The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 318 - The Suicide Conspiracy Theory

00:00:00.000 Well, curiouser and curiouser. We get more and more strange details about the Epstein case every

00:00:08.280 day, it seems. And here's the latest. Reading now from the Daily Wire's report, it says,

00:00:13.780 an autopsy of convicted pedophile and alleged sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein reportedly found

00:00:19.180 that the wealthy financier had multiple broken bones in his neck, which deepens the speculation

00:00:25.260 surrounding his death last Saturday. Among the bones, this is the Washington Post now being

00:00:28.640 quoted, among the bones broken in Epstein's neck was the hyoid bone, which in men is near the Adam's

00:00:34.980 apple. Such breaks can occur in those who hang themselves, particularly if they're older,

00:00:39.120 according to forensic experts and studies on the subject, but they are more common in victims of

00:00:43.840 homicide by strangulation, the expert said. The New York Post reported on Monday that Epstein was found

00:00:51.080 hanging in his lower Manhattan jail cell with a bed sheet wrapped around his neck and secured to the

00:00:56.460 top of a bunk bed and apparently killed himself by kneeling toward the floor and strangling himself.

00:01:04.200 The revelation about the broken bones that were found in Epstein's neck followed the revelation

00:01:07.660 on Tuesday night that the two guards who were supposed to be monitoring him fell asleep for three hours

00:01:12.500 and allegedly falsified prison records to cover up their actions.

00:01:16.360 Okay. Now, I don't want to get too graphic here, but let's imagine this for a moment. Let's try to wrap

00:01:28.100 our heads around it. The official preliminary story is that Epstein hung himself by, as I just read there,

00:01:34.700 tying a bed sheet around his neck, tying the other end to a bunk bed, and then leaning forward on his knees.

00:01:42.000 So, he was about six feet tall, 200 pounds. He obviously couldn't have jumped from the bunk bed to hang himself,

00:01:49.800 but they're not claiming that. They're telling us that he leaned forward. This is already hard to imagine.

00:01:55.680 I mean, just really, try to imagine for a second a 200-pound man trying to hang himself by leaning forward

00:02:03.160 with a bed sheet around his neck. The body's natural reflex is to save itself.

00:02:08.680 No matter how much you, in your mind, want to kill yourself, your body does not want that.

00:02:15.280 And so, your body's going to just, there's a natural reflex there.

00:02:19.240 I mean, that's one of the reasons why you can't kill yourself by just literally strangling yourself

00:02:24.840 with your own bare hands. And this is why people usually hang themselves by jumping from a chair or

00:02:31.380 something so that they're, you know, dangling there. Again, not to be gratuitous about it, but

00:02:36.300 they won't be able to do anything to regain control of themselves and save themselves.

00:02:43.780 The point is, to successfully kill yourself the way Epstein supposedly did would require just,

00:02:50.340 I think, an immense amount of determination and effort for lack of a better term.

00:02:55.320 But then you throw the broken bones in there. Bones, plural, not just one bone.

00:03:01.740 There's been a lot of focus today on this, the one bone underneath the Adam's apple that's

00:03:06.720 mentioned in the report. But it's not just that, but there are multiple bones broken in his neck.

00:03:12.840 Now, you heard that this happens in a small minority of cases.

00:03:17.520 I didn't read that part, actually. The Washington Post noted that varying studies

00:03:22.240 of those who have committed suicide have found that 6% to 25% of them break the hyoid bone,

00:03:33.100 which is one of the broken bones in Epstein's neck. So 6% to 25%.

00:03:36.160 Well, that's just the one bone. It would be an even smaller percentage that break multiple bones.

00:03:42.760 And keep in mind that most of those hangings, presumably, involve someone who was dangling,

00:03:50.680 someone who jumped from something. But even in most of those cases, there aren't any broken bones.

00:04:01.180 In this case, though, leaning forward with a bedsheet around his neck,

00:04:07.000 I just, I don't see, I don't see how that's possible. I just, I don't see it.

00:04:11.480 I suppose I can't say it's impossible, but it's, that's, that's a really hard thing to imagine.

00:04:17.540 Now, let's take this and review all of the alleged information as we currently know it.

00:04:22.940 And let's, let's, let's see what explanation as it stands right now seems to be the most reasonable.

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00:05:44.340 for more information. All right. So Epstein, um, so we have these mysterious broken bones in his neck.

00:05:51.360 You add this revelation to reports that Epstein was taken off a suicide watch as, as we already knew.

00:05:57.520 His cellmate was transferred out of his cell. The prison guards both simultaneously fell asleep,

00:06:02.860 supposedly. Um, the records were falsified. And according to some reports that were shrieking

00:06:08.420 heard from Epstein's cell, although it didn't specify when the shrieking was heard in relation

00:06:13.000 to when the suicide happened, the alleged suicide happened. And, um, in fact, if we're tabulating

00:06:18.100 strange details here in this case, I think the very fact that he killed himself is itself arguably

00:06:24.560 strange. Now, as I said earlier in the week, you could easily see why somebody would kill

00:06:29.540 themselves in this situation facing a life behind bars as a child rapist, especially in comparison

00:06:35.740 to the life he was leading before private jets and private islands and everything else. Um,

00:06:40.860 so you could, you could see that, but then on the other hand, he had all the leverage in the world,

00:06:46.120 really. I mean, there are, um, there are people more empowered, powerful and important than him

00:06:51.400 who he could have flipped on and leverage that for something. Plus he'd spent decades of his life

00:07:00.360 compiling blackmail on people just for this very reason as an insurance policy

00:07:05.840 for just this occasion. Then the occasion arises and he kills himself. I don't know.

00:07:14.680 Yeah. You could say, well, it's hard to know what prison would do to a man. You know,

00:07:18.980 if you'd never been to prison, it's hard to imagine how it changes you. Not that I've been,

00:07:23.240 you know, I sound like Morgan Freeman and Shawshank Redemption. Uh, you can't imagine

00:07:26.860 what prison would do to a man, but I mean, really you can't. So there there's that also it's possible,

00:07:31.420 but, but still all of these things, it's, it's a cumulative effect. Now, when you look at all these

00:07:36.820 factors together, you look at the totality of thing, it's beginning to seem to me that the suicide

00:07:42.340 explanation is still possible, obviously, but it's beginning to look like the most implausible

00:07:50.540 conspiracy theory. You know, I originally said that the idea that, that someone offed him

00:07:56.140 was perfectly reasonable and plausible, but, but originally at the beginning of the week,

00:08:00.140 anyway, based on what we knew at the time, it seemed like the most plausible explanation was

00:08:04.240 the more banal one, which is that he really just killed himself and was enabled to do that

00:08:07.940 by the incompetence of the government. But that was before we knew about the shrieking,

00:08:13.520 about the guard supposedly falling asleep, about the falsification of records,

00:08:16.680 and now the broken bones in the neck. And this to me, the broken bones in the neck to me is very,

00:08:21.240 very significant. And if we're following Occam's razor, which says that the explanation,

00:08:26.840 which requires the fewest number of strange coincidences, really the explanation that, um,

00:08:34.040 requires you the fewest, uh, it requires the fewest number of additional explanations is probably

00:08:42.220 correct. You have an explanation where there are a lot of other elements in that explanation that

00:08:47.720 you also have to explain. And then you have another explanation that has fewer of those. Well,

00:08:52.600 then that other one is probably correct. That's kind of how Occam's razor works. And according to that,

00:08:57.400 it seems that not suicide, something other than suicide is beginning to appear to be the most

00:09:06.320 plausible option. Uh, because the suicide explanation at this point requires a whole lot

00:09:15.140 of coincidences. You know, it requires us to believe that a lot of different factors

00:09:22.580 just sort of coincidentally all lined up with each other possible, but hard to believe,

00:09:34.760 you know, in fact, if you had told me when this story came out that the prison guard,

00:09:40.980 both the prison guards fell asleep for three hours, both of them, um,

00:09:45.600 that, that was a big red flag to me. If you had told me that, well, no, they were there and,

00:09:52.120 um, they were checking every 30 minutes like they're supposed to, but Epstein hung himself

00:09:56.280 in between that 30 minute stretch. I would have found that a lot more plausible. It doesn't take

00:10:01.020 30 minutes to hang yourself. I don't know how long it takes a couple of minutes, right? So if you had

00:10:05.840 told me that, then I would say, Oh, you know, okay. But no, now you're saying they both fell asleep

00:10:12.480 for three hours, both of them. That's, you know, that's, that's, that's, uh, that's tough.

00:10:22.640 And then they falsified the records. I don't know, but you know, uh, my, my, my fear is that

00:10:30.840 whatever happened, we're never going to find out for sure, especially with our illustrious media,

00:10:36.640 which seems to be losing interest in this, this story. I mean, this to me is definitely the

00:10:45.460 biggest story going on happening right now, uh, in America anyway, when you consider the

00:10:50.480 implications, this should still be headline news. I mean, this should be leading the news

00:10:56.140 broadcasts. It would seem, but it's not the media is already trying to move on from it.

00:11:01.700 Um, and I think we all know why that is when you consider the political leanings of some of the

00:11:08.040 people potentially who could have potentially been implicated by, uh, by Epstein. All right. Um,

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00:12:38.760 and, uh, you can look better in the process. Okay. Um, the website pink news is a prominent

00:12:47.260 gay news site, uh, based in the UK. I believe they had an article in a video up yesterday

00:12:53.060 celebrating the story of Mark and Caleb. Mark is 55 and Caleb is 22 and they've been in a quote

00:13:03.120 unquote relationship for six years. And now they're, now they're getting married. Now I'll let you do the

00:13:09.340 math on that. Caleb is 22. Mark is 55. They've been dating for six years.

00:13:17.700 Dating again, quotes, just imagine the scare quotes around many of the words I'm saying

00:13:22.280 here, dating relationship. Um, uh, because this discourse is not relationship and it's not dating.

00:13:27.940 This is grooming and, and sexual abuse. This means that they started this, uh, interaction

00:13:39.340 when Mark was a 49 year old man and Caleb was a minor. Now pink news has since taken down the,

00:13:46.160 the video and the news article, but here's a screenshot for you. I'll show you, I'm sorry

00:13:50.300 to subject you to this, but, uh, but there you go. There it is. Totally normal, right? Totally

00:13:55.520 normal for a man in his fifties to be dating a boy who was in high school at the time when they met,

00:14:00.460 um, uh, you know, a guy who even now looks to be about 12 and wears makeup. Totally normal,

00:14:06.960 you know, for, for a grown man to be right. Completely normal. Nothing we could say about

00:14:11.600 that. Well, no, it's not normal. Uh, and it's not okay, but the goal is to make this normal.

00:14:18.780 And I've been warning about this for years. I keep, and I'll keep warning about it because I truly

00:14:23.560 believe that the normalization of pedophilia is the next frontier for the left. We're already there.

00:14:28.400 They're all, they're doing it right now. That's what this is. Not in those words. Okay. They're

00:14:33.500 never going to get to a point. There will never be a point where the left is saying, yeah, pedophilia

00:14:38.500 is okay. They're going to use different words. That's what they always do. But these kinds of

00:14:45.540 stories here, they're the perfect tool for the normalizers of this kind of thing, because

00:14:51.640 technically, uh, and I was informed of this when I was posting about it yesterday on Twitter,

00:14:56.940 some people say, well, you know, technically this is legal, but I mean, you put up the picture

00:15:02.600 again, let's, let's watch, let's look at that picture one more time. Um, technically you see

00:15:07.200 this right here, technically is legal. Technically, apparently they started quote dating when Caleb

00:15:13.280 had reached the age of consent, technically legal, legal. Now we all know though, that even

00:15:20.120 if that's technically legal, it's still sick and gross and morally deranged and evil and, 0.92

00:15:26.160 and just awful. We know that. We also know that if you're a 49 year old man, sexually attracted 0.90

00:15:33.660 to 16 year old boys who look about 10, that probably means that your attractions, well,

00:15:40.960 it's unlikely that your sexual attraction just automatically happens to cut off at the age

00:15:47.940 of, uh, at the legal age of consent. You know, if you're a 49 year old man attracted to 16 year

00:15:54.380 old boys, it's pretty unlikely that, oh, 15, 14 year old boys. Oh, no way. 13. No. If your

00:16:03.060 attractions go in that direction and that young, um, it, it, it probably extends further than the

00:16:12.680 legal age of consent is what I'm saying. So this kind of story, the reason why pink news presented 0.72

00:16:18.480 it to us in such a happy and cheerful way is that it moves society in the direction of seeing these

00:16:25.600 kinds of things as normal and okay. Of course, pink news is not going to show us a story

00:16:31.940 you know, about a, about a 50 year old man in a quote unquote relationship with an eight year old

00:16:37.540 boy. They're not going to do that. Um, even if the people who run that site would personally have

00:16:42.980 no problem with that, uh, there's, there's still not going to show us that, but they're going to

00:16:47.940 do something like this where they could say it's legal. It's just like the video I played earlier

00:16:52.740 in the week of a drag queen at a drag queen story hour, teaching kids how to twerk, technically legal,

00:16:57.840 I guess. Uh, or the thing a few weeks ago of, of little kids at a story hour who were crawling

00:17:03.780 on a drag queen while he laid on the ground and little children were crawling on him or the thing 0.73

00:17:09.000 where the, uh, the 11 year old drag queen danced at a gay bar while grown men threw money at him.

00:17:15.820 All of that technically legal. It shouldn't be by the way, it definitely should not be legal for a 0.99

00:17:22.760 child to dance at a gay bar. Uh, I don't think it should be legal for a drag queen to go to a bunch 1.00

00:17:28.160 of kids and start twerking for them. I, I think that's sexual harassment of children. That should 1.00

00:17:32.540 be illegal too, but it's not apparently. So the normalizers can always hide behind that and say,

00:17:37.740 it's legal, man. Yeah. So what? It doesn't change the fact that it's evil

00:17:42.380 and that doesn't change what, what they're trying to condition us for. Um, and I, I would,

00:17:52.580 when we talk about normalizing of, of pedophilia and child sexual abuse, um, the biggest example,

00:17:57.440 which I haven't, I haven't even mentioned is, is, is the very fact that we're told that three-year-old

00:18:02.460 children can choose their own gender. You know, the fact that we have eight-year-old quote unquote

00:18:07.560 transgenders, that's, that's part of this too, because what are we saying? We're saying, oh, 0.99

00:18:13.620 well, kids are old enough to make these kinds of decisions for themselves. If an eight-year-old boy

00:18:19.640 is old enough to decide his own gender, then, uh, then, you know, the next thing we're going to be

00:18:25.860 told eventually is that eight-year-old boys are also old enough to consent to sexual relationships.

00:18:30.900 We need to, I mean, the main thing I think that has hampered the conservative movement for years

00:18:38.740 now is an inability among so many of us to see where things are headed, which isn't to say that

00:18:46.240 we all need to be prophets. Uh, I'm certainly not. And we don't need to see the future, but we should

00:18:53.720 have a sense. We should be able to look at where we are now and, and, and we should have an intuition

00:18:59.740 of where, what's going to happen next. And I think for a long time, many conservatives, especially the

00:19:05.780 so-called thought leaders, uh, at the head of the conservative movement movement have not been very

00:19:10.680 good at that. And so we're constantly being blindsided by things like this. The whole transgender 1.00

00:19:18.480 thing kind of blindsided the conservative movement, where it seemed like all of a sudden they're saying

00:19:22.920 that, you know, everyone's lost their sense of what a man or woman is and people can choose their

00:19:27.600 own gender. And, and, uh, I think for a long time, conservatives were kind of fumbling around like,

00:19:31.220 what's going on? How did this happen? Well, if you've been paying attention, that shouldn't have

00:19:35.240 surprised you. So 10 years from now, you know, 10 years from now, I don't want to hear conservatives

00:19:43.240 throwing their hands up and say, what's happening? How did this happen? Now that pedophilia is totally

00:19:47.300 normal and okay. And you have, you even have Democrats openly arguing to legalize it.

00:19:51.500 Don't be surprised. Especially if you're not saying anything about it now, don't act surprised

00:19:59.140 when it actually happens. All right. Uh, before we go to emails, uh, at mattwalshowatgmail.com's

00:20:08.400 email address, before we do that, I wanted to make mention of this as well. Um, and I've had this on

00:20:13.560 the, on deck to talk about for a few days now, Marty Sampson, who is, uh, well, was, I guess,

00:20:19.980 a songwriter for the Christian band Hillsong United, very popular Christian band recently

00:20:25.880 announced that he's losing his faith. Uh, he's questioning things. He's beginning to suspect.

00:20:29.860 It seems that Christianity is false, that Jesus is not the Messiah, that I guess God doesn't exist.

00:20:35.260 Um, and this is just the latest prominent Christian to leave the faith or, or to consider leaving the

00:20:41.460 faith in the last few months. That's why this is sort of, um, you know, to have one guy who comes out

00:20:47.180 and says, this is not terribly shocking, but this is, this is part of the pattern now.

00:20:52.740 Um, it's really becoming a trend where you've got prominent pastors. There was the guy who wrote the,

00:20:59.580 uh, why I kissed dating goodbye. What was his name? Joshua Harris. I believe he, he, he left the faith.

00:21:06.300 So there'd been a number in the last few months. And now we have Marty Sampson.

00:21:09.760 Here's let me read part of what he said. He posted this to Instagram. He deleted the post,

00:21:13.900 which I'm, I am somewhat surprised he deleted it because you said it. We all know it. I don't

00:21:21.040 know what deleting it's going to do. But, um, so he said in part, he said, time for some real talk.

00:21:26.140 I'm genuinely, I'm genuinely losing my faith and it doesn't bother me. Like what bothers me now is

00:21:30.740 nothing. I am so happy now. So at peace with the world, it's crazy. This is a soapbox moment. So here I

00:21:37.000 go, uh, the grammar's here a little bad. So little, the grammar here is a little tough. So I'm,

00:21:44.440 I'm going to stumble through this. Okay. Um, how many, how many preachers fall? Many. No one talks

00:21:50.880 about it. How many miracles happen? Not many. No one talks about it. Why is the Bible full of

00:21:56.400 contradictions? No one talks about it. How can God be love yet send 4 billion people to a place all

00:22:03.260 because all because they don't believe a place. I assume he's talking about help. No one talks about

00:22:08.880 it. Christians can be the most judgmental people on the planet. They can also be some of the most 1.00

00:22:13.020 beautiful and loving people, but it's not for me. I am not in anymore. I want genuine truth. Not the,

00:22:19.660 I just believe it kind of truth. Science keeps piercing the truth of every religion. Lots of things help

00:22:24.860 people change their lives. Not just one version of God got so much more to say, but for me, I'm keeping

00:22:29.980 it real. Unfollow if you want. I've never been about living my life for others. Okay. Now a lot

00:22:36.660 of what he says, um, and I think, uh, since that post, he's, he's posted other things saying that,

00:22:43.700 you know, he hasn't left the faith, but he's struggling and he's looking into various apologists

00:22:47.520 and so on. Um, now a lot of, a lot of what he's, of what he says, no one talks about. In fact,

00:22:56.560 we do talk about those things. I know I do. And I have on this show, the failure of, of pastors

00:23:01.960 were the first thing that he mentioned said pastors fall. I assume he means all these various scandals

00:23:06.340 involving pastors and priests, um, and other Christian leaders. That is a regular topic of

00:23:12.840 conversation among many Christians. It's something I've talked about many times. So I think that's

00:23:17.620 just not true that we don't talk about those things. Alleged Bible contradictions. Well, with that,

00:23:23.300 I think I actually agree with him that, that, um, that I think there isn't a lot of talk about,

00:23:27.880 about that. Um, it's not something that pastors generally address from the pulpit. It's not

00:23:32.860 something that Christians generally will talk about in my experience. If you're into apologetics and you

00:23:37.740 like reading apologetics and, and, and, and listening to theologians and apologists as they talk about

00:23:43.940 these things, well then sure. Then you've, you've heard these, those kinds of matters discussed and

00:23:48.140 addressed and explained, but, um, not on a popular level. And most Christians, even though I think 1.00

00:23:54.240 they should, most Christians aren't really reading apologetics and, and they're not really into 1.00

00:24:00.440 theology. And so they're getting, their, their helping of Christianity is going to come from their

00:24:07.300 church, from their pastor, from the people around them on the more popular sort of level. And on that

00:24:13.380 level, I think that there is a failure to address some of this stuff, uh, including the issues with

00:24:19.300 the Bible. Um, for example, why aren't pastors getting up on the pulpit? And I, and maybe you'll,

00:24:28.120 I'm sure I'll get emails, people saying, Oh, my pastor does talk about it. Okay. Well then,

00:24:31.280 but I think your pastor is an exception for the most part. Why aren't, why aren't pastors getting up

00:24:36.740 on the pulpit and talking through, uh, say the infancy narratives and talking about the differences

00:24:43.580 and challenges there and, and how to reconcile them? Because if you don't talk about it now, I

00:24:49.400 know the infancy narratives in the Bible are talked about from the pulpit quite a bit, especially around

00:24:53.840 Christmas time. But usually what happens is that the pastor or priest is up there and he's, and he's

00:24:58.400 just giving you the sort of standard story of Jesus that we're all familiar with, which is a

00:25:02.520 harmonization of Luke and Matthew. What you don't usually hear is a pastor get up and say, okay,

00:25:07.240 this is what Luke says. Here's what Matthew says. Let's, you know, here's, here are the differences.

00:25:12.200 Let's talk through this. The fact is, uh, you know, Matthew and Luke tell, seem to tell wildly

00:25:19.200 divergent stories. Um, Luke has the Holy family going to Bethlehem for a census. Matthew has them

00:25:26.300 already living there to begin the narrative. Luke has them returning home after a visit from the

00:25:31.840 shepherds and then going to the present, uh, Jesus in the temple. Then he goes, they go home,

00:25:36.500 um, to Nazareth. Matthew makes room for a years long flight to Egypt to escape the slaughter of

00:25:44.300 the innocents in Bethlehem, an event that Luke never mentions. And then Matthew says that they were going

00:25:48.660 to go back to Bethlehem, implying that that was their home originally, but then they decided to go

00:25:52.960 instead to Nazareth when, uh, Joseph was warned in a dream that, you know, it wouldn't be safe to go

00:25:58.580 back there. So, and, and so on and so on. Now I think there are ways of dealing with this,

00:26:03.180 uh, ways of, of understanding it. But the point is I, I had to go on my own and first discover these

00:26:11.580 difficulties and then hunt down answers to them. And it, and it had, you know, when I've struggled

00:26:19.340 with some of the stuff or looked at it, looked into it, I've had the experience of trying to talk to

00:26:23.840 other Christians about it. And either they have no idea because they've never studied this.

00:26:28.380 Yeah. I can't tell you how many Christians don't actually know the story of Jesus's birth.

00:26:34.440 And they couldn't tell you what Luke says, as opposed to what Matthew says.

00:26:38.940 That's, I mean, that's pitiful. And I admit that I was in that camp for a long time

00:26:42.780 because I hadn't actually sat down myself and said, let me study this myself rather than just

00:26:49.320 taking whatever version is given to me by someone else. It's, it's, it's pathetic. 0.99

00:26:55.680 Um, so there are, there are ways of, of, of going through this, but I think that these are issues 0.91

00:27:07.200 that should be addressed head on from the pulpit. These are not issues that we should be afraid of.

00:27:13.000 Um, so what, what Samson is saying here, I think we should take it more seriously than a lot of

00:27:19.940 Christians seem to be. Also, you know, I'll just say this. I've been watching the reaction among

00:27:26.660 Christians to the, to this, you know, latest Christian leader questioning his faith and the

00:27:30.860 reaction among some Christians, unfortunately, very loud ones, not all of them, probably not the

00:27:35.420 majority, but, but some has been, in my opinion, horrible, you know, screaming at the guy that he was

00:27:42.480 never a true Christian, that he's an apostate, et cetera, et cetera. That's not the right response

00:27:47.100 here. All you're going to do is scare him away forever. When you react to him, I mean, what do

00:27:51.420 you think when someone says, look, I'm really struggling, you know, I'm questioning these

00:27:56.160 things and you say, ah, you, then you were never a real Christian to begin with. Get out of here. 0.94

00:27:59.940 Like, what do you, how, what do you think that's going to accomplish? It makes you feel better

00:28:05.060 because he had a temper tantrum, but is that going to help save his soul? Especially because he didn't

00:28:11.100 say exactly that he's leaving Christianity. He said he was having doubts, serious doubts.

00:28:15.820 He was, he was struggling. His faith is dwindling. Um, and, uh, I mean, he claimed that he was at

00:28:22.440 peace and happy, but I, that, that, that, that's, I don't really believe that, um, you know, to have

00:28:29.060 your whole world upside down and questioning the fundamental truths that you, that you were raised

00:28:34.200 on. I mean, there's no way you're happy with that. That's not, you don't get happiness out of that.

00:28:37.480 That's a, this is obviously someone who's in a lot of emotional turmoil. The guy opened up,

00:28:41.420 he was honest about his struggles. And our response to that is what, to accuse him, to yell at him,

00:28:46.340 to get angry, try to invalidate everything he's saying as if there's no validity to it at all,

00:28:51.040 as if he's, as if, as if he's just imagining it, which is what some, I, I, you know, I've read a few

00:28:55.980 more lengthy responses to this Marty Sampson thing from some, you know, supposed Christian,

00:29:00.820 you know, leaders and, and, and apologists. And some of it has been Bible contradictions.

00:29:05.700 What are you talking about? That's ridiculous. If you knew the Bible, you would know that there 0.97

00:29:09.180 are no contradictions, you idiot. I mean, paraphrasing, but that's kind of been the 1.00

00:29:12.500 reaction. That's not right. Um, and what he's saying, you know, some of these issues here in

00:29:17.920 the Bible, it's, it's, it's, it's not crazy to notice them. There are some real serious issues that,

00:29:24.520 that are very difficult to understand. And it's not as simple as, oh yeah, well, you know,

00:29:30.180 you can't just wave it off. I mean, you, and there have been, you could spend your whole life

00:29:35.780 studying just the, the, these issues with the infancy narratives, which, which some people have,

00:29:40.240 you could write, I mean, whole volumes have been written about it. That's how complex the issue is.

00:29:46.760 So when someone says, you know, man, I'm struggling with this, I really, to wave it off and say,

00:29:52.060 what are you talking about? You can't see how it fits together. You idiot. That's not the right,

00:29:57.340 not the right response. I think when someone opens up like this and is honest about their

00:30:01.420 thought process, our response should be, okay, thank you for being honest. Let's talk about it.

00:30:06.520 Let's talk through this because, um, I'll tell you this. If someone, if people are shouted at

00:30:11.960 for opening up about their doubts and their issues, they're going to stop opening up and instead they're

00:30:17.980 just going to drift away. You know, if, if that's the reaction they get, I mean, I think that's probably

00:30:23.460 why he took down the Instagram post because the reaction was so hostile.

00:30:27.340 And so he, but then what's going to happen? He's just going to say, you know what? Screw

00:30:30.460 these people then in that case, I can't talk to them. I can't be honest with them.

00:30:35.600 I think as, as Christians, as Christians, our religion cannot function like a cult.

00:30:42.960 I mean, that, that's the accusation to hear from atheists is that we're a bunch of cultists.

00:30:47.380 Well, we're not. I mean, some, by some definitions of cult, that technically every religion is a

00:30:54.680 cult by some definite, but you know, in the pejorative sense, when they, when, when, when

00:30:58.800 someone says, oh, you're a cult, what they mean is just a bunch of mindless drones. You're being,

00:31:03.120 you know, you're, you're brainwashed, um, and all that kind of stuff. And that of course is not

00:31:08.960 true fundamentally about Christianity, but it is true that some Christians do operate that way

00:31:14.360 where they don't, you know, questioning is not welcome. If you have any doubts, then you're,

00:31:21.800 you're, you're screamed at for them. Um, people who, you know, stray are, are treated like the enemy.

00:31:29.740 I mean, there is some of that. And then also the, the hesitancy of a lot of pastors to address some

00:31:37.360 of these theological issues head on from the pulpit, like the Bible, you know, like the difficulties with

00:31:43.540 the Bible and so on that. The problem is if you don't address it and you're not upfront. Um,

00:31:51.700 and then, so a lot of people just don't even know that these issues exist. Well, when they go on their

00:31:57.000 own and discover the issues, they're going to feel like they were lied to. They're going to feel like

00:32:02.380 you were keeping a secret. And then they're going to start to feel like, oh, I was, I was, you know,

00:32:08.040 they're going to start to feel like maybe someone from Scientology who wakes up one day and realizes

00:32:12.200 this stuff is crazy. That's how they're going to feel. If you're not upfront about it.

00:32:18.220 Um, he, he brings up the issue of, of, uh, you know, a loving God sending people to hell.

00:32:22.960 Well, again, I mean, this of course is, he's certainly not the first person to raise this

00:32:26.880 issue. Obviously people talk about it, but this is another one in my experience. That is not the

00:32:33.400 kind of issue that pastors will generally talk about from the pulpit. They're not going to talk

00:32:39.700 about that. They're not going to talk about things like how could God allow children to

00:32:44.140 die of cancer? You know, things like that. Yeah, it's discussed, but I think sort of out

00:32:49.560 on the peripherals. And if you want to engage in a discussion like that or to get those answers,

00:32:55.520 you have to really pursue them because you're not going to get it on the mainstream level.

00:33:01.880 What you're going to get in a lot of churches is just shallow surface level talking points,

00:33:08.220 self-help, life advice, that kind of thing. You're not going to get these deeper, more complex

00:33:15.400 discussions where these really difficult issues are faced head on. And I think that's a huge mistake.

00:33:22.960 And I think that's one of the reasons why people like Marty Sampson end up leaving.

00:33:33.400 So we should all pray for him. All right, mattwalshowatgmail.com, mattwalshowatgmail.com.

00:33:41.180 This is from Arthur, says, I've lost all my respect for you as a person. Frodo from Lord of the Rings

00:33:45.740 is a hobbit, not a dwarf, which you incorrectly identified on yesterday's show. I demand that

00:33:50.680 you apologize for your clear prejudice against hobbits, that you recant your pro-dwarf extremism,

00:33:55.160 that you denounce elves for existing. You know, Arthur, I've gotten so many emails from people

00:34:00.900 scolding me because I incorrectly said that Frodo is a dwarf. And of course, I know that Frodo is a

00:34:08.640 hobbit. Okay? I am an expert on Lord of the Rings. Just because I misspoke doesn't mean I'm not an

00:34:14.680 expert. So you don't need to lecture me. I mean, there are so many great scenes from Lord of the Rings.

00:34:19.740 You know, I can't even, I couldn't even begin to tell you my favorite, but one of my favorites,

00:34:25.100 I really liked that scene when Frodo was fighting Voldemort in the Millennium Falcon. But then Captain

00:34:32.140 Kirk comes in and he has his lightsaber. But then the Hulk is there and punches him and he knocks him

00:34:38.000 into Batman. That was a great scene. One of the classics. Just great, great stuff there.

00:34:45.980 All right. This is from Nicholas. Hi, Matt. Nick B from Denver. I understand the vegetarian argument.

00:34:53.660 However, it is absurd when you think about it. Two weeks ago, I was camping slash fly fishing

00:34:58.080 on a remote mountain lake with my wife. There were thousands of mosquitoes everywhere and more

00:35:04.120 dragonflies than I've ever seen in one place eating them. Each dragonfly can eat hundreds of

00:35:08.400 mosquitoes per day. While cleaning our fish, I checked their bellies and they had dozens of insects in 0.98

00:35:12.480 them as well. And when I removed my waders, I found hundreds of larvae around my boots. The fish were

00:35:20.440 eating them as well. The point is between fish, birds and insects, the amount of life ended at this

00:35:27.940 single remote mountain lake down to the microscopic level is on an unfathomable scale every day.

00:35:33.000 I thought of Buddhists who wouldn't harm a fly, probably only for that fly to get eaten in 20 minutes 1.00

00:35:38.280 later by a bird. A single cow has 500 pounds of meat on it. That's 2,000 quarter pounders.

00:35:44.660 When they abstain from eating meat, it has virtually no impact on anything other than their own feeling

00:35:48.800 of self-righteousness. It has no impact on life or the environment or the planet. Even if all humans

00:35:53.920 gave up eating meat, it would not change the way life works. One last point about bringing kids into

00:35:57.760 the world, being bad for the environment. What is the purpose of the environment or the planet

00:36:00.900 without sentient life? Without human beings, there's only an endless circle of death on the planet,

00:36:04.800 doomed to be consumed by the sun eventually. And I agree with you there. And the idea

00:36:08.200 that we shouldn't have kids because it's bad for the environment, there's nothing redeeming about

00:36:17.800 that argument at all. But the vegetarian argument, as I said yesterday when someone wrote in and was

00:36:24.040 mad that I'm always so dismissive of the vegetarian argument, I said that I don't think it's a crazy

00:36:31.680 argument, the idea that we shouldn't eat meat. I don't agree with it. And I made a similar point

00:36:38.100 to the one that you just made, which is that this is part of the cycle of life and animals kill each

00:36:41.460 other all the time. And if you're saying that we are animals ourselves, that's what vegetarians

00:36:46.040 often say. They say, well, we have no right to go around killing animals. We're not better than

00:36:50.620 them. Well, I happen to disagree with that. I think we are better than them and superior to them.

00:36:54.260 But if it's true that we're not, then we're just part of that cycle and why shouldn't we engage in it?

00:36:59.740 To blame a human for eating a cow would be just as absurd as blaming a lion for eating a gazelle.

00:37:04.780 So I agree with you there. And no matter if you're looking at it from an evolutionary,

00:37:09.760 Darwinistic, materialistic perspective or theological, theist perspective, either way,

00:37:15.140 it seems like we were made or we evolved to eat meat. And so that's fine.

00:37:22.620 But I think a vegetarian would respond. And as I said, it's not a crazy response to say that, okay,

00:37:29.980 but yeah, there's a difference between killing an insect or even a fish and killing, say, a cow or pig.

00:37:42.760 And it all comes down to the ability, an animal's ability to suffer. And if these are

00:37:49.920 beings that have some sort of internal life, some sort of consciousness, and they're able to suffer,

00:37:58.540 then it's, then we shouldn't kill them. And I think that's, I think that would be the vegetarian 0.99

00:38:02.480 argument. They would say, well, I think we all know that a mosquito is not capable of those kind

00:38:06.120 of thought processes. However, you know, a pig or a cow probably is. And so, and so, you know,

00:38:13.300 how do you square that? And I also think there's, there's also a, there's a, there's a, an inconsistency

00:38:20.340 here because most people who say it's okay to eat meat, we would be horrified if someone went and shot a

00:38:27.420 dog, unless the dog is being put down because it was suffering, but to kill a dog, certainly kill 0.99

00:38:31.840 and eat a dog. If someone were to kill and eat their own dog and they weren't starving, but they 0.95

00:38:36.620 just felt like having it for dinner because they were curious about how it tastes or something,

00:38:40.580 we would all be horrified by that. But what's really the difference between a, between a dog

00:38:45.940 and a cow? I don't know. I can't really, what, why really objectively is it wrong to kill a dog,

00:38:51.980 but not a cow? I know subjectively we tend to bond more with dogs than cows, but as far as

00:38:57.100 the dog and cow itself, their ability to suffer, their ability to feel things and so on. Are we

00:39:03.400 sure that the, you know, the dog really, I don't know. So there is, that's what I'm saying. I think

00:39:07.720 there is sort of an inconsistency. I haven't worked it out completely, but I guess I just, it's not an

00:39:13.480 issue that I care overly much about. I don't spend a lot of time thinking about it. And at the end of the

00:39:19.080 day, I think it, as I said, it's perfectly fine to eat animals. Although, um, as I said yesterday,

00:39:25.640 when you talk about factory farming and when you talk about basically producing animals just so we

00:39:31.100 can eat them and, and, you know, they spend their whole life basically on a, on a, on an assembly

00:39:35.620 line, um, you know, cooped up and cramped and everything. I think some of the stuff you hear about

00:39:40.960 factory farming is probably exaggerated, but, uh, it, it, it isn't all exaggerated. Um, and it does seem

00:39:46.560 like rather a miserable life to be, you know, a pig living in a slaughterhouse, right? So that 0.98

00:39:53.660 becomes more difficult, I think also to, um, to justify what you're talking about here, Nick is,

00:39:59.980 you know, you're out in nature, you're, you're fishing, you're camping, you know, it's a very

00:40:03.780 sort of natural, you're in nature, you're part of nature, right? So that's, it's, it's much easier

00:40:09.560 to justify killing animals in that environment as you are sort of part of that circle of life.

00:40:14.200 But, but when you think of it more as where we are just producing animals to kill them and that's

00:40:20.660 the only point and we have no concern for their suffering or anything, then I don't know, it

00:40:24.420 becomes harder to justify it. So, uh, but I will continue to eat meat because it tastes good.

00:40:33.680 That's my, that's my moral argument. It's not good, but that's it. Listen, we can't all,

00:40:39.680 I try to be consistent intellectually, but we all have inconsistencies. And, uh, this is one of mine.

00:40:46.140 I admit it. You asked me to give up hamburgers. I just can't do it. I can't. It's as simple as that.

00:40:54.200 You know, I'm sorry for the cows that they happen to be so delicious and so slow and so dumb. 0.99

00:41:01.480 I am sorry for them. You know, I'm glad that I'm not one, but, uh, what can I do? 0.98

00:41:08.660 All right. We will, with that very intelligent argument on my part, we will leave it there.

00:41:13.920 Thanks everybody for watching and listening. Have a great day. Godspeed.

00:41:16.900 Hey everyone. It's Andrew Klavan, host of the Andrew Klavan show. So now we hear there was

00:41:33.900 shrieking coming from Jeffrey Epstein's cell before he died. And sources say he suffered

00:41:39.260 injuries more indicative of strangulation than suicide. But we can trust our authorities and

00:41:45.160 elites to get to the bottom of this, right? Right. We'll talk about it on the Andrew Klavan show.

00:41:50.080 I'm Andrew Klavan.

The Matt Walsh Show - August 15, 2019

Ep. 318 - The Suicide Conspiracy Theory

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