Ep. 237 - Black Holes And Black Lists
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
179.4399
Summary
Today on the show, Pope Benedict has finally emerged from the shadows to talk about the sex abuse crisis, and his words are both true and startling. Also, according to a recent report, I have been blacklisted by Google, and we ll talk about black holes, the Lion King, and biblical end times prophecies.
Transcript
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Today on the show, Pope Benedict has finally emerged from the shadows to talk about the
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sex abuse crisis, and his words are both true and startling. We'll talk about it.
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Also, according to a recent report, I have been blacklisted by Google.
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We'll discuss that, and we'll talk about black holes and the Lion King
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and biblical end times prophecies. A lot to talk about today on The Matt Walsh Show.
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It's something that scientists theorized about based on mathematical calculations 100 years ago,
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and now here we have discovered it. Isn't that crazy that they could do that?
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That someone could just work out a math problem and say, well, so according to this,
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there should be massive holes in space that suck in all the light and energy around them
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and crush it into non-existence. And then we look into a telescope and we say, oh yeah,
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well, there it is right there. I mean, and speaking of looking into a telescope,
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this thing is 55 million light years away. 55 million light years. Do you have any idea how
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far away that is? A light year is 5 trillion miles. So this is 55 million times 5 trillion.
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Do you know what that number is? I don't know what that number is. It's really, really,
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really big. Let's put it that way. So it is so far that you could travel at the speed of light,
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which is 670 million miles an hour, fast enough to travel around the entire globe seven times in
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one second. You could be going that fast and it would take you 55 million years at that speed to
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get there. If you started heading there at the dawn of human civilization, okay, you would still have
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right now, oh, another 55 million years to go. Uh, you, you, you basically wouldn't have even
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started your journey yet. You would still be, you would still be so early in your trip that if you
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realized you left your wallet back on earth, you might as well turn around and go get it. Um,
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because that's how vast the distances are that we're dealing with. And, and, and I mean, if that
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doesn't blow your mind, then you must not have a mind that can be blown in the first place. I mean,
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come on folks, come on. Oh, and by the way, this black hole, okay. It's, it's, it's mass is 7 billion
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times greater than the sun. You could plop our entire solar system and everything it contains
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inside it. The sun is just a speck of dust in comparison to this thing. The sun compared to this
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black hole is like you compared to the earth itself, but we're all disappointed because it's
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blurry. Oh, it's blurry. Yeah. The image, the image of the thing that's millions of quadrillion
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miles away is blurry. Oh, it's so blind. Oh, I'm sorry about that. I'm sorry. We couldn't get it in
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high def for you. I'm sorry that this image that took 55 million years to get to your eyeballs
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is, is blurry. Oh, I, you know, I'm, I'm so sorry. Yeah. Yes. Well, that's that. That's so
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disappointing. Meanwhile, a stupid trailer for the Lion King was released on the same day as this image
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of the black hole. And that Lion King trailer is literally just a slightly more realistic cartoon,
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which is a verbatim shot for shot remake of another cartoon, which only came out 25 years ago. Yet that
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got a bigger reaction than the image of the black hole. People were astounded by that. They said,
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my God, look at this cartoon. You see that lion? He almost looks like a real lion. I mean, this cartoon,
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look at this cartoon. It's amazing. It's beautiful. That's what impressed everybody. Not the black hole,
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55 million light years away. We are living in an idiocracy folks. That's what we're living. We,
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we, we are, we are surrounded. We are being, we are living in a black hole of stupidity and we're
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all being crushed to death by it. Anyway, um, let's see what else is going on today. Uh, Julian Assange
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was arrested today. Uh, that's the big story. Uh, that's the big story. Now, to be honest, uh, I need
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to read more about what's going on here in order to deliver an opinion worth listening to. Uh, I'm not
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sure if, if, if I'm supposed to admit that, you know, but there it is. One thing I don't like about
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this job is that people expect you to automatically have a worthwhile and informed opinion about
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everything that happens to occur in the news. Right. And, and, and that's what people expect.
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And I think that when people watch a show like this or any other show or, you know, cable news show or
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anything like that, um, and they see people pontificating and offering their opinion, they,
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they just assume that, okay, well, this person must be omniscient that they, that they, you know,
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can, can, can be informed about everything all the time and have an opinion worth listening to.
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But the, uh, the dirty little secret is that it's all, uh, you know, it's all basically a camera
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trick. I mean, the people that are in this line of work, uh, because of course we can't have
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worthwhile opinions about everything. Uh, and we can't automatically have all the necessary
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information immediately in order to deliver a worthwhile opinion. So what a lot of times people
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end up doing is that, um, they, even if they don't really know anything about the subject,
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they just kind of look at what other people, um, in their same ideological vein are saying about
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a particular thing. And then they, they just calibrate their point of view based on that.
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Now I prefer not to do that. Um, I want to have my own perspective, but it takes, it takes time to
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develop that sometimes. And so maybe I'll re I'll revisit this, this later. Um, if you'll forgive me
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for that, this story was just breaking this morning as I was, um, preparing to talk about other things,
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thinking about other things, like for instance, uh, this, there was an essay that, uh, was published
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just yesterday. Yesterday was a big day. I mean, we had the black hole, Lion King, and then you also
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had this, um, an essay published from, uh, Pope Benedict about the, the abuse crisis in the church.
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Um, it's a fascinating document in many respects. Uh, Benedict basically argues that agents of
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change in the church, agents of, of rebellion, really of sabotage, uh, you might say sought in
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the sixties and seventies to create a new church, um, a new church. That's how he, how he put it in
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quotes, one that is modeled after the morality of the world rather than natural law in the Bible.
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And this led to moral chaos, which led to the sexual abuse crisis that has plagued the church ever
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since. That's his basic case. Um, let me read some of this to you. Uh, here he is talking about
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what kinds of situations developed in the sixties. He says, um, in various seminaries,
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homosexual cliques were established, which acted more or less openly and significantly changed the
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climate in the seminaries. In one seminary in Southern Germany, candidates for the priesthood
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and candidates for lay ministry of the pastoral specialists live together. At the common meals,
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seminarians and pastoral specialists ate together, the married among the laymen, sometimes accompanied
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by their wives and children and on occasion by their girlfriends. The climate in this seminary
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could not provide support for the preparation to the priestly vocation. Um, he goes on indeed,
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in many parts of the church, conciliar attitudes were understood to mean having a critical or negative
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attitude towards the hitherto existing tradition, which is now, which was now to be replaced by a new,
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radically open relationship with the world. Um, one bishop who had previously been seminary rector
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had arranged for the seminarians to be shown pornographic films, allegedly with the intention
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of, of thus making them resistant to behavior contrary to the faith. Um, they were not only the
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United States of America, there were not only in the United States of America, individual bishops who
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rejected the Catholic tradition as a, as a whole and sought to bring about a kind of new modern,
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uh, Catholic, Catholic, Catholicity. There we go. In their diocese, perhaps it is worth mentioning
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that in not a few seminaries, students caught reading my books were considered unsuitable for
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the priesthood. Uh, he goes on, the idea of a better church created by ourselves is in fact a proposal
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of the devil with which he wants to lead us away from the living God through a deceitful logic
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by which we are too easily duped. Um, okay. So you see, he's there, he's there diagnosing the problem
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and, uh, pointing not to, see the problem is that a lot of people in the church today,
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especially church leaders, when they're discussing, uh, the sexual abuse epidemic and all the issues in
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the church, they're always looking for practical causes, practical solutions. You know, everything's
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very practical, very kind of earthbound. Um, they're not looking deeper at what is the spiritual moral
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root of the problem, which I mean, this is a moral problem, right? So you, you, you have to speak of it
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on those terms. Now, Benedict is, is willing to do that. And then, um, he talks about dying. Now, his, his ideas
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about remedying the problem, I think are, are worth, uh, quoting at length. He says, what must be done?
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Perhaps we should create another church for things to work out. Well, that experiment has already been
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undertaken and has already failed. Only obedience and love for our Lord Jesus Christ can point the way.
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So let us first try to understand a new and from within what the Lord wants and has wanted with us.
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First, I would suggest the following. If we really wanted to summarize very briefly the content of
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the faith as laid down in the Bible, we might do so by saying that the Lord has initiated a narrative
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of love with us and wants to subsume all creation in it. The counterforce against evil, which threatens us
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and the whole world can ultimately only consist in our entering into this love. It is the real
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counterforce against evil. The power of evil arises from our refusal to love God. He who entrusts
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himself to the love of God is redeemed. Our being, our being not redeemed is a consequence of our
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inability to love God. Learning to love God is therefore the path of human redemption. Um, let's see.
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Uh, I mean, there's, I could, I'm not going to read this whole thing, but a society without God,
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a society that does not know him and treats him as non-existent is a society that loses its measure.
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In our day, the catchphrase of God's death was coined. When God does die in a society,
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it becomes free. We were assured. In reality, the death of God in the society also means the
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end of freedom because what dies is the purpose that provides orientation. And because the compass
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disappears, that points us in the right direction by teaching us to distinguish good from evil.
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Um, he goes on, this is the case with pedophilia. It was theorized only a short time ago. It's quite
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legitimate, but it has spread further and further. And now we realize with shock that things are
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happening to our children and young people that threatened to destroy them. The fact that this
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could also spread in the church and among priests ought to disturb us in particular. Why did pedophilia
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reach such proportions? Ultimately, the reason is the absence of God. We Christians and priests
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also prefer not to talk about God because this speech does not seem practical. Um, and then he goes
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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
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doing, but I won't. I would recommend that you, you do so though. Um, and, and so everything he's
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saying here is good. Uh, it's on, on point it's necessary and it's true, but it raises in my mind,
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a whole separate question, which is this, um, why did this man leave the papacy in the first place?
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I mean, why did he retire? It's been now six years, six years since he left and he's still
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clearly on top of things. Clearly he understands what's going on in the church. He understands,
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uh, understands it better than the current occupant of the chair, I would say. And he's interested in
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providing leadership, which is why he, he, he, he wrote this, um, this essay. So why isn't he
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in the lead? It's strange to me. It's a strange situation. Yeah. He's an old man. He's, I think
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he's 90 or 91, but Pope Francis is no spring chicken either. Francis is 82 or 83 years old himself.
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Now it would be different in my mind if Benedict was sitting there in retirement, um, writing the
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occasional essay while a Pope in his fifties, a real reformer was in there in the Vatican,
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kicking butt, taking names, shaping things up, putting the church back on the right path.
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Then I would say that, um, this is the best of both worlds that we have, because you would have
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the elder statesman, former Pope who's old and retired, and he's sitting to the side, providing
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advice here and there direction. Uh, while the man with, with energy and vigor has his sleeves rolled
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up, right. And, and, and he's getting the job done. Now that would make sense. That would be a
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dynamic that would make a lot of sense to me, but that's not the dynamic that we see in the church
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today. What we have is an old retired Pope sitting off to the side while another old Pope, um, who is
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in his, in his eighties is, is in there doing very little to address the problem. And in the meantime is
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sowing more confusion and discord in the church with his obscure and strange pronouncements
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on every subject under the sun. So that situation makes no sense to me at all. And it's very bizarre.
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Um, so on one hand, it's great to hear this truth from Benedict, but on the other hand, it's kind of
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disturbing because I think the assumption was when Benedict stepped down, uh, six years ago,
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the assumption was that six years in the future, you know, 2019, he wouldn't be alive anymore. I mean,
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we all thought what he's stepping down. He must be on death's door. Um, so I don't think anyone
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thought that we'd be heading into 2020 and Benedict would still be around the fact that he's still
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around. It's like, well, what, what, where did you go? Why did you leave? Um, a lot of questions
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are raised there. That's all I'll say. All right. Now the daily caller, uh, had a report yesterday,
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um, about an alleged blacklist that's kept by Google, which singles out certain people
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and websites. Um, and, uh, and tries to, tries to mess with them. Now I'm going to read a little bit
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from, from, from their report and, uh, stick around for the twist ending here. Okay. So it says,
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uh, according to the daily caller says Google does manipulate its search results manually,
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contrary to the company's official denials documents obtained by the daily caller indicate,
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uh, two official policies dubbed the misrepresentation policy and the quote, good neighbor
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policy inform the company's XPA news blacklist with list, which is maintained by Google's trust and
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safety team. Um, the, uh, deceptive news domain blacklist is going to be used by many search
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features to filter problematic sites that violate the good neighbor misrepresentation policies that
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according to the, to the document, um, the document obtained by the caller says the purpose of the
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blacklist will be to bar the sites from surfacing in any search feature or news product. Uh, it will not
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cause a demotion in the organic search results or D and D index them altogether. What that means is
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that targeted sites will not be removed from the quote, 10 blue links portion of the search results,
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but the blacklist apply applies to most of the other search features like top news videos or the
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various sidebars that are returned as search results. Um, okay. So let me get to the, as I said, the,
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the twist ending on the blacklist are a number of conservative sites, including gateway pundit,
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Matt Walsh's blog, uh, Gary North's blog, teapartyeconomist.com, Caroline Glick's website,
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conservative tribune, which is a property of the Western journal and, uh, the website of the
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American spectator. Okay. Uh, so yeah, so I'm, I'm, I'm on there. According to the daily caller,
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I'm, I'm the, I'm, I made the blacklist. So I'm on the, I made the team. I was picked varsity.
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What's interesting though, is that my, my, my blog now is just basically my, it contains my
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contact information. Um, you, you can find links to my written work on my website,
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mattwalshblog.com. If you want to go check it out. Uh, so if you go there, it's now for, for a few years,
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I was, that's how I got started. I was writing on this blog and that's what I did. Um, and that's
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where all my content went. But now, you know, my, my written content goes to the daily wire before
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that it went to the blaze. I haven't written unique content, um, on the Matt Walsh blog in like four
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years. But as I said, so if you, if you go to my website, there's contact information for me.
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And, uh, there's, there's, uh, links to, to my written work, which will take you to the blaze or to
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daily wire. Um, yet even in spite of that, according to this, apparently it's been blacklisted.
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I don't, I don't know anything about it. You know, I've had a couple of media outlets try to
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get ahold of me and, you know, want to interview me about being blacklisted by Google. I, I can't,
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I don't have anything to tell you. I have no perspective on it because I found out about it
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from the daily caller. That's all I know. Um, but I do know that the, that the blacklisting,
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you know, blacklisting online is, is a real thing. It's been a real thing. And I think we all know
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that, but these companies are smart about it. And this is, this is the point I want to make.
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Um, these companies are smart about the way they do it. And so with, with, with Google,
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okay, it's not like now I mentioned on Twitter yesterday that I was, that I had been cited as a
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blacklisted site and, uh, a bunch of people responded by saying, Oh yeah, well, I just typed your name
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into Google and you came right up. So clearly you're not blacklisted. Yeah. But according to
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this, to this report, that's not the way the blacklist works. Yeah. It's, they're not just
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going to scrub you from the internet completely. Uh, that would be way too obvious. So yeah,
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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
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there as one of the first results. Um, so they're, they're a little bit more, uh, uh, subtle about it,
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which makes it easier to get away with. And it's also not always clear what the, what criteria is
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being used, which is part of the problem. Now, obviously none of these sites are ever going to
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admit that they have any criteria, uh, to, to, to, um, you know, target conservative sites.
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So they might not admit to the criteria, but we all know that they have it. But even, even with these
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various sites, the, the criteria they use to target conservatives, that is not consistent.
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There's an arbitrariness to it. So I'm blacklisted by Google apparently. But meanwhile, Twitter has
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never once suspended me. I mean, knock on wood, Twitter has never once suspended me, uh, or anything.
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I've, I've never been, I've never had any problem with, with Twitter. Uh, even though Twitter has
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suspended and expelled many people who have smaller followings than I do, and who have said things that
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are much less controversial than what I say on a daily basis. I mean, I, I see the kinds of things
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that get people kicked off of Twitter. And every time I see a story like that, I think, you know,
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what, I say stuff like that every day. I said, I've said, I've said things that are far, uh, harsher
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than that. You know, not that I'm trying to, not that I'm asking for it here, but it, it, so it's
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interesting. Then Facebook as well, uh, has, as far as I know, has never really, never really
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monkeyed with me. Um, but Google has, and Wikipedia has, uh, I'm apparently not allowed to have a
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Wikipedia page. It seems people have told me at various times over the years that I, that I've
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got a Wikipedia entry up and then, uh, and, and then it's deleted. And then someone else puts another
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one up and it's deleted. And this has happened several times over the years where I guess someone
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tries to put it up and then it's always taken down. Um, and so I'm not allowed to have a Wikipedia
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page. So it seems like I've been blacklisted by Google, Wikipedia, not by Facebook and Twitter,
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but there are other conservatives who, who clearly have been blacklisted by the social
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media sites, but not so much by, by Google or Wikipedia or any of those sites. And that's
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the way it works. Uh, and this is what makes it, this is what makes it hard to navigate the
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censorship online. It's precisely the fact that all of these gatekeepers don't coordinate
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and they don't do it exactly the same way. Um, they all seem to basically agree that they
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want to de-emphasize conservative content, but they seem to pick on different people,
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uh, for different reasons at different times. And, and that's how they get away with it.
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And it's, it's all quite nefarious. Um, but that's fun anyway, to be blacklisted by Google.
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Maybe I'll get that on a t-shirt blacklisted by Google. All right. Uh, let's go to, to emails
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because I got a bunch of interesting ones, most of which I will not be able to get to, but
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mattwalshowatgmail.com. mattwalshowatgmail.com is the email address. Um, this is from Dave says,
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Hey Matt, I've been a reader and listener of yours for quite a while now. Uh, I started
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back in the days when you were a lowly alpaca groomer. Anyway, when I first started reading
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your stuff, I was a new Christian and not a very deep thinker on biblical issues. You've
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really helped me open up, uh, to much deeper thinking on issues of spiritual significance
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and all my time reading your stuff and following your podcast. I've never heard your opinions
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or beliefs about biblical end times prophecy. I am a Pentecostal Christian, uh, of the non
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snake handling variety. That's good. And essentially my beliefs boil down to this. There is an event
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that is imminent, meaning this event occurred, occurred anytime, uh, known commonly as the
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rapture in which Christians will be removed from the earth. Similarly to the way Christ is
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taken up after the resurrection or, or, or Elijah is taken up after he passes the mantle to
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Elijah or John and his vision on Patmos. Um, following this event is a time known as the
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great tribulation or the time of Jacob's trouble. The great tribulation is a period of seven years
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in which the world will be judged and a political figure rises to, to power in the earth who has
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incredible demonic power from Satan himself known as the antichrist. A lot is prophesied to happen
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during this, uh, world's, this world leader's reign that I don't necessarily care to split
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hairs over. But at the end of the antichrist seven year reign, Jesus returns in physical form once
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again. Um, this time Jesus comes not as a baby, but as a conqueror who destroys the antichrist and
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his armies in the final battle of the world. These beliefs are based on my pastor's teachings,
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books I've read on the subject, and in my own reading of the books of the Bible, like Daniel, Isaiah,
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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,
00:24:24.820
uh, was, uh, on TV a few days ago saying that Ben Shapiro, you know, Christian should be listening
00:24:31.020
to Ben Shapiro because he, he's, if not the antichrist, he's an antichrist. Um, so idiotic.
00:24:37.540
Anyway, thanks Dave for, for, for that, for being a loyal reader and listener as well. Um,
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.
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
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
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
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
00:31:40.200
the imminent end of the world literally since the beginning, since the very first Christian
00:31:46.160
decade, um, since the very beginning of the church. I mean, from day one, Christians have thought
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
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
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,
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.
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
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
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
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
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.
00:46:04.660
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.