The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 124 - The Atheist Delusion ft. Anthony DeStefano

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00:00:37.760 An atheist, a vegan, and a crossfitter walk into a bar. I only know that because they told everyone 1.00

00:00:43.980 within two minutes. We talk a fair bit about faith and philosophy and science on this show,

00:00:48.780 and sometimes we're even respectful of those with whom we disagree. Today is not one of those days.

00:00:53.880 I am joined today by Anthony DiStefano, best-selling author of Inside the Atheist Mind,

00:00:59.840 Unmasking the Religion of Those Who Say There Is No God. Anthony has written a number of other books

00:01:05.180 and appeared all over TV poking fun at those insufferable, pseudo-sophisticate atheists we

00:01:10.660 have all been subjected to since 9-11 when we decided to pretend that all religion was evil per se, 0.95

00:01:16.220 rather than deal explicitly with Islam. We will discuss the nature of atheism,

00:01:20.340 then why people are killing themselves on International Day of Happiness. Facebook

00:01:25.000 is in trouble because conservatives used it better than Democrats, and they're very upset about that,

00:01:29.620 and Google is trying to shut down right-leaning news sites. I'm Michael Knowles, and this is The

00:01:33.700 Michael Knowles Show. Before we get to all of that, before we get to talk about this book,

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00:04:25.380 joinhoney.com slash covfefe, C-O-V-F-E-F-E. I will begin before we bring our guest on

00:04:32.060 by quoting from an early part of the book. Anthony writes, quote, if you were a militant

00:04:38.200 atheist, this book is not for you. It's about you. This book is also not meant for agnostics 1.00

00:04:43.940 who are sincerely searching for the truth. The focus of this book is on those obnoxious

00:04:48.960 and aggressive new atheists who not only reject God, but also wish to evangelize the whole world

00:04:54.880 with their gospel of nothingness. Too many books written in response to these pseudo-intellectual

00:05:00.200 blowhards have been altogether too nice. I like it. You know, some weeks get a little 0.95

00:05:05.340 too nice sometimes. Not exactly subtle. Yesterday, you know, I talked to Jordan Peterson about God

00:05:10.840 and the nature of truth. And I, I asked him, does God exist? I'm not talking about metaphor.

00:05:14.460 I'm not talking about signifier signified. Is he, does he exist metaphysically and physically,

00:05:19.820 or, uh, is he just a total fantasy? And Jordan did this little dance and he said, he actually

00:05:26.160 admitted, he said, I don't know. I can't, I can't, I'm not going to tell you he doesn't. I can't,

00:05:30.200 I just don't, you know, he was very honest about that. Um, he, he was reluctant to admit what I

00:05:36.800 think is the crucial essence of, uh, the whole thing. He just wrote a book explaining in 12 rules

00:05:42.080 for life. My guest today is not a victim of such subtlety. Uh, let's bring Anthony on so we can

00:05:48.400 talk about this. Anthony, thank you for being here. Thank you for having me. I'm thrilled. So

00:05:53.160 you, you write this book about the new atheists and the new atheists. We all remember that's

00:05:57.220 Christopher Hitchens, who's right. I actually love his writing, but his points about religion.

00:06:01.960 Yeah. A lot of us do because he's such a wonderful wordsmith and his points about religion are

00:06:06.800 ridiculous. Uh, Richard Dawkins, uh, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris. I want to know the four 0.95

00:06:13.160 horsemen of the apocalypse. How did these guys crop up and why did they all crop up around the

00:06:18.880 same time in the early two thousands? You know, it's just a question of atheists gaining more power

00:06:24.760 once they had more power politically. And once they had more power in the media and power in

00:06:28.960 Hollywood, once they had more power, they reared their ugly heads, but this is nothing new. Uh, this 0.71

00:06:34.640 kind of rabid, uh, anti-god rhetoric has gone right back to the days of Nietzsche and, uh, all those

00:06:41.740 existential atheists of the 19th century, but they got some power now and they, they, they were able

00:06:46.760 to, uh, get a little, uh, a little brave. I think they had an opening too. I agree with Andrew

00:06:51.500 Klavan on this point who observes it all happened after nine 11 and nine 11 presented us with this

00:06:57.460 problem, which is that clearly at least one religion has a big problem to deal with. And there were,

00:07:03.200 there were two options for the West. Either we could deal with Islam and say this religion 1.00

00:07:08.200 specifically has a problem, uh, or we could say, oh, it's just all, yeah, just God in general,

00:07:12.940 just all religion. It's, it's no, eh, we don't like it. And there was this combination, which you

00:07:17.060 write about of arrogance and ignorance. Uh, you, you talk about the arrogance of the new atheists, 0.97

00:07:20.940 then you write about their ignorance. Mark Twain wrote, it ain't what you don't know that gets you 0.95

00:07:26.160 into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so. And I've always found that intellectual

00:07:31.060 snobbery has been an effective tool against the frivolous arguments of the new atheists because 0.89

00:07:36.720 they're, they think they're intellectuals, but they're neither really middle brow. How can guys

00:07:41.500 as credentialed as they are, Daniel Dennett, uh, Richard Dawkins, how can they be so ignorant? 0.97

00:07:47.320 How have they missed so much historical and philosophical education? 0.96

00:07:51.640 Well, they want to miss it. That's what it really comes down to. Uh, the atheism really is a kind

00:08:00.420 of a faith. It's not just ignorance. Uh, it's, uh, it's a faith with its, a whole system of beliefs,

00:08:06.560 really a system with its own, uh, philosophy, uh, materialism, its own, uh, uh, culture, secularism,

00:08:14.080 its own, uh, politics, social Darwinism, its own morality, relativism. It's, it's even got its own

00:08:20.380 sacraments, abortion and euthanasia. So it's a whole, once you understand that it's a faith system,

00:08:25.180 then, then their, their arrogance and the, the, the, the evangelistic quality of their writing.

00:08:32.240 And there, there are so many versions of this. Everybody's got to serve somebody. And so the

00:08:37.380 environmentalists have, uh, the original sin of pollution and they have, uh, the sacrament of, uh,

00:08:44.180 they, they sell indulgences in the form of those carbon tax credits, don't they? They're in certain

00:08:49.300 versions of intersectionality. There's the original sin of privilege. There is, there's actually the

00:08:54.700 Gnostic metaphysics of transgenderism. I am, I appear to be a man, but the flesh is evil. And 0.98

00:09:00.440 really metaphysically, I'm a woman. Uh, you, you see all of these sorts of things crop up all of the

00:09:06.080 time. Uh, atheists, they pull away when you say that their religion is a faith. Uh, how, how can we

00:09:11.880 convince them of this point? Well, the faith is just believing something that you can't mathematically

00:09:17.880 prove. That's all faith is. And faith and atheists take so many things on faith. They believe

00:09:22.600 that everything came from nothing. Well, that's, you can't prove that scientifically. They believe

00:09:27.500 that this, this amazing universe of ours of incomparable beauty, harmony, and order came

00:09:33.120 about by itself. That that's, that's faith. Uh, they, they're trapped into this whole materialist

00:09:37.980 worldview where everything has to do with atoms and molecules, you know, all our hopes and dreams

00:09:42.660 and desires, all our art and culture and history, all, all our deepest desire for everything that's

00:09:48.520 good and beautiful and true. All that to them is just the, due to the random movement of molecules.

00:09:53.600 That's not, that's not science. That's faith. What's more, that's an irrational faith. That's

00:09:59.180 the basis for all superstition. So they have a faith. They must be called out on this point because

00:10:03.840 this faith that they have has been, has been responsible for more bloodshed and carnage than any 1.00

00:10:09.480 system of beliefs. The world has ever known. And really in service of the faith there, I've always

00:10:13.800 liked the definition that faith is the, the substance of things hoped for and the evidence

00:10:18.620 of things unseen and how, how better to describe the utopian political goals of the left. The, the

00:10:26.020 idea that, yeah, you've got to crack some eggs to make an omelet. We're just going to kill a few 0.98

00:10:29.700 more million people, but then we'll have world peace. Then we'll have prosperity. Then we'll have 0.99

00:10:34.500 equality or tolerance or whatever you say about this. You push back on the point, all of the new

00:10:39.120 atheists say that, uh, religion and God have caused all of the wars in the world. You say that

00:10:45.360 that isn't true at all. Oh my goodness. It's, it's an incontrovertible fact that it's not true.

00:10:52.020 And the opposite is true. Atheists have caused more war and bloodshed than anyone. Uh, if you look at 1.00

00:10:57.300 Philip Axelrod's monumental, uh, encyclopedia of war, he cataloged all the wars from 8,000 BC onto today.

00:11:05.220 And he found that 6.98% of them were due to religious causes. And if you eliminate Islam 0.87

00:11:11.280 from that equation, uh, only Christianity is only responsible for 3.2%. So you're talking 96% of all

00:11:18.620 the wars on this planet were due to other reasons like economic gain, territorial gain, uh, uh, civil

00:11:24.720 war, revolutionary war. Those are the reasons for war. And if you look at the last hundred years alone, 0.61

00:11:30.860 you'll see that atheist regimes like Stalin and Mao Zedong and Pol Pot, and yes, Adolf Hitler, 0.95

00:11:37.300 because he was an atheist, are responsible for 150 million murders, 150 million deaths. 0.95

00:11:44.060 That is incontrovertible fact. And they don't want to look at that though, because it, because it, uh,

00:11:49.300 it, it's so obvious. Yeah. And they're kind of damned if they do and damned if they don't, because

00:11:53.580 speaking of Hitler's religion, I think we're going to hopefully do an interview. There's a good book

00:11:58.700 out on Hitler's religion. A lot of people would like to pretend it was Christianity, but there's

00:12:03.200 no, there's a lot of evidence that that wasn't even close to the case. But of course, if atheism

00:12:07.360 is a faith, then I suppose we can say all of the wars of the world are religious. But, but if we're

00:12:12.380 talking about Christianity, if we're talking about the religions of the West, then certainly that

00:12:16.800 cannot be the case. And the 20th century is all of the evidence we need for that. Uh, Sam Harris

00:12:21.240 said, oh, I've got, um, you know, before we keep talking about Sam, we got to make some more money.

00:12:26.740 We have to listen, because this, uh, it is very important to prosper. My religion tells me that

00:12:34.980 to him who has much more will be given to him who has not very much, even the little which he has

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00:15:21.640 housecallpro.com slash covfefe, C-O-V-F-E-F-E. Back to these crazy atheists. Sam Harris said that if he 0.95

00:15:30.840 could rid the world of rape or religion, he would choose religion. Christopher Hitchens said that all 0.94

00:15:35.760 faith claims are equally rotten, false, dishonest, corrupt, humorless, and dangerous. Everything from 0.99

00:15:42.960 that friendly Unitarian down the street to the axe wielding jihadi. Sam Harris said some propositions

00:15:49.080 are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them. Why are the new

00:15:55.140 atheists so fanatically intolerant to borrow a buzzword? Well, it goes back to what we just were

00:16:03.920 talking about. It's a faith. It's a religion. Every bit as evangelical and as driven as, as,

00:16:09.880 as Islamic fundamentalism. Uh, there, there, there's a saying that, uh, uh, atheism is a religion,

00:16:16.080 uh, with two doctrines. Uh, one, there is no God and two, I hate him. Uh, so, and the, you know, 0.75

00:16:24.400 psychologically it might just be that misery loves company. You know, these people are basically

00:16:29.000 miserably unhappy and cynical and, and like all miserably unhappy people, they want the rest of 0.97

00:16:34.500 us to be as unhappy and hopeless as they are. And the other, the other point is that something that

00:16:39.180 Peter Hitchens, who, which is, who is Christopher Hitchens brother, he made this, he believed in God

00:16:43.840 and he said, why in the world would these atheists choose to believe in this cosmic car crash where

00:16:49.520 nothing means anything, where they don't, where nothing has any value. The reason is because they

00:16:53.760 don't want anything to have any transcendent, transcendent values. They want everything to

00:16:58.640 just be centered around themselves. They worship themselves and anything that gets in the way of

00:17:03.780 that worship of themselves they're against. And, and theology, Christian theology is a,

00:17:08.980 it's funny because today is international day of happiness. This was something founded by the UN

00:17:14.600 about five years ago. And yet, according to a UN study, uh, happiness is at a 10 year low in America

00:17:20.240 and suicide rates are skyrocketing among various demographics, not just among middle-aged men who

00:17:26.280 comprise, um, or constitute most suicides in the country. Uh, the, the question of happiness is a

00:17:34.020 strange one when it comes to atheism because, uh, C.S. Lewis wrote, if you look for truth, you might find

00:17:39.140 comfort in the end, but if you look for comfort, you'll find neither truth nor comfort, only soft soap

00:17:44.420 and wishful thinking to begin. And in the end, despair, it seems that we're looking for the happiness,

00:17:49.120 happiness, but we're not, uh, we're not acknowledging the truth that will create that

00:17:54.760 happiness. And to your point, Norm MacDonald, the great philosopher, but really the greatest,

00:17:59.920 greatest standup comedian of our, uh, of our age, Norm says he doesn't believe they're atheists

00:18:04.440 because like you don't, if you don't think something is real, you don't spend your entire

00:18:08.740 life talking about it. You know, I don't spend like, I don't spend my whole life talking about

00:18:12.720 dragons or something. I don't, I don't, I don't spend any time on of that. Uh, to this point,

00:18:18.980 say what you will about atheism, at least the worldview is clear. You know, uh, Dr. Johnson

00:18:23.580 famously remarked, all shallows are clear, uh, benighted atheists, totally ignorant of whole 0.98

00:18:29.800 categories of thought, millennia of intellectual history. They hurl out these varied frivolous 0.99

00:18:34.700 objections to the existence of God. You quote Vincent Bugliosi by observing atheism is nothing,

00:18:41.160 really nothing, but a sorry litany of non sequiturs. So I want to ask it, maybe the only nice thing we can

00:18:47.000 say about atheists all day and atheistic philosophy. Is there a coherent atheism?

00:18:52.140 Does anybody posit a coherent atheism? And if so, who's?

00:18:57.020 Uh, not, not recently. If you want coherent atheism, you have to go back to Nietzsche and Camus

00:19:02.640 and all of those older atheists who in many ways were much braver and more intelligent than today's

00:19:08.940 kind of sappy atheists who sort of play at atheism. Those atheists knew how to take the logical

00:19:15.960 implications of their thinking all the way forward. They knew that, that if you didn't believe in God,

00:19:20.100 then there was no such thing as good and evil. You had to go beyond good and evil. They knew that

00:19:24.200 there was not no such thing as the dignity of the human person and that human beings could be used

00:19:28.420 and that the only philosophy was one of strength. Those atheists and the, and those atheists to their

00:19:34.040 credit said life is absurd and unhappy. And so therefore we have to assert ourselves boldly and assert

00:19:40.200 our will and be brave in the face of this absurdity and tragedy. Today's atheists, this, 1.00

00:19:44.840 these milquetoast cowards are just, uh, they, they, they, they just say, oh, you don't believe in God 0.98

00:19:49.840 and, and everything is just, we could be just as nice as you and everybody's okay. 0.79

00:19:53.260 That's an excellent point. Say what you will about Nietzsche, but at least he had the decency to die

00:19:56.240 a madman. He denied the logic of the universe and he, and he lived through those results. Uh, the same

00:20:03.440 is true. I know, uh, Drew talks about the Marquis de Sade as a coherent atheist, the guy that we get

00:20:08.140 sadism from it, what he writes about is totally coherent and it's horrifying. And people would

00:20:12.980 say, no, no, thank you. I don't want any of that. Uh, this does get the cowardliness of this new

00:20:19.260 atheism that wants all the good stuff, all the good fruits of Christianity, but it just doesn't 0.78

00:20:24.520 want that pesky belief, uh, that belief in God or anything like that. Uh, in your sixth chapter,

00:20:29.720 the thesis is that you can't practice vice virtuously. And, uh, this is a compelling argument

00:20:36.720 of atheists. I think this is the compelling argument. Oh, the moral law couldn't possibly

00:20:41.560 prohibit days long drug fueled orgies because I really like those things. So I don't, it

00:20:46.560 couldn't possibly be immoral or something like that. Uh, you write quote, if you're a

00:20:51.120 habitual thief, then it's safe to assume that you are not going to be a very faithful person

00:20:55.220 either. It's just a ridiculous Hollywood fantasy to think that someone who sells drugs 0.94

00:20:59.260 for a living is also going to be a model citizen and demonstrate heroic virtue in his personal 0.81

00:21:04.080 life. How much atheist thought of these new kinds, these sentimental saccharine do whatever 0.96

00:21:10.540 we want kinds, how much atheist thought is really not intellectual at all, but just a way

00:21:16.140 of rationalizing our debauched and decadent behavior. Oh, 80 to 90 to 99% of it. They don't

00:21:24.100 have any rational arguments. They have a complete mystery. Where did everything come from? They

00:21:29.320 cannot prove anything. They cannot prove their position logically or scientifically. Uh, so they're

00:21:36.220 reduced to making, to, to yelling and screaming. Even my book, which came out just today, I had one

00:21:41.180 article online. And if you look on Amazon or at these, uh, or on Fox online, you'll see hundreds

00:21:48.080 of comments against me, yelling, screaming that I'm the worst person who ever lived. No arguments.

00:21:53.260 There's no rational arguments about God or about anything I said about history or the murderer, 0.87

00:21:57.900 murder, atheist murderers. They're just mad at me. They're throwing a temper tantrum and that's 1.00

00:22:02.080 what they do. Yeah, that's right. I do like your article today calls them bullies. And I do like

00:22:06.860 when I looked on the Amazon link, cause I said, Oh, let's see how this book is going to be. And it's

00:22:11.400 got all like zero store reviews. And I thought, Oh gosh, this is going to be a tough morning. I'm

00:22:15.560 gonna have to slog through this book. And I realized that nobody had read the book. It was all just

00:22:20.220 these. That's right. It just came out. It just came out. It was a pleasant surprise. I got to,

00:22:26.200 with my, my coffee. I got to think, Oh, that's pretty, pretty nice. Actually, I really am learning

00:22:30.220 something and enjoying it. Uh, on this final point, the atheism as a faith, the faith perhaps

00:22:36.340 that requires the biggest leap of faith at all. Uh, you know, the, the book makes a good argument.

00:22:42.540 It's a whole system of beliefs based on undemonstrable axioms. It forces you to deny just about every

00:22:48.940 aspect of our experience of the world, truth, beauty, reason, you know, it's all just nothing.

00:22:53.480 It's all a fantasy. What I want to know is, is atheism the fastest growing religion or is it

00:22:59.840 dying out? Both. Okay. In the West, it's growing fast. Okay. Uh, the fact the, those who consider

00:23:08.660 themselves atheists or religiously unaffiliated account for up to a quarter of the population

00:23:13.220 today. And in Europe, they're like in second place. Uh, on the other hand though, on the other

00:23:18.580 hand, in places like Africa and the, in Asia, China and Russia, Christianity is growing in an

00:23:24.980 incredible, incredibly fast clip. So Christianity is actually outpacing atheism, even though in the

00:23:30.860 West, atheism is doing better and it must lose in the end because it's the religion of atheism is the

00:23:37.360 religion of hopelessness. No matter what they claim, it's the religion of hopelessness and despair. 0.95

00:23:42.320 People need more. It just doesn't have the stuff of happiness. And so in the end,

00:23:47.100 especially if we want to celebrate the international day of happiness, that's absolutely

00:23:51.040 right. I really like it. I do recommend reading it because this book, you read so many books and

00:23:56.760 they try to say, Oh, you can't, you've got to be polite. Oh, you know, everyone has every idea is

00:24:01.720 worthwhile. Oh, every, and you say like, no guys, the emperor has no clothes. This is a terrible

00:24:06.400 philosophy. It's stupid. It's based on nothing and it will make you miserable, which I love the 1.00

00:24:12.920 bluntness. And they're nasty to us all the time. Look at all the billboards, look at all the blogs

00:24:18.920 where you have to, we're not punching bags, especially sometime. Even Jesus threw the money

00:24:24.440 changes out of the temple and got mad once in a while. I will say too, especially since

00:24:27.660 Christopher Hitchens died, they're not even witty anymore. They're not even good with their pen.

00:24:32.140 Absolutely right. The book is inside the atheist mind, unmasking the religion of those who say there 0.95

00:24:37.500 is no God. The author is Anthony DiStefano. Anthony, thank you for being here. We'll have to have you

00:24:42.100 back again. Thanks for having me. All right. Let's talk about International Day of Happiness.

00:24:47.680 This is, it all ties in. It's all really nice providence, really nice coincidences. I see this

00:24:53.300 on Twitter this morning. It's trending the International Day of Happiness. So what's the

00:24:57.080 International Day of Happiness? The International Day of Happiness was founded five years ago by the

00:25:02.100 United Nations. I know. It's both very recent and founded by the UN. I'm more than skeptical to say

00:25:08.580 the least. So then I looked. According to a UN study, American happiness is at a 10-year low.

00:25:14.500 Only the United Nations could be this tone deaf and incompetent. They would, as they are figuring out

00:25:19.700 that the entire world is unhappy, they'll say, okay, we'll be happy. Okay, now we'll be, are we happy?

00:25:24.560 Let's all pretend we're happy and then it'll be fine. That's the United Nations in a nutshell.

00:25:28.700 But it gets a lot worse. I mean, there are some really awful numbers that have come out.

00:25:32.500 Young people are killing themselves. We talk about gun crime and gun homicides every year.

00:25:37.300 Two-thirds of gun deaths, as they say, are middle-aged guys killing themselves. Very sad.

00:25:44.340 That demographic is expanding. Suicides are expanding to different demographics. According

00:25:48.920 to the CDC, youth suicide, specifically white children between the ages of 10 and 17,

00:25:54.740 has skyrocketed 70% in 10 years. That is a huge increase. Black children are far less likely than

00:26:01.820 white children to kill themselves, but their number is actually now higher. The rate of 1.00

00:26:06.660 growth is higher, 77% higher in just the last few years. Suicide rate among teenage girls is way up.

00:26:15.180 It's at a 40-year high now. Ben wrote a good piece just detailing this today and putting all the

00:26:19.720 statistics together. There have been various explanations for why this is. They'll say the

00:26:24.820 bad economy is the, you know, the 2007 financial crisis or the opioid epidemic or sexual frustration,

00:26:31.560 but none of this explains it away because then those things pass and nevertheless, the rate keeps

00:26:38.900 increasing. Also, the economy is gangbusters right now. We're the most economically prosperous people

00:26:45.340 in the history of the world. The opioid epidemic just simply does not, hasn't been widespread or long

00:26:52.860 enough to account for those numbers. And we're the most sexually inventive people ever there were.

00:26:58.200 I don't think it's sexual frustration. There was a thought that people felt bad that they had

00:27:03.400 different sexual preferences and it was not accepted by society. Now the White House is painted

00:27:08.860 in rainbow colors and the number just keeps going up. Really what it is, is the perception of

00:27:14.180 meaninglessness. This is how Jordan Peterson became a worldwide celebrity. Jordan Peterson is a soft-spoken

00:27:19.980 psychologist who tells people that the world entails some suffering and also clean your rooms. He is

00:27:26.200 treated as a prophet in the world because in some ways he is. He's one of the few people with the

00:27:30.720 clarity or the courage to just say these basic facts of the world. People are starving for someone

00:27:36.440 to tell them the unfashionable truth that they have suspected all along, but they've been bullied

00:27:42.280 into pretending it isn't true, which is that life has meaning and humans have purpose. My point on this

00:27:48.900 is that you can't just stop at Jordan's book. I do recommend it. I had a great time talking to him

00:27:53.680 yesterday. You should read it, 12 Rules for Life. It's a good reminder that until three,

00:28:00.100 four hundred years ago, we all understood human beings as having a purpose, a teleology,

00:28:06.320 a telos for men. Until very recently, we've accepted the Christian undergirding of our civilization. 1.00

00:28:14.680 You've got to go further than that, though. There is a tendency, I think, now. I told you

00:28:21.620 Jordan yesterday didn't want to. He didn't say, well, you know, baptize me, Michael. Get your toaster

00:28:26.800 from the bishop. Every year in, you know, we did it. He basically wrote a book about Jesus. He wrote a

00:28:33.020 really beautiful book about Jesus, but he was unwilling to make that point and say, yes, I'm going to get

00:28:40.300 down on my knees. Yes, this is what it is. He was almost there. Maybe it's, it's, it's, he's clearly

00:28:46.220 on the edge of it. Andrew Klavan has find God in 60 days. That's a video that he had done. Ben wears

00:28:53.280 the yarmulke all the time. There is a step beyond just thinking about it. There is a step beyond

00:28:59.260 saying, yes, well, I can intellectualize a way in which God could mean this and metaphor and

00:29:04.840 metaphysical. In, in Christ is the unity of heaven and earth, of the metaphor and the reality of the

00:29:11.100 metaphysical and the physical. You got to do it. You've got to get down on your knees. You have to

00:29:16.220 go to church. You have to clean your room. You can't just clean your room. You have to clean your

00:29:20.240 spiritual room too. And that means going to church, going, praying, reading the Bible, going to

00:29:26.080 confession, perhaps doing these things. This is why sacraments exist is to bring together those two

00:29:32.160 things, the intellectual and the physical and put them together in one place on earth. There have

00:29:36.120 been various heresies throughout the history of Christendom, which are Gnostic heresies. They say, 0.84

00:29:40.780 oh, the physical doesn't matter. It's, we hate the physical. It's no good. Just the mind, that's all

00:29:45.520 that matters. But that isn't true. We know that isn't true. We're people. We have bodies. We live in

00:29:49.980 time and space. Before the West lost its mind in the 17th and 18th centuries, it was commonly understood

00:29:55.920 that there is a unity of the virtues. The body is unified. There are plenty of heresies, say,

00:30:02.160 just, you know, just think this, don't do this. The Albigensian heresy, the Gnostic heresy,

00:30:06.120 new age spirituality, the various Christian splinters that deny or suppress free will. 1.00

00:30:12.020 You have free will. Use it. Do it. Don't just think about it. Do it. I don't know how much more

00:30:16.580 I want to shake you because it's international day of happiness. Be happy, damn it. Do something 0.99

00:30:20.580 for yourself. Make yourself happy. Let's move on to Facebook. Facebook is getting killed right now.

00:30:26.960 They are being raked over the coals for the data security scandal involving Cambridge Analytica.

00:30:32.160 For those who have missed it, Cambridge Analytica is a data mining and data analysis company and it

00:30:38.400 hired a third-party firm, Global Science Research, that created a clicky personality quiz prompting

00:30:44.840 users to give them a bunch of their data as well as all of their friends' data.

00:30:48.720 So this wasn't like some big hack. This wasn't the Russians and the Macedonian teenagers and the 0.60

00:30:54.120 Russian Macedonian teenage robots or whatever. They just, there was a personality quiz. It was little, 0.90

00:30:59.760 you know, the stupid apps on Facebook and people clicked it and they voluntarily gave 1.00

00:31:03.520 them their data. The, the, uh, firm got, uh, user data for 50 million people. Uh, Facebook 1.00

00:31:09.400 covered this up for two years. This didn't happen five minutes ago. It didn't happen even

00:31:12.600 a year ago. Two years, they covered it up. The FTC is now investigating. Facebook's stock

00:31:17.320 price fell 8% yesterday. It's already fallen 5% this morning. As of putting this together,

00:31:22.460 may have fallen more since then. Just yesterday's dip, just yesterday alone shaved $40 billion from

00:31:28.900 Facebook's market value. 40 billion. Biggest single day decline in four years. And the worst

00:31:34.080 part of it all, I don't care about your 401ks. I don't care about Facebook's company dropping down

00:31:39.720 into the gutter. The worst part is that I have to defend Facebook. I wish I didn't have to. I really

00:31:45.000 wish I didn't have to. People, this is not Facebook's fault. This is not Cambridge Analytica's fault.

00:31:50.540 It's not global science research's fault. It's not the Macedonian teenager's fault. You put your

00:31:56.900 data there. You put your data up there. You clicked on that stupid personality quiz so that you could

00:32:01.900 say, I'm an EPLJP and this, it doesn't make me special. And which ones are you? You did it. This is 1.00

00:32:09.460 what freedom looks like. You, we can't control your whole lives. You can't rely on the government

00:32:15.400 to control your whole life. You chose to put your data out there. Now advertisers have your data

00:32:19.360 tough. Democrats are only freaking out about this because it's connected to Donald Trump.

00:32:24.560 Here's how it's connected to Trump. Apparently the Republican donor, Robert Mercer, invested in this

00:32:30.500 company on the advice of Steve Bannon. So they were sort of involved getting some data, whatever.

00:32:37.440 Democrats do this sort of thing all the time. Do you remember when Barack Obama was the digital

00:32:41.580 candidate? He had the best data mining digital operation. It was so cool and cutting edge and

00:32:47.440 admirable. Wow. He's so, wow. He's so cool. Then Republicans do it and it's nefarious.

00:32:52.920 They do the same thing, but it's, that's bad. Why is it bad? I don't know. It just is because

00:32:57.940 of the data and privacy. What, what, what, what, what, what, what when the other guy, no, no,

00:33:01.540 that was cool. That was cool. That's bad. Cool, bad. That's how it works. Absolutely not. You put

00:33:06.660 your stuff up there. You should never put anything on the internet that you would be on, uh, unwilling to

00:33:11.520 see on the cover of the New York times, or I guess on the cover of the daily wire, because no one reads the

00:33:15.080 New York times anymore. So anything that you would not like to be public, you shouldn't put on the

00:33:19.520 internet. The internet is public and the internet is forever. Use your freedom. Uh, uh, you know,

00:33:25.280 I'm sorry that our guys used it this time. I'm sorry that our guys were better at the internet

00:33:29.300 and we used the internet to beat you. I know that's, it's really hard and everything, but tough,

00:33:33.920 sad to quote a great man, sad. Uh, finally, we got to hit in the last few minutes, we got to hit Google,

00:33:39.000 Google and Facebook. Here we are. Google has declared war on conservatives. So, uh,

00:33:44.640 Google is now spending $300 million. It has announced over the next three years to fight

00:33:50.340 fake news. Le fake news, c'est moi. C'est moi. You're looking at fake news, baby. This is what

00:33:56.340 they mean when they say fake news. They're going to be attacking what it considers to be fake news.

00:34:00.580 And that's us. They're already doing it. When you search for daily wire articles,

00:34:04.920 what pops up, you see the daily wire and then it pops up with all these left-wing fact checker

00:34:08.800 websites, but they're not fact checker websites. They're left-wing opinion columns. Uh, when you search for

00:34:13.660 left-wing outlets, that doesn't happen. When you search for left-wing outlets, you get the left-wing

00:34:17.720 outlet you're searching for. When you search for us, you get left-wing websites that are trying to

00:34:22.420 convince you not to click on our website. They've been doing this for a while. They've been ramping

00:34:26.420 it up. They've been demonetizing our videos on YouTube. They've been hitting conservatives way

00:34:31.320 harder than they've hit lefties, if they've hit lefties at all. And now they're going to be gunning

00:34:35.740 after us even more $300 million, basically just to take us down. Uh, what, one other thing they're going to be

00:34:42.240 investing the money in is making it easier to subscribe to the New York times and the financial

00:34:46.800 times, two very left-wing papers. I kid you not. They are going to try to block places like the

00:34:51.980 daily wire. They are going to try to make it easier to subscribe to left-wing news websites.

00:34:56.700 They have lost their minds. They've lost their minds because we are better at the internet.

00:35:02.160 They were so upset. They thought they were going to be better at the internet. It would have been all

00:35:07.000 okay if they were just better at the internet, but they're not. We are, we were funnier on the

00:35:12.900 internet. We use the internet to crack the monopoly, the media monopoly of lefties and Democrats,

00:35:19.640 the mainstream media monopoly that just wouldn't air us, that wouldn't air our views, that would

00:35:23.740 selectively edit our interviews. We used it to break right through them and they are out for blood.

00:35:29.700 They are out for revenge. They're very angry and then it's not going to stop. There has to be

00:35:34.060 some alternative here and you're, and it is going to make strange bedfellows. Let me tell you,

00:35:39.080 you are going to see conservatives calling for regulation, not special regulation, not unfair

00:35:44.060 regulation, but fairly applied rules to publishers who pretend that they're not publishers. It is going

00:35:50.060 to be really nasty, but this is where the fight is. All of the information on the internet goes through

00:35:54.580 these guys. The vast, vast preponderance of news and political information goes through these guys.

00:35:59.800 We cannot give it up. We cannot cede it to them. This fight is only beginning now. It

00:36:04.780 is only going to get worse. Gird yourselves, but be happy about it because it's International

00:36:08.500 Day of Happiness. Okay. That's our show today. Make sure you get your mailbag questions in.

00:36:13.240 We will be doing all of that. We've got some more good guests for you, but I'm not going to tell you.

00:36:17.320 I'm not going to, I want there to be a surprise. I'm Michael Knowles. This is The Michael

00:36:20.860 Knowles Show. I'll see you tomorrow. The Michael Knowles Show is a Daily Wire

00:36:28.920 Forward Publishing production. Executive producer, Jeremy Boring. Senior producer, Jonathan Hay.

00:36:34.840 Supervising producer, Mathis Glover. Our technical producer is Austin Stevens. Edited by Alex Zingaro.

00:36:40.640 Audio is mixed by Mike Coromina. Hair and makeup is by Jesua Olvera. Copyright Forward Publishing 2018.

The Michael Knowles Show - March 20, 2018

Ep. 124 - The Atheist Delusion ft. Anthony DeStefano

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