A horrific college course which seems to essentially be training pedophiles. Also, a man is falsely accused of sexual assault after stopping to help a stranded woman. Is this part of the reason why chivalry is dying in our society? And we ll talk about the 7 dumbest pro-abortion arguments.
00:00:00.000Today on The Matt Walsh Show, we'll talk about a horrific college course, which seems to essentially be training pedophiles.
00:00:07.300So we'll discuss that. Also, a man is falsely accused of sexual assault after stopping to help a stranded woman.
00:00:13.260Is this part of the reason why chivalry is dying in our society?
00:00:17.500And we'll talk about the seven dumbest pro-abortion arguments.
00:00:21.480There are a lot to choose from, but we'll talk about and try to debunk the seven dumbest today on The Matt Walsh Show.
00:00:30.000I've often bragged that I am immune to poison ivy because I got a really bad case of it years ago and then I became immune.
00:00:42.840That's what I said. And so yesterday I was I was walking through the woods and I traipsed right through a whole patch of poison ivy because I'm immune to it.
00:00:50.260Right. And anyway, fast forwarding to the end of the story. I'm not immune, as it turns out.
00:00:56.420I have I have since discovered over the last day. I don't know.
00:01:01.900I got it into my head that that's is that even a thing becoming immune to poison ivy?
00:01:05.720Somehow I got that into my head and I would tell people that and nobody ever corrected me.
00:01:09.700Why didn't anyone ever tell me like, no, that's not a thing. You're definitely not.
00:01:14.300No one ever did. So was was everyone just playing along, waiting for this moment?
00:01:18.780And if that's the case, then then well played. Well played, everybody.
00:01:23.120But at the very least, I will say that I have suffered this poison ivy rash with quiet, quiet dignity in my house.
00:01:30.460I've only complained about it incessantly to everybody in this house and now to the whole world.
00:01:35.920Other than that, I haven't complained about it at all. I've just been I've been very stoic.
00:01:40.600And so I think in that way, I'm an example to everybody.
00:01:43.820OK, we begin with just an unbelievable story or maybe it's unfortunately very believable.
00:01:51.440I don't know. Reported yesterday in the Daily Wire, the report says a professor presented a lesson
00:02:00.100to students at the University of North Texas titled Sexual Pleasure and Response in Infants.
00:02:07.420Big League Politics first reported last week. Moreover, as highlighted by the College Fix on Friday,
00:02:12.400the textbook for the same course, Psychology and Sexual Behavior, suggests that students take
00:02:18.460take field trips to preschools and elementary schools to observe students' sexual interactions.
00:02:26.080OK, so this is this is this is real. This is an actual course at a at a at a at an actual
00:02:34.520university in America. The lesson plan on sexuality and infants, which can be which there's a link to it.
00:02:43.040If you go and look at this article, you can see the lesson plan. It's from the 13th edition of Our Sexuality.
00:02:49.200That's the course. The course is listed textbook. That's what Our Sexuality is.0.99
00:02:55.580One section of the document, according to the fix titled Teaching Ideas, suggests that instructors
00:03:02.840take students on a field trip to observe children possibly engaging in sexual interactions during
00:03:08.260recess hours. The textbook says take the class to a local elementary school playground.
00:03:13.760Or ask permission for a few of your students to attend various school playgrounds, preschools or
00:03:20.360daycare centers during recess to observe behaviors of children. Ask students to note interactions
00:03:27.340between same sex and mixed sex groups. Which group was more frequent? Which behaviors were most
00:03:34.360frequent? What kind of touching did children engage in? What about teasing behaviors? Were there any
00:03:40.440overtly sexual interactions? What was the age range of children being observed? Have students write a
00:03:47.600report comparing their observations with information in the text? It's unclear if the parents of the young
00:03:54.960students potentially. So we don't know if if when it says ask permission, who is who are we asking
00:04:02.740permission? The parents or the teacher? Of course, doesn't doesn't whatever the case, it doesn't make it any
00:04:10.160better. One of the textbooks editors, Carla Bauer, was interviewed by the college fix. And she said
00:04:19.820that she's, you know, one of the people responsible for this. Although she claims that
00:04:24.940the the other editor of the textbook who's now deceased, wrote the guide where the field trips
00:04:34.600were suggested. And so she tried to distance herself from that as she didn't know anything about that.
00:04:41.760And if you're wondering what the course objectives are, the course objectives read as follows. Number
00:04:46.780one, to describe human sexuality from historical and multicultural perspectives, to define to define
00:04:53.740major theoretical perspectives that influence the scientific study of human sexuality, to explain the
00:04:59.500significant research methodologies within disciplines, to examine the socially constructed nature of
00:05:05.040sexual identities, to describe how sexuality overlaps with various social institutions, to recognize the
00:05:11.740changing nature of social norms. Okay, so a couple of things here. First of all, you've noticed that
00:05:25.100there really seems to be a movement afoot to normalize pedophilia. Yet we're always told that no such
00:05:33.420movement exists. You know, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. Our eyes are fooling us. And we
00:05:40.520see stuff like this. And and and we say, well, it looks like this is a normalization of pedophilia. And yet
00:05:46.280we're always a no, no, no, that's not happening. That's not happening. Well, I think this makes it pretty clear,
00:05:51.240doesn't it? And it's, it's not, although I started by calling this unbelievable. I don't mean that in a
00:06:00.680literal sense, because it is very believable, unfortunately, because this is what happens
00:06:05.800when you begin to break down sexual boundaries. GK Chesterton talks about, as I've, I've mentioned this
00:06:16.160quote for him before, because it's so relevant to what we see going on in our culture, especially as
00:06:22.020it pertains to sexuality. And what he says is, you know, you're walking down the street, and you come
00:06:27.000across a fence. You're not going to just tear down the fence without knowing why the fence is there and
00:06:36.740what it is meant to contain. Right? You're not, you're not going to just, just, just announce that
00:06:45.660we need to take down this fence. First, you want to know, why is that fence there? What's, what purpose
00:06:49.840does it serve? Is it holding back some sort of rabid dog or something like that? I mean, there could be a
00:06:56.480lot of good reasons for a fence. Now, the point is, what we've done in our culture with sexual0.71
00:07:01.540boundaries is we've just started tearing down fences without ever stopping to consider why those
00:07:10.600fences were there and what sorts of rabid dogs they were trying to contain. And the other problem
00:07:19.760is once you begin this project of tearing down sexual boundaries, it becomes really hard to erect
00:07:26.680them somewhere else. Once you've said, no, we're going to tear down this boundary and that one,
00:07:31.540right? This is all about social norms where we're getting rid of all the social norms.
00:07:36.200Well, there are some things are social norms for a reason. And when, when, uh, when a phrase like
00:07:44.000social norm becomes a dirty word, like it's a bad thing, it's a bad thing to uphold social. Now we
00:07:51.000need, we need to tear down social norms just because they're norms. Well, it, it was a social norm
00:07:57.600in our society that pedophilia is wrong, that you don't sexualize children. That was a social norm.
00:08:04.180That's a good social norm. It's a norm for a reason. But once you start tearing down those fences,
00:08:11.680uh, and, uh, it, it becomes difficult to go somewhere else and rebuild a fence.
00:08:19.500And that's what's happening here. And as part of this, so you have the, the tearing down of
00:08:28.840boundaries, but you also have is, I mean, just reading through the course objectives that I,
00:08:34.040that I just read through, um, sex, sexuality, sex, sex, sex. There's, there's this obsession with sex
00:08:41.660and sexuality and in, in, in, in seeing everyone, all people as these inherently sexual beings,0.89
00:08:51.980including children. And that's another thing that you find on the left is this upset. Everything is
00:08:58.980seen in sexual terms. As much as they claim that, Oh, my, my sex life is, is none of your business.
00:09:06.600Sex is a private thing. As much as they claim that the, they actually believe the exact,
00:09:12.560the exact opposite. Now I believe that, that your sex life is none of my business, uh, as,
00:09:18.920as long as you're not abusing or raping or molesting anyone. Um, but other than that, it is,
00:09:26.060I don't want to know. Don't, don't talk to me about it. You don't, don't advertise it.
00:09:32.280You don't need to go marching down the street, telling everybody we don't need to know.
00:09:36.600Now that's how I feel about it. The left, they, they claim that they say that's none of your
00:09:43.900business, but then they go out in the street and they march and they, and they announce it and
00:09:48.200they tell everybody they advertise their sexuality. And this is where it ends up. The second thing,
00:09:56.120um, to note here is, although I believe this is part of a movement in our society to normalize
00:10:03.940pedophilia, we also have to understand that this is not new. Um, this is the kind of research that
00:10:10.460Alfred Kinsey used to do in the early part of the 20th century. And Kinsey is considered a pioneer,
00:10:16.940a hero, even to the left. Alfred Kinsey is, he's, uh, the godfather of modern sex education
00:10:24.200and, and sex education, modern sex education is, is based on his work, but he was a pervert and a0.90
00:10:31.200deviant who, who studied the sexual responses of molested children. Very similar to what you just
00:10:39.220read here. He would have Alfred Kinsey would have pedophiles rape children and record their experiences
00:10:48.040in like a journal. And then they would come in and they would have meetings with Kinsey where they
00:10:52.700would talk about the, their experiences, raping children and how the children responded to it.
00:10:57.400And Kinsey would study, uh, the, these, these interactions. He didn't, he never reported it
00:11:02.220to police. He didn't tell police about it. A pedophile would come to him and say, you know,
00:11:07.080I raped children. And Kinsey would say, okay, great. Here's a notebook. Next time you do it,
00:11:12.220uh, make sure you take notes. Now I'm not making that up. That's, this was what Alfred Kinsey would
00:11:17.980do. That's the kind of work, if we can call it that, that this psychopath did. And yet our public
00:11:24.600school sex education courses are based around his work. And this thing that I just read from this,
00:11:32.760this, uh, university in, in Texas, that's exactly the kind of thing that he would do.
00:11:38.460And now we're seeing that come to the forefront again, more explicitly, uh, just completely
00:11:46.340horrific. All right. Um, speaking of horrific, there's a story, uh, out of, out of Australia,
00:11:54.200a man, 36 year old man was arrested, put in jail, charged with sexual assault after he stopped to
00:12:02.360help a woman whose car was broken down. And, uh, and, uh, he stopped and helped her. And then he was
00:12:08.220later accused of stalking her and assaulting her. The problem is that he did no such thing.
00:12:14.900Uh, he did stop to help her. He worked on her car for two hours, apparently trying to help this woman
00:12:19.580who was stranded, but he did not assault her. And evidence, including security cameras revealed,
00:12:24.440uh, and confirmed that he was innocent. So this guy performed this good deed going out of his way for
00:12:31.640a fellow human being. And she turned around and accused him of rape. He was put, he spent some
00:12:37.880time in jail, uh, before he was finally cleared of charges. He lost his relationship. His, his name
00:12:42.980was, was, was, uh, run through the mud all because he did this good thing for another person.
00:12:52.800And there was, there's a quote from him. Um, let's see if I can find, there's a quote from him that
00:12:58.960is just so sad, but also kind of profound. And it sort of sums up where we are. Um,
00:13:07.600he was, he was interviewed about his experiences after finally being, after finally being, um,
00:13:13.740vindicated. And he said, I always helped people all my life. Um, and this was the first time a snake
00:13:21.140bit me. He said, he'll, he'll probably never help again. I don't want that to happen again.
00:13:27.300I'll probably never help again is what he said. This is a guy who is a good Samaritan used to
00:13:35.740helping out his fellow human beings. And now he's saying, well, never gonna do that again.
00:13:40.040I don't blame him. I mean, I, I certainly couldn't possibly blame him for that,
00:13:43.600but I think you've, that's, that's what we're finding now is, uh, you have a lot of otherwise
00:13:50.860chivalrous and good men who don't, who are afraid of, uh, of, of, you know, going out of
00:14:02.520their way, putting themselves out there to help another person, especially a woman,
00:14:05.580because they don't want to be accused of anything. They don't want to be accused of
00:14:09.720being a sexist. They don't want to be accused of it. And, and, and worst case scenario, they
00:14:13.200don't want to be accused with a, with a situation like this. And that's yet another problem with,
00:14:21.840as I've, as I've pointed out many times with something like the me too movement,
00:14:25.160but the, this, you know, hysteria, um, that we found in the me too movement is that it engenders
00:14:33.680suspicion between the sexes on both sides where women begin to believe that, you know, every man0.87
00:14:43.060is, uh, is a potential rapist out to assault her and men begin to believe that any woman could0.93
00:14:49.960potentially falsely accuse him of something. And so you have this suspicion and both groups kind
00:14:56.240of avoiding each other and trying not to be around each other. And that's a, not a healthy
00:15:01.380situation for society. So that's, that's pretty terrible. All right. Um, so I wrote something
00:15:06.120yesterday that I wanted to, I wanted to go through here. Um, as we talked about on the show yesterday,
00:15:12.420after that law in Georgia was passed, which makes abortion basically illegal after six weeks with
00:15:19.860exceptions, the left obviously reacted as you were expecting them to react. And there was a woman on,1.00
00:15:25.080on CNN. We played the clip of the, of this woman, uh, Christine Quinn, I believe was her name,
00:15:28.980who, who, who was so overcome with anger that she, she became delusional. She started screaming about
00:15:35.980how, uh, unborn babies are not human beings. They're part of the woman's body. And I talked about why0.94
00:15:42.620that's obviously a ridiculous and stupid argument. Clearly the unborn child is a human being, but that
00:15:50.060is one of the really stupid arguments that pro-aborts put forward. Uh, it's only one though.
00:15:56.840There's a whole list of really bad, dumb pro-abortion arguments. I wrote something yesterday
00:16:02.020going through what I consider to be sort of the top seven dumbest pro-abortion arguments. I thought
00:16:07.120I would, I would do that here on the show as well. I'll go through them. Uh, so this is the top seven
00:16:11.800dumbest pro-abortion arguments, uh, aside from the one about not being a human being, we already
00:16:16.380covered that. That's probably kind of the Mac daddy of dumb arguments that probably would be number
00:16:21.520one, but putting that to the side, we'll go through the list, uh, seven to one. So starting
00:16:26.220at number seven, dumb argument, you can't be against abortion unless you're willing to adopt0.95
00:16:31.680unwanted babies. We've talked about this before. Um, uh, that's, that's the argument. And of course,
00:16:38.860a great many pro-lifers do indeed adopt unwanted babies. Um, but none of us can adopt all of them.
00:16:46.160And some of us can't adopt any of them. The fact that we are limited in our resources does not
00:16:51.740prove that we're hypocrites. And even if it did prove that that in itself would not prove that
00:16:57.800our position is flawed. Even if you could prove that we are hypocrites and we, you know, we,
00:17:02.640we should be out adopting babies and we're not, um, that doesn't mean anything about what we're
00:17:10.620claiming about the nature of abortion. But in any case, it doesn't make any sense because if we can
00:17:19.580only oppose the murder of those who we are able and willing to personally care for and subsidize,
00:17:25.700that would mean that we cannot oppose the murder of almost anyone on earth because we can't care for
00:17:31.820and subsidize the vast, vast majority of people who currently live. There are 7 billion people on
00:17:38.080earth. You cannot care for all 7 billion. So if this is the standard and you know, you or I can
00:17:46.580only feed and clothe a vanishingly small percentage of people on earth, then that would mean that we
00:17:52.180can only really care about the fate and oppose the murder of that very small percentage. And that
00:18:00.220would mean that we have to remain silent about things like genocide and school shootings because,
00:18:04.400hey, we, you know, we, we're not stepping up to care for those people, but that of course doesn't
00:18:10.280make any sense whatsoever. So that's a bad argument. Um, number six, no uterus, no opinion.0.85
00:18:17.080Now leftists of course, can't really make this argument anymore because they also say that,
00:18:22.040you know, your possession of a uterus has nothing at all to do with your gender. It means nothing0.99
00:18:27.020anyway. So they've already made that. They have neutralized that argument themselves. They've ruled
00:18:31.980that argument out, which is probably for the best because it's a dumb argument anyway. Um, abortion0.98
00:18:36.880is a moral and legal issue. So we use our brains to sort through it, not our reproductive organs.0.96
00:18:43.220So what the, what the, what the motto really should be is no brain, no opinion. Now that's true. If you
00:18:48.340don't have a brain, then you shouldn't be voicing your opinion on this issue or any other. Um, but I'm
00:18:53.520afraid that that might rule out a large portion of the pro-abortion side. So that's the problem
00:18:57.640there. Number five, um, you, you, you, you can't force a woman to reproduce. Now I agree with that0.63
00:19:05.560statement. It's, it would be, it would be horrific to force women to reproduce. Um, unfortunately
00:19:12.820that has nothing to do with abortion though, because a woman does not reproduce when she gives birth0.98
00:19:20.140in the hospital. Reproduction occurs at conception. So the, the, when a baby is born, that is not an act
00:19:27.460of reproduction. Reproduction has already happened. It is the product of that reproduction. The thing
00:19:34.620that has been reproduced, that is what's being born. So the question isn't, should women be required to0.99
00:19:40.400reproduce? Obviously they shouldn't. The question is, should a woman be allowed to purposefully kill1.00
00:19:45.920that which has already been produced? And the answer to that is no. Uh, number four, pro-lifers want to
00:19:53.540control women's bodies, right? We hear this all the time. Well, of course the body that's directly1.00
00:19:58.460in dispute is not the woman's it's, it's the child's. Um, it's true that the woman uses her0.98
00:20:04.680body to sustain the child's body, but that's just as much the case after birth as it is before. I use
00:20:10.420my body to care for my born children. I use my body to do that. I use my body to, to clothe them,
00:20:18.320provide for them, feed them. I mean, whatever I do for my kids or for anyone else, I'm using my
00:20:24.240body to do it. I, because I am my body. I can't do it any other way. I can't just sit back and with
00:20:29.840the power of my brain, make things move around. And I'm not professor X in X-Men. So, um,
00:20:35.300I have to do that. Everything I do for my kids, I use my body to do it. What's more, the law requires me
00:20:43.140to do those things for my kids to care for them, provide for them, which means the, which means the
00:20:49.940law requires me to use my body to do those things. Um, I'm not allowed to claim bodily autonomy and
00:20:56.440then just cease all parental activities. If I did that, my body and myself altogether, we would all
00:21:03.160go to jail if I did that. Uh, now does that mean that the laws against neglect and endangerment
00:21:10.940control my body? Uh, you know, it may be in a very weird and indirect sense,
00:21:16.880but the point of the laws certainly is not to control my body. The point of the law is to protect
00:21:23.340children. And so the point of making abortion illegal is not to control women's bodies. Um,
00:21:30.920but to protect children. That's, that's the point. Number three, um, this is a classic pro, uh,
00:21:36.960pro-lifers are only pro-birth, right? They don't care about babies after their1.00
00:21:40.940born. Once again, this is irrelevant, even if it's true. Um, but it isn't true. Our whole
00:21:48.440point is that there's no difference between a baby inside the womb and a baby outside of
00:21:53.660the womb. We cherish them both. So if we didn't care about babies outside the womb, then we
00:21:58.980wouldn't be constantly insisting that a child inside the womb is just like a child outside
00:22:03.500the womb. Now follow the logic here. What we're saying is a child inside the womb is like a child0.91
00:22:09.120outside the womb. Therefore the child inside the womb should be treated with value and dignity.
00:22:16.060This line of reasoning clearly indicates that we think that children outside of the womb have value0.97
00:22:22.140and dignity. Our, our whole case is, is that's sort of the linchpin of our entire case. Um, also of
00:22:29.240course, pro-lifers are exceedingly charitable. They, they, um, we give to people in need all the time.
00:22:34.320Um, and if you're going to make this claim about pro-lifers don't care about kids after birth,
00:22:39.100you have to come forward with some sort of data, some information to prove that.
00:22:45.980Um, prove for instance, that pro-lifers, uh, you know, don't give the charity and don't help the
00:22:53.200less fortunate. Again, even if you could prove that that would not prove anything about abortion,
00:22:58.920but you can't even prove that. So this is a, an argument that is not only irrelevant and stupid,
00:23:07.140but fabricated out of thin air. Number two, um, the pro-life movement is just a bunch of men bossing
00:23:13.880women around, you know, pro-lifers are a bunch of men. This clearly is, is once again, irrelevant.
00:23:21.300Um, because either the pro-life position is wrong or it's right. And if it's right, it would still be0.80
00:23:27.080right. Even if men were the only ones arguing for it, but men are not the only ones far from it.
00:23:33.360The pro-life movement is run predominantly by women. Um, it's mostly women working at pregnancy1.00
00:23:40.080centers. It's mostly women at the March for life. Um, it's mostly women praying outside of abortion0.91
00:23:45.600clinics. And, uh, so it's, it's the idea that the pro-life movement is some sort of male dominated
00:23:51.980thing is a, once again, completely baseless. Number one, uh, and this is, maybe this is the
00:24:00.100biggest one of all, even more than unborn babies aren't, aren't human. Um, women have the right to1.00
00:24:05.740choose the right to choose. Yeah. We hear that phrase so often that we take it for granted, but
00:24:14.400it actually is a, is a, is a concept without meaning, without content. It doesn't mean anything.
00:24:21.980Do women have the right to choose? Uh, no, of course they don't.1.00
00:24:29.200It's your, your right to make a choice depends entirely on the nature of the choice. Now,
00:24:36.920physically you can choose to do whatever you want within the laws of physics, but legally there are
00:24:43.020hundreds upon hundreds of things you cannot choose to do. Um, you can't choose arson or rape or theft or,
00:24:50.800or tax evasion or burglary or vandalism. Um, you can't choose murder either, unless your victim
00:24:57.120happens to be still inside the womb. But when someone insists that women have the right to choose,1.00
00:25:03.000you know, that statement, the right to choose is a, is an absolute universal statement. I have the right
00:25:11.360to choose, but of course in an absolute and universal way, uh, nobody has that right because
00:25:20.520that would mean that you have the right to choose to do literally anything you want to do. You have
00:25:26.400the right to make any choice at all, which of course you don't. So when, when someone says women have the1.00
00:25:32.440right to choose, what they really mean is they mean it in an, in a very limited sense. They mean
00:25:37.940specifically in their mind that a woman has the right to choose to end the life of her child
00:25:43.060before the child emerges from the birth canal. So they put it forward as an absolute unqualified
00:25:50.820statement, but it actually is a very qualified statement because they are talking about one
00:25:57.280particular choice that they believe a woman should be able to make. Um, but if that choice to kill a1.00
00:26:07.080child is defensible and ethical, it's not defensible and ethical just because it's a choice. The fact
00:26:14.940that it's a choice is irrelevant. The question with abortion is not whether a woman can choose,
00:26:21.020but whether an unborn human has a moral claim to existence and personhood. Now, if he doesn't,
00:26:29.180then a woman can choose abortion. Um, if he does have that claim, then the choice of abortion belongs to
00:26:36.900the same category as the choice of murder or child molestation. Then that would be a choice that
00:26:44.200yeah, physically you can do, but you have no moral right to do it. And you shouldn't therefore have
00:26:49.880a legal right to do it either. Now you'll, you'll notice something, you know, um, gun rights activists
00:26:55.340will, uh, will, will talk about, uh, their right to bear arms, but they never talk about the right to
00:27:02.500shoot, right? Gun rights activists aren't going to go around saying I have the right to shoot.
00:27:09.080They have the right to bear arms, but their right to discharge those arms depends quite significantly
00:27:14.040on why the arms are being discharged and in what context and at what target. So no, you don't have
00:27:21.640the right to shoot. Generally speaking, uh, you have the right, you, you, you have the right to bear the
00:27:27.520arms, but as far as shooting them, that really is, is very qualified. It really depends on why and where
00:27:36.040and in what direction you're shooting. And a choice is like that. You know, um, your right to choose is
00:27:42.260contingent, not absolute. So to defend a choice on the basis that it is a choice is very stupid.
00:27:50.360All of these arguments are very stupid. Uh, but the pro-abortion side, of course, doesn't have any,
00:27:56.300any other sort of argument at, at its disposal, unfortunately. All right. Um,
00:28:01.840we'll go to, uh, yeah, we'll go to emails, mattwalshowatgmail.com, mattwalshowatgmail.com.
00:28:10.180Um, this is from Isaac says, Hey Matt, you said something yesterday that I'm not sure I agree with.
00:28:16.380Um, in that you said that loving oneself is a by-product of loving others, but doesn't scripture
00:28:23.180say otherwise in that you need to love others as much as you love yourself. The second greatest
00:28:27.820commandment, there's a saying that that's a bit of a spinoff of that commandment, which is you grace
00:28:32.680others as much as you grace yourself. And don't people who struggle with self-hatred also struggle
00:28:37.500with loving others as a result. Um, love your show and you're down to earth and say it as it is
00:28:41.840approach. Yeah. Well, I think that there's a misunderstanding, Isaac, about that
00:28:45.560verse in scripture where it says, uh, love others, you know, as you love yourself. Jesus there is not
00:28:53.140saying that your, you know, your, that self-love is the foundational love and that you should calibrate
00:29:00.760your love for other people based on how much you happen to love yourself. That's not what Jesus is
00:29:05.320saying. What he's saying is, I think more just pretty simple that you, you know, you look out for
00:29:11.820your own interests. Um, and in a similar way, you should consider other people's interests to be
00:29:18.760like your own. You know, Thomas Aquinas says love to love is to will the good of the other. Well,
00:29:25.080you, you kind of naturally will the good for yourself. You want what is good for yourself.
00:29:31.340You may have some wrong ideas about what's good, but, um, to the extent that you understand what's
00:29:37.280good. You want that for yourself, right? Um, well, what Jesus is saying is, yeah, do the same for
00:29:44.940other people too. Want what is best for others and try to help them achieve what is best. That's the
00:29:51.280point. Um, and so you want what's best for yourself, really regardless of how you happen to feel about
00:30:01.000yourself. You may be feeling kind of down about yourself. You may be struggling with your self image
00:30:05.440or whatever, but you still want what's best for yourself. Unless you get to the point of total
00:30:11.400self-loathing where you're at the, you know, where you're, uh, you know, at the point of, of being
00:30:16.860almost suicidal. Well, now that's, that of course would be someone who doesn't want what's best for
00:30:20.920themselves. Um, and that is bad. I mean, I'm not advocating self-loathing. Obviously we don't want to
00:30:25.940hate ourselves. We should, we shouldn't hate anyone, including ourselves, ourselves. But, um,
00:30:33.440um, the point is we can't hold other people hostage according to our own emotions, where we're
00:30:42.340saying, you know, how I treat you is going to depend entirely on how I happen to be feeling.
00:30:49.460And there are a lot of people who operate that way in relationships and it's deadly for a
00:30:53.860relationship. And that is not what Jesus is saying. And by the way, keep in mind, that's the second
00:30:59.240greatest commandment. What was the first greatest? First greatest was love God. So that's the first
00:31:06.340thing. The foundational love is not the love for yourself or the love for your neighbor. The
00:31:12.560foundational love is your love for God. And through that love, you know, that love becomes sort of the,
00:31:19.220the fountain, um, from which our love for ourselves and for other people sort of springs. So that's the
00:31:27.980way that I would, I would look at it. But I do still believe that if you're struggling with self
00:31:36.280image, if you're feeling down about yourself, whatever the case may be, I think the best remedy
00:31:42.540for that is not to sit around trying to conjure good feelings about yourself. The best remedy is to
00:31:49.420focus on loving other people and loving God, just focus on loving outwardly rather than inwardly.
00:31:55.020And I think if you do that, you're going to find that you start to feel better too.
00:32:02.900Um, when you really focus on, you know, you say, I want to put this aside. I'm just going to go play
00:32:06.520with my kids, spend some time with my kids, focus on loving them, being with them. And I'm not going
00:32:12.820to think about myself. And in the midst of doing that, of kind of losing yourself in, in, in that
00:32:18.080moment of, of being with, with, with someone else that you love, you may stop for a second and
00:32:22.540realize, Oh, wait a second. I'm actually feeling pretty good about myself right now. And the moment
00:32:26.280that you realize that don't dwell on it, just say, okay, that's great. Put it to the side,
00:32:30.760focus back on other people. I think the more we focus on how we feel about ourselves, the worse
00:32:36.180we end up feeling. That's the point. We, we end up kind of caving in on ourselves because we're so
00:32:41.100inwardly focused. I think we should be more outwardly focused. And, uh, that was the whole point
00:32:46.060I was trying to make there. Um, this is from Jamie says, hi, Matt, I love your show. Agree with almost
00:32:51.000everything you say. I have a question though, about homosexuality. C.S. Lewis says that he can't
00:32:55.000judge gay people because he's never struggled with that issue himself. It seems like a lot of1.00
00:32:59.160Christians like to condemn the sins that they've never been tempted to commit. Meanwhile, they say0.99
00:33:03.560nothing about the sins they do struggle with. What do you think about C.S. Lewis's attitude? I know
00:33:07.740you're a big fan of his. Um, hi, Jimmy. I am a big fan of C.S. Lewis and I'm familiar with the
00:33:13.380passage you're referring to, though. It doesn't say exactly that. Um, here's, here's what he says.
00:33:19.120This is from surprised by joy. I believe he says, um, I have said the sin in question, homosexuality0.99
00:33:24.840is one of the two gambling as the other, which I have never been tempted to commit. I will not
00:33:30.100indulge in futile philippics against enemies. I have never met in battle. So that's not the same1.00
00:33:36.280thing as saying. I can't judge rather. What he's saying is he has no real insight into that struggle
00:33:41.260because he's never experienced it. And it's rather easy for him to rail against it because it is,
00:33:46.500as he says, an enemy that he's never met in battle. So it's easy for him. And I think we can
00:33:51.300and should still stand in opposition to all sin, including the ones that we've never been tempted
00:33:56.280to commit ourselves. And I don't think C.S. Lewis would disagree with that, but I agree that there
00:34:01.020is a tendency among Christians and among all people to focus on the sins of others. Uh, that's what the0.89
00:34:06.760whole, you know, uh, splint, splinter in your brother's eye beam in your own eye. Um, he without
00:34:14.620sin, throw the first stone, you know, all of that in the gospels. That's what all that is about. Jesus
00:34:18.380spends a lot of time on this concept. So here's how I look at it. Every bad thing that you've ever done
00:34:26.020and we've all done bad things, right? So every bad thing you've ever done,
00:34:30.880you've done because two factors converged desire and opportunity. You did the bad thing
00:34:40.240because you had the desire to do it and you had the opportunity to do it. Desire and opportunity.
00:34:47.860We know what desire means opportunity in this case means not only the chance to do it physically,
00:34:52.820but the ability to do it, uh, in our minds without consequence. That's what opportunity means.
00:34:59.020So we've all told lies, right? We've all told lies. Well, why did we tell those lies? We told the lie
00:35:06.620because we wanted to, because we thought that we would get something out of it.
00:35:11.180And because we encountered a situation where we believed we could tell the lie and get away with
00:35:16.560it. And oftentimes we find out in retrospect, we were wrong about that, but, um, but still we,
00:35:22.300we, that's why we did it. So here's the point. You don't deserve credit
00:35:27.440for not doing things which you've never had the desire and opportunity to do in the first place.
00:35:36.320Um, think about all the bad things you haven't done. Think of the worst kinds of things. Murder,
00:35:42.100for instance. Okay. Why haven't you murdered anyone? Assuming you haven't. Well, you might say,
00:35:47.980oh, I've never murdered anyone because it's wrong, but is that really why you haven't done it?
00:35:53.220No, you haven't done it because you never wanted to. You've never once been seriously tempted to
00:36:01.340kill someone. And that's why you haven't done it. Now it's true that it's wrong and you're aware of
00:36:05.740that fact, but you've never been in a situation where the only thing stopping you from killing
00:36:12.240someone is that, you know, it's wrong. The thing that stops you from killing someone every day and
00:36:17.600every moment of your life is that you, you just, it's not in the cards. You just, you've never had
00:36:23.040that temptation. Um, so the first sort of dam that holds us back from committing a particular sin
00:36:30.520is that we don't want to commit that sin. That's the number one thing that stops us from doing
00:36:36.000most of the bad things we don't do. The second dam, not as strong as the first,
00:36:41.920especially if the first breaks is opportunity. So there may be a really bad thing that we want to
00:36:49.980do, but then, so that dam breaks, but then we have that second one holding there of, well,
00:36:56.680we don't have the opportunity to do it. The problem though is, is once the first dam breaks and the
00:37:02.580only thing stopping you is that you don't have the opportunity to do it, then eventually you'll find
00:37:06.200an opportunity. Think about, you know, a guy, an unfaithful man in an unhappy marriage who
00:37:12.440is a candidate for adultery. Like he, he, he, he would like to commit adultery. He would like to
00:37:18.760be with another woman. Um, but he just has never found an opportunity where he thinks he could do it
00:37:24.660and get away with it. Well, then that's what's then in that case, opportunity is what's stopping him,
00:37:29.220but most likely eventually he'll find an opportunity for himself because that's what people end up doing.
00:37:36.200And then what happens? Okay. So let's say you want to do the bad thing. You have the opportunity
00:37:43.240to do it. Now, what's the only thing that can stop you now? Okay. Now this is where morality
00:37:51.500and virtue come into play. They didn't really come into play before because it, it, it, it didn't
00:37:57.380really matter because you didn't want to do the thing anyway. Now the, now the, the last and final,
00:38:04.400uh, the, the fail safe is morality and virtue. And that's going to be the only thing that prevents
00:38:13.420you from doing that thing because you want to do it. You have the opportunity. Now you, now you need
00:38:19.380to call on morality and virtue. Um, I think CS Lewis's point is that if on any particular sin,
00:38:28.840you've never, you know, face those raging waters. You've never been under that waterfall.
00:38:36.180You've never felt the force of that water or both of those dams break. And the only thing stopping you
00:38:43.660from drowning in that sin is just your own moral discipline. CS Lewis is saying is if you've never
00:38:50.940been through that on any particular issue, then you have no right to feel morally superior
00:38:58.940because it's not your morals that prevented you from doing it. It's not your morals that saved you
00:39:06.460from drowning. Your morals didn't come into play. What we need to do is think what happens when I do
00:39:16.660have the desire and opportunity to do a bad thing, even if we're, even if they're just little things,
00:39:21.200I think for a lot of us, if we're honest, we have to admit that pretty much whenever we really want to
00:39:28.300do something and we have the chance to do it, we do it, whatever it is. Um, and, and these may be small
00:39:38.340things most of the time. I think a lot of us have maybe never or almost never made a real moral decision
00:39:49.280in our lives. I think there are a lot of us who, who have, who have, who have never really committed a
00:39:55.440moral act. Uh, not all of us, but I think for many of us, every bad thing we haven't done
00:40:03.000is because we just so happen to never want to do, to do that thing. Um, and every good thing that
00:40:12.020we've done, it's because we happen to want to do it. We project the appearance of living a moral life,
00:40:20.340but really we're only living according to our desires. And the problem is, um, it's only by
00:40:29.020accident then that we aren't committing the most heinous sins. It's just an accident of circumstance
00:40:36.020that we happen to not want to do those things. What happens when we wake up one day and we find
00:40:43.520that we really do want to do one of those things. We have gotten into the habit of living according to
00:40:49.460our desire of living according to desire and opportunity. And once, once you go down that
00:40:57.300road, um, you're on the same road as murderers and rapists and everyone. I mean, you're, you're,
00:41:06.080you may not be as far down the road as them, but you know, those are people who are living according
00:41:11.220to their desires and their desires happen to be heinous. You're living according to your desires too,
00:41:17.320which are a little bit less heinous, but unless you learn to, uh, resist doing bad things, even when
00:41:30.380you have the desire and opportunity to do them, then you're just going to drift down and end up over
00:41:34.820there in that vicinity eventually, unless you die first. Um, I, I think that's kind of what C.S.
00:41:43.640Lewis is, is, uh, is getting at. And so what should we do? I think we have to get accustomed to acting
00:41:51.200against our desires and, and against opportunity. And that means not committing the quote unquote,
00:41:59.880little sins. That's why the little sins are so important because most of us are only ever tempted
00:42:10.080to the quote unquote, little sins. And so you have to get accustomed to resisting those temptations.
00:42:18.460Um, and on the other hand too, on the other hand too, when it comes to virtue, it's sort of the inverse
00:42:23.520where we have to get accustomed to doing good things, even when we really don't want to do them.
00:42:29.120Um, and when we won't gain much from doing them and when we, when we, we can't do so without
00:42:36.260sacrifice and inconvenience. So kind of the subverting of desire and opportunity, I think
00:42:43.340we need to get ourselves accustomed to doing that. And, uh, that's part of what, uh, you know,
00:42:48.040just, this is just one example, but that's part of what fasting and those sorts of things are about.
00:42:52.600You know, the point, one of the points of fasting is, yeah, I mean, I, I want to eat,
00:42:59.520I can eat, uh, in this case, there's nothing wrong with eating. It's not a, it's not an immoral thing,
00:43:03.800but I'm kind of training myself. It's, it's, this is moral training where I'm training myself to not
00:43:11.420do something that I want to do. And that's a, just a, a basic ability that we have to be able to
00:43:21.700um, develop within ourselves. And I think a lot of us just do not have that ability
00:43:29.600because we have never once refrained from doing something we really wanted to do.
00:43:37.420All right. Um, so there's that and we'll leave it there tomorrow. Uh, just to remind you,
00:43:45.540we will be in Philadelphia for the, for the pro-life rally against bullying, uh, 1144 Locust
00:43:52.640Street. If I remember the address correctly, 11 AM in Philadelphia, there's gonna be a big group of
00:43:56.740us there and, uh, it's going to be a great event. So I hope to see you there. And, uh, if not,