The Matt Walsh Show - Ep 259 - Overpopulation And Other Myths

00:00:00.000 Today on the Matt Wills Show, we're going to talk about anti-natalism, which is the belief that human life is a curse and no one should ever have babies again.

00:00:09.320 The thing is, this philosophy is more prevalent than you think, so we're going to discuss it.

00:00:13.360 Also, we'll talk about the sad decline of Bill Nye, the fake scientist, and Chips Ahoy has decided to sell cookies by using drag queens. 0.90

00:00:22.840 Finally, I got an email from someone asking a very simple, easy question is, why did God create the world?

00:00:30.180 So I'll try to answer that easy question today as well on the Matt Wills Show.

00:00:39.880 All right, I'll be at Northwestern University tonight talking about the left's war on reality, their efforts to redefine reality by redefining life, marriage, and gender.

00:00:50.980 So we'll be talking about that tonight. Hope to see you there.

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00:02:39.180 All right, The New Yorker shared this week an editorial written by an anti-natalist philosopher named David Benatar.

00:02:48.720 No relation to Pat Benatar, I think, or maybe there is.

00:02:51.560 I have no idea, actually.

00:02:53.160 The title of the piece is The Case for Not Being Born.

00:02:58.540 Okay, now this article was actually originally published a little while ago, but it's making the rounds again online.

00:03:03.360 And it's worth talking about because it articulates an especially toxic way of thinking that I think is also increasingly prevalent in our society today.

00:03:12.880 Antinatalism, if you've never heard the phrase before, and I only recently came across it myself,

00:03:20.400 antinatalism is what it sounds like.

00:03:23.800 It's a movement against birth.

00:03:27.240 So similar and related to the pro-abortion movement, or maybe it's, you might call it a logical conclusion of the pro-abortion movement,

00:03:35.840 antinatalists think that no child should ever be born ever again.

00:03:41.500 That's their position, that no one should ever be born.

00:03:45.020 And they, I think, generally will say that this should be a voluntary decision that we make to stop having babies,

00:03:54.320 although there are some who will say that the government should also potentially enforce that policy.

00:04:03.440 And some governments do enforce that policy.

00:04:06.520 Now, some of the people who believe in this philosophy have organized into, this is a real thing,

00:04:11.480 the voluntary human extinction movement, which is not a joke.

00:04:16.740 It's, that really exists.

00:04:18.500 It's a group that, as the name suggests, believes that humans should choose to go extinct.

00:04:23.880 Now, at least there's the voluntary part of it.

00:04:26.300 We should be concerned if the, if they ever lose, if they ever lose the V, you know,

00:04:31.560 and it just becomes the human extinction movement, hem, then that's, that's, that's not too good.

00:04:37.600 But right now it is voluntary.

00:04:39.240 A guy by the name of Les Unite, which I assume is probably a pseudonym, but who knows?

00:04:46.300 He started the group back in the, in the nineties, I think.

00:04:50.120 If you're curious about them, their, their website has an FAQ section.

00:04:54.600 And here's the first frequently asked question that they answer.

00:04:59.400 It says, what is the voluntary human extinction movement?

00:05:01.940 Okay.

00:05:02.800 And the answer is it's a movement, not an organization.

00:05:05.800 It's a movement advanced by people who care about life on planet earth.

00:05:09.800 We're not just a bunch of, they care about life.

00:05:12.340 They just think it should be extinct. 0.75

00:05:13.640 We're not just a bunch of misanthropes and antisocial misfits taking morbid delight.

00:05:18.300 Whenever disaster strikes humans, they say they're not just that.

00:05:22.100 So they are that also, but just not only that, uh, nothing could be farther from the truth.

00:05:27.460 Voluntary human extinction is the humanitarian alternative to human disasters.

00:05:32.160 It's, it's a humanitarian belief that humans shouldn't exist.

00:05:36.660 We don't carry on about how the human race has shown itself to be a greedy, 0.99

00:05:40.740 amoral parasite on the once healthy face of this planet. 0.96

00:05:44.280 That type of negativity offers no solution to the inexorable horrors, which human activity is causing. 0.79

00:05:49.240 Rather, the movement presents an encouraging alternative to the callous exploitation and

00:05:54.500 wholesale destruction of earth's ecology.

00:05:57.200 As a voluntary human extinction movement volunteers know, the hopeful alternative to the extinction

00:06:03.380 of millions of species of planets, of plants and animals is the voluntary extinction of one

00:06:08.720 species, homo sapiens, us.

00:06:11.040 Very encouraging.

00:06:11.960 You know, it's just, it's encouraging.

00:06:13.220 So we're just, we're going to go extinct and we can all be encouraged by that possibility.

00:06:17.240 Um, each time another one of us decides to not add another one of us to the burgeoning

00:06:22.620 billions already squatting on this ravaged planet, another ray of hope shines through

00:06:27.760 the gloom.

00:06:28.840 Whenever, whenever human chooses to stop breeding, earth's biosphere will be allowed to return

00:06:33.500 to its former glory and all remaining creatures will be free to live, die, evolve, and will perhaps

00:06:40.220 pass away as so many of nature's experiments have done throughout the eons.

00:06:43.760 It's going to take all of us.

00:06:47.020 So I don't know.

00:06:47.920 I'm sold.

00:06:48.520 I don't know about you.

00:06:49.740 I say, let's go extinct.

00:06:51.260 I think it sounds like a great idea now that you mention it.

00:06:54.840 Um, so that's one reason for being an antinatalist because we are allegedly destroying the earth.

00:07:00.180 And that's why I say that this is an increasingly prevalent philosophy.

00:07:04.520 There are a lot of people who feel this way.

00:07:06.820 Uh, now most antinatalists won't call themselves that probably have never even heard the phrase

00:07:11.780 or know what it means.

00:07:13.200 Um, and most certainly aren't going to join up with the voluntary human extinction movement,

00:07:17.340 but anyone who goes on about overpopulation and says that we, we have to solve overpopulation,

00:07:25.500 solve it.

00:07:26.200 You know, how do you solve it?

00:07:27.400 There's only one way to solve it.

00:07:29.160 Uh, people that say that, you know, we need to stop having so many kids so as to save the

00:07:33.060 planet, anyone who holds that position is by definition an antinatalist.

00:07:38.900 And, uh, a lot of people in the West hold that position.

00:07:42.440 A lot of us do overpopulation by the way, is, uh, is a, is a prominent myth.

00:07:50.280 And I emphasize myth.

00:07:52.700 It is a myth.

00:07:54.420 The earth is not overpopulated.

00:07:57.960 The earth, um, really cannot be overpopulated.

00:08:01.360 There is no max capacity for the earth.

00:08:05.160 And anyone who thinks, thinks that the earth, earth is overpopulated.

00:08:08.280 Well, what do you, when did we go from populated to overpopulated?

00:08:13.260 Uh, what, what do you think the capacity is and where did you come up with that number?

00:08:19.840 Um, if, if there is a max capacity for the earth, for human beings, we are, we are not

00:08:26.980 anywhere close to it and we'll never get close to it because human birth rates are declining

00:08:31.320 already.

00:08:32.120 Now the population is still growing and it will continue to grow for a few more decades,

00:08:36.960 but the birth rate is going down.

00:08:39.440 There are people are having fewer and fewer kids.

00:08:42.420 So we're not anywhere close to, if there is a max capacity, we're not anywhere close to

00:08:46.360 it.

00:08:46.480 We're never going to be close to it.

00:08:48.160 Um, because right now only a tiny fraction of the earth's land surface is populated.

00:08:55.640 Half of the earth is still wilderness.

00:08:58.660 Um, half of the earth is still, is still an untamed wilderness right now today.

00:09:04.140 And, uh, and then you have a lot of very spread out rural, rural areas and so on.

00:09:08.700 In fact, you could fit the entire population of the world into Texas.

00:09:14.060 You could not only fit us all into Texas, but we could all have our own, uh, our own townhouse

00:09:19.780 and a little plot of land.

00:09:20.940 I mean, we wouldn't have a ton of space because we're all living in Texas, but, um, we could

00:09:25.600 all fit in Texas with a townhouse and, uh, and a yard.

00:09:30.100 So, uh, which would leave the whole rest of the globe completely unpopulated.

00:09:35.580 Now, have you ever noticed that whenever, whenever you read an article about overpopulation, it's

00:09:41.780 always accompanied by a picture of Manhattan or, uh, Hong Kong or LA or, you know, uh, a

00:09:48.960 place like that.

00:09:49.700 But those are relatively small areas where millions of people have chosen to cram themselves

00:09:56.520 into.

00:09:57.780 And yeah, Manhattan, um, does have a max capacity, um, a max capacity.

00:10:05.360 That's much larger than you think because we started living vertically, right?

00:10:09.080 Unless we start building skyscrapers rather than living horizontally, we live vertically now.

00:10:13.560 And that's how we can cram all these people into a small space.

00:10:15.740 But, you know, if you leave the city and you travel across the country, which, um, I think

00:10:24.380 it's no, no, I don't have statistics in front of me, but I'm willing to bet that the majority

00:10:30.200 of people who believe in overpopulation live in cities.

00:10:33.640 I'm willing to bet that.

00:10:35.780 And these are probably a lot of people who have never even been anywhere else.

00:10:40.300 They've only ever been in cities.

00:10:41.700 If you actually drive across the country, uh, what you're going to notice is that there

00:10:47.620 are vast swaths of inhabitable, but uninhabited land, vast swaths of it.

00:10:56.860 Same thing in China or Russia, any other large country you can think of.

00:11:00.580 What you're going to find is you're going to have cities where a lot of people crammed

00:11:03.180 in, but then there's a lot of land where no one's living.

00:11:06.480 They could live there, but no one is.

00:11:08.880 So the earth is not overpopulated.

00:11:11.680 There is a problem with overconsumption, uh, and, and waste.

00:11:15.320 That's a problem, but that has nothing to do with population.

00:11:19.160 If, if you're buying more food than you need, and then you end up cleaning out your fridge

00:11:24.960 once a week and throwing out a bunch of food that's gone bad because you didn't eat it.

00:11:29.060 Well, you're not doing that because of the population.

00:11:31.780 That's just a choice that you made.

00:11:33.560 Um, and that's an individual decision and yeah, we should encourage people to make better

00:11:40.220 decisions, but that doesn't mean that we need fewer people.

00:11:43.300 What we need is we need more responsible people and it's good to advocate for responsibility,

00:11:49.400 but to claim that, well, instead of being responsible, let's just have fewer people.

00:11:54.320 That doesn't make any sense.

00:11:55.960 Um, and you can't, you can't say that, uh, greater population numbers, um, lead to more

00:12:03.280 people starving because there's not enough food to go around or, or whatever.

00:12:07.120 Well, you know, 5,000 years ago, there were 10 or 15 million people living on the planet

00:12:12.660 and a far greater percentage of those people would have been destitute by our standards,

00:12:17.520 far greater percentage.

00:12:19.780 Well, what changed technology, innovation?

00:12:23.660 Um, we have figured out better ways to feed people and provide for people.

00:12:28.760 And that has allowed our population to grow.

00:12:33.140 Um, now it's not perfect.

00:12:34.720 There are still people who are destitute, but we are much better today at feeding people

00:12:40.140 and producing food and doing all that than we were 5,000 years ago or a thousand years

00:12:44.600 ago.

00:12:46.260 Now, so the overpopulation thing is, is, uh, is just a myth.

00:12:50.920 Um, but this article in the New Yorker about David Benatar takes a different approach.

00:12:56.720 Um, because you have people who say that we should stop having babies because we're killing

00:13:01.940 the planet.

00:13:02.400 It's overpopulated.

00:13:03.780 But then there's this from the New Yorker.

00:13:05.800 It says David Benatar may be the world's most pessimistic philosopher and antinatalist.

00:13:09.880 He believes that life is so bad, so painful that human beings should stop having children

00:13:14.860 for reasons of compassion.

00:13:17.080 Um, in a, in a book he writes, while good people go to great lengths to spare their children

00:13:21.520 from suffering, few of them seem to notice that the one and only guaranteed way to prevent

00:13:25.480 all the suffering of their children is not to bring those children into existence in the

00:13:29.720 first place.

00:13:30.620 In Benatar's view, reproducing is intrinsically cruel and irresponsible, not just because a horrible

00:13:36.720 fate can befall anyone, but because life itself is permeated by badness.

00:13:41.700 In part for this reason, he thinks that the world would be a better place if sentient life

00:13:46.960 disappeared altogether.

00:13:47.820 Sounds like a, maybe the title of an emo song in like 2002, permeated by badness.

00:13:54.840 Um, and yeah, this is, this is really nothing new.

00:13:57.740 This is what emo bands have been saying this for, you know, decades now.

00:14:02.680 This is basically a dashboard confessional song that this guy is putting into book form.

00:14:08.360 Um, the idea here is that life itself is so miserable, so painful that it's better to

00:14:13.520 spare people the suffering.

00:14:15.340 Now that may sound like an extreme view and it is, but it's not a fringe view, or at least

00:14:20.360 it's not as fringe as you think.

00:14:21.700 Once again, this is, this is kind of common.

00:14:24.600 This is basically nihilism.

00:14:26.760 And there are a lot of nihilists today in the world, people who believe that life is

00:14:30.680 essentially meaningless.

00:14:32.000 And if life is meaningless, then pain and suffering is meaningless.

00:14:36.100 And if pain and suffering is meaningless and life incorporates so much of both, then it

00:14:41.560 isn't a stretch to say, well, maybe life is a net negative in the end.

00:14:44.700 Maybe life is a, is a curse.

00:14:46.300 Um, it seems to me certainly that if there is no God, which these people, you know, if

00:14:53.120 you're an antinatalist or a nihilist or whatever, then you, you almost certainly don't believe

00:14:57.680 in a God.

00:14:58.820 If there's no God, then human consciousness at the very least is a disastrous mistake

00:15:03.320 committed by nature.

00:15:04.280 Uh, this New Yorker piece quotes a line from Matthew McConaughey's character in True Detective

00:15:08.460 Russ Cole, when he says, um, human consciousness is a tragic misstep in evolution.

00:15:13.020 And without God, yeah, that seems probably true because we not only live meaningless and

00:15:21.800 short lives in that case, but we are doomed to be aware of the meaninglessness and brevity

00:15:30.080 of our existence.

00:15:31.180 Um, we have to live always with the awareness that we are hurtling headlong into non-existence.

00:15:36.920 And I think that's what, what Benatar is saying.

00:15:39.120 He's saying it's not worth it.

00:15:40.080 There's no point.

00:15:40.660 But I think the big flaw in the idea that we need to stop having babies to save the planet,

00:15:46.580 or we need to stop having babies to spare our future babies from the pain of existence,

00:15:52.260 um, is that consciousness is the only thing capable of perceiving value in the first place.

00:16:04.060 So the thing that makes our, our planet special is that it is our planet.

00:16:11.540 That's what makes it special.

00:16:12.940 We are conscious and aware and able to cherish it.

00:16:18.800 Without that, um, our planet is just one among trillions in the, there are probably trillions

00:16:24.760 of planets in the universe.

00:16:25.960 And if, if, um, if there's no human life on this planet, no one around to cherish it and

00:16:34.120 love it and, you know, um, appreciate it, then who really cares?

00:16:40.460 And then it's just, it's just, like I said, it's one of trillions.

00:16:43.680 Then who let it be destroyed?

00:16:45.480 Why does our planet matter?

00:16:47.140 Um, I would say that our planet matters because we're here because we live on it.

00:16:51.340 It's our home.

00:16:53.600 It doesn't make sense to say that we should go extinct so that we don't destroy our home.

00:16:58.920 Because if we're, if we're, if we are extinct, then it's not our home anymore.

00:17:03.080 And if it's not our home anymore, then it's just one truck, one rock among trillions of

00:17:08.700 rocks spinning around space.

00:17:11.000 And, um, I don't see how it has any special value in that case.

00:17:15.760 Yeah, it has other life on it, but that other life is not capable of perceiving the

00:17:21.120 value of the earth or of itself.

00:17:25.200 Um, a horse can't love the earth and a horse can't love horses.

00:17:30.760 Only people can love horses and the planet.

00:17:35.060 Um, so it's kind of the old, if a tree falls in the forest thing, if the earth is beautiful,

00:17:41.060 but no one is around to perceive and appreciate its beauty, then why does its beauty matter?

00:17:48.700 I mean, how can you even call it beautiful?

00:17:52.020 I guess it still is, but there's no one around who can notice it.

00:17:57.700 Now you might say that even without people, the earth would still matter.

00:18:02.020 Its beauty would still matter because it glorifies God.

00:18:04.080 But again, these antinatalists don't believe in God.

00:18:06.900 So from their perspective, human life dies off and really there's no one left.

00:18:12.640 Um, so far as we know in the whole universe to appreciate the universe's beauty, the thing

00:18:20.340 that makes the earth so special is because as far as we know, it is the only, uh, planet

00:18:32.280 in the universe that has, that plays host to conscious life or any kind of life, as far

00:18:39.260 as we know, so it makes it so special.

00:18:42.220 You get rid of that conscious life, then what's the point?

00:18:44.360 Now it's like if you took the Mona Lisa and, um, you, you threw it into the ocean.

00:18:52.140 Well, yeah, then it's the Mona Lisa will still be beautiful on the seafloor while it's sitting

00:18:58.360 down there, but you may as well have destroyed it because no one is going to be able to see

00:19:04.940 and appreciate its beauty.

00:19:06.140 The fish might see it, but the fish don't care to them.

00:19:08.820 It's just a, it's just a rock.

00:19:11.320 Um, so it would be little solace to say, well, yeah, I threw it into the ocean, but it's still

00:19:16.740 there.

00:19:17.120 You know, it's, it's down there somewhere being beautiful.

00:19:19.720 Well, great.

00:19:20.740 But what's the point of a beauty that no one who is capable of appreciating beauty will

00:19:27.160 ever experience.

00:19:30.000 And it's kind of the same thing with Benatar's argument that if, if, that life is, you know,

00:19:34.340 people say, well, life is so miserable, so why curse people with it?

00:19:37.060 Well, first of all, speak for yourself.

00:19:39.260 Second of all, it doesn't make sense to say that non-existence is somehow better than life,

00:19:45.760 even a painful life.

00:19:47.060 Because a word like better assumes value, but non-existence can have no value.

00:19:55.120 So to say that something is better than another thing, you must be saying that the better thing

00:20:02.200 has more value.

00:20:03.500 But if, but non-existence by definition has no value, so it cannot be better than anything.

00:20:09.300 It's just nothing.

00:20:11.040 And as nothing, it can't be better than something, even if that something is, is pain.

00:20:18.560 So there's just a logical problem there.

00:20:22.700 Um, there's a logical problem with all these ways of thinking.

00:20:27.080 Um, that we're going to somehow, you know, uh, save our, our home by making it so that

00:20:36.520 it's not our home anymore because we're all dead.

00:20:39.260 It just doesn't make any sense.

00:20:40.720 But it's, uh, like I've been saying, it's, uh, it's a lot of people sort of think this

00:20:45.720 way.

00:20:45.960 And it's, um, it's a very troubling sign because what I see really is a Western culture just 1.00

00:20:55.700 giving up on itself.

00:20:57.060 You have Western culture is giving up on itself, giving up on life, giving up on existence.

00:21:03.160 Um, and that is a, uh, certainly a troubling sign for the future.

00:21:07.540 All right.

00:21:08.300 Um, Bill Nye, fake scientist.

00:21:11.220 He popped up on John, John Oliver's show this, this, uh, past weekend.

00:21:16.460 And, uh, here's what he did.

00:21:19.120 Here, I've got an experiment for you.

00:21:21.760 Safety glasses on.

00:21:23.260 By the end of this century, if emissions keep rising, the average temperature on Earth

00:21:27.760 could go up another four to eight degrees.

00:21:30.240 What I'm saying is the planet's on fire.

00:21:34.140 There are a lot of things we could do to put it out.

00:21:36.360 Are any of them free?

00:21:38.080 No, of course not. 1.00

00:21:39.200 Nothing's free, you idiots. 1.00

00:21:40.500 Grow the f*** up. 1.00

00:21:41.460 You're not children anymore. 0.99

00:21:42.700 I didn't mind explaining photosynthesis to you when you were 12, but you're adults now,

00:21:47.540 and this is an actual crisis.

00:21:49.500 Got it? 1.00

00:21:49.900 Safety glasses off, motherf***ers. 1.00

00:21:56.460 So there you go. 1.00

00:21:57.440 Bill Nye, uh, he's so relatable when he curses, isn't he?

00:22:00.940 So he's, uh, you know, he just, he gets me as a millennial.

00:22:04.440 Has anyone, I'm trying to think, well, I posed this question yesterday online.

00:22:09.740 Has anyone ever gone so far from one end of the likability spectrum to the other?

00:22:18.280 Because you think back to the nineties, Bill Nye was, uh, you know, people in my generation,

00:22:22.120 we grew up with him and he was a charming kind of nerdy, uh, fake scientist guy on TV.

00:22:27.880 And, uh, and now he's just a insufferable partisan hack.

00:22:36.140 Uh, has anyone, and I said that and a few people suggested, well, OJ Simpson, Bill Cosby.

00:22:41.300 Okay.

00:22:41.560 Well, that's, that's valid.

00:22:42.500 So maybe another way of putting it is, has anyone ever traveled so far from one extreme

00:22:47.140 end of the likability spectrum to the other without committing a violent crime?

00:22:50.780 And I think, uh, probably no one has done it as effectively as Bill Nye going from so likable

00:22:58.500 to so intensely unlikable.

00:23:01.140 And that's what's happened with Bill Nye.

00:23:02.940 Uh, he, he, but it, it, it shows you what the left has done with science.

00:23:10.360 I think it's kind of, it's, it's sort of perfect that Bill Nye has become the left's scientist.

00:23:16.560 He is their scientist of note, uh, and the guy that they go to, to make a scientific point

00:23:23.580 when he's not even a, he's not a real scientist.

00:23:26.780 He's, as he pointed out in the video, he, he taught, uh, you know, eight-year-olds about

00:23:31.980 photosynthesis back in 1992.

00:23:34.060 That's, those are his scientific credentials.

00:23:36.200 He doesn't really have any others.

00:23:38.180 Um, I think he got a, he got a bachelor's in mechanical engineering or something.

00:23:43.260 That's his whole, that's his science.

00:23:44.800 He got a bachelor's in mechanical engineering, and then he taught eight-year-olds about photosynthesis

00:23:49.820 and that's his whole scientific resume.

00:23:53.000 But it's, it's very telling that the left has taken him and he is now their voice of

00:24:00.520 science because that's what the left has done with science.

00:24:04.740 They've turned it into a, into this, into something that's certainly whatever else you want to say

00:24:11.960 about it, it's not scientific.

00:24:14.200 Um, it's more of a brand.

00:24:16.560 Science is now a brand.

00:24:19.420 And Bill Nye is the, is the mascot for that brand.

00:24:23.980 Um, speaking of brands, Chips Ahoy, uh, decided to celebrate Mother's Day.

00:24:31.900 Chips Ahoy, you know, the company that with the really bad cookies, uh, really inedible cookies.

00:24:39.900 And I'm not just saying that because of this, what I'm about to show you, but who the, especially

00:24:44.260 the, the hard cookies, the Chips Ahoy, I, I, who, does anyone eat those?

00:24:49.960 How could you, I don't, what I don't understand is how could you ever eat a hard pre-packaged

00:24:55.380 chocolate chip cookie?

00:24:56.040 If you've ever had a homemade chocolate chip cookie in your life, how could you possibly

00:25:00.820 eat that other stuff when, when you have that comparison in mind?

00:25:04.360 That's what I don't understand.

00:25:05.260 But that aside, um, this is how they decided to, uh, celebrate Mother's Day.

00:25:10.700 Y'all know what we're celebrating today?

00:25:12.220 Mother's Day.

00:25:12.800 And I am so thankful to have a mother like mine who supports me through all my craziness

00:25:17.400 and loves on me and buys me Chips Ahoy cookies, Chewy, the original, everything under the sun.

00:25:22.960 My mom knows I love my cookies.

00:25:24.160 So get those cookies. 1.00

00:25:25.400 And what's the sweet gesture for you to do to your mama, your real mama, your drag mama, 1.00

00:25:29.220 whichever mama, somebody, whoever take care of you, whoever you feel or consider your

00:25:33.500 mama, it's their day today.

00:25:35.360 Get them a cookie or two, a pack.

00:25:38.040 Buy them all the Chips Ahoy's in the world.

00:25:39.900 I don't know.

00:25:40.700 Or get some milk.

00:25:41.700 Get her some milk too.

00:25:42.440 You can't buy the cookie without some milk, honey.

00:25:44.300 Get those cookies. 0.50

00:25:45.360 It's Mother's Day.

00:25:46.020 It's time to celebrate, love, all that cookies.

00:25:49.720 Get them.

00:25:50.260 And if you don't, how you going to celebrate Mother's Day?

00:25:53.840 It's the new chocolates.

00:25:55.280 Meow.

00:25:58.400 Okay.

00:26:00.220 So now Chips Ahoy, after releasing that video, they have then been, then gone on to

00:26:07.720 taunt the people who are mad because they had a drag queen selling their cookies.

00:26:14.620 And no, but see, this is, again, this is something the left does where they, they, they do something 1.00

00:26:18.740 stupid and bizarre. 1.00

00:26:21.980 And we all say that's stupid and bizarre. 1.00

00:26:24.080 They say, why are you so mad? 1.00

00:26:25.360 Stop freaking out snowflakes.

00:26:27.760 No, we're not mad.

00:26:28.960 And we're just confused.

00:26:31.720 Why do you need a drag queen to sell your cookies? 1.00

00:26:35.240 It's a really weird, bizarre, confusing, dumb thing. 0.99

00:26:39.160 That's all we're saying. 0.99

00:26:40.980 It's not about being mad.

00:26:42.040 I really don't care how Chips Ahoy sells cookies, but why do you need to, if you want to sell

00:26:49.000 cookies, why do you need to put drag queens into it? 1.00

00:26:54.040 You notice this with, with that, this is what they're doing.

00:26:56.820 They, they incorporate drag queens into everything. 1.00

00:26:58.800 Now they're really trying to get this drag queen thing going. 1.00

00:27:01.900 And I've asked this question a million times.

00:27:06.920 I'll ask it now a million and one times.

00:27:09.400 Um, I need someone to explain to me.

00:27:14.060 I, I, I just give me an explanation.

00:27:16.400 How is it that a guy wearing a native American headdress appropriates native American culture, 0.98

00:27:25.240 but that dude in that video doing this ridiculous, embarrassing impression of a woman does not 0.97

00:27:34.260 Appropriate womanhood. 1.00

00:27:36.400 That's what I want to under, how is it that you can appropriate native American culture, uh, black culture, Asian culture,

00:27:44.960 a white person opens up a Chinese food restaurant.

00:27:48.040 He appropriates native American.

00:27:50.040 Okay.

00:27:50.580 That's appropriation.

00:27:51.880 How is that thing that you, that, that act that you just witnessed there?

00:27:57.540 How is that not an appropriation, um, of womanhood?

00:28:02.920 That's all I want to know.

00:28:04.620 That's what I don't understand.

00:28:06.660 All right.

00:28:07.100 Let's go to emails.

00:28:07.920 Matt wall show at gmail.com.

00:28:09.420 Matt wall show at gmail.com.

00:28:11.180 This is from Jay says, Mr.

00:28:12.840 Walsh.

00:28:13.080 I recently asked a good friend of mine, several questions about religion.

00:28:15.560 She's a believer.

00:28:16.240 I am not.

00:28:17.080 She informs me that she has sent religious questions to you and you have answered some of

00:28:20.420 them on your daily show, which she listens to every day.

00:28:22.280 She thought that if I sent my questions directly to your email, you might answer them on your

00:28:26.360 show.

00:28:27.120 The main question I have is why did God create the universe?

00:28:30.460 The only answer I can find on the internet is that he slash she created the universe.

00:28:33.960 So that human beings can worship him slash her. 1.00

00:28:36.820 Why would an all powerful, all knowing, all benevolent supreme being need or even want

00:28:42.240 worship?

00:28:42.820 This does not seem reasonable to me.

00:28:44.820 My other two questions I raised with your listeners are much simpler than the one above.

00:28:47.960 First, why do people have different blood types?

00:28:51.360 It would seem that if everyone had the same blood type, it'd be easier and faster to cure

00:28:54.580 someone who's in need of a blood transfusion.

00:28:56.340 The last question is why do we only have one heart?

00:28:58.780 There are animals that have two hearts.

00:29:00.200 We have two eyes, two ears, two kidneys, two lungs, but only one heart.

00:29:03.280 It says our heart is the only important body part, or is the most important body part,

00:29:07.500 sorry.

00:29:08.520 Not the only important.

00:29:09.860 In order to exist, it would seem that we should have two of those.

00:29:13.420 The last question, the last two questions are similar to the website that asks the question,

00:29:17.700 why won't God heal amputees? 1.00

00:29:20.120 These questions may seem trivial, however, I know that if I had the ability to create

00:29:24.500 a human being without any limitation on my ability to do so, the extra heart is a no-brainer.

00:29:29.980 I'm just trying to find some common sense answers to what I consider reasonable questions.

00:29:34.800 I, and almost all non-believers, would easily become believers if we were shown solid proof

00:29:39.220 that there is a God.

00:29:41.000 They are reasonable questions, yeah.

00:29:42.720 Certainly not unreasonable.

00:29:44.000 Let me, if you don't mind, for this, for our purposes now, I will hone in on one of those

00:29:53.180 questions, and maybe I'll answer the, I can answer the other ones in a follow-up segment of

00:29:58.980 the show.

00:30:00.020 So, why did God create the universe?

00:30:04.700 You said that's the main question.

00:30:06.360 All right.

00:30:06.940 And then this bit about why does he want worship.

00:30:09.780 The way that I would answer that question, and anytime you're dealing with a why question

00:30:17.280 with God, it's, you're not going to be able to get a perfect answer.

00:30:25.060 Because the first answer is, I'm not God, so I can't give you his motivations.

00:30:29.980 I mean, I can't even give you, I can't even tell you for sure the motivations of another

00:30:36.360 mortal human being.

00:30:38.180 I can't tell you for sure why anyone did anything that they did, because that requires

00:30:43.740 me to be able to read their mind, which I can't do.

00:30:47.500 I certainly can't do it for God.

00:30:49.000 I can't even do it for my own kids.

00:30:52.240 But what we can do is arrive at some reasonable conclusions based on our own logical thinking

00:31:00.420 and based on what they told us, and we can patch that together and come up with maybe

00:31:06.460 some ideas to what their motivation was.

00:31:09.900 So, my answer would be that God created the universe out of an act of love.

00:31:16.720 Now, the Christian belief is that God is all loving, as you, I think, mentioned in your

00:31:21.560 email.

00:31:22.980 Well, a love, right?

00:31:26.860 Love seeks an object.

00:31:30.000 Love is directed towards something or someone.

00:31:36.720 And so, it makes sense that God, out of this act of love, if it is perfect love, then it

00:31:43.680 is creative love.

00:31:44.820 It is love that creates its own object of its love.

00:31:50.580 It creates something to love.

00:31:53.540 And so, that's the way that I look at it.

00:31:54.880 And that's the answer also that I get from Scripture.

00:31:58.940 That's the answer I get from 2,000 years of Christian teaching and Christian philosophy,

00:32:03.580 is that God created the universe out of an act of love.

00:32:06.600 And it created us in order to love us.

00:32:12.740 Now, in terms of worship, why does God want to be worshipped?

00:32:17.240 I would put it a different way.

00:32:19.340 But it's more that we, as human beings, have a need to worship.

00:32:27.140 And I think even as an atheist, you would see that, right?

00:32:32.980 We have a need to look up to someone or something, to admire something, to have a kind of model to

00:32:42.920 strive to emulate, something to strive towards.

00:32:47.440 And I think you see that all throughout human history.

00:32:49.640 And you see it in the hearts of all human beings.

00:32:53.660 And I think as an atheist, you have to ask yourself, well, how did that come about?

00:32:56.960 If we are nothing but the product of blind evolution, then where did this capacity, not just capacity, but need to worship?

00:33:06.740 What evolutionary advantage is there to that?

00:33:10.540 And how is it that unthinking matter could develop this desire, need for something like worship?

00:33:20.800 It just, it seems illogical that unthinking, inanimate matter could create that.

00:33:27.900 So, I don't know.

00:33:30.960 I think you have your own question to answer, which is, how did we get this need and desire for worship?

00:33:37.440 Where does the concept of worship even come from in a godless universe?

00:33:41.720 My answer is that it is a fundamental desire, part of the human condition.

00:33:51.560 And so, we're going to worship something.

00:33:55.980 You might worship money, you worship your career, you might worship your people around you, you worship celebrities, people worship a lot of things.

00:34:02.440 But what God is saying is, none of those things are appropriate objects for worship, because none of those things are perfect.

00:34:12.740 None of those things are all-powerful.

00:34:15.280 None of those things created you.

00:34:18.860 What God is saying is, I am all those things, so I am the proper direction for your worship to be, to go towards.

00:34:32.620 I am the proper object of your worship.

00:34:36.580 So, I think that's what it's about.

00:34:37.720 It's just about the proper ordering of this innate desire that we have.

00:34:45.580 So, I'll tell you what.

00:34:46.400 Why don't you, I just posed a question to you, and email me back in answer to that question.

00:34:51.280 I'm very curious to see what your answer will be, and then we can continue the discussion from there.

00:34:55.400 This is from Michael, says, Mr. Walsh, why is my generation so ungrateful?

00:34:59.380 We live in literally the best time in history, yet all we do is complain about the patriarchy, corporate overlords, and so on.

00:35:07.220 What's wrong with people that they can't see how great life is?

00:35:11.160 Yeah, well, this is one of the problems when you, it's just, we're talking about the human condition.

00:35:15.520 So, it goes back, here's another thing with the human condition, is that you take for granted, we just naturally take for granted, the situation that we are born into.

00:35:25.020 It's just, so it's hard for us, we are born into this very comfortable existence, and we can acknowledge intellectually that there are people in the world who don't have such an existence.

00:35:42.180 And we can acknowledge that, if we look back through history, there was a time when almost nobody lived such an existence.

00:35:49.380 We can acknowledge that, we know that it's true, but we can't really appreciate it.

00:35:53.840 To us, it's abstract, it's just a fact that's hovering out there.

00:36:00.740 Until we've experienced it.

00:36:02.460 Now, someone who falls on hard times, and lives a destitute, impoverished life for a time, and then climbs back out of that, well, now they can appreciate more of their comfort.

00:36:15.300 But if you've never experienced that, it's hard to appreciate it.

00:36:18.120 And I think that's the answer.

00:36:19.620 And that's one of the reasons why I am such an advocate for people leaving, rather than staying home with your family until you're 27 or 28, and then you're financially stable, then you go out and you get married or whatever.

00:36:42.140 Go out on your own before that, and really on your own, without your parents bankrolling it.

00:36:50.720 Leave the house when you're 18, 19, 20, and live on your own, and make some sacrifices, and live a less comfortable life.

00:36:59.300 Take care of yourself.

00:37:00.840 Learn how to do that.

00:37:02.840 And it's going to make you more grateful for the comforts of life, I think, among all the other advantages.

00:37:09.140 And, you know, when I say that about how well we should leave the home, people will say to me that, yeah, but historically, you'll find that people would stay home with their families until they got married.

00:37:22.120 And that's the way that it worked historically, all throughout human history.

00:37:26.480 And that's true.

00:37:27.400 But the difference is that, you know, back in the day, a man would stay home in his parents' house until he got married.

00:37:36.180 But, you know what, he was working the farm.

00:37:38.440 He was doing something.

00:37:40.100 It was not an easy, comfortable life.

00:37:42.040 He wasn't just living at home and his parents were taking care of him when he was 23.

00:37:45.940 No, he was out working the fields at the age of 20.

00:37:49.620 At the age of 12, he was out there doing that.

00:37:51.300 He was doing something.

00:37:52.080 He was contributing to the family.

00:37:53.780 It was a hard, tough existence.

00:37:56.860 And he was helping to keep the family going until he went out and started his own family.

00:38:03.040 That's completely different.

00:38:04.080 And there are still places in the world where that's the way it works.

00:38:06.200 That's completely different from what we have today, which is you just stay home and your parents take care of you like you're a baby until you're 28.

00:38:15.000 And then you go out and they're still paying your bills and everything.

00:38:17.940 And that's completely different.

00:38:20.740 That is what we have today are people who are infantilized.

00:38:24.780 And among all the problems with that, I think you have this lack of gratitude where people have never had to sacrifice.

00:38:35.400 They've never had to go without.

00:38:36.540 They've never really had to struggle.

00:38:38.300 They've never had to really worry about where's their next meal going to come from?

00:38:42.940 How are they going to pay their bills?

00:38:44.500 Never had those worries.

00:38:45.780 And so they end up being ungrateful brats.

00:38:49.560 Great question, though.

00:38:50.400 Both of them were great questions.

00:38:52.040 So I thank you for that.

00:38:53.080 And we'll leave it there.

00:38:53.860 Thanks for watching, everybody.

00:38:55.300 Godspeed.

00:38:55.720 Today on The Ben Shapiro Show, the Trump administration doubles down on the Chinese trade war and Democrats defend anti-Semitism as usual. 0.80

00:39:16.320 That's today on The Ben Shapiro Show.

The Matt Walsh Show - May 14, 2019

Ep 259 - Overpopulation And Other Myths

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