The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 237 - Black Holes And Black Lists

00:00:00.000 Today on the show, Pope Benedict has finally emerged from the shadows to talk about the

00:00:03.960 sex abuse crisis, and his words are both true and startling. We'll talk about it.

00:00:08.760 Also, according to a recent report, I have been blacklisted by Google.

00:00:13.280 We'll discuss that, and we'll talk about black holes and the Lion King

00:00:17.160 and biblical end times prophecies. A lot to talk about today on The Matt Walsh Show.

00:00:21.140 The Matt Walsh Show.

00:00:51.140 It's something that scientists theorized about based on mathematical calculations 100 years ago,

00:00:56.300 and now here we have discovered it. Isn't that crazy that they could do that?

00:01:00.160 That someone could just work out a math problem and say, well, so according to this,

00:01:05.140 there should be massive holes in space that suck in all the light and energy around them 0.96

00:01:08.600 and crush it into non-existence. And then we look into a telescope and we say, oh yeah,

00:01:12.380 well, there it is right there. I mean, and speaking of looking into a telescope,

00:01:15.720 this thing is 55 million light years away. 55 million light years. Do you have any idea how

00:01:25.860 far away that is? A light year is 5 trillion miles. So this is 55 million times 5 trillion.

00:01:34.300 Do you know what that number is? I don't know what that number is. It's really, really,

00:01:38.800 really big. Let's put it that way. So it is so far that you could travel at the speed of light,

00:01:45.660 which is 670 million miles an hour, fast enough to travel around the entire globe seven times in

00:01:50.740 one second. You could be going that fast and it would take you 55 million years at that speed to

00:01:58.180 get there. If you started heading there at the dawn of human civilization, okay, you would still have

00:02:04.620 right now, oh, another 55 million years to go. Uh, you, you, you basically wouldn't have even

00:02:11.280 started your journey yet. You would still be, you would still be so early in your trip that if you

00:02:15.680 realized you left your wallet back on earth, you might as well turn around and go get it. Um,

00:02:19.800 because that's how vast the distances are that we're dealing with. And, and, and I mean, if that

00:02:27.120 doesn't blow your mind, then you must not have a mind that can be blown in the first place. I mean,

00:02:33.040 come on folks, come on. Oh, and by the way, this black hole, okay. It's, it's, it's mass is 7 billion

00:02:39.980 times greater than the sun. You could plop our entire solar system and everything it contains

00:02:46.600 inside it. The sun is just a speck of dust in comparison to this thing. The sun compared to this

00:02:52.700 black hole is like you compared to the earth itself, but we're all disappointed because it's

00:02:57.780 blurry. Oh, it's blurry. Yeah. The image, the image of the thing that's millions of quadrillion

00:03:03.580 miles away is blurry. Oh, it's so blind. Oh, I'm sorry about that. I'm sorry. We couldn't get it in

00:03:09.200 high def for you. I'm sorry that this image that took 55 million years to get to your eyeballs

00:03:14.860 is, is blurry. Oh, I, you know, I'm, I'm so sorry. Yeah. Yes. Well, that's that. That's so

00:03:20.240 disappointing. Meanwhile, a stupid trailer for the Lion King was released on the same day as this image 1.00

00:03:27.160 of the black hole. And that Lion King trailer is literally just a slightly more realistic cartoon, 0.99

00:03:33.280 which is a verbatim shot for shot remake of another cartoon, which only came out 25 years ago. Yet that

00:03:40.260 got a bigger reaction than the image of the black hole. People were astounded by that. They said,

00:03:45.120 my God, look at this cartoon. You see that lion? He almost looks like a real lion. I mean, this cartoon,

00:03:51.360 look at this cartoon. It's amazing. It's beautiful. That's what impressed everybody. Not the black hole,

00:03:57.100 55 million light years away. We are living in an idiocracy folks. That's what we're living. We, 0.83

00:04:04.860 we, we are, we are surrounded. We are being, we are living in a black hole of stupidity and we're 1.00

00:04:10.900 all being crushed to death by it. Anyway, um, let's see what else is going on today. Uh, Julian Assange 1.00

00:04:23.260 was arrested today. Uh, that's the big story. Uh, that's the big story. Now, to be honest, uh, I need

00:04:31.140 to read more about what's going on here in order to deliver an opinion worth listening to. Uh, I'm not

00:04:37.380 sure if, if, if I'm supposed to admit that, you know, but there it is. One thing I don't like about

00:04:42.540 this job is that people expect you to automatically have a worthwhile and informed opinion about

00:04:49.860 everything that happens to occur in the news. Right. And, and, and that's what people expect.

00:04:54.200 And I think that when people watch a show like this or any other show or, you know, cable news show or

00:04:59.140 anything like that, um, and they see people pontificating and offering their opinion, they,

00:05:03.500 they just assume that, okay, well, this person must be omniscient that they, that they, you know,

00:05:08.080 can, can, can be informed about everything all the time and have an opinion worth listening to.

00:05:12.580 But the, uh, the dirty little secret is that it's all, uh, you know, it's all basically a camera

00:05:17.580 trick. I mean, the people that are in this line of work, uh, because of course we can't have

00:05:23.900 worthwhile opinions about everything. Uh, and we can't automatically have all the necessary

00:05:29.100 information immediately in order to deliver a worthwhile opinion. So what a lot of times people

00:05:34.120 end up doing is that, um, they, even if they don't really know anything about the subject,

00:05:40.480 they just kind of look at what other people, um, in their same ideological vein are saying about

00:05:46.640 a particular thing. And then they, they just calibrate their point of view based on that.

00:05:51.920 Now I prefer not to do that. Um, I want to have my own perspective, but it takes, it takes time to

00:05:59.540 develop that sometimes. And so maybe I'll re I'll revisit this, this later. Um, if you'll forgive me

00:06:05.340 for that, this story was just breaking this morning as I was, um, preparing to talk about other things,

00:06:11.340 thinking about other things, like for instance, uh, this, there was an essay that, uh, was published

00:06:19.240 just yesterday. Yesterday was a big day. I mean, we had the black hole, Lion King, and then you also

00:06:26.620 had this, um, an essay published from, uh, Pope Benedict about the, the abuse crisis in the church.

00:06:35.340 Um, it's a fascinating document in many respects. Uh, Benedict basically argues that agents of

00:06:43.840 change in the church, agents of, of rebellion, really of sabotage, uh, you might say sought in

00:06:50.100 the sixties and seventies to create a new church, um, a new church. That's how he, how he put it in

00:06:54.940 quotes, one that is modeled after the morality of the world rather than natural law in the Bible.

00:07:00.440 And this led to moral chaos, which led to the sexual abuse crisis that has plagued the church ever

00:07:04.940 since. That's his basic case. Um, let me read some of this to you. Uh, here he is talking about

00:07:09.940 what kinds of situations developed in the sixties. He says, um, in various seminaries,

00:07:16.660 homosexual cliques were established, which acted more or less openly and significantly changed the

00:07:21.500 climate in the seminaries. In one seminary in Southern Germany, candidates for the priesthood

00:07:25.960 and candidates for lay ministry of the pastoral specialists live together. At the common meals,

00:07:31.240 seminarians and pastoral specialists ate together, the married among the laymen, sometimes accompanied

00:07:35.340 by their wives and children and on occasion by their girlfriends. The climate in this seminary

00:07:39.640 could not provide support for the preparation to the priestly vocation. Um, he goes on indeed,

00:07:45.960 in many parts of the church, conciliar attitudes were understood to mean having a critical or negative

00:07:51.340 attitude towards the hitherto existing tradition, which is now, which was now to be replaced by a new,

00:07:56.680 radically open relationship with the world. Um, one bishop who had previously been seminary rector

00:08:03.060 had arranged for the seminarians to be shown pornographic films, allegedly with the intention

00:08:09.100 of, of thus making them resistant to behavior contrary to the faith. Um, they were not only the 0.88

00:08:17.100 United States of America, there were not only in the United States of America, individual bishops who

00:08:21.680 rejected the Catholic tradition as a, as a whole and sought to bring about a kind of new modern,

00:08:27.040 uh, Catholic, Catholic, Catholicity. There we go. In their diocese, perhaps it is worth mentioning

00:08:33.880 that in not a few seminaries, students caught reading my books were considered unsuitable for

00:08:38.600 the priesthood. Uh, he goes on, the idea of a better church created by ourselves is in fact a proposal

00:08:45.360 of the devil with which he wants to lead us away from the living God through a deceitful logic

00:08:50.240 by which we are too easily duped. Um, okay. So you see, he's there, he's there diagnosing the problem

00:08:57.840 and, uh, pointing not to, see the problem is that a lot of people in the church today,

00:09:08.600 especially church leaders, when they're discussing, uh, the sexual abuse epidemic and all the issues in

00:09:17.940 the church, they're always looking for practical causes, practical solutions. You know, everything's

00:09:24.660 very practical, very kind of earthbound. Um, they're not looking deeper at what is the spiritual moral

00:09:34.680 root of the problem, which I mean, this is a moral problem, right? So you, you, you have to speak of it

00:09:42.400 on those terms. Now, Benedict is, is willing to do that. And then, um, he talks about dying. Now, his, his ideas

00:09:49.700 about remedying the problem, I think are, are worth, uh, quoting at length. He says, what must be done?

00:09:56.600 Perhaps we should create another church for things to work out. Well, that experiment has already been

00:10:01.500 undertaken and has already failed. Only obedience and love for our Lord Jesus Christ can point the way.

00:10:06.800 So let us first try to understand a new and from within what the Lord wants and has wanted with us.

00:10:13.580 First, I would suggest the following. If we really wanted to summarize very briefly the content of

00:10:18.280 the faith as laid down in the Bible, we might do so by saying that the Lord has initiated a narrative

00:10:23.320 of love with us and wants to subsume all creation in it. The counterforce against evil, which threatens us

00:10:29.840 and the whole world can ultimately only consist in our entering into this love. It is the real

00:10:35.620 counterforce against evil. The power of evil arises from our refusal to love God. He who entrusts

00:10:41.860 himself to the love of God is redeemed. Our being, our being not redeemed is a consequence of our

00:10:47.880 inability to love God. Learning to love God is therefore the path of human redemption. Um, let's see.

00:10:55.560 Uh, I mean, there's, I could, I'm not going to read this whole thing, but a society without God,

00:11:01.000 a society that does not know him and treats him as non-existent is a society that loses its measure.

00:11:05.020 In our day, the catchphrase of God's death was coined. When God does die in a society,

00:11:10.040 it becomes free. We were assured. In reality, the death of God in the society also means the

00:11:14.960 end of freedom because what dies is the purpose that provides orientation. And because the compass

00:11:20.660 disappears, that points us in the right direction by teaching us to distinguish good from evil.

00:11:25.220 Um, he goes on, this is the case with pedophilia. It was theorized only a short time ago. It's quite

00:11:29.640 legitimate, but it has spread further and further. And now we realize with shock that things are

00:11:33.360 happening to our children and young people that threatened to destroy them. The fact that this

00:11:37.120 could also spread in the church and among priests ought to disturb us in particular. Why did pedophilia

00:11:41.080 reach such proportions? Ultimately, the reason is the absence of God. We Christians and priests

00:11:46.500 also prefer not to talk about God because this speech does not seem practical. Um, and then he goes

00:11:52.860 on from there. Uh, I mean, it's worth, I'm not going to read the whole thing. I, I wish I, it'd be worth

00:11:59.800 doing, but I won't. I would recommend that you, you do so though. Um, and, and so everything he's

00:12:08.320 saying here is good. Uh, it's on, on point it's necessary and it's true, but it raises in my mind,

00:12:19.340 a whole separate question, which is this, um, why did this man leave the papacy in the first place?

00:12:29.640 I mean, why did he retire? It's been now six years, six years since he left and he's still

00:12:35.740 clearly on top of things. Clearly he understands what's going on in the church. He understands,

00:12:40.320 uh, understands it better than the current occupant of the chair, I would say. And he's interested in

00:12:45.920 providing leadership, which is why he, he, he, he wrote this, um, this essay. So why isn't he

00:12:52.100 in the lead? It's strange to me. It's a strange situation. Yeah. He's an old man. He's, I think

00:12:59.300 he's 90 or 91, but Pope Francis is no spring chicken either. Francis is 82 or 83 years old himself.

00:13:07.820 Now it would be different in my mind if Benedict was sitting there in retirement, um, writing the

00:13:14.400 occasional essay while a Pope in his fifties, a real reformer was in there in the Vatican,

00:13:20.260 kicking butt, taking names, shaping things up, putting the church back on the right path.

00:13:25.460 Then I would say that, um, this is the best of both worlds that we have, because you would have 0.78

00:13:29.840 the elder statesman, former Pope who's old and retired, and he's sitting to the side, providing

00:13:34.700 advice here and there direction. Uh, while the man with, with energy and vigor has his sleeves rolled

00:13:40.420 up, right. And, and, and he's getting the job done. Now that would make sense. That would be a

00:13:44.380 dynamic that would make a lot of sense to me, but that's not the dynamic that we see in the church

00:13:49.400 today. What we have is an old retired Pope sitting off to the side while another old Pope, um, who is

00:13:57.300 in his, in his eighties is, is in there doing very little to address the problem. And in the meantime is

00:14:03.740 sowing more confusion and discord in the church with his obscure and strange pronouncements

00:14:08.600 on every subject under the sun. So that situation makes no sense to me at all. And it's very bizarre.

00:14:15.340 Um, so on one hand, it's great to hear this truth from Benedict, but on the other hand, it's kind of

00:14:25.760 disturbing because I think the assumption was when Benedict stepped down, uh, six years ago,

00:14:35.000 the assumption was that six years in the future, you know, 2019, he wouldn't be alive anymore. I mean,

00:14:41.780 we all thought what he's stepping down. He must be on death's door. Um, so I don't think anyone

00:14:47.140 thought that we'd be heading into 2020 and Benedict would still be around the fact that he's still

00:14:51.160 around. It's like, well, what, what, where did you go? Why did you leave? Um, a lot of questions

00:14:59.920 are raised there. That's all I'll say. All right. Now the daily caller, uh, had a report yesterday,

00:15:07.620 um, about an alleged blacklist that's kept by Google, which singles out certain people

00:15:14.980 and websites. Um, and, uh, and tries to, tries to mess with them. Now I'm going to read a little bit

00:15:23.980 from, from, from their report and, uh, stick around for the twist ending here. Okay. So it says,

00:15:30.080 uh, according to the daily caller says Google does manipulate its search results manually,

00:15:34.540 contrary to the company's official denials documents obtained by the daily caller indicate,

00:15:39.300 uh, two official policies dubbed the misrepresentation policy and the quote, good neighbor

00:15:45.460 policy inform the company's XPA news blacklist with list, which is maintained by Google's trust and

00:15:52.600 safety team. Um, the, uh, deceptive news domain blacklist is going to be used by many search

00:16:01.140 features to filter problematic sites that violate the good neighbor misrepresentation policies that

00:16:06.780 according to the, to the document, um, the document obtained by the caller says the purpose of the

00:16:14.280 blacklist will be to bar the sites from surfacing in any search feature or news product. Uh, it will not

00:16:20.580 cause a demotion in the organic search results or D and D index them altogether. What that means is

00:16:26.820 that targeted sites will not be removed from the quote, 10 blue links portion of the search results,

00:16:31.360 but the blacklist apply applies to most of the other search features like top news videos or the

00:16:37.200 various sidebars that are returned as search results. Um, okay. So let me get to the, as I said, the,

00:16:44.340 the twist ending on the blacklist are a number of conservative sites, including gateway pundit,

00:16:52.620 Matt Walsh's blog, uh, Gary North's blog, teapartyeconomist.com, Caroline Glick's website,

00:16:58.840 conservative tribune, which is a property of the Western journal and, uh, the website of the

00:17:03.520 American spectator. Okay. Uh, so yeah, so I'm, I'm, I'm on there. According to the daily caller,

00:17:10.060 I'm, I'm the, I'm, I made the blacklist. So I'm on the, I made the team. I was picked varsity.

00:17:20.180 What's interesting though, is that my, my, my blog now is just basically my, it contains my

00:17:26.980 contact information. Um, you, you can find links to my written work on my website,

00:17:33.720 mattwalshblog.com. If you want to go check it out. Uh, so if you go there, it's now for, for a few years,

00:17:39.360 I was, that's how I got started. I was writing on this blog and that's what I did. Um, and that's

00:17:44.620 where all my content went. But now, you know, my, my written content goes to the daily wire before

00:17:49.560 that it went to the blaze. I haven't written unique content, um, on the Matt Walsh blog in like four

00:17:54.520 years. But as I said, so if you, if you go to my website, there's contact information for me.

00:18:00.640 And, uh, there's, there's, uh, links to, to my written work, which will take you to the blaze or to

00:18:06.360 daily wire. Um, yet even in spite of that, according to this, apparently it's been blacklisted.

00:18:13.400 I don't, I don't know anything about it. You know, I've had a couple of media outlets try to

00:18:17.180 get ahold of me and, you know, want to interview me about being blacklisted by Google. I, I can't,

00:18:21.560 I don't have anything to tell you. I have no perspective on it because I found out about it

00:18:25.160 from the daily caller. That's all I know. Um, but I do know that the, that the blacklisting,

00:18:31.420 you know, blacklisting online is, is a real thing. It's been a real thing. And I think we all know

00:18:36.420 that, but these companies are smart about it. And this is, this is the point I want to make.

00:18:42.320 Um, these companies are smart about the way they do it. And so with, with, with Google,

00:18:49.640 okay, it's not like now I mentioned on Twitter yesterday that I was, that I had been cited as a

00:18:55.340 blacklisted site and, uh, a bunch of people responded by saying, Oh yeah, well, I just typed your name

00:19:00.820 into Google and you came right up. So clearly you're not blacklisted. Yeah. But according to

00:19:04.780 this, to this report, that's not the way the blacklist works. Yeah. It's, they're not just

00:19:08.640 going to scrub you from the internet completely. Uh, that would be way too obvious. So yeah,

00:19:14.100 if you go and you Google Matt Walsh, I'm, I'm going to pop up. You're going to, you're going to see me

00:19:18.020 there as one of the first results. Um, so they're, they're a little bit more, uh, uh, subtle about it,

00:19:27.560 which makes it easier to get away with. And it's also not always clear what the, what criteria is

00:19:34.280 being used, which is part of the problem. Now, obviously none of these sites are ever going to

00:19:40.840 admit that they have any criteria, uh, to, to, to, um, you know, target conservative sites.

00:19:48.700 So they might not admit to the criteria, but we all know that they have it. But even, even with these

00:19:53.760 various sites, the, the criteria they use to target conservatives, that is not consistent.

00:19:59.480 There's an arbitrariness to it. So I'm blacklisted by Google apparently. But meanwhile, Twitter has

00:20:05.460 never once suspended me. I mean, knock on wood, Twitter has never once suspended me, uh, or anything.

00:20:10.980 I've, I've never been, I've never had any problem with, with Twitter. Uh, even though Twitter has

00:20:16.440 suspended and expelled many people who have smaller followings than I do, and who have said things that

00:20:21.660 are much less controversial than what I say on a daily basis. I mean, I, I see the kinds of things

00:20:26.260 that get people kicked off of Twitter. And every time I see a story like that, I think, you know,

00:20:29.600 what, I say stuff like that every day. I said, I've said, I've said things that are far, uh, harsher

00:20:35.120 than that. You know, not that I'm trying to, not that I'm asking for it here, but it, it, so it's

00:20:41.120 interesting. Then Facebook as well, uh, has, as far as I know, has never really, never really

00:20:46.560 monkeyed with me. Um, but Google has, and Wikipedia has, uh, I'm apparently not allowed to have a

00:20:53.380 Wikipedia page. It seems people have told me at various times over the years that I, that I've

00:20:58.780 got a Wikipedia entry up and then, uh, and, and then it's deleted. And then someone else puts another

00:21:03.660 one up and it's deleted. And this has happened several times over the years where I guess someone

00:21:07.880 tries to put it up and then it's always taken down. Um, and so I'm not allowed to have a Wikipedia

00:21:13.540 page. So it seems like I've been blacklisted by Google, Wikipedia, not by Facebook and Twitter,

00:21:17.420 but there are other conservatives who, who clearly have been blacklisted by the social

00:21:21.420 media sites, but not so much by, by Google or Wikipedia or any of those sites. And that's

00:21:25.920 the way it works. Uh, and this is what makes it, this is what makes it hard to navigate the

00:21:30.380 censorship online. It's precisely the fact that all of these gatekeepers don't coordinate

00:21:35.200 and they don't do it exactly the same way. Um, they all seem to basically agree that they

00:21:40.520 want to de-emphasize conservative content, but they seem to pick on different people,

00:21:45.100 uh, for different reasons at different times. And, and that's how they get away with it.

00:21:50.340 And it's, it's all quite nefarious. Um, but that's fun anyway, to be blacklisted by Google.

00:21:59.780 Maybe I'll get that on a t-shirt blacklisted by Google. All right. Uh, let's go to, to emails

00:22:04.620 because I got a bunch of interesting ones, most of which I will not be able to get to, but

00:22:09.220 mattwalshowatgmail.com. mattwalshowatgmail.com is the email address. Um, this is from Dave says,

00:22:17.880 Hey Matt, I've been a reader and listener of yours for quite a while now. Uh, I started

00:22:21.980 back in the days when you were a lowly alpaca groomer. Anyway, when I first started reading

00:22:26.180 your stuff, I was a new Christian and not a very deep thinker on biblical issues. You've

00:22:30.100 really helped me open up, uh, to much deeper thinking on issues of spiritual significance

00:22:33.860 and all my time reading your stuff and following your podcast. I've never heard your opinions

00:22:38.600 or beliefs about biblical end times prophecy. I am a Pentecostal Christian, uh, of the non 0.59

00:22:45.040 snake handling variety. That's good. And essentially my beliefs boil down to this. There is an event

00:22:49.860 that is imminent, meaning this event occurred, occurred anytime, uh, known commonly as the

00:22:54.740 rapture in which Christians will be removed from the earth. Similarly to the way Christ is 1.00

00:22:59.200 taken up after the resurrection or, or, or Elijah is taken up after he passes the mantle to

00:23:03.800 Elijah or John and his vision on Patmos. Um, following this event is a time known as the

00:23:09.980 great tribulation or the time of Jacob's trouble. The great tribulation is a period of seven years

00:23:14.700 in which the world will be judged and a political figure rises to, to power in the earth who has

00:23:19.360 incredible demonic power from Satan himself known as the antichrist. A lot is prophesied to happen

00:23:25.960 during this, uh, world's, this world leader's reign that I don't necessarily care to split

00:23:29.940 hairs over. But at the end of the antichrist seven year reign, Jesus returns in physical form once

00:23:35.140 again. Um, this time Jesus comes not as a baby, but as a conqueror who destroys the antichrist and

00:23:40.740 his armies in the final battle of the world. These beliefs are based on my pastor's teachings,

00:23:45.620 books I've read on the subject, and in my own reading of the books of the Bible, like Daniel, Isaiah,

00:23:51.840 uh, Jeremiah, Matthew, and Revelation. Thanks for taking the time to read this and give me your

00:23:56.160 thoughts on this topic. Uh, PS, not that I'm one of these guys who are incessantly trying to identify

00:24:00.740 who the antichrist is, but I'm fairly certain it isn't Ben, uh, Ben Shapiro. Um, yeah, uh, yeah,

00:24:12.180 but there was, there was a, that's in reference to, yeah, I'm fairly sure it's fairly certain it

00:24:15.920 isn't Ben Shapiro either. As, as Michael Knowles pointed out, um, I don't know what kind of antichrist

00:24:20.780 would hire a bunch of Christians to work for him. There was some, some idiotic, stupid Christian, 1.00

00:24:24.820 uh, was, uh, on TV a few days ago saying that Ben Shapiro, you know, Christian should be listening 1.00

00:24:31.020 to Ben Shapiro because he, he's, if not the antichrist, he's an antichrist. Um, so idiotic. 1.00

00:24:37.540 Anyway, thanks Dave for, for, for that, for being a loyal reader and listener as well. Um, 0.99

00:24:44.640 let me try to work through this with you. First of all, as it pertains to the rapture,

00:24:50.300 my problem with the rapture, which, which I, which I do not believe in, um, is that it is

00:24:56.200 unquestionably a new doctrine. Uh, it was invented by John Darby in the 19th century. Nobody was talking

00:25:02.620 about the rapture before that. Uh, the church fathers weren't talking about it. The theologians

00:25:07.340 of the middle ages weren't talking about it. The reformers weren't talking about it. Um, no,

00:25:11.400 it fell to John Darby apparently to, to be the one guy who sees it almost after almost 2000 years.

00:25:16.220 He, he says, Oh yeah, so it was right there the whole time. Um, I, I just, I don't buy that. I I'm,

00:25:22.140 I'm always skeptical when somebody, you know, 19 or 20 centuries later notices something in the text

00:25:29.980 that nobody noticed before. Um, but more importantly than, you know, what any theologian throughout

00:25:35.420 history was saying is that the, the, the, the biblical writers were not talking about

00:25:41.260 any rapture either. Um, I mean, what's, what's the one verse that almost everybody immediately

00:25:47.660 cites to prove the rapture? Well, they go right to Matthew 24, 40, right? Where it says the two men

00:25:52.060 will be in a field. Uh, one will be taken, one will be left. Two women will be grinding at the mill. 1.00

00:25:56.260 One will be taken and one will be left. Okay. Now, even just out of context, I'm not sure that,

00:26:02.220 that, that, that you have here a strong enough hook to hang a whole mythology of rapture on. Um,

00:26:08.420 so you think about how much has grown out of just those two sentences. And this is the problem.

00:26:14.420 People feel free to just take any sentence or two in scripture and to go to town on it and come up with

00:26:21.340 an entire new system, a whole new theology, a whole new, all of these new, um, you know,

00:26:29.680 predictions and everything based on, based on, uh, you know, one or two sentences that they find in

00:26:36.280 scripture. And in this case, that practice is all the more absurd when you look at it in context.

00:26:42.800 So let's do that. Okay. Let's look at this supposed prediction of the rapture in context. It says,

00:26:49.140 but about that day or hour, no one knows not even the angels in heaven, nor the son, but only the

00:26:54.880 father as it was in the days of Noah. So it will be at the coming of the son of man for in the days 0.90

00:27:01.140 before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving and giving in marriage up to

00:27:05.800 the day Noah entered the ark. And they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood

00:27:09.720 came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the son of man. Two men will 0.96

00:27:14.820 be in the field. One will be taken the other left. Two men will be grinding with a hand mill. One will

00:27:19.640 be taken the other left. Uh, therefore keep watch because you do not know on what day the Lord will

00:27:25.060 come. So the person taken in this image here is the unrighteous, the wicked. Jesus is talking about

00:27:36.080 the destruction of the wicked for the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking,

00:27:40.260 marrying and giving in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark and they knew nothing about what

00:27:44.280 would happen until the flood came and took them all away. This is how it will be at the coming of the

00:27:49.940 son of man. One will be taken. Well, what's taken? We just said it took the, the, the wicked people

00:27:55.120 were taken away and not just at the blink of an eye, like disappeared. I mean, there was a flood,

00:28:00.920 right? And, and I'm not saying that he's, he's not saying that at the end of the world, there's

00:28:06.960 gonna be another flood, but the point is, uh, the wicked were washed away, were taken. Um, I believe

00:28:15.820 in some translations, even the word seized is used, which makes it a little bit more clear seized.

00:28:24.020 So this to me clearly explicitly is talking about wicked people being destroyed. Uh, it is not talking

00:28:31.840 about good people being, uh, ascended into heaven. It's just, it's just not. So the rapture folks have

00:28:39.620 twisted this verse to mean the exact opposite of what it actually means, which is incredible really

00:28:45.920 when you think about it, because all you have to do, you know, I'm not, I'm going to try to attack

00:28:49.760 you. I don't mean to, I don't mean any disrespect here. I'm just saying if I don't, if you read that

00:28:55.020 verse in its context, I don't know how you come to any other conclusion, right? It's, it's really clear

00:28:58.980 what he's saying. Um, but notice something else that Jesus says, he says, you won't know when the end

00:29:06.060 is coming. Okay. You will not expect it. So if you're expecting the end, that's a good sign that

00:29:14.240 it's not going to come if anything, because Jesus says, you won't expect it. Stop looking for it.

00:29:20.920 You're not going to know. Sorry. And I think that's what Jesus is saying here as for verses in,

00:29:26.160 in Daniel and in revelation. Well, I've read those books also. And, uh, I would recommend that

00:29:32.620 for, for everyone to actually sit down and read the book of revelation cover to cover, uh, not just

00:29:40.120 a verse here and there, not just the things that your pastor points out. And I mean, it's, it's good

00:29:46.560 to, you know, to also get guidance on, on these things as well. But, but if you actually sit down

00:29:52.140 and read it yourself, like cover to cover, right? Um, do that. And then tell me whether you could make

00:29:58.840 heads or tails of it, because I don't think you can, I can't, I don't think anybody can.

00:30:03.420 The book is heavily, heavily, heavily metaphorical. Uh, I don't think you can just crack open the book

00:30:11.120 of revelation and say, Oh yeah. Okay. Well, that's what this means right here. And that's what this

00:30:14.600 means. And, and okay, I've got it now. Um, there's nothing wrong with, I guess, coming up with theories

00:30:21.560 about what it might all mean. That could be very interesting to do. I'm not opposed to that,

00:30:25.440 but for a person to get dogmatic, and this is what I've noticed about, um, some, I think a lot

00:30:34.160 of Christians today, not just Pentecostals, but, but a lot of Christians in general, where they get

00:30:40.780 very attached to the book of revelation and to their personal interpretation of it. And they're dogmatic

00:30:47.600 about it. Um, and I think that that's kind of ridiculous in my opinion, there's no way you can look 0.74

00:30:55.160 at that book and say, I know exactly what that means because you don't, uh, it's just, you've,

00:31:00.780 you've got, you've got creatures with, with multiple heads and various eyes. You've got lampstands

00:31:06.080 and all these things coming out of the sky, uh, and horses and chariots. And, um, clearly with most

00:31:12.460 of this stuff, it's, it's not, we're not talking about literal imagery. It's metaphor, allegory. I mean,

00:31:20.920 it's, it is saying something, but I don't think you can just crack it open and be able to tell

00:31:28.200 exactly what it, what it's trying to tell you. One other point here, I think this is the most

00:31:32.700 important point. Um, it, it's important for us to understand that Christians have been predicting 1.00

00:31:40.200 the imminent end of the world literally since the beginning, since the very first Christian 1.00

00:31:46.160 decade, um, since the very beginning of the church. I mean, from day one, Christians have thought 0.98

00:31:53.220 that the end is coming soon. Uh, right away within a, within a few years, at least it's what Christians 1.00

00:31:59.260 thought. And I know that sometimes people are uncomfortable admitting this. I don't know why.

00:32:05.800 Um, but it's true. You can find it even in the Bible. It seems clear to me that, that Paul thought

00:32:12.020 the world was ending. That seems pretty clear to me when you read his letters. Now he was wrong,

00:32:16.740 obviously, and that's okay. Paul was not omniscient. We don't have to think that the early Christians

00:32:20.460 were omniscient or that Paul was omniscient or that any, or that any biblical writer was omniscient.

00:32:25.380 None of them were. Uh, um, so if, if, if Paul, if these Christians personally believe that Christ 0.94

00:32:33.360 would be coming back very shortly, which I think they all did, um, that's okay. You know, they were

00:32:39.680 wrong about that. They were probably wrong about a lot of other things too, because like I said,

00:32:42.280 they're not God. And then through the ages, this belief continues. There, there are always

00:32:48.040 Christians who think the world is ending. You go to the first century, second century, third century, 1.00

00:32:53.000 everything, every single century, right? So in, in, in, uh, in the year 120, people say, oh no,

00:32:58.880 it's, it's definitely coming now. And then 220. No, it's definitely coming now. 320, definitely coming

00:33:03.260 now. 420, definitely coming. 720, definitely coming guys. 1520. Oh yeah. The end is coming.

00:33:09.380 It's got to happen now. 1820. Oh yeah. It's, it's happening for sure. Now 1920. Oh man,

00:33:14.400 for sure. It's happening now. Um, 2020. No, this time, this time I'm telling you.

00:33:19.120 And so after a while, everyone's predicting an imminent end for 2000 years, 20 centuries.

00:33:25.100 At what point do we just admit that we have no clue when the world's going to end? We have no idea. I

00:33:30.500 mean, uh, the world could end tomorrow. It could go on for another 10,000 years. It could go on for

00:33:36.000 another 10 million years. Who knows? At what point do we admit that? And if, if we could only step back

00:33:42.660 and take a historical view for just a moment, we would see how silly these doomsday forecasts are.

00:33:48.740 Um, yeah, there are things about the modern day that are bad to say the least, but apocalyptic.

00:33:54.520 Think about it. Up, up to, up to 50% of Europe's population was wiped out by the black plague in just a

00:34:00.760 few years in the 14th century. Um, that's well over a hundred million people, if not up to not,

00:34:05.840 if not up to 200 million people in terms of doomsday scenarios that outdoes anything we have

00:34:11.400 ever seen or probably ever will see, hopefully. So do you think they had reason to believe that

00:34:16.740 the world was ending back in the, back in the 1300s? Well, yeah, they did, but the world didn't end. 0.71

00:34:24.140 Um, or think about when Rome fell. I mean, the Roman empire ruled for a thousand years. Do you think

00:34:28.700 people had reason to think, uh, apocalyptic things when that ancient empire was laid in ruins?

00:34:35.040 Can you imagine, can you imagine, and I think this is what, this is what's happening, that

00:34:38.800 we look around and we see things happening in our civilization, uh, with our country and we say,

00:34:44.920 oh, it's the end of the world. Well, uh, maybe, or, or maybe it could be, you know, our country could end.

00:34:52.220 I'm not saying that it is going to, but our country could come to an end. Our civilization could come to an

00:34:57.520 government. That doesn't mean that the world is ending. Many civilizations throughout history have

00:35:02.440 collapsed and, and yet the world continued going on. Our country has only been around for a measly

00:35:10.120 250 years. If our country collapsed tomorrow and didn't exist anymore, honestly, 500 years from now,

00:35:17.660 the United States would be a blip on the radar. It would hardly even be discussed because of how,

00:35:22.640 because of how, how short its existence was in comparison with like ancient Rome or ancient

00:35:28.220 China or Egypt. I mean, these things, these, these, these empires were around for thousands of years

00:35:33.620 and we are just babies compared to that. We, we've barely even gotten started.

00:35:39.800 So my point is that if bad things are happening in America, that doesn't mean that the world is

00:35:45.660 ending. I mean, we just got here for goodness sakes. So, um, the problem is that we're stuck in our

00:35:51.560 own era with our own experiences, our own lives. And we just assume that everything happening to us

00:35:56.940 is unprecedented, hugely important, catastrophic, historic, so on and so on. When really that's not

00:36:03.500 the case, uh, necessarily. Right. And, and anyway, none of this matters really, because here's what we

00:36:09.700 do know for sure. We don't know what revelation is telling us exactly. Uh, we don't know when our

00:36:15.380 civilization or world will come to an end, but you do know absolutely that as far as you are concerned,

00:36:22.800 the world will end within 80 years at tops, probably. Right. As far as you're concerned,

00:36:28.860 the world is coming to an imminent end. Sorry. So your world will end in a few decades, if not sooner.

00:36:37.880 Um, the world may go on for another 500 million years, but your world will end. I mean, practically

00:36:46.000 in the blink of an eye. So, because of your death, right? So imagine if Jesus appeared in the sky

00:36:52.760 and told us that the world would end in the year 2087, let's say. We would all react very strongly to

00:37:01.180 that, wouldn't we? We would, we, it would change the way we lived, the way we operated. Yet Jesus essentially

00:37:07.040 has told us the world will end, um, in the year 20, 2087 or much sooner for us, because he's given

00:37:15.400 us a lifespan that probably won't last much longer than 85 or 90 years at the most. Um, yet it's like,

00:37:23.480 it's as if we need to think that the whole world is ending in order to act with any urgency,

00:37:27.600 which is silly because what, what does it even in a sense? I mean, what does it even matter

00:37:32.420 when the world ends? You're going to end soon. Um, whether the whole world goes with you or not

00:37:40.500 is almost like a minor detail, really, as far as you're concerned and your soul is concerned. So,

00:37:47.980 um, maybe we should be less focused on the fate of the entire world and more focused on, uh,

00:37:57.540 on our own fate and, and, and on our own mortality and on our own imminent demise,

00:38:05.600 which, which, which indeed for us is, is certainly imminent. All right. Uh, this is from heavenly

00:38:11.680 says, Hey Matt, first off, I love your podcast. I think you have great insight. I always appreciate

00:38:15.740 good sarcasm. I'm a 22 year old woman. I'm just starting to get into the dating scene with the

00:38:20.000 intention of marriage and starting a family. My question is aside from kids and religion,

00:38:23.180 is there other important values and goals two people should share in order to have a lasting

00:38:27.600 marriage? Do you think it's deeply important that they agree on doctrine? Um, how much should

00:38:33.800 someone be willing to change or give up for someone else? Thanks. Keep up the good work.

00:38:39.640 All right. So those are three separate questions. All are pretty deep. Uh, I will try not to drone on

00:38:44.320 too long. What other values and goals should two people share? Well, you mentioned kids and religion

00:38:49.120 already. Certainly you want to be sure that your future spouse is interested in having

00:38:52.980 kids. Um, not just theoretically, but really wants to have kids, a marriage where one person 0.81

00:38:57.920 wants kids and the other does, the other doesn't can be disastrous. Um, and then obviously you need

00:39:03.440 to be sure that you both have values that are rooted in the, in the eternal and God and faith. And so you

00:39:09.860 already mentioned that beyond that, I don't think you need to have a one-to-one match on every

00:39:14.980 fundamental value and goal, um, that you have. I think what's more important is that once you have

00:39:21.700 those really basic things down, the next step is to make sure that this person, uh, is someone with

00:39:30.940 virtue. Okay. So somebody who's honest, generous, trustworthy, if you've got the basics aligned

00:39:36.680 and your spouse is virtuous, then the other differences are not only not a problem, but they,

00:39:43.000 they could add variety and interest and intrigue to your relationship. Uh, they could be positive.

00:39:47.980 So I think, um, and they give you some, you know, they give you guys something to talk about and

00:39:53.020 work through together, which isn't a bad thing at all. As for doctrine, again, I would personally say

00:39:58.480 that if you have the first base covered, then as I just discussed, I'm not sure that the finer

00:40:04.080 points of doctrine should get in the way of marriage to someone. I mean, if you find a man who has,

00:40:11.460 uh, with whom your fundamental values are aligned and who wants kids and wants a family would seem

00:40:19.280 like he'd be a good father who is virtuous, honest, trustworthy, and faithful. Um, then in my

00:40:24.660 opinion, I, uh, you know, I, I think that's, it'd be a good idea to just pull the trigger. Honestly,

00:40:29.040 uh, it would probably be full heart foolhardy to say, well, yeah, he's got all that going for him,

00:40:33.800 but I'm not sure if our theological views are 100% identical. Um, I think that, you know,

00:40:41.100 that would be a misordering of priorities. How much should you be willing to change or give up?

00:40:47.020 Well, I would say, um, maybe this would surprise you to hear, but don't change any

00:40:55.560 of the good things about yourself. Don't compromise, certainly don't compromise your virtue.

00:41:02.540 Um, don't give up good and healthy things for someone else. And, and, uh, the reason I say that

00:41:07.440 is, is that a good partner and a good spouse would never want you to give up those things in the first

00:41:12.860 place. So there's no reason why you should, why you should have to. And I'm not just talking about

00:41:18.420 virtuous attributes here. I think obviously you don't want to give those up, but I'm talking even

00:41:23.400 about healthy interests, um, hobbies, passions. You shouldn't, you shouldn't have to give those up

00:41:30.680 either. Like for instance, I love to read. I'm a huge nerd and I'm either reading a book physically

00:41:36.800 or I'm listening to audio book all the time. Um, my wife is not a big reader herself. And when we got

00:41:44.600 married, I wasn't going to give up that part of myself. Um, not that I'm saying that that part of,

00:41:51.400 not that I'm saying reading a book is more important than my marriage, but I wasn't going

00:41:55.000 to give that up. You know, that's something I still want to do and I'm going to do it.

00:41:59.180 And it wasn't an issue because my wife didn't want me to give it up. She wouldn't want me to. In fact,

00:42:03.140 actually, if she notices that I go a few days without reading something, she gets kind of

00:42:07.700 concerned and she says, well, I haven't seen her read anything in a few days. What's going on?

00:42:10.900 Um, and my wife has healthy interests and passions and skills that I don't share, but I wouldn't want her 0.97

00:42:16.840 to give up. The point is that a healthy relationship should not entail you forfeiting your whole

00:42:22.060 identity. Um, your identity rather than shrinking, contracting should expand and grow more diverse

00:42:28.520 and interesting through marriage. Um, if anything, you know, I think it's sad when you find people

00:42:34.100 that they get married and then they start giving up these things that they're passionate about.

00:42:37.840 Uh, it should go the other way. Like you, you should, you should gain passions and interests

00:42:41.640 because of the influence of the other person. Um, so for instance, uh, my wife, before she met

00:42:48.260 me, didn't drink bourbon at all. And now she drinks bourbon all the time, uh, which maybe isn't a good 0.99

00:42:53.820 thing. I, or, you know, I like to say it's because that's an interest that I have and she is, uh, she has

00:42:59.780 adopted it as well. Either that or I've driven her to drink. I don't know. But you know, the point is,

00:43:05.600 I think you, you pick up on these things from each other. So if you, if you find someone

00:43:11.180 who expects you to be just a bland copy of themselves and to give up everything else in

00:43:17.620 life that you love and are passionate about, then that again is a good indication that this

00:43:21.620 person is not marriage material and you might as well head the other direction. In essence,

00:43:25.420 I'm saying that you shouldn't necessarily have to give up or change anything that is good and

00:43:29.580 edifying in your life just because you got married. You might have to adjust some things,

00:43:34.080 rework your schedule and so on. You won't be able to do everything you want when you want to,

00:43:37.840 but I don't see why marriage should involve the absolute forfeiture of any good thing. Um,

00:43:44.300 it will or should, however, involve the forfeiture of a lot of bad things, bad habits, bad inclinations,

00:43:52.060 bad aspects of yourself. Uh, those things you should give up in a marriage and it'd be a lot easier if

00:43:58.980 you do. All right, let's see. Um, okay. One other quick one. It's not even really a quick one. This

00:44:09.680 is from Sammy says, Hey Matt, I just started watching your show after watching Shapiro for

00:44:12.980 two years. I enjoy the fact you cover different, but yet important, important topics. My question

00:44:16.780 for you would be, do what extent can morality be derived from reason? If at all, uh, you guys are

00:44:21.720 hitting me with the, hitting me with the heavy guns today. And it's great. I love it. Um, this isn't

00:44:26.960 really one that I can just throw in with the final two minutes of the show, but I'll try to anyway.

00:44:31.100 So, uh, to what extent can morality be derived from reason? I would say that we all have an innate

00:44:35.560 moral sense, natural law. We all recognize intuitively, I guess you could say reasonably

00:44:40.100 through reason, the basic moral truths of life, which is why when you look around the world and

00:44:46.300 throughout history, you're going to find all these civilizations, uh, find, have remarkably similar

00:44:51.620 moral codes. Um, similar in the basic structure anyway, not necessarily similar in practice or

00:44:58.560 interpretation. So for example, every human civilization has outlawed murder yet. Some

00:45:04.200 human civilizations have practiced human sacrifice, genocide, uh, in our case, abortion. These are all 0.96

00:45:09.800 redundant terms anyway, basically saying the same thing, but none of those civilizations that

00:45:15.020 tolerated or committed such atrocities would have considered the atrocities murder. Now it,

00:45:20.760 they were murder. It is murder. But the point is that even the murderers felt the need to work

00:45:27.540 around, pay lip service to this moral code that even they recognized. So as reasonable beings,

00:45:35.680 I think, yes, we can arrive at rudimentary moral truths through reason. And, um, this is a sense,

00:45:44.560 a recognition of rudimentary moral truths that God instills in us. But for the fullness,

00:45:50.760 of those truths for the full picture, as it were, uh, we turn to revelation and that's the way that I

00:45:59.140 would break it down in two minutes. All right, we'll leave it there. Thanks for watching everybody.

00:46:02.820 Thanks for listening. Godspeed.

00:46:04.660 I'm Michael Knowles, host of the Michael Knowles show. The president came out swinging on Saturday,

00:46:22.120 describing the need for immigrants to learn English and assimilate. The surprising thing here

00:46:27.680 is that the president was Barack Obama and not Donald Trump. We will analyze the open border policies of

00:46:32.980 Democrats. And then it turns out we're all Eric Swalwell. Check it out at dailywire.com.

The Matt Walsh Show - April 11, 2019

Ep. 237 - Black Holes And Black Lists

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript