The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 196 - A Party Of Bigots

00:00:00.000 Today on the Matt Wall Show, we will examine the rampant bigotry in the Democratic Party.

00:00:05.440 Also, we'll get the latest on the Jussie Smollett alleged hate crime attack, a story that is

00:00:11.440 falling apart more and more right before our eyes. And finally, I want to play a video for you of

00:00:17.640 Bill Nye making the case for abortion. And it is maybe the stupidest thing that you'll see at 0.99

00:00:26.820 least this week. So we'll talk about that today as well on the Matt Wall Show. 0.99

00:00:36.600 So a Jew-hating Congresswoman Ilhan Omar tweeted yesterday a standard anti-Semitic trope,

00:00:44.900 well actually that was on Sunday, claiming that the Jews over in Israel are paying off Republicans,

00:00:51.380 buying their support. This is the same, you know, you have to look at this in the context of the sort

00:00:56.420 stuff that this woman often says and tweets. She tweeted out a few years ago that Israel has

00:01:03.360 quote, hypnotized the world. And she prayed that Allah would help us all see the evil doings

00:01:10.340 of the Israelis. So this is, this is all part of a pattern, a pattern that you can find 0.99

00:01:17.420 throughout the Democratic Party with anti-Semitism and bigotry of all different kinds. Bigotry in

00:01:24.340 general is a common theme in, in the Democrat Party. This after all is, is the party that

00:01:32.240 subjects Christian judges to unconstitutional religious tests, examining their belief systems

00:01:38.460 and their religious affiliations and convictions as if that's somehow relevant to the, to, to what

00:01:44.700 they're going to be doing. You remember one of the most bigoted statements I think uttered by an

00:01:50.900 American politician in recent memory was Dianne Feinstein, um, telling Amy Coney Barrett that her

00:01:58.060 Catholic dogma quote, lives loudly within her. Um, and that's a concern she said. So if you want to

00:02:06.920 understand why that's bigoted, well then all you have to do is imagine a Republican Senator saying

00:02:14.800 something like that to a Muslim, um, judicial nominee and saying, you know, your, your Islamic,

00:02:21.800 uh, your Islamic faith lives loudly within you. And that's a concern. Now, of course, in that context, 1.00

00:02:30.720 everybody would agree. And, and, and the left would be calling it Islamophobic and so on and so forth.

00:02:35.420 Um, senators Kamala Harris and Maisie Hirono have, have likewise scrutinized Christian judges for their

00:02:42.940 faith. Um, or, or, or if they're affiliated with, uh, you know, the dastardly Knights of Columbus. 0.75

00:02:49.960 And this is nothing of course, compared to what Democrat politicians and Democrat policies and

00:02:56.140 state governments do to Christian business owners who face, um, who face persecution penalties, fines

00:03:03.740 for simply trying to operate, uh, and live according to biblical precepts. Um, the democratic party

00:03:11.000 is also your one-stop shop for man-hating and anti-white rhetoric. And, uh, they've come out

00:03:17.860 against stay-at-home moms and, you know, Midwesterners and Southerners and homeschoolers. 0.92

00:03:22.840 Um, and of course, if we're talking about bigotry among Democrats, there is no group more reviled,

00:03:32.020 um, more diminished and discriminated against by Democrats than the unborn who, according to nearly

00:03:39.520 every single Democrat in the country at every level of government, don't even count as people.

00:03:46.360 Okay. So when you think about this, it's, it's really no wonder that Democrats are constantly

00:03:52.260 trying to hang the bigot label around other people's necks, trying to call other people bigots.

00:03:58.260 This is just a classic case of projection. That's all. You don't need to be a, uh, a psychotherapist

00:04:03.760 to see what's happening here. This is, it's very similar to the cheating husband who, uh, becomes

00:04:10.140 very suspicious of his wife. Um, which because, because he's cheating, he kind of sees that in

00:04:18.260 everybody else because that's how he is. There was a recent survey that was done that, that showed

00:04:23.060 that a sizable majority, over 60% of registered Democrats think that Republicans are bigoted and

00:04:29.640 sexist. Now keep in mind, um, that many of these same people think that babies aren't human.

00:04:38.840 Masculinity is toxic. The Jewish state has no right to exist. Uh, Christians should be forced 1.00

00:04:45.040 to bake cakes for gay weddings against their will. So among other things. So they are so immersed in 1.00

00:04:52.860 their fanatical prejudices that they, they cannot see anything but prejudice in others because that's

00:04:59.460 just, that's the world they live in. And this is no surprise really, because that's how it is with

00:05:06.220 bigots all the time. That's how bigots operate. They never think that their own bigotry counts,

00:05:11.800 right? There are very few bigots who will just admit, oh yeah, yeah, I'm a bigot. Sure.

00:05:20.400 No, the, the justification is always, well, no, no, no. Yeah. I'm allowed to hate those people

00:05:26.860 because they deserve it. Of course I can hate them. No, it doesn't count. If, if, if I'm, if I, 0.53

00:05:32.140 you know, say something awful about white men, well, that's okay. Cause they deserve it. I'm allowed 1.00

00:05:36.780 to say that. In fact, that is, that is literally the, the leftist philosophy. That is their theories

00:05:46.540 of race and gender dynamics exempt them from any charge of prejudice or discrimination. This is what

00:05:52.860 they believe. This is what they, um, are taught and teach in college that essentially, you know,

00:06:00.940 it's impossible for, for instance, a white man to be the victim of racism or sexism. You can treat him

00:06:06.840 however you want. You can say whatever you want to him. It doesn't matter because his institutional

00:06:11.520 power insulates him from bigotry or some such nonsense. These kinds of rationales allow their

00:06:18.640 hatred and their bigotry to go unchecked and unnoticed, but bigotry is still bigotry. And the

00:06:27.080 democratic party is where it thrives in our culture. Now you could, you could say that, well, you know,

00:06:34.380 if you go to the far right, extreme end of the spectrum, you've got white nationalists and, and 0.56

00:06:39.860 racists over there and sure. Okay, fine. Um, a couple of differences though. Number one, that is a 0.86

00:06:48.420 despite what you may hear from the media, that is a pretty small group. And number two, um, they are

00:06:54.980 denounced by everybody else on the right, nearly everybody, certainly in the mainstream, you know,

00:07:03.220 white nationalism has been, has been denounced. And any time a Republican or conservative says

00:07:10.720 something perceived as racist, you're going to have other conservatives and Republicans lining up

00:07:17.960 to condemn it. The difference is on the left, you don't really find that

00:07:23.000 on the left. It's, if there are condemnations, now it took a, it took a while with, um, with this

00:07:31.460 Ilan Omar stuff there, it took a while. Some Democrats eventually did come out and condemn it.

00:07:36.520 It took them a while to do it. They did it. Um, but depending on the group being insulted or targeted,

00:07:43.520 you may not hear any condemnation from the left. So that's the difference because you have to keep

00:07:51.380 in mind that they really do believe this is their philosophy. They believe that there are certain

00:07:57.240 groups you're allowed to hate and the hatred is totally justified. And in fact, it is impossible

00:08:04.000 to be bigoted against those groups. That is their, that's their philosophy.

00:08:09.840 All right. Um, speaking of, uh, of bigotry, here's, here's a sort of a different form of bigotry.

00:08:16.940 Jussie Smollett, um, the actor from the show Empire, a black man, also a gay man. I'm sure you've been

00:08:28.280 following this story. He claims, we'll just review here briefly. He claims that he was the victim of

00:08:34.080 a racist and homophobic attack and claims is the key word here. Uh, huge emphasis on claims.

00:08:41.720 So as the story goes, he was, um, walking through downtown Chicago at around 2 30 AM one night,

00:08:49.600 several weeks ago, and he was then attacked and brutally beaten, he says. And he says the attackers

00:08:56.600 shouted, um, this is MAGA country as they were beating him in Chicago. Okay. So these are,

00:09:04.680 these are racist whites who are claiming that Chicago is MAGA country. Um, and they, he says 0.97

00:09:11.180 that they called him the N word and the F word and so on. So fast forward over several days, uh,

00:09:17.360 police investigate the attack. They find no evidence to support the claim. None at all. Uh,

00:09:23.640 Smollett says that he was, he was on the phone at the time of the attack with his manager and his

00:09:28.540 manager heard it happening. So police asked for him to turn over his phone and he refused for a

00:09:33.420 while. Uh, finally, he did turn over some phone records, but he redacted them so heavily as to

00:09:37.920 make them useless. Police also checked camera footage, um, security cameras. Now, as it happens,

00:09:44.260 he was, he was, he was walking down the street at 2 30 AM in Chicago in the winter. It's,

00:09:49.320 you know, extremely, extremely cold. Um, he was on his way, I think to subway to get a sandwich.

00:09:57.340 And he says that he was attacked on the way. Well, it just so happens you're in Chicago,

00:10:01.800 major city, there are security cameras everywhere. So his entire trip to subway is caught on camera,

00:10:09.500 except for 60 seconds. There is just a 60 second gap where cameras don't pick him up,

00:10:16.800 where he's out of sight of cameras. Um, the, but all the rest of it, there is,

00:10:23.700 there is no, you don't see him getting attacked. Um, we don't see the alleged culprits.

00:10:30.560 So he says, Oh no, you know, it just so happens that the attack occurred in that 60 second gap.

00:10:36.740 You know, it just so happens kind of conveniently. Um, but we don't see that. Um, he says that he was

00:10:45.120 beaten to within an inch of his life in that 60 seconds, but then he just casually got up and

00:10:50.880 walked the subway anyway. And in fact, he kept, um, he says that he was, um, that they poured bleach

00:10:57.420 on him and that they tied a rope around his neck. And oddly enough, he kept the rope around his neck

00:11:04.840 and went to subway and then went home and he kept wearing the rope because that's what you would do, 0.62

00:11:09.260 right? If, if you were attacked with someone with a rope, you would just wear the rope the whole time.

00:11:13.300 Um, he also, he didn't want to call police. He didn't call police. He didn't call,

00:11:18.300 you know, he didn't go seek medical help, um, or anything like that. Eventually his friends

00:11:23.300 convinced him that he should call the police. And so he did. Now, uh, some of his neighbors have come

00:11:29.440 out and they say that, uh, they don't believe him. His neighbors point out that they live in a

00:11:34.840 neighborhood with a lot of gay people and a lot of minorities, and they live in one of the most

00:11:39.960 liberal cities in the country. So this is one of the most liberal towns and one of the most

00:11:44.860 liberal cities in the entire country. It is essentially the last place on earth where you

00:11:50.340 would expect to find a roving group of white racists randomly attacking minorities in the 0.84

00:11:55.180 middle of the street, in the middle of the night when it's, you know, negative 10 degrees outside or 0.93

00:11:58.760 whatever. Um, but of course, even if this happened in like Alabama or somewhere like that, it would

00:12:06.240 still be extremely far-fetched because even before you find out that, um, the security camera footage

00:12:14.400 doesn't capture the attack and that he didn't turn over his phone records and all the rest of it,

00:12:19.620 you should still hear that story and think, uh, yeah, I don't, no, I don't think so. I really,

00:12:27.740 I don't think that happened. That just doesn't sound like a thing that would happen. In fact,

00:12:33.020 that sounds like the kind of thing that liberals make up all the time. It doesn't actually sound

00:12:37.880 like the kind of thing that really happens though. Um, also, by the way, we should note that

00:12:44.760 nobody else in the town has reported an attack like this, but these two culprits, if they existed,

00:12:52.320 which they almost certainly don't, but, um, that would mean that they either just so happened

00:13:00.900 to have a noose and a bottle of bleach and that they happen to be walking down the street in the

00:13:05.500 middle of the night when it's freezing cold outside with a noose and a bottle of bleach.

00:13:08.740 And then they happen to find this guy and then attack him. Or they, they took those items

00:13:15.880 and they went out essentially hunting for a minority or a homosexual to attack. 0.55

00:13:21.700 But if that's the case, it's very unlikely that this would be their first time doing it.

00:13:29.120 Okay. You're not going to have two guys that just up and decide one night to go do that.

00:13:33.820 And this is, you kind of work up to that. If, if, if, if you have someone who is so psychotic

00:13:39.480 and so racist and violent that they would not just one person, but two people that they would

00:13:44.280 go out and do that, it's probably not their first time. Um, yet there've been no other reports

00:13:49.380 of anything like that. So, uh, the police have, have not yet filed charges against Smollett for,

00:13:59.280 um, for filing a false report. I, I think it's pretty, pretty clear that if this guy wasn't

00:14:06.680 a celebrity or if the whole thing wasn't so politically charged, or if he was a white guy

00:14:13.280 making this claim, uh, uh, saying that two black men had attacked him, you know, you know,

00:14:18.060 in some sort of racist attack in any of those scenarios, I think there would already be files.

00:14:23.140 There would already already be charges filed for filing a false report. Um, but in this case,

00:14:29.600 they haven't, because I guess, you know, it's like 99.999% certain that this is all made up,

00:14:38.380 but there is that 60 second gap. So the police can say that, well, technically, I mean,

00:14:44.160 it could have happened in that 60 seconds. And then he just casually got up with the rope around

00:14:49.400 his neck and went and got a sandwich and went home. Um, I mean, we, and then, and then the,

00:14:54.980 the two attackers, by the way, just vanished into thin air, or maybe they, they scaled a building or

00:15:00.320 something like Spider-Man and, um, escaped into the shadows. I mean, it's possible that that happened.

00:15:08.300 So I think, I think basically they're going to need to find total incontrovertible,

00:15:15.280 absolute evidence that this was invented before they file those, before they charge him with, um,

00:15:21.760 Smollett, I mean, charge him with a crime. And unless they find video for that 60 second gap,

00:15:27.320 they're not going to have that kind of evidence. Um, so I don't know. So maybe he'll get away with it.

00:15:34.240 This was, if this is made up, if this is a hoax, which again, uh, all signs are pointing in that

00:15:41.500 direction. If it's, if it's a hoax, then, then what's the point? You know, why do people do this

00:15:47.100 kind of stuff? And you do find this on the left rather frequently. Uh, usually it's not as elaborate

00:15:53.720 as this classic, classic hoaxes usually involve like, um, a waiter or waitress claiming that

00:16:03.340 somebody wrote something racist on a receipt, you know, that kind of thing. And then, and then always

00:16:07.600 a couple of days later, it comes out that, Oh no, they actually wrote it themselves. So why do they do

00:16:11.160 this? And I think it's pretty clear that there, there are two elements to it. Um, one is definitely

00:16:16.440 political, trying to paint your political enemies. And, you know, as, as these dangerous lunatics 0.99

00:16:23.000 roving the street, looking for minorities to assault. So there's that political element to it. 0.93

00:16:26.980 But I think psychologically, even before that, it's just a, um, it's just a ploy for attention.

00:16:34.440 Why do people look for attention in that way? Um, you know, it's, it's hard to know people that just

00:16:40.340 have a, some sort of hole inside them, some sort of emptiness. And, um, and this is how they want

00:16:48.640 attention. And I also think that on the left, especially, um, we have to remember that victimhood

00:16:56.780 is, is a painted as a desirable thing. Um, victimhood on the left is power. That's how you have power is

00:17:09.520 if you're a victim. And so there's always this competition among people on the left, different

00:17:15.840 groups competing about who is the greater victim, who faces the most persecution.

00:17:22.820 And so I think people are sort of conditioned this way.

00:17:28.420 And they're almost so, you know, you have this guy's a, he's a Hollywood actor, um, living in a kind

00:17:37.100 of upscale neighborhood in a, in an urban area. Um, you know, I assume he gets paid pretty well.

00:17:45.480 So he, so he lives a pretty comfortable life and it seems like he's almost disappointed by that.

00:17:51.260 He wants to be a victim because that's how people are conditioned by liberals. And so he invents this

00:17:58.700 story. All right. I want to get to this. This, uh, this video is from a couple of years ago,

00:18:06.680 but it's making the rounds online again. And I want to play it because it is just such a wonderful

00:18:12.400 sort of distillation of every fallacious pro-abortion argument. It really is incredible. 0.85

00:18:20.500 Um, every single bad pro-abortion argument, just in one video, one after another, after another in

00:18:27.940 succession. This is a Bill Nye, the fake science guy. And he did this video a couple of years ago,

00:18:33.760 um, rambling on about why he supports abortion. And I just, I'm going to play the whole thing for

00:18:39.860 you. I want you to watch this and then we'll talk about it. But, but here it is. If you're going to

00:18:44.720 say when an egg is fertilized, it's therefore all has the same rights as an individual. Then who are

00:18:53.540 you going to sue? Whom are you going to sue? Whom are you going to imprison? Every woman who's had a 1.00

00:18:58.740 fertilized egg pass through her? Every guy whose sperm has fertilized an egg and then it didn't

00:19:05.100 become a human? Have all these people failed you? Uh, it's just a reflection of a deep scientific lack

00:19:12.020 of understanding. And, uh, you literally or apparently literally don't know what you're talking about.

00:19:21.460 And so, uh, uh, when it comes to women's rights with respect to their reproduction, 0.95

00:19:28.980 I think you should leave it to women. It's really, uh, you cannot help but notice. I mean, 1.00

00:19:35.060 I'm not the first guy to observe this. You have a lot of men of European descent passing these

00:19:41.940 extraordinary laws based on ignorance. Sorry, you guys. I know it was written or your interpretation

00:19:50.500 of a book written 5,000 years ago, 50 centuries ago, makes you think that when a man and a woman

00:20:03.060 have sexual intercourse they always have a baby. That's wrong. And so to pass laws based on that 0.87

00:20:10.740 belief is inconsistent with nature. I mean, it's hard not to get frustrated with this everybody.

00:20:22.660 And I know nobody likes abortion. Okay. But you can't tell somebody what to do. I mean, she has rights 0.77

00:20:35.300 over this, especially if she doesn't like the guy that got her pregnant. Like she doesn't want

00:20:40.740 anything to do with your genes. Get over it, especially if she were raped and all this. So 0.99

00:20:47.380 it's very frustrating on the outside, on the other side. We have so many more important things to be

00:20:53.940 dealing with. We have so many more problems to squander resources on this argument based on

00:21:01.460 bad science, on just lack of understanding. Wow. What a fantastic idiot.

00:21:10.820 This may be the dumbest two and a half minutes ever recorded. It's really incredible. Yet, as I said, 1.00

00:21:19.300 it also perfectly represents the pro-abortion side. So what does that tell you?

00:21:24.420 All right. Let's run through this. So he begins by conflating abortion with miscarriage

00:21:33.540 and claiming that pro-lifers want to put women in jail for having miscarriages.

00:21:38.820 And he even says that we want to put men in jail if they have sex, but fail to conceive.

00:21:44.660 Yeah, because, because that's an argument that we, that we make all the time as pro-lifers, right?

00:21:52.820 But yeah, if you go to the March for Life, you'll see people holding big banners saying,

00:21:56.340 put men in jail for not conceiving children.

00:22:01.220 Um, he then claims that the pro-life side is a conspiracy among men of European descent.

00:22:08.580 When of course, in fact, the pro-life side is at least 50% women, if not more.

00:22:13.220 Then he says that pro-lifers base their position solely on the Bible. And he claims that the Bible

00:22:18.900 was written 5,000 years ago, uh, which is, which is remarkably stupid. 0.98

00:22:29.220 Even that, let's just focus on that part alone for a minute. He says the Bible was written 5,000 years 0.88

00:22:34.900 ago. And he says it with such confidence, 5,000 years ago, 50 centuries. You think the whole Bible

00:22:41.540 was written 5,000 years ago? No, the, the oldest books in the Bible were written maybe 3,000 years

00:22:48.900 ago. Um, much of the Old Testament is far more recent than that. And then of course the New Testament,

00:22:55.060 uh, was, was written, uh, less than 2,000 years ago. So five, you couldn't be more wrong with 5,000.

00:23:04.820 Now I know it seems like I'm semantics or something, but this is a grown adult man claims to be a

00:23:11.940 scientist, uh, claims to be very knowledgeable. He does these shows where he's instructing people

00:23:18.260 on all these different subjects. And he thinks the Bible was written 5,000 years ago. My kids are

00:23:24.020 five years old and even they know better than that. Um, he then spends a while explaining that

00:23:30.140 sex doesn't always lead to a baby, which thoroughly debunks a view that literally nobody holds.

00:23:35.660 Then he says that, uh, nobody likes abortion, which actually the feminist movement is clear that

00:23:40.500 they are proud of abortion and they do like it. And finally he gets to his big mic drop moment,

00:23:45.800 the summary of his whole case. And he says, you know, he's kind of, he's kind of condensing it all

00:23:53.040 down. And he says that, well, abortion has to be legal because quote, you can't tell somebody what

00:24:00.480 to do, which you can't tell. So that's his argument. Why should abortion be legal? Well, because you

00:24:07.900 can't, you can't tell somebody what to do. Okay. Well, if that's the case, then that means that we can't

00:24:14.240 have any laws of any kind at all. You have just undermined law itself because every law tells

00:24:22.720 people what to do and what not to do. Um, and then at the end, after spending two and a half minutes

00:24:28.080 torching the most absurd straw man ever constructed, he accuses the other side of having a lack of

00:24:33.880 understanding. Um, it's, it's wow. But remember something else that, you know, as stupid as this

00:24:44.600 is, you can't do much better than that. If, if you're going to spend two and a half minutes 1.00

00:24:50.560 trying to defend killing babies, it's not like you can make a good argument. Uh, I think you could be

00:24:58.700 more eloquent and more coherent than Bill Nye, which isn't hard to do, but if we're kind of grading 0.90

00:25:08.880 this on a curve, then although it was supremely moronic, we would have to say that as far as pro

00:25:18.760 abortion arguments go, it's maybe like a B minus because there aren't any good ones anyway. Uh, that

00:25:28.060 is just, wow. But the really sad thing, you know, we can, we can laugh at how crazy it is, but the sad

00:25:35.520 thing is that there are millions of Americans who will watch that video and, and say, Oh wow. Yeah.

00:25:45.120 He really, he really debunked the pro-life position. Didn't he? Wow. That was quite a debunking

00:25:49.560 mic drop. There are millions of Americans will see that and think that it's convincing. They'll be

00:25:55.820 convinced by it. All right. We'll go check the, uh, check the inbox. If you want to send a message

00:26:02.460 email, uh, to the show, a message email, um, then you can do that at mattwallshowatgmail.com.

00:26:11.220 This is from AJ. It says, hi Matt, I love your show. Especially love when you talk about the

00:26:15.000 historical case for Jesus, ancient manuscripts, biblical history, et cetera. Considering your

00:26:20.060 interest in those subjects, I was wondering if you'd seen slash read Lee Strobel's, The Case for Christ.

00:26:26.420 I assume you have, but I'd be interested in your take on it. Hi AJ. Yes, I have read it. Um,

00:26:32.920 I haven't seen the movie, but, uh, I've read the book now for anyone who isn't familiar. The Case

00:26:39.460 for Christ is a really famous Christian book, um, turned movie written by a guy named Lee Strobel.

00:26:46.220 And the conceit of the book, the framework is that I can't speak. I don't know. I assume the movie

00:26:50.420 follows the same, the same beats, but I can't speak to that. So in the book, um, Lee Strobel is a

00:26:58.500 journalist, uh, an atheist journalist who sets out on this kind of investigation to discover the truth

00:27:05.320 about Jesus, hoping to disprove Christianity. Um, but along the way he found that Christianity was 0.91

00:27:12.640 true. And so he converted. So the book and movie two, I assume consists mainly of, of Strobel's

00:27:18.920 interviews with various new Testament scholars, uh, extreme, one of the most famous Christian books

00:27:25.120 written in the last, you know, 30 or 40 years. Um, and it's very popular. I know a lot of people love

00:27:31.100 the book. This is what I'll say about it. It is a nice devotional book. It's, it's nice spiritual

00:27:38.760 reading. Um, it's, it's good encouragement for Christians, but that's not how it advertises itself.

00:27:47.760 It advertises itself as a historical investigation. And on that front, it fails. So ultimately,

00:27:54.940 I didn't like the book because I think that there's a lot of false advertising with it.

00:27:59.420 And, um, and I, I don't really appreciate that. I found it disappointing, honestly.

00:28:04.040 So I think it's a well-written book. It's an entertaining book. Um, but no, I didn't like it.

00:28:11.320 Here's my problem with it. Strobel says that he was an atheist hoping to disprove Christianity.

00:28:19.760 Okay. So, which is, which is a great premise. I mean, the premise of the book is great.

00:28:24.940 Then you've got an atheist journalist who wants to prove that Christianity is wrong. So he goes and 0.90

00:28:28.780 he interviews a bunch of scholars and historians and so on. And at the end of the interview process,

00:28:33.060 he's, he, he, he comes to the opposite conclusion and says, oh my gosh, nevermind. Um, so that's a

00:28:39.140 great premise. And so I love the way the book is presented. I was excited to finally read it because

00:28:43.580 I thought, well, that's, that's, that's awesome. Let me read this, this book. Um, the problem is that

00:28:49.140 he only interviews conservative Christian scholars, which is of course, totally ridiculous. 0.66

00:28:56.480 This is supposed to be an atheist who's trying to disprove Christianity and he doesn't interview 0.85

00:29:01.720 one single skeptic or secular historian. Um, how can you possibly claim to be conducting an objective

00:29:10.480 investigation if you only take talk to one side? And he's supposed to be an atheist while he's doing

00:29:16.720 these interviews. Yet an atheist would only talk to evangelical apologists. He wouldn't take the time 0.77

00:29:24.340 to hear from the other side at all. There are, there are, I forget how many interviews, maybe a

00:29:29.720 dozen interviews in the book. He doesn't talk to one single person who's on the other side of the

00:29:35.160 issue. Um, obviously I agree with the evangelical apologists about the historical case for Christianity.

00:29:41.240 I'm just saying that the book advertises itself as a sort of objective historical inquiry and then

00:29:46.440 proceeds to be absurdly one-sided. Uh, in fact, this is how, this is how bad it gets. There's even a

00:29:52.380 chapter in the book called the rebuttal evidence. And so I'm reading the book and you know, there,

00:30:00.020 there are several Christian scholars interviewed making their case. And then finally we get to a

00:30:04.840 chapter called rebuttal. And so now I'm thinking, okay, this is going to get good. This is going to be

00:30:08.640 interesting. This is where he brings in an atheist or a secular person and has them rebut everything

00:30:15.340 that he's just learned. Um, and so this is, this is going to be interesting, except that for the

00:30:22.280 other side, for the rebuttal, he interviews an evangelical apologist. Instead of getting a

00:30:27.780 secular historian to tell his own side, he has an evangelical apologist give his version of the

00:30:34.580 opposing side. Uh, so it's, it's, I, I, it's ridiculous. Now I've heard people justifying this 0.93

00:30:42.780 and saying, well, Strobel is the skeptic. He is the other side. So he doesn't need to talk to someone

00:30:48.180 on that side. He already is. So he's representing that side, talking to, uh, Christians, but that's

00:30:53.020 not really true because the whole point is that he doesn't really know either side. He goes into the

00:30:58.080 investigation, not really knowing anything about the historical, uh, the historical context for

00:31:06.420 Jesus. He was ignorant of the whole issue. He knew very little about it either way. So no, he can't

00:31:12.780 represent that side. He can't represent the side of historical, of secular historical experts and

00:31:19.260 scholars, considering he was not an expert or scholar himself. And in fact, throughout the book,

00:31:24.860 he's constantly being told basic historical information, um, things that a lot of us,

00:31:30.760 most of us who aren't scholars know things about like Josephus and, you know, and he's told these

00:31:36.440 things and he reacts with surprise. Like it's the first time he's heard it. He didn't know it

00:31:40.080 beforehand. Now in a real investigation, he would then take that information and go to the other side

00:31:46.240 and say, okay, this is what they're claiming. What's your take? Um, I mean, imagine a book written by

00:31:53.760 someone, imagine a book with the opposite, that goes the opposite direction. Imagine a book written

00:31:59.540 by a Christian, a former Christian claiming that he did an investigation and talked to experts and,

00:32:05.900 and discovered that Jesus was not the son of God. Uh, so he had a deconversion. He went the other way.

00:32:11.800 Well, imagine if that book only interviewed atheists. Imagine if he never once spoke to a single

00:32:17.880 Christian expert. What would we say about that book? We would laugh at it. We would say, well, 1.00

00:32:23.340 this is just atheist propaganda. Obviously the guy knew which side he wanted to believe beforehand

00:32:28.900 and he only talked to them. So it's the same thing with this. I think it's a well-written book,

00:32:34.620 enjoyable book in some respects. Um, obviously I concur with the conclusions, but I think that it's

00:32:39.220 not what it bills itself to be. And for that reason, it's not going to convince anything, anyone of

00:32:42.780 anything. Christians might find it compelling, but it's not going to convince atheists. And if you talk to 0.60

00:32:46.720 atheists about this book, they just laugh at it and they say, well, that's, you know, they make all

00:32:51.440 the points that I just made in their fair points anyway. Um, and it's really a missed opportunity.

00:32:55.320 I would love to see a book, uh, you know, when it comes to this sort of thing, usually you can pick

00:33:00.960 up a Christian book or you pick up an atheist book and you're going to get one side. And then the other,

00:33:05.800 I would love to see a book that kind of goes back and forth. And there's this debate inside the book

00:33:09.740 between both sides. And I think that'd be really interesting. Um, but that's not what this book is.

00:33:14.420 All right. From Paul. Now I got a bunch of emails. I mentioned yesterday on the show, uh, this question

00:33:20.900 of, of, um, if you, you know, a person can survive with half a brain. Um, and so theoretically it's,

00:33:34.380 it would be, may, it might be possible in the future to do a brain transplant. We can't right now,

00:33:38.800 we're not anywhere close to that, but so the, the sort of thought experiment is imagine if, um,

00:33:45.280 you cut, you cut my brain in half and transplanted half of my brain into someone else's body. Uh, 0.55

00:33:53.960 where did I go? You know, where is my consciousness? Where is my soul? In other words,

00:33:59.200 that's the thought I didn't come up with that thought experiment. It was something that a philosopher,

00:34:02.640 uh, proposed a few decades ago. And so I mentioned on the show, I got a lot of emails about this and I

00:34:08.340 found it really interesting. Some of these emails, uh, I'll read a few of them. This is from Paul.

00:34:12.480 He says, I would think that the soul follows the right brain. We never hear things like, wow,

00:34:18.060 that math equation has a lot of soul, but we do hear that being set up music since art, music,

00:34:22.820 and other forms of creative, creative expression originate in the right brain. It would seem that

00:34:27.460 that's where the soul resides. Interesting. This is from Stuart. He says, I've been a listener reader

00:34:33.520 for several years. I wanted to say, thank you for your boldness and speaking out for what you believe.

00:34:37.300 Um, okay. I'll skip over the compliments. Uh, although I appreciate them, Stuart. Anyway,

00:34:44.920 I listened to your show today and had a theory about the brain transplant thought experiment.

00:34:49.000 I'm with you that I don't think God would let a soul be divided, but I'm also with you that

00:34:52.740 the response is bit of a caveat. My response to this was the only response I could think of is,

00:34:57.940 uh, is that, well, you just, you couldn't do it because the human soul is immutable. It can't be

00:35:03.520 divided. And so my, my response to, you know, hypothetically, if it were possible, my response

00:35:10.340 is, well, it could never be possible, which is a total, which is a bad response at a total cop-out.

00:35:14.260 Uh, so he says, ultimately, I think your answer is overemphasizing the role of the brain in

00:35:18.460 constituting the soul. In other words, it's a faulty assumption that the processes and parts of the brain

00:35:23.220 that manifest in consciousness are to some extent, the source of the soul. But I think rather than

00:35:28.400 being the source, maybe they're more like the window to the soul. The true you is a separate 0.53

00:35:33.620 metaphysical entity sustained and empowered by the spirit of God and experienced and expressed

00:35:38.540 through the filter of you, the body, including the brain. So speaking strictly biologically,

00:35:43.620 if we think of a brain as what it really is, an organ, or even more generally a machine,

00:35:48.180 it's just a window or a medium through which the true metaphysical self, the you, is expressed.

00:35:53.040 In theory, if my soul was connected to somebody else's brain, I'd still be me. I'd just experience

00:35:58.480 some different thoughts, emotions, compulsions, et cetera, all of which are just flavors of the

00:36:02.480 brain chemistry you possess. Just like if my soul was connected to somebody else's body,

00:36:06.400 I may be stronger or weaker or slower or faster, but I'd still be me. Technically,

00:36:10.400 if there was a way to connect my soul to a toaster, I'd still be me, but that would be weird.

00:36:15.600 Uh, I know this sounds like it verges on Gnosticism, but I don't think that's the case. It's not the

00:36:21.760 spirit and physical are two divided, unconnected realms, really the opposite. It's more that the

00:36:26.160 physical world we live in is just a limited window through which we interpret the true

00:36:30.080 spiritual reality. And this also, this is also not to diminish the free will we do possess,

00:36:35.200 but it is to say the free will our souls possess is certainly impacted by our bodies,

00:36:39.040 brain chemistry included. So back to the question, based on this whole theory,

00:36:42.240 my guess is that if we were to wire the brains together, we wouldn't get a conscious being at all.

00:36:45.920 But both, both people would just die and the resulting Frankenstein monster would just fire 0.96

00:36:50.240 off neurons and twitch around, but would never achieve a consciousness as we understand it.

00:36:54.400 In a physical sense, the brain would be able to control the limbs and move the body,

00:36:57.920 but wouldn't ever possess a will to drive it, to interpret the world and make decisions.

00:37:01.840 This is a much better answer than the one that I gave. I wish I had, uh, maybe you should just do

00:37:06.560 the show, Stuart. I will just clarify. No, I don't think the brain is the source of the soul at all.

00:37:11.680 Of course, it's not the source. Uh, but there is a, uh, it's in, in this life anyway, um,

00:37:19.120 in our mortal realm, there is an inextricable, uh, relationship and link obviously between

00:37:25.680 the body and the soul and, and the mind. And I think of the mind is just sort of another word for

00:37:31.360 the soul. Um, but everything else you said there, I agree with last one. This is from Patty. I recently

00:37:38.400 watched an episode of the good doctor in which the face of a girl who was killed in a car accident

00:37:42.560 was removed to replace the face of another girl who had been badly disfigured in a separate car

00:37:47.280 accident. I think that scenario may help to address the question you raised about the irreplaceability

00:37:52.400 of the soul, making it impossible to transplant one person's brain with another watching the

00:37:56.560 transplant and seeing the face of the one girl on the other was bizarre and unsettling precisely

00:38:01.200 because it almost seemed that the living girl was no longer herself, but was taking on the identity

00:38:06.320 that is the very person of the dead girl. Yet the soul being spiritual is the immutable part of

00:38:11.440 the person. Whereas the body being material is subject to constant change and can be altered

00:38:16.800 through human intervention, such as transplants, even of the face or the brain and not constitute

00:38:21.600 the loss of the person, a brain injured person or one in a vegetative state still has his soul

00:38:25.680 abiding in his body despite the lack of normal consciousness. So I would think that even someone

00:38:30.320 with the face or the brain of another, of another person would remain himself, albeit not in the ideal

00:38:36.160 sense originally intended. That's from Patty. A lot of good answers. There were probably dozens of

00:38:44.320 answers to this. All of them much more interesting than what I offered. So I appreciate that. All right,

00:38:51.360 we'll leave it there. Thanks for watching everybody. Thanks for listening. Godspeed.

00:39:08.560 Hi everybody. I'm Andrew Klavan, host of The Andrew Klavan Show. Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats are angry

00:39:14.800 at Congresswoman Ilhan Omar because her anti-Semitic remarks are getting in the way of the Democratic

00:39:19.600 Party's attempts to destroy Israel. They forced her to apologize. Worst apology ever. We'll talk about

00:39:24.720 it on The Andrew Klavan Show. I'm Andrew Klavan.

The Matt Walsh Show - February 12, 2019

Ep. 196 - A Party Of Bigots

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