The Matt Walsh Show - April 03, 2018


Ep. 2 - The Bible Needs To Be Taught In Public School


Episode Stats

Length

18 minutes

Words per Minute

154.88136

Word Count

2,881

Sentence Count

176

Misogynist Sentences

2

Hate Speech Sentences

17


Summary

In this episode, I discuss NPR's article about the Pope denying the existence of hell, Chuck Todd's tweet about Good Friday, and why you should be a Christian if you don't know why Easter is on Sunday.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 So there's a couple of things from this past weekend that I wanted to talk about.
00:00:06.080 And if it's not too late by now, hopefully it's not.
00:00:09.460 NPR published an article about the Pope and about this story last week that the Pope allegedly denied the existence of hell,
00:00:18.240 which, you know, we'll talk about that some other time.
00:00:21.260 That's a story in and of itself.
00:00:23.020 But, you know, it's a big story.
00:00:24.660 I mean, it's a big story in the world of Christianity and religion.
00:00:29.260 So you would think NPR being this respectable news, well, I don't respect them, but some people respect them, apparently.
00:00:35.440 So being this respectable news organization, you would think they would, you know, go and find a reporter who knows, like, something about Christianity.
00:00:46.140 Really, you'd think they'd go and find their expert Christianity reporter, their religion expert.
00:00:52.320 And maybe they did.
00:00:53.500 Maybe they went and they found the person at NPR who knows absolutely the most about Christianity.
00:01:00.040 And that person wrote this article about the Pope.
00:01:02.880 And the last, and remember, this article would have had to been, it was written by someone.
00:01:07.260 And then it would have had to pass through a few levels of, there'd be an editor.
00:01:11.980 And then, I mean, there are probably a couple of levels before it even gets to the website.
00:01:16.140 So, it gets through all these levels, and the article's fine until you get to the end, the last sentence.
00:01:22.560 This is what the last sentence says, okay?
00:01:24.500 The last sentence is,
00:01:26.100 Easter, the day celebrating the idea that Jesus did not die and go to hell or purgatory or anywhere at all,
00:01:33.980 but rather arose into heaven,
00:01:36.100 is on Sunday.
00:01:37.580 Let's just try to unpack this here for a minute.
00:01:52.280 And we'll start with the fact that that's just a horribly written sentence.
00:01:56.620 That sentence in and of itself is an abomination.
00:02:00.500 It is a disgrace to sentences.
00:02:02.600 Because it's, you could have just said Easter's on Sunday.
00:02:05.660 And most people, that's enough.
00:02:07.580 You really didn't have to even say that, because everybody knows when Easter is.
00:02:11.040 So, you probably didn't even need to include that line.
00:02:14.040 But then, if you're going to write in the middle of Easter and is on Sunday,
00:02:17.900 you're going to include this whole definition of Easter.
00:02:21.620 You maybe want to make sure that it's the right definition.
00:02:24.920 Maybe check Wikipedia, or even the Bible is a book that came out recently,
00:02:30.420 and I heard it's a pretty good reference for these things.
00:02:34.180 But more to the point.
00:02:38.460 First of all, most Christians do believe that Jesus Christ descended into hell.
00:02:44.260 It's right there in the creed.
00:02:46.860 Second, Jesus did not rise.
00:02:49.220 I know you know this, but in case there are any NPR reporters watching,
00:02:54.140 Jesus Christ did not rise into heaven.
00:02:57.760 He did not ascend into heaven on Easter.
00:02:59.960 He ascended into heaven 40 days after Easter.
00:03:04.040 And in the meanwhile, he was here on Earth.
00:03:07.300 This is basic Christianity.
00:03:09.620 I mean, basic, basic.
00:03:11.280 And the reporter of NPR, allegedly a respected news outlet,
00:03:17.060 the reporter tasked with covering a big religious story,
00:03:20.820 did not know why Christians celebrate Easter.
00:03:24.540 I mean, good Lord.
00:03:29.480 And then next, so that was the one thing.
00:03:32.160 And then I think it was on the same day, you had Chuck Todd,
00:03:36.220 another respected journalist, and he tweeted on Good Friday.
00:03:40.540 This was his tweet.
00:03:41.260 He said,
00:03:41.560 See, hokey is not the word I would use, Chuck.
00:04:04.200 I would, there are many words that I could use to describe that tweet.
00:04:08.780 I wouldn't use most of those words because I'm a Christian.
00:04:11.720 And because I'm a Christian, I know that we call it Good Friday
00:04:14.560 because Jesus died a horrific, horrible, gruesome death that day.
00:04:19.600 And that's only good because he redeemed mankind through his death and resurrection.
00:04:23.660 But not because it was actually good in the sense that you mean it, Chuck.
00:04:28.720 I can just imagine Chuck Todd falling into a wormhole or something
00:04:35.220 and then ending up 2,000 years ago and strolling up to Calvary
00:04:38.580 and just looking around and, you know, like,
00:04:40.900 Say, why all the glum faces, folks?
00:04:42.860 I mean, just remember, just have a positive attitude and everything will be fine.
00:04:47.580 Of course, I say that I know, you know, I say,
00:04:53.080 Well, I know what Good Friday is because I'm a Christian.
00:04:54.920 But really, you shouldn't need to be a Christian at all
00:04:57.660 to know what Good Friday is or to know what Easter is
00:05:00.520 because this is basic cultural literacy
00:05:03.080 that these people who work for these elite media outlets do not possess.
00:05:11.500 Christianity, I don't care how you feel about Christianity,
00:05:14.060 it's one of the biggest, it is, I'm sorry,
00:05:16.840 it is the biggest religion in the world,
00:05:20.720 the biggest religion in the history of the world,
00:05:25.320 the biggest in America by a long shot,
00:05:28.540 and it's been the number one driving force in our civilization for centuries,
00:05:33.540 though it is less so now than it used to be, admittedly.
00:05:37.960 All in all, as an educated person, if you want to be an educated person,
00:05:41.740 if you want to be an intelligent person,
00:05:43.100 if you want to understand how the world works,
00:05:46.840 you have to possess a basic knowledge and understanding of Christianity,
00:05:52.260 whether you believe in it or not.
00:05:54.500 I mean, every, you know, if you want to understand anything about
00:05:58.540 art over the last 2,000 years,
00:06:03.940 literature, government, philosophy,
00:06:07.020 yes, even science, okay, if you want to really understand the genesis and the history
00:06:12.500 and the meaning and the substance behind all of those things,
00:06:16.620 you got to know something about Christianity,
00:06:18.720 because Christianity has been the driving force and the substance of all of those things for centuries.
00:06:26.280 And, you know, this is why, in case anyone was wondering,
00:06:31.400 this is why they used to teach the Bible in public school.
00:06:37.400 That doesn't mean that you were required to believe in the Bible in public school,
00:06:40.860 but for a long time in public school, in secular school,
00:06:43.300 you were taught the Bible.
00:06:45.260 You read the Bible in public school.
00:06:48.260 And that makes a lot of sense,
00:06:49.800 because the Bible, I mean,
00:06:51.100 it's only the most influential piece of literature ever written hands down,
00:06:55.240 and nothing else even comes close to it.
00:06:57.120 So if you're going to study influential literature in school,
00:07:00.300 it kind of doesn't make sense to skip over the number one.
00:07:03.900 I mean, that is a huge mountain to just jump over and pretend it's not even there.
00:07:08.960 It's like if you were studying mountains, and you never even acknowledged Everest.
00:07:14.120 That's what it's like.
00:07:14.820 It's like if there were kids entire time in school,
00:07:19.540 and they study different, you know, geological formations,
00:07:22.500 and they study mountains, but they never,
00:07:24.260 it's just Everest, we're going to pretend Everest doesn't exist.
00:07:26.680 The Bible is the Mount Everest of literature, of books.
00:07:31.760 And that's not my subjective determination.
00:07:34.000 That's not just I'm saying it because I believe in it.
00:07:35.840 That's just what it is, historically speaking.
00:07:39.740 But our PC society has decided that it's too, it's too triggering.
00:07:44.400 It's too upsetting for the little atheist children to be exposed
00:07:48.540 to this book that shaped the world.
00:07:51.300 So they ignore it, and they read The Hunger Games,
00:07:55.080 or Harry Potter instead.
00:07:59.160 That's what they read instead of acknowledging the Bible.
00:08:02.340 And there's a quote, it's either from Chesterton or Lewis,
00:08:07.980 I can't remember which one, where I think it was Chesterton,
00:08:11.300 who said that an atheist can never be too careful in his reading.
00:08:16.460 Whereas if you're a Christian, you can read whatever you want.
00:08:18.840 But as an atheist, you have to try really hard to protect
00:08:22.680 that vulnerable worldview that you've created.
00:08:26.760 It's a very fragile thing.
00:08:28.140 And so you have to be very careful not to read things like the Bible.
00:08:32.560 Because if you do that, everything may start falling apart.
00:08:36.580 And I think that's basically how our society operates.
00:08:41.640 And what do you end up with?
00:08:43.500 When we all kind of just ignore,
00:08:46.200 when people who aren't Christian make no effort to understand
00:08:50.600 what Christianity is,
00:08:52.500 what we end up with as a society with a lot of people
00:08:56.220 who hate Christianity,
00:08:58.300 but do not understand Christianity.
00:09:02.100 They don't know what it is.
00:09:03.940 They don't know what it means.
00:09:06.060 They don't know what it teaches.
00:09:08.360 But they despise it.
00:09:09.620 And they look down on anyone who believes in it,
00:09:11.900 even though they don't understand it.
00:09:13.120 And I don't need Chuck Todd or NPR to prove that point.
00:09:17.560 You know, we see this,
00:09:18.600 any Christian,
00:09:20.480 let's just take two examples that any Christian
00:09:22.660 who, you know, has gotten into debates,
00:09:25.480 especially online,
00:09:26.440 has encountered these two things,
00:09:28.040 which I think kind of encapsulate this issue
00:09:30.820 of the people who hate Christianity the most
00:09:33.320 are the ones who know the least about it.
00:09:35.320 So two pieces of evidence that I'll submit
00:09:38.620 to prove my point.
00:09:41.680 First, you have the secular person
00:09:43.420 who kind of sneers and scoffs.
00:09:45.660 And he says, he says, oh, so you believe,
00:09:49.620 you believe that there's an invisible,
00:09:51.620 magical sky genie up in the clouds?
00:09:56.240 That's what you believe?
00:09:57.780 Yeah, you believe in the invisible sky man, huh?
00:10:01.720 And then they look at each other
00:10:02.860 and they give each other high fives and say,
00:10:04.260 oh, did you hear what I just said
00:10:05.100 about the invisible sky man?
00:10:06.240 Yeah, that was a clever one.
00:10:07.520 Yeah, you never heard that one before, did you?
00:10:09.120 Really got him on that one.
00:10:12.280 No, I don't believe in the invisible sky man.
00:10:15.660 Nobody believes that, okay?
00:10:19.540 That's like if I told you about the sun
00:10:21.660 and you said, oh, so you believe
00:10:24.180 there's a giant candle floating in the sky?
00:10:27.820 You hear this guy, he thinks there's like
00:10:29.320 a giant Yankee candle just hovering in the sky.
00:10:33.920 No, that's not what I said.
00:10:35.400 That's not what I said at all.
00:10:36.540 That's what you're saying.
00:10:37.540 That's your understanding of this.
00:10:39.080 You're showing your own ignorance.
00:10:40.500 You should be embarrassed.
00:10:41.220 No, there isn't any adult Christian
00:10:45.000 who believes that God is literally in the clouds.
00:10:49.380 Okay, you see, that's just an illustration
00:10:51.440 that people use, that artists have used,
00:10:53.780 that poets have used, that writers have used.
00:10:56.700 It's an illustration.
00:10:57.720 It's a metaphor.
00:10:58.400 It's just a way of communicating
00:11:00.260 or physically manifesting an idea
00:11:04.840 that transcends the physical realm.
00:11:08.400 So that's what that is.
00:11:10.600 It's the same thing how we talk about,
00:11:12.500 you know, we love somebody with our heart,
00:11:14.240 but we all know that our heart just pumps blood.
00:11:16.260 There's not love actually located in our heart.
00:11:18.560 We know that.
00:11:19.920 Maybe you don't know that, but we do.
00:11:23.880 And Christians don't think that God is magic either.
00:11:27.580 You know, they believe that God is a first mover,
00:11:32.140 the first mover, the first cause
00:11:34.120 who transcends our physical dimension
00:11:36.660 and who created it
00:11:38.840 and who sustains it
00:11:39.840 and who animates it.
00:11:42.860 And this belief bears no relation whatsoever
00:11:46.240 to the one that you pretend that we hold.
00:11:49.500 None.
00:11:50.480 You could disagree with the belief,
00:11:52.760 but you can't disagree with the belief
00:11:55.080 if you don't understand it.
00:11:58.160 And so what I find with, you know,
00:12:00.280 atheism in modern America
00:12:02.080 has become very lazy.
00:12:03.920 And to be fair, Christianity has become very lazy too.
00:12:07.900 There are a lot of lazy Christians
00:12:08.900 who don't understand their own beliefs.
00:12:12.300 And that's part of the problem here,
00:12:13.640 that there's a lot of biblically illiterate people
00:12:15.680 in the world, including Christians.
00:12:18.020 But atheism is also very lazy,
00:12:20.460 maybe lazier now than it used to be.
00:12:22.700 And so you just have a lot of really lazy atheists
00:12:24.960 running around saying,
00:12:25.780 oh yeah, magical sky genie.
00:12:27.520 Just spending all their energy
00:12:30.640 shouting at people for holding beliefs
00:12:33.980 that nobody actually holds.
00:12:35.960 Here's another example,
00:12:37.120 I think a little bit more common.
00:12:40.420 You have the secular person
00:12:42.120 who skims through Leviticus or Exodus,
00:12:47.500 or rather they skim through a blog
00:12:49.280 written by someone who has skimmed
00:12:50.840 through one of those things.
00:12:51.860 And then they demand to know
00:12:54.080 why Christians eat shellfish
00:12:56.740 and why we wear mixed fibers
00:12:58.980 and why we cut our beards.
00:13:01.400 And they'll say,
00:13:02.440 oh, so you think it's wrong for gays to marry?
00:13:04.720 But what about you?
00:13:05.260 Look at you, you have tattoos.
00:13:06.840 Look what Leviticus says about that.
00:13:10.580 Again, they try to hold us
00:13:12.420 to the standards of the old law
00:13:14.080 because they don't understand
00:13:15.400 this extremely basic foundational doctrine
00:13:18.220 of Christianity
00:13:19.020 that distinguishes between
00:13:20.880 the old and new law.
00:13:22.740 This is not just like some Christians do.
00:13:25.120 This is basic fundamental Christianity
00:13:28.060 that if you are a Christian,
00:13:29.540 you must believe.
00:13:32.320 Again, they show how they have disdain
00:13:34.660 for something
00:13:35.260 that they do not even slightly understand.
00:13:40.380 You see, Christianity is hated in our culture
00:13:43.100 because our culture doesn't understand it.
00:13:46.860 So it's actually not even true to say
00:13:48.640 that Christianity is hated.
00:13:50.460 People hate what they perceive
00:13:52.460 Christianity to be.
00:13:58.640 It's certainly possible for a person
00:14:00.620 to study Christianity,
00:14:02.180 understand it basically,
00:14:03.880 and then reject it.
00:14:04.720 You can do that.
00:14:05.900 But it's not possible
00:14:07.320 for an intelligent, rational person
00:14:09.860 to study it, understand it,
00:14:12.740 and then treat it as something
00:14:14.940 just ridiculous
00:14:16.100 and childish
00:14:18.100 and inane
00:14:19.220 and stupid.
00:14:21.400 That you can't do
00:14:22.440 if you're a smart person.
00:14:23.860 Because anyone with that attitude,
00:14:26.020 which is the majority
00:14:27.580 of American atheists
00:14:28.840 and even some Christians,
00:14:31.740 anyone with that attitude
00:14:33.220 reveals themselves
00:14:34.320 to be uninformed
00:14:35.480 and unintelligent.
00:14:36.440 this is a belief system
00:14:40.260 that has been believed
00:14:44.040 and accepted
00:14:44.700 and embraced
00:14:45.460 by not only
00:14:48.240 billions of people
00:14:51.860 across the world,
00:14:53.260 but also
00:14:54.400 some of the most,
00:14:56.880 some of the greatest geniuses
00:14:59.560 in the history
00:15:00.960 of mankind.
00:15:03.120 Whether we're talking
00:15:04.140 about Aquinas
00:15:04.820 or Augustine
00:15:05.800 or Da Vinci
00:15:08.120 or Michelangelo,
00:15:11.040 Shakespeare,
00:15:12.200 I mean,
00:15:12.500 going down the list,
00:15:14.500 some of the greatest geniuses
00:15:17.120 ever to exist
00:15:18.040 on planet Earth
00:15:18.840 have not only been Christians
00:15:19.860 but devout Christians.
00:15:21.760 No, that doesn't prove
00:15:23.200 that Christianity is correct
00:15:24.360 all by itself,
00:15:25.340 but it does prove
00:15:26.820 that if you're a serious person,
00:15:28.300 this is something
00:15:29.500 you take seriously.
00:15:31.660 You don't just say,
00:15:32.880 pfft, pfft,
00:15:33.600 yeah, whatever.
00:15:35.880 No, see,
00:15:36.220 you're not allowed
00:15:36.700 to do that
00:15:37.340 with a belief system
00:15:38.680 held by Thomas Aquinas
00:15:39.740 if you're a smart person.
00:15:41.640 If you're a smart person,
00:15:42.840 you say,
00:15:43.180 wow, this is a towering genius.
00:15:46.000 I mean,
00:15:46.240 I should look into
00:15:47.120 what he's saying, right?
00:15:48.520 I mean,
00:15:48.740 I should at least listen.
00:15:52.480 But if you're ignorant,
00:15:53.660 if you're foolish,
00:15:54.580 if you're childish,
00:15:55.420 if you're unintelligent,
00:15:59.580 or more so
00:16:01.280 if you're an intellectual coward,
00:16:03.020 that's when you take,
00:16:04.060 when you look at this belief,
00:16:05.540 again,
00:16:05.760 billions of people
00:16:06.540 hold it throughout the year.
00:16:07.740 Millions of people
00:16:08.320 have died for this belief.
00:16:10.160 Some of the smartest people
00:16:11.240 in the history of the world.
00:16:12.440 I mean,
00:16:12.680 our civilization
00:16:13.580 was founded on this belief
00:16:15.280 and you have to be
00:16:16.120 very, very frankly stupid
00:16:18.100 to look at that
00:16:19.160 and just say,
00:16:19.920 pfft,
00:16:20.280 whatever.
00:16:20.780 Again,
00:16:23.920 I'm not saying
00:16:24.600 that if you decide
00:16:26.060 you don't believe,
00:16:26.800 that means that you're stupid.
00:16:27.900 I'm saying if you have
00:16:28.700 that attitude of just,
00:16:30.120 I don't even care.
00:16:31.540 I'm not even going to look at it.
00:16:35.400 It's something
00:16:36.000 that you need to take seriously.
00:16:40.080 And then when you look
00:16:40.860 at the history of Christianity,
00:16:41.860 there's even more reason
00:16:42.860 to take it seriously.
00:16:44.740 When you look at the fact
00:16:45.720 that Christianity was born
00:16:47.000 in violent oppression,
00:16:48.000 has endured it relentlessly
00:16:50.520 ever since.
00:16:51.740 Its founder was this
00:16:52.860 obscure carpenter
00:16:54.040 who was brutally executed
00:16:55.660 only three years
00:16:56.440 into his public ministry.
00:16:58.700 And its early apostles
00:16:59.780 and evangelists
00:17:00.580 were these really
00:17:01.280 unimpressive,
00:17:02.540 average men
00:17:04.100 who carried
00:17:05.280 this carpenter's message
00:17:06.600 in defiance
00:17:07.400 of government authorities
00:17:08.480 and religious leaders
00:17:09.440 and an empire
00:17:10.320 and they died for it.
00:17:12.640 And its disciples
00:17:13.480 embraced this new way
00:17:14.680 of life
00:17:15.060 that would only lead
00:17:15.780 to suffering
00:17:16.320 and poverty and death.
00:17:17.320 There was nothing else promised.
00:17:18.500 They weren't promised riches.
00:17:19.840 They weren't promised new land.
00:17:21.320 They weren't promised anything
00:17:22.380 but suffering, poverty, and death.
00:17:23.960 And for 300 years,
00:17:24.960 that's all it gave them
00:17:26.220 was suffering, poverty, and death.
00:17:28.820 And yet it flourished
00:17:29.940 and it conquered
00:17:30.720 and it triumphed.
00:17:31.760 And millions and millions
00:17:32.660 of people
00:17:33.320 saw something
00:17:35.060 in the religion
00:17:35.800 worth dying for
00:17:37.000 and know
00:17:37.780 that does not prove
00:17:38.780 that it's true.
00:17:41.320 But it does prove
00:17:42.540 that you should look at it
00:17:43.640 and take it seriously
00:17:45.640 and say to yourself
00:17:47.660 I want to understand
00:17:49.720 this thing.
00:17:51.400 Maybe all of those people
00:17:53.120 are wrong
00:17:53.900 but there's no way
00:17:56.080 I can arrive
00:17:56.720 at that conclusion
00:17:57.460 until I have taken
00:17:58.800 the time
00:17:59.340 to understand it.
00:18:02.420 A lot of people
00:18:03.320 in our culture
00:18:03.800 just are not willing
00:18:04.780 to do that.
00:18:09.220 And so
00:18:09.940 in lieu of understanding
00:18:11.140 they just say
00:18:12.180 why understand it
00:18:13.780 when I can hate it.
00:18:17.640 And I just think
00:18:18.400 that's very foolish.
00:18:20.480 And then if you understand it
00:18:21.700 you avoid
00:18:23.060 some of the embarrassment
00:18:24.520 that poor Chuck Todd
00:18:25.580 and the poor lady
00:18:26.980 at NPR
00:18:27.520 have suffered
00:18:28.200 over the last few days.
00:18:30.120 Alright,
00:18:30.420 thanks for watching everybody
00:18:31.220 and hope you have a great day.
00:18:32.380 I'll talk to you next time.
00:18:33.220 I'll talk to you next time.
00:18:34.920 I'll talk to you next time.
00:18:35.820 I'll talk to you next time.