believe

00:36:43.600 in the existence

00:36:44.560 of this imaginary character?

00:36:46.380 Fourth,

00:36:47.040 who made the story up?

00:36:48.720 And when?

00:36:49.420 And why?

00:36:50.680 Remember,

00:36:51.200 the Gospels were written

00:36:52.040 decades after Paul's epistles.

00:36:54.460 So there was a community

00:36:55.440 of people

00:36:56.080 who believed in Jesus

00:36:57.160 before the Gospels

00:36:58.380 were written.

00:36:58.760 So we can't say

00:36:59.340 that the Gospel writers

00:37:00.160 made him up.

00:37:01.360 The Gospels came after

00:37:02.740 the story was already out there,

00:37:05.260 which means that the Gospel writers

00:37:06.560 couldn't have made it up,

00:37:07.880 which means that some person

00:37:09.360 would have just had to make it up

00:37:10.720 and then pass it along

00:37:12.040 as oral tradition

00:37:12.800 and then it turns into Gospels.

00:37:14.220 Again,

00:37:14.720 this is not how it usually works

00:37:16.380 with mythology.

00:37:17.520 Fifth,

00:37:17.920 you have Josephus and Tacitus

00:37:19.160 who were Roman historians

00:37:20.640 of the time,

00:37:21.640 and they never,

00:37:22.480 you know,

00:37:22.640 they both mentioned Jesus,

00:37:23.920 they both affirmed

00:37:25.140 his historicity,

00:37:26.080 they never made any mention

00:37:27.680 that he didn't exist

00:37:28.600 or that anyone thought

00:37:29.540 he didn't exist.

00:37:30.660 So,

00:37:31.100 in order to reject

00:37:33.540 that Jesus existed,

00:37:34.500 you must reject

00:37:35.180 everything in the Gospels,

00:37:36.320 everything in the epistles,

00:37:37.440 the documentation of Josephus,

00:37:38.980 the documentation of Tacitus,

00:37:40.620 the testimony

00:37:41.360 of non-canonical epistles

00:37:42.560 like Clement,

00:37:43.920 all of that you have to

00:37:44.940 throw out completely,

00:37:46.320 which brings us

00:37:46.860 to another problem,

00:37:48.140 is that once you've done that,

00:37:49.680 once you've summarily

00:37:50.600 dismissed

00:37:50.920 all of this evidence

00:37:52.580 and all of this documentation,

00:37:54.460 how can you justify

00:37:55.480 believing the existence

00:37:56.500 of any ancient figure

00:37:58.680 at all?

00:37:59.520 Because at that point,

00:38:00.940 you know,

00:38:01.200 that is more attestation

00:38:02.820 for at a minimum

00:38:03.880 Jesus' existence

00:38:04.980 than we have

00:38:06.140 for the existence

00:38:06.700 of many ancient characters

00:38:08.540 or ancient figures,

00:38:10.260 I should say.

00:38:11.560 So,

00:38:12.280 if you're going to do that

00:38:13.440 with Jesus,

00:38:14.180 then you have to

00:38:14.700 hold every person

00:38:16.420 in history

00:38:16.800 to that standard,

00:38:17.780 which means you've

00:38:18.520 ripped history apart

00:38:19.540 and it's like history

00:38:20.780 just started 200 years ago

00:38:22.140 at that point.

00:38:22.780 It just doesn't make

00:38:23.400 any sense.

00:38:24.460 So,

00:38:24.780 in summary,

00:38:25.860 it is impossible

00:38:26.700 to separate Christ

00:38:27.740 from his miracles.

00:38:29.220 It is also impossible

00:38:30.860 to separate Christ

00:38:32.000 from history,

00:38:33.100 which seems to leave us

00:38:35.300 with only one option,

00:38:36.720 whether we like it or not,

00:38:38.280 which is that Jesus

00:38:39.720 not only existed,

00:38:42.200 but was and is

00:38:43.160 the Son of God.

00:38:44.100 That,

00:38:44.720 actually,

00:38:44.980 is what I would say

00:38:46.540 the next time

00:38:47.600 that comes up.

00:38:48.500 And I will leave it there.

00:38:49.860 Thanks for watching,

00:38:50.480 everybody.

00:38:50.740 Thanks for listening.

00:38:51.420 Godspeed.

00:38:51.780 Godspeed.

00:39:04.740 Hey, everybody.

00:39:05.600 It's Andrew Klavan,

00:39:06.360 host of The Andrew Klavan Show.

00:39:08.120 You know,

00:39:08.340 political correctness

00:39:09.280 is a one-edged sword.

00:39:11.000 It is meant

00:39:11.520 only to silence

00:39:12.920 those of us

00:39:13.840 who believe

00:39:14.380 that each individual American

00:39:15.880 has the right to think,

00:39:16.820 say,

00:39:17.800 do what he wants.

00:39:20.100 It is meant

00:39:20.720 to silence us

00:39:21.680 to leave the field open

00:39:23.020 to those who want government

00:39:23.960 to run everything.

00:39:25.140 So we're going to keep talking

00:39:26.020 on The Andrew Klavan Show.

00:39:27.360 I'm Andrew Klavan.

The Matt Walsh Show - February 05, 2019

Ep. 191 - Media Suddenly Won't Report Unsubstantiated Rape Allegations

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