Australia, Aquinas, and Arguing for Christianity - A Bee Interview With Matt Fradd
On The Babylon Bee Interview Show, Ethan and Michael talk to Matt Fradd about Aquinas' view on happiness, the tyranny of Australia, and how comedy from liberals is going down hill. Matt Fradd hosts the popular podcast, Pints with Aquinas, where he interviews religious figures and hosts debates on Christianity. He has written several books, including his new one How To Be Happy: Saint Thomas' Secret to a Good Life available wherever you buy books. Ethan and Michael run through a few ice breakers in order to get to know Matt a little better. They get into the meat of the interview finding out what Aquinas would say about today's culture and his remedies are for sorrow. Matt gives his distinction on why being happy shouldn't be the end all be all. Michael finds a way to slip in a test on the Lord of the Rings books while Ethan takes a long nap. Ethan finds out more about how Matt, as an Australian, views the lockdowns going on over in Australia. Ethan and Michael then try to test Matt Fradd's knowledge of Saints. In the Subscriber Portion, Ethan and Michael find out where Aquinas had views that would be deemed wrong by the Catholic Church today. They go through a few subscriber questions like finding out if Trent Horn is tall and whether he believes in the bodily resurrection. Michael quizzes Matt on a few insider Catholic hot button topics. They end the interview with the ever glorious 10 questions.
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Real people, real interviews.
I just have to say that I object strenuously to your use of the word hilarious.
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Taking you to the cutting edge of truth.
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Oh, hello there.
Well, here we are at the Babylon B interview show.
And Kyle, you look different today.
Right.
I have converted to Catholicism.
And you converted your voice out of, you got it decrimatized.
Shaved bit.
Yep.
Catholic Kyle.
You're still wearing your rock and your Star Wars shirts.
Oh, right.
So we know it's you.
So someone who, you know, just clicked on this episode might think, oh, that's not Kyle.
That's some other guy.
But they'd be wrong.
Totally, Kyle.
So here we are.
We're going to be interviewing Matt Frad today from Pintz with Aquinas.
And he's a very good podcaster and interviewer.
So it's very threatening.
But that's why I brought Michael.
He's very scholarly.
I mean, Kyle, Catholic Kyle.
Right.
And he's also a Catholic.
So sorry for the people that are triggered by that.
Please keep subscribing.
Please comment in the comments with all your anger, and we'll have some, maybe I'll have some fun hate mail later.
And it's the best.
So we had a nice conversation.
We went all through, man, what do we cover?
We cover all kinds of stuff in this conversation.
We went into kind of the modern philosophy versus kind of the Christian philosophy.
We talked a lot about some Lord of the Rings stuff, Aquinas, obviously.
And Australia.
He's Australian.
So he talked about some of the craziness of Australia.
How to be happy.
How to be happy.
He wrote a book about how to be happy based on what St. Thomas would say.
And yeah, so why don't you join us with Matt Frad?
And if you want to, oh yeah, I guess it's supposed to be if you want to check out Matt Frad, check out Matt Fred's Pints with Aquinas podcast.
He's the author and co-author of several books, including Does God Exist? A Socratic Dialogue on the Five Ways of Thomas Aquinas.
Also wrote a book called The Porn Myth, The Porn Myth, which I don't think porn's a myth, but I guess I have to read the book.
And then his new book is How to Be Happy, St. Thomas's Secret to a Good Life.
So check him out at pintswithaquinas.com.
And he also gave us some tips on how to be good interviewers.
He gave us some tips on interviewing and he gave one of the best answers we've gotten on getting punched or punching someone in the face, which is one of the questions we ask at the end of the episode in the subscriber portion.
So look forward to that.
Please subscribe.
And if you click join, if you're on YouTube, you can click right now and join.
All right.
Without further ado, here he comes.
Time to cover up this beauty.
Here comes Matt.
So no Wikipedia entry.
No Wikipedia.
So this is an opportunity then.
Can, because since you're not allowed to do your own Wikipedia entries, then then maybe someone listening to the podcast can put together a creative one after we're done here.
All right yeah, if you're watching this uh, somebody needs to do Matt Frad's uh Wikipedia entry.
You can make, base it all on this podcast and link it.
Hey, i'm Ethan and uh, you might notice Kyle looks a little different today.
I shaved uh-huh and uh, he got Catholic Catholic.
My name's Michael, but he, we made him wear a Mandalorian shirt so he'd resemble Kyle.
And if you watch the Our Lord Of The Rings podcast uh, Michael has almost called you.
Kya Catholic.
Kyle is uh regular on that show these days.
He's uh, this guy knows his Tolkin and uh.
So I figured, since Kyle's not gonna be here today, we'd we'd bring Michael on, and.
But the real guest of honor is Matt Frad over there on the screen.
Hello Matt, good day, nice.
Uh, be on your show.
Thanks for having me.
Well, thanks for joining us.
Uh, we have so much stuff to talk about.
Our notes are crazy.
Um, I like to start with an icebreaker, because i'm kind of corporate like that.
So if you could be any other religion besides Catholic, what would you be, i'd be.
I'd be Eastern Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox.
Okay, makes sense, okay.
Well, since that was such a short answer, then follow-up.
Who's your favorite Disney princess?
Oh um, I don't know.
I like the Cinderella from Brother Grims, but only because it's a little more gritty.
As far as Disney princesses, I watched um Tangled and I thought that was a really good movie, but I forget her name, Rapunzel.
Rapunzel yes, it's how masculine I am.
I don't know the names of the Disney princesses, you understand.
You know girl, some girl my, my daughters love that particular Disney uh movie because, and they especially love the song Mother knows best, sung by not oh yeah by, not Rapunzel's mother, but it turns out the antagonist of the show.
So whenever their mother decides to tell them to do things that they don't like, they begin, they break into song mother knows best.
Exactly, i'm glad you did it, because they would kick me off immediately if I started singing.
This isn't on our notes at all, but you just brought up the Grimms Cinderella, is it?
Is it right to read your children these uh, violent fairy tales?
Uh, you know where birds are pecking out people's eyes and the stepmother is being my love, I think it's.
There's a version of that where they ask the step eel stepmother, uh, how should we punish a person who did this horrible crime which?
And they describe her crime to her?
And then she comes up with this hideous thing where she's like oh, you put him in a barrel and put a bunch of spikes in the barrel and she's naked, and then you just throw her down a hill and he rolls down the hill and gets stabbed a bunch and then dies at the bottom of the hill and they're like okay, that's what we'll do to you.
And they do that.
Yeah no, if it's wrong, I don't want to be right.
I love those uh, fairy tales and uh, my kids love them as well.
I have a question, do you pay those People in the background to laugh at you?
Do they actually find you as funny as it seems?
They're just jolly.
They're just jolly guys.
It's mainly Patrick.
Our other Catholic.
A happy place.
This is a happy place.
Happy guy.
You're really funny.
Don't sell yourself short.
Crushing it.
So I have a question for you.
When I was first looking at your podcast, it occurred to me: pints with Aquinas is, that's fair, you know.
But why not shots with Aquinas?
I mean, what do you have against good bourbon?
Well, I'm okay with good bourbon.
I suppose I don't want to kind of glorify drunkenness.
If you start talking about shots, it gets dangerously close to debauchery.
There's a Latin phrase, in vino veritas.
And I've always, I've always, where there is wine, there is truth.
And I've always liked that.
Just sitting down over a beer or a glass of wine or yes, even a few fingers of whiskey or something and having good conversations about the about the big questions.
Yep.
So you don't feel less Protestant because you've chosen the less alcoholic or more less Catholic because you've chosen the less alcoholic drink for the title of your podcast.
Yeah, as a Calvinist feel.
Would Aquinas like IPAs?
I doubt it.
I do.
I like IPAs in the summer.
Okay.
But not in the winter.
It's going to be a stout in the winter, I think.
Amen.
Amen.
Well, that's kind of like comedians in cars getting coffee, is what I was thinking that sounds like.
Yeah, we should make it.
you turn it into that catholics in cars getting well yeah Hopefully not.
So I'm curious.
You know, we live in this culture right now of owning the libs.
A lot of us in the people of faith, you know, Babylon B, that's like one of our things.
But, you know, it's also become an obsession.
And let's talk about that.
Where's too far?
Because it's important to call it hypocrisy, call it absurdity.
But where's the balance?
And where do you see Christians going wrong in culture?
If you would rather see Joe Biden being denied Holy Communion than him convert and be a faithful Catholic, then that's not a good place to be.
And I think if we're honest, a lot of us are there.
I'm kind of there.
There's times I see that in myself.
And I'm like, do I really want this man's good or do I really just want him to kind of be shamed publicly?
So I suppose that might be a place to draw the line.
If you think that you would rather sort of slander somebody than see their conversion.
I know slandering's funnier, given that you're a funny sort of website podcast.
That might be what most of us want, but we shouldn't.
Right.
Well, thanks for taking one of our future questions because we were going to ask you about the Joe Biden, the communion thing.
Is this heavily edited or is this it?
This is it.
Cool, man.
We're not professional.
He has these books behind him and all this stuff.
No, this is the conversation that you have before the interview, but we just record it and then we publish it.
I like it.
Right.
So that's it.
So, but where do you, I mean, besides just that, philosophically, I'm trying to go deeper.
Okay.
You feel like, I mean, it's a large group of people, Christians, Catholics, all of us.
But the broader culture of people of faith, where do you see us?
Where do you see us going wrong?
Or what do you hope to get out to believers?
What are you hoping to?
You have a podcast, right?
I mean, there's a, what void are you trying to fill?
I want people to love Jesus Christ and be sincere followers of him.
I want people to be faithful to the teachings of the Catholic Church.
I want them to see the joy in that.
I want them to, and myself to live my vocation to the fullest.
I want to be more concerned, for example, with loving my wife and being attentive to my kids than I am about wondering how many views my latest video had on YouTube.
But I'm also aware that sometimes I fail at that.
And I think being honest about that is good.
So yeah, I guess I'd sum it up that way.
Pints with Aquinas, the whole idea is if we could bring the angelic doctor, as he's known, out of the ivory tower of academia to converse with the riffraff, you know, that's really what this is about.
I'm not an academic, but I do love thinking about the big questions.
I have a master's in philosophy, so I like thinking about those sorts of things.
So yeah, that's the idea.
I mean, we live in a crazy day and age.
It seems insane by the minute.
And I think Christians, as well as everybody else, can fall into the trap of refreshing their daily wire feeds just to see how more outrage they can get before 3 p.m. than we are picking up the holy scriptures and journeying with Christ.
I mean, that's me, and I don't like that about me.
And I suspect that's most people who watch me.
So yeah, how do I live an intimate relationship with our blessed Lord and keep my eyes on him?
I think services like yours and Daily Wire and others that are pointing out the insanity, it helps because it helps me feel less alone.
You know, like if you see like a dude who says he's a woman beating the snot out of somebody in UFC or whatever it is, you're kind of looking around being like, this is insane, right?
It is, isn't it?
And if everyone around you is like, no, this is good.
You should applaud it.
Then it's really great to have excellent news like Daily Wire and yourselves and others who are like, this is insane.
You are right to think it's insane.
So I think that's kind of the value that different conservative political commentators make.
As a comedy show, I find the Bee has a target-rich environment in today's culture, as they call it.
And you gave a couple examples of that.
But continuing on that theme, you recently announced the publication of a new book of yours that you have.
And I believe the title is How to Be Happy, St. Thomas's Secret to a Good Life.
Yeah.
Did I get that right?
Yes.
No, it's the happiness myth, I think.
Right?
Combination of two, his previous porn myth, I think.
Right.
What do you find?
So as a full disclosure, my undergraduate degree was at Thomas Aquinas College here in California.
Oh, wonderful.
And great college.
We love it.
And we have our happy rivalry with Steubenville.
You guys are with the Franciscan vibe.
Actually, full disclosure, my first daughter is a third-year nursing student at Franciscan, and she's heard you talk before.
So she was quite excited to hear that you were being interviewed by the Bee.
But in the new book, I thought the title was interesting.
I don't have it yet.
It's on order.
But St. Thomas's Secret to a Good Life.
So you've only got the title to go on.
That's all I got.
But luckily I have much history.
Right.
But since you're sitting here, what do you find the most challenging thing is about making Thomas's thought accessible to a modern audience?
Because the Thomistic tradition is deep, but it's also, there's something medieval about it, but also universal.
And so when I was thinking about you writing a book about illuminating St. Thomas to the world, I thought, you know, what do you find the most challenging aspect of Thomas's thought is when you're speaking to a modern audience?
Well, when most people think of Thomas Aquinas, they might think of his work in metaphysics or his proofs for God's existence or what he has to say about just war theory or something like that.
And that can all be very, and is, I think, very complicated, especially to the layman like me.
But when it comes to what he has to say on happiness, it's just so beautiful.
He's really a down-to-earth philosopher, practical sensed kind of guy.
So just going to give you an example.
He has five remedies for sorrow.
And one of them is sleep and baths, which, you know, I'm a fan of.
And then, of course, he goes through all the many things that we look to to make us happy and shows why they can't.
So if happiness is our last end, so it's not something we, it's that thing which we seek for itself, right, that perfects us, then it can't be money, obviously, because money is a means of exchange.
So, okay, maybe it's something money can get us, but it can't be money because by its very definition, we have it in order to get something else, for example.
One of the things I love about Thomas Aquinas and his discussion on happiness is he makes this distinction between perfect happiness and the happiness that we can have or hope to have in this life.
And so, if you said to Thomas Aquinas, like, can I be perfectly happy in this life?
He'd be like, nah.
And I like that.
It's like, yeah, you can't, not possible, because we weren't made for the things of this world.
We were made, as it were, for God, the beatific vision.
And only in him will we find the fulfillment of all our desires.
And so it's kind of nice.
Like, if you walk around wondering what's wrong with you, because you experience these beautiful things, but don't find yourself fully satiated by them, that is not a bug, it's a feature.
And so I think communicating that is really, I think, helpful, at least at least for me, it is.
So there's not much challenging?
You think it's just exploring that different side of Aquinas that people aren't familiar with?
Yeah, I think in part.
I think the other thing perhaps is explaining what we mean by happiness.
So in the Nicomachean ethics, Aristotle in the beginning of it talks about how all of us, whenever we engage in a behavior or a pursuit or some sort of endeavor, it's always for an end.
But many of the things we do, almost everything we do, is for the end of something else, right?
So like, why am I on your show?
Well, I was flattered that you asked me, and I would like to perhaps have pints with Aquinas reach a larger audience.
Okay, well, why do you want that?
Because I would like my YouTube channel to be more successful and to make more money from it and to have more people hear about Thomas Aquinas.
Okay, why do you want to do that?
Well, because, and, you know, if you keep asking why, it's a great way to lose friends.
This is why Socrates was killed.
But eventually, I think to kind of quote Sam Harris, he says something in regards to atheism, but he says, at that point, if you keep asking why, and I eventually say, well, just so I can be happy.
If you ask why, you've hit metaphysical bedrock with the shovel of a stupid question.
There's no reason we want to be happy.
It's just what we want because of what it is, our perfection.
People say, I want to be rich so that I can be happy, but they don't say, I want to be happy so that I can be rich.
Happiness is the end goal.
So I think maybe beginning by explaining what it is we mean by happiness can be a little challenging if I was to pick something.
Yeah, it kind of leads to my question because I think, you know, what is the major philosophical difference between someone who thinks a little more pre-modern like ourselves or the modern culture?
You know, that you try to like boil it down.
A modern person would just say, I want everybody just to be happy.
You do you.
Yeah.
So what's the difference?
What's the difference between the way you're saying and what they're saying?
Because by happiness, Thomas Aquinas means man's perfection, right?
So it's been said that the cows chew contentedly in the meadows while men smoke discontentedly in the bars.
And that's good.
We should be dissatisfied.
If I was satisfied with Netflix binging and fornicating and getting drunk every weekend, I would be wrong to be happy.
So I think that's another thing.
I think when modern man says, I want everyone to be happy, he just means I want everyone to be satisfied.
But there are certain behaviors that we engage in that we shouldn't be satisfied with, that we're wrong to be satisfied with.
I gave a big talk on pornography in the basilica in Baltimore, and it was just this talk on pornography.
And there was a porn performer in the audience.
And I didn't know she was there.
And at the end, she stood up.
Very hard to miss.
Well, I mean, you know, she was very respectful and dressed modestly and all this.
Performing.
That wasn't happening.
And she got up and she was kind of critical.
And she said, you're kind of strawmanning our position.
And here's what I really think.
And I'm actually happy.
And my response was, well, I think you're wrong to be.
So, you know, I mean, like, I mean, we've all kind of met we've all kind of met people whose behavior is leading them into a bad place.
And they may have said to us, like, dude, this is, I, I, I, this is, this makes me happy.
Or they've said something like that.
And the idea that I'm not allowed to say, well, you're wrong to be is seems absurd.
So that's where we get, that's the big disconnect is that we have an ideal that we're trying to conform our happiness to.
Yeah, man has a nature and that nature can be fulfilled, can be perfected.
And not with, not with just anything.
Right.
And I've, I've been listening to another podcaster that's going through Thomas's commentary.
He doesn't like him as much as he likes you, though.
Yeah, I'm a bit of a podcast junkie, but he's going through Aquinas's commentary on the Nicomachian ethics.
Oh, beautiful.
And just to add and build on what you were saying a little bit, you know, man has a nature that Aquinas is recognizing and our nature is higher than that of the animals.
So while we can satiate ourself with the things that, and perhaps we may even fool ourselves to thinking that it's, that makes us happy, it doesn't actually, unless we're actually turning towards the thing to which our nature is intended.
Right.
And I forget who it was who said that, you know, when animals have their needs met, they've copulated, they've eaten, they go to sleep.
But when man has his needs met, he asks questions, which I think is, I think there's a good argument to be made for why philosophy arose when and where it did several hundred years prior to Christ in Greece because of the kind of lack of conflict and just this, there was a lot of time for leisure.
But when we have the leisure, we're bloody well interested in the point of the whole thing.
And to not be interested in that is a very sad thing, I think.
So you would replace Netflix and chill with Netflix, chill, and debate?
Question and point?
Okay, so I think like there's a distinction that needs to be made between what we mean by leisure and what we often experience as dissociative.
So like I've had the experience of like laying in a hotel bed with a laptop lid open while I'm watching the office, but then I go through to another video and I'm maybe I go to a Twitter feed and I'm scrolling through that while listening to the office and then somebody texts me and so I'm on Twitter listening to the office, texting with somebody.
This is no way to live.
And you're kind of drifting to sleep with a packet of Skittles on your chest.
I mean, this isn't good.
And I think you kind of, you realize that after you've engaged in an activity like that, you don't actually feel recreated.
You don't feel restored at all.
And so I think there's a distinction that needs to be made there.
And we ought to kind of, yeah, do away with those activities we engage in in order to merely distract ourself and engage in rest.
And rest takes bloody work.
That's difficult.
Rest is difficult.
Took the month of August off of the internet entirely.
And so I could no longer turn to my phone, which I gave away for the month.
And so I had to kind of listen to records like a loser and, you know, read things on pages made of paper.
You know, and that's that takes work.
It's hard to be with yourself, especially if you don't like yourself.
And I think to some degree, we're all kind of like that.
If you were to sit in a dark room silently, how long could you endure yourself?
Not for long, I don't think, or to the degree in which maybe you're growing in your relationship with the Lord, maybe longer than someone else, but you sort of run smack into your own poverty.
And that's why distraction, I think, is so attractive.
That's why I find it so attractive.
And the internet is just a place to feel liked, right?
Like to virtue signal or find people that think like you do and to feel validated and so I think yeah, that addiction we have.
I mean, I don't even and here's one way to prove that, right?
If you discovered that Twitter was automatically liking and retweeting your posts and they actually wasn't human beings on the other end recognizing and acknowledging you, you'd be kind of ticked.
Yeah.
Why?
Because the whole reason you're on there is so that you can be seen and heard and enjoyed or validated.
Right.
So I don't think St. Paul would have been on Twitter and I don't think you should be either.
I think you should get off it.
What about Chesterton?
I think he'd have been a killer to tweeter.
GK Chesterton.
Say dude.
I think Twitter would have killed his mind and he wouldn't have been as brilliant as he was.
It's true.
So speaking of which, since you just admitted you are, in fact, the Catholic Dave Rubin by leaving your technology behind for the gay stuff.
Yeah.
Right, right.
I'm glad you added that part.
So I recall from your recent podcast that you mentioned that coming off of your, I'm going to call it your technology detox, right?
Your Lent, your technology Lent.
You announced that you're giving up your smartphone.
You're going to a dumb phone.
And I was curious about that.
I thought, how's that working out now since it's been a few weeks?
And you have any regrets?
Yeah, I'm really good at making spur of the decisions on the spot and then regretting them and backtracking.
That's what I do.
I get excited about something.
I commit to something only to give up on it three weeks ago.
So say we all.
Yeah.
But this isn't something I'm going to go back on.
I got the dumb phone.
It's actually called a wise phone.
So it looks like a smartphone, but there's zero access to the internet.
But it has Google Maps, which was a kind of convenience I wasn't willing to do without.
So it's a dumb phone.
There's absolutely no access to images or, you know, you can't go into Google Maps and go through to images or click through to websites, nothing like that.
So it's essentially a dumb phone that looks pretty, a pretty dumb phone.
And I did that when I gave up the internet in August.
So, you know, August 1st.
And now it's the end of September and I haven't gone back to the smartphone and I actually have no desire to.
So I'm committed to this.
And not because I'm, you know, I have a lot of self-control.
I don't, which is why I had to get rid of the stuff on August 1st as opposed to just say putting it in a drawer.
But yeah, I actually really am glad that.
And I'd love to kind of get to the point where I don't have a dumb phone.
Wouldn't that be great?
Just full-on Catholic Amish is my goal.
From the non-negative perspective, not just that you've given it up, but any joy that you've felt that's come off of it?
It's funny.
I think we expect the same immediate gratification from giving up technology as we do from technology.
So it's almost like technology has conditioned us to expect immediate gratification from everything, including giving up technology.
And so I experienced this.
I'm sure other people do as well.
You give up your phone for five minutes and don't find yourself terribly enlightened with a photographic memory and the desire to weep in prayer.
And you think, well, it's not bloody working.
But what I have found is, yeah, just like I went away for the weekend with my family and just took my dumb phone and had zero desire to kind of go online.
And so that's got to be a good thing.
The other thing I noticed is without my dumb phone, I actually don't listen to podcasts anymore.
No offense to you or me.
Why would I listen to mine?
Because it's interesting, once you take that accessibility away, how many podcasts would be worth your time?
It's almost like, would you go to McDonald's if you couldn't go through the drive-thru ever again?
Maybe no.
It's almost like it's the convenience of the drive-thru that makes you open to going to McDonald's.
And it's the convenience of driving around or doing the dishes, having your smartphone that makes all the podcasts so attractive.
But would you actually sit down to listen to a podcast?
And if not, maybe that's something to think about.
So I actually haven't listened to a full podcast for the last two months either, just because I couldn't be bothered sitting down and kind of watching it.
I'm going to edit that part out because we want people to listen to podcasts.
No, I get it.
Yeah.
I mean, it's super ironic, right?
Like I make my living off the internet and I'm saying it sucks.
But I actually think people's lives would be better without listening to me too.
Like if your two options are stop the internet and like read books and be with humans and drink whiskey on the porch and smoke cigar with a friend and get to know people in your area, if it's that or being online, well, if you're going to be online, you may as well listen to the bee and pints with Aquinas.
But I think your life would be better without Pints with Aquinas or the rest of the internet.
But since you suck and you're here, I'm happy to entertain you for a little bit.
Right.
We're a necessary evil.
If the fall hadn't happened, there wouldn't be podcasts.
There wouldn't be the Babylon Bee.
That's true.
It's all our reason.
Oh, Felix Culper.
Right.
That's right.
Use your smart words.
Oh, happy fault if you've merited us such a satirical website.
Hey, you, are you enjoying this interview?
I know I am.
Oh, I sure am.
I'm actually probably sweating trying to think up new questions right now at this very moment.
But if you're enjoying it, you should become a Babylon Bee subscriber because the interviews are much longer.
Yes.
And we also have the most fun because the portion of the interview that does not go up here on YouTube publicly can be Googled.
So our guests kind of, you know, kick back a little bit and get a little looser.
They tell us what they really think.
And we always do our 10 questions, which for everybody tends to be the funnest part of the show.
Yes.
So become a Babylon B subscriber at BabylonB.com slash plans.
And you get the full interview show.
And you also get it a day early.
Do it now.
So you mentioned books, and I was introduced as the guy that does Lord of the Rings with the rest of the Babylon Bee.
So I did catch that you read, reread Lord of the Rings during your technology detox.
And so since we at the B, we love Tolkien's Magnum Opus.
But we do have a few questions for you to ensure we're dealing with a real literary fan and not a movie groupie.
Oh, I'm, yeah, well, let's see.
You ready?
All right.
So one of these questions may or may not be a trap, I'll save beforehand.
Okay.
So question one.
Who's the best, in fact, Lord of the Rings character that was left out of the movies?
Oh, Tom Bombadil?
All right.
That's acceptable.
I love Tom Bombadil.
Yeah.
I would say Glorfindil, but all right.
Okay.
You can have silver metal.
Thank you.
In the books, your personal favorite Lord of the Rings character and why?
Gandalf, because he just reminds me of Christ.
I thought of this.
I thought Jesus Christ makes Gandalf look the way Gandalf makes me look.
Hey, Gowan, with my pot belly and my inability to stay interested in anything.
But Jesus Christ is that much more powerful, you know?
So I love that scene in the minds of Moria where they're being, you know, they're locked in that kind of chamber, that tomb area.
What do you call it?
You know what I mean?
It is a tomb, the tomb of Balin, I believe.
Okay.
And I thought to myself often that like spiritual warfare, that's a good analogy for spiritual warfare because those hobbits and even Aragorn and Gimli and that, they'd be buggered without Gandalf.
And spiritual warfare without Christ, I'd be knackered as well, you know?
I like that answer, especially because Gandalf is the grumpiest of all the main characters.
So the idea of a grumpy Christ is amusing to me because I often feel like we have a few scenes where Christ says in the Gospels where he tells he's probably angry or irritated where he tells Peter to get behind me, Satan, or where he's flipping tables over in the temple, outside the temple, where we can see that he does, in fact, experience anger.
But I always thought there were probably more times than that where he had to express his frustration with those around him.
And so the image of Gandalf as Christ is funny to me.
All right, question three.
When rereading Lord of the Rings, Tolkien fans often mention noticing passages they've previously passed over.
Yes.
Did you have any such literary moments in your life?
Yes.
For me, it was when Tom Bombadil spoke of Farmer Maggot in a way that led the Hobbits to realize that he was more important than they first thought.
Awesome.
And I thought, and actually, I was reading this around my wedding anniversary.
My wife and I have been married 15 years.
And just thinking of that, like about her, like she's a mystery to me.
Like she's powerful.
She plays a significant role in the church militant.
And so do many of us.
And yet we kind of look upon each other as just sort of being in the way of something we're trying to do.
And I just love this simplicity of Farmer Maggot, right?
But if it weren't for him driving them to the ferry, then Sauron would have won.
Something as simple as that.
And we all have a role to play in this spiritual warfare we're engaged in.
See, that's awesome.
Last night I just, I read the Lord of the Rings to my children.
I have many of them.
And so every few years I start the over again.
I have many children, yes.
Not many Lord of the Rings.
I might have many of those too.
So we just reread that.
We just read for the first time, my young son saw that passage about Farmer Maggot and the idea that this is a salt of the earth farmer Hobbit.
And he stands up to the Nazgul, it turns out he doesn't know that they are, but he has the strength of character, which they were pointing out to me.
It's like all the hobbits.
It's like, you know, this is one of the virtues of hobbits in Lord of the Rings, but Farmer Maggot has it in spades and Tom Bombadil's.
They haven't got to that part yet, but Tom Bombadil's compliment is very, very appropriate.
All right, last question.
How awesome is Tolkien's use of clear allegory throughout the books?
Does he do a better job at allegory than the Chronicles of Narnia?
So I don't know much about this except to say that I thought that Tolkien was a little down on Lewis's allegory.
So that allegory.
All right.
But I'll say this.
I've said this on my podcast, but this is a great allegory, I think, or at least something that I became aware of as I was rereading this.
And that is trying to understand the Lord of the Rings without reference to Sauron is like trying to understand Christianity and your life without reference to the demonic.
How would you go about explaining that to someone?
You know, you might say, well, there was a ring and it sucked and it was not conducive to the flourishing of Hobbiton.
And so these little fellas with hairy feet got rid of it and things were better.
You know, it's like, that is what happened, but it's woefully insufficient.
You know, and likewise, we can say things like, well, God exists and he loves you and he became incarnate to sacrifice himself because you owed a debt you couldn't pay.
So he paid a debt he didn't know so that you can be in right relationship with him and be with him for all eternity.
Woefully insufficient.
There exists an enemy of our souls who hates us intensely and wants to bring us to hell.
And I think Christianity and our lives just, you don't make great sense of them without reference to that.
See, that's really well said.
I'm just glad that you dodged the allegory trap because that is for Tolkien lovers, that is the truth is that he actually didn't like the Chronicles of Narnia famously when Lewis read it to him because he didn't like the whole obviousness of the allegory, you know, Jesus Christ with a mane as Oslon and things.
And so I think you're rightly pointing out that there's themes in Lord of the Rings, which, of course, point to deeper spiritual truths, but as far as direct allegory goes.
Right.
And it's not on the nose in the way that Narnia is, which I prefer.
And which is eminently Catholic and British because he's as a British Catholic.
Wait, C.S. Lewis is British.
Tolkien was British and Catholic, so he had two up.
But he was, you know, he didn't.
All right, fine.
We do basic math.
Counting, all that.
But he couldn't.
The British people do not.
I went to England for my masters, and they do not like things that are just on the nose.
They like a little subtlety.
The English office versus the American office.
Right.
Right.
Now that I've dominated this entire center.
I have a question as a Protestant for both of you guys.
If Tolkien was Protestant, what would change when he wrote Lord of the Rings?
Where's his Catholicism intertwined into it?
Well, there would be no lembas, that's for sure.
There would be no focus on Galadriel because he even admits that the focus on Galadriel is reminiscent of the – Perhaps allegorical.
No.
Nope, just reminiscent.
Just reminiscent of the devotion and love of the Blessed Mother that kept it.
Oh, powerful.
And Lembus is a clear sign of and contains many of the qualities of the Eucharist, actually.
It's this flat, mostly tasteless bread, but it sustains the hobbits through their trip to Mordor and has a quality, a virtue that regular food can't mimic, can't recreate.
So at least those two things, but probably a few other things as well.
Longer than this podcast.
All right.
All right.
Well, what do we move on to from here?
Right.
So that was a lot of Lord of the Rings talk.
You talked to Peter Kraft recently.
Can I suggest a lot of people?
You're a better interviewer than I am.
I'm sure people do this to you a lot, but I want to suggest a Babylon B article that might get your Catholic fan base pumped.
Oh, right.
So back in like the 70s and 80s, you would sometimes see women standing outside of seminaries with these big kind of placards that would say, let us in.
Right.
I think we should have Catholic men outside of convents decrying the sexism of the Catholic Church that will not allow them to be nuns.
That is like a song on the internet, right?
About women wanting to be priests.
Oh, dear God.
Is that song?
I don't remember the name of it.
Yeah, don't remind people.
It's the worst thing that's ever happened on the internet.
Ordain a lady.
Ordain a lady.
Yeah.
All right.
Haven't heard that one.
Look it up.
Look it up.
No, or don't.
When you were talking with Kreeft, you talked about how, well, I was amused because you held a pretty pessimistic view of our current situation in America.
And it was pretty funny to hear the 84-year-old man trying to cheer up the 30-something youngster.
Yes.
And so are you a natural pessimist or is the modern world just that awful?
I don't know.
I don't know if as I'm getting older, I might be becoming more pessimistic.
I don't think I should.
I think it's a fault of mine.
But it's difficult to look out at the state of the United States and think we are currently erupting and there will be nothing left within 10 minutes.
But I think that being pessimistic is too easy and doesn't require much of us.
And that's why it's so attractive.
If I can look out and say, ah, to hell with it all, that's easier than saying, than hoping.
Hoping takes work.
And one of the things Gandalf and others say throughout the Lord of the Rings, just to bring us back, is not even the wise see how things will end.
So I think a better solution would be to keep our eyes on Christ and to hope in him, even though we don't see a way out of this.
But yeah.
So this has been the Babylon B Reads Lord of the Rings.
Thanks, everyone, for tuning in on this episode.
So speaking of hopelessness, you're Australian.
What do you think about what's going on in Australia right now?
Yeah.
I mean, I haven't kept up too much, but when I speak to friends and family, I'm pretty disgusted.
I think since moving to the States back in 2005, I've seriously drunk the Kool-Aid and I'm pretty put off when I hear family members speaking of their government the way women should speak of their husbands or children, their parents.
I'll hear, I'll have family members say things like, well, you know, the lockdowns are pretty bad, but, you know, they're doing what's best for us and this sort of thing, like rolling over.
So which region of Australia was that accent?
I just want to know.
Well, I won't say who it was.
So let's say South Australia, which is a state, not a region necessarily.
Yeah, so I'm pretty gross out.
Now, I would never say that the riots are a good sign because that could get me booted off YouTube.
So I wouldn't say that.
I'm not saying that now.
I'm not saying it's good to see Australia strap on a pair and stick up, you know, stick it to their overlords.
I wouldn't say that.
Yeah, that was probably the most totalitarian image that I had seen in the last week was there was a video of, it looked like it was from a drone or something, but it was of some Australian police men breaking up.
Yeah.
And they were shooting with rubber bullets.
They were shooting these protesters in the back as they ran.
So it wasn't that they were just there to break it up.
They weren't confronted by the protesters in the sense the protesters were trying to get anywhere like you would see in Chaz or any of the Black Lives Matter sorts of protests, but they were just leaving and they were being shot in the back with rubber bullets as they were leaving.
It was incredible.
I wouldn't have imagined five years ago that Australia would.
Yeah, I'd imagine they'd use rubber boomerangs.
That's what I was thinking.
Just seems too American.
You're going to do it.
Be Australian about it.
Yeah, exactly.
Or a giant rubber knife.
That's not a knife.
Yeah, I worked with an Australian guy on a project, you know, or a Zoom column.
And yeah, same thing like that.
He just gave all these horrible details of what the government was doing there and then end it with, but you know, it's, you know, the government's really taking care of us.
Yeah, that kind of stuff bothers me.
What is that?
Why are people being like that?
And why do we have such a problem with it?
Let me see.
That's crazy.
This may not be very insightful, but this is the best I can surmise.
In Australia, there is, at least for the most part, a monopoly on the information.
You have Sky News, which tends to report a lot on American stuff, it seems, but also on Australian things, but they're quite small.
But most of the news channels are singing from the same sheet of music.
So it seems to me that you don't have the sort of MSNBC versus Fox News.
You don't have like this big daily wire thing that's sort of mobilizing people.
You don't have that in Australia from what I remember.
I don't think things have changed too much.
And so because of that, there's just this sense of like we all kind of agree, you know, like we all kind of get along.
Whereas here, we're all convinced that we want to kill each other.
That's not good either.
But, you know, I think I'd prefer that.
Not that we should hurt each other, but I would prefer to have this sort of conflict of narratives, as it were, people having the ability to kind of voice their concern publicly without being shut down, although that's starting to happen, of course.
How have you not been shut down, Babylon B?
And is this something you're concerned about as you post articles and videos?
Are we being interviewed now?
Yes.
You know, yeah, it's interesting.
I do think that there's a barrier.
Humor creates a bit of a barrier, I think, because it makes you look like the fuddy-duddy lunchroom chaperone that walks up to the table and goes, what are you children laughing about?
Stop that.
So I think that the person who, you know, because there's the risk of looking like you don't get the joke or whatever if you become the scold.
Oh, that's fair.
I do think that there's something there that there's that Chesterton quote that we use all the time.
Humor gets in under the door while argument or whatever, I can't remember what the right word is.
So you're still fumbling at the knob or the lock or whatever.
Oh, that's excellent.
Yeah.
Well, y'all, I love y'all.
I think you're doing great work.
And I'm really, I'm really grateful.
I think you are actually providing a beautiful service.
How often, here's another question for you since I'm in the interview.
This is easier for me.
How many, because I'm sure maybe in the beginning, you found that a lot of people read your articles and thought they were actual news.
Do people still do that or is everyone sort of a constant supply of gullible people on the internet?
Yeah.
Yeah, it definitely happens.
I mean, it's not our goal, but it's also kind of vague.
But you know what's nice about that?
It's a reflection of how many new people are seeing your stuff, too.
Right.
Well, and also a reflection of that our culture is that ridiculous that you can try to write the most ridiculous thing.
It's believable.
And also often it comes true like two months later.
Yeah.
There was a Ed Faser was one of the folks that reviewed your book.
And just his comment on the review was that he calls your book practical and witty.
Maybe, maybe this is unintentional on your part, but you have a natural sense of humor, which comes out in your podcast.
I'm looking forward to it in the book.
I was actually going to ask you, it's funny because when you asked about the humor side, do you find that consciously humor is an important aspect for you to inject into books or your podcasts?
Or is it more of an underlying tone that you just like the you're naturally funnier as an Australian, maybe?
So yeah, I don't know.
I used to give a lot of talks on pornography.
I would speak to about 50 to 70,000 people a year in high schools and colleges.
And I got this from a friend of mine, Jason Everett.
He said that often that joke, it's like the laughing gas before the incision.
So I want people, like if I'm going to get up and speak about pornography, one of the first things I'll often do at a high school is I'll say something like this.
I'll say, well, for the last 10 years, I've been traveling and speaking on the topic of pornography.
My mom's really proud of me.
Something like that.
And it's like that really helps if I can kind of make a joke right up front and just everyone can kind of relax a little bit and then I can speak about something that's quite serious.
And especially if you can take yourself lightly, people respond better to that.
I think so.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, and I do think it helps, even though the articles don't do as well now.
Our audience has become much more political.
Bad one be always makes fun of their own.
We make fun of the, we like poking fun at the cultural Christianity and the right sometimes too, and there's ridiculousness stuff going on there.
So I think that's another thing.
Back to your question about how are we protected from so far being canceled.
I think that also definitely has creates a buffer because we're clearly, you know, and I, and I always, I hope we don't go down that road where we just are only making one joke.
And I think that's always a risk, especially when you're chasing clicks and views.
Yeah, you know, because there's always the one joke that tends to get the most views and likes.
And that's our, that's how we make our money.
But I had it follow up to that, but I lost it.
So I'm not a good Instagram.
We're just learning from you, Matt.
So there was a discussion topic when I was younger, and I was at Thomas Coines College that was one of my favorites that dealt with this subject of humor.
And it sort of came to a head in, do angels have a sense of humor?
Do angels laugh?
And the conclusion we all came to was actually probably yes, because risability philosophically is an effect of rationality and angels are rational.
But that means that God has a sense of humor too, because he's reason itself.
And so at least you can, there's an aspect to humor which is so core to the human condition that you almost, it's almost uncancelable in that sense.
I mean, obviously, there's been plenty of totalitarian regimes that have tried in the last century, but there's an aspect to it that's sort of delighted.
It's insane how bloody boring the night show hosts have become.
I remember people pointing that out.
And I thought to myself, well, you're only saying that because they hold certain liberal views or leftist views.
But I'm like, oh my God, I think Matt Walsh said in a recent podcast, I just do not believe that anybody has ever watched this show.
Nobody watches this.
There's no way human beings are choosing to watch this.
They are just so boring.
So it's nice to see you guys kind of filling that space, I suppose.
Someone needs to be funny.
Yeah, it's tragic thing about Colbert, man.
He was so funny.
Yeah, he was hilarious.
Now he's painful to listen.
He had this segment years ago, Better Know Your District, where he went through each and interviewed before he was famous when he was on The Daily Show, but he would go through and interview random representatives from Congress and just ask them.
And it would start out as normal questions and then he would just get more and more ridiculous.
And it was funny to watch which ones realized that and which ones didn't.
Some of the funniest clips are from politicians who were he was taking the piss as, oops, I'm not allowed to say that.
I think they don't, they don't, yeah, I think we can say that one.
We'll find out.
And so, and it's, it's really true.
He was, he was my favorite.
I mean, John, obviously, Jon Stewart was a genius, but, uh, and still is, but Colbert was my favorite personality on that show.
And then he got his own show, and I can't even bear to watch him for five minutes now.
And it's not because we disagree.
No, it's like you have to stay in step with secular dogma and spout it and not allow anything to the contrary.
Yeah, it's just brutal.
So anyway, all that's to say, I'm glad you guys are doing what you're doing.
So Franciscan University, is it indeed or is it not the Catholic Mecca of America?
Well, yeah, we moved here in January.
We've been here a year and we moved for friendship.
We wanted to do community with people.
And there are so many wonderful Catholic families here.
It's a great Catholic university, very Orthodox.
I mean, most Catholic universities are trash.
This one's actually Orthodox, believes in the supremacy of Christ and the study of scripture and all that.
So it's wonderful.
So it's, I mean, it's a rundow town.
There was a meth bus across our street, $500,000 meth bus.
That was cool.
Meth.
The potholes bust.
Not a meth bus.
That's where they went wrong.
They were distributing through a bus.
That's a meth buster.
It's like one of those Hollywood tour buses.
You get to see all the meth houses in the neighborhood.
Right.
So it's a rundown place, but I like it.
I like it.
You know, whenever you try to maybe recreate or create some sort of like Christian community away from everything else, I think you can see how that can possibly go downhill quickly.
It doesn't have to, but sometimes it does.
So it's kind of nice.
It's kind of like a natural Christian community that's evolved within this town that really cares about the town and wants to see it built up.
So I love it.
Yep.
We have less meth, more homeless where I live, but there's the homeless encampments are probably superior to the homeless encampments in Steubenville.
But there's, you know, my daughter being a since we're bragging about ugly things, but she's as a student.
This was rough for her, you know, moving to, first of all, the five-month winter was tough going from Southern California to you're about to hit that.
Here it comes.
But Steubenville, the town itself, she loves Franciscan as the university.
The town itself at Steubenville, like you said, is pretty rough around the edges.
It reminded me of what Christ said, you know, that he said, the poor will always be with you and you always have with you.
And it's interesting because he's not, it's kind of the opposite of the utopian ideal where, as you said, Matt, you know, you're going away to start a community and trying to create a perfect community with a utopia.
But really, as Christians, I think we're more called to live within the world and address even the ugliness we find around us too.
And that wasn't a question, which is why I'm a terrible interviewer.
No.
Good point.
Even if that ugliness is people in pajamas at Croak.
Please stop doing that.
It's disgusting.
You shouldn't be able to vote.
Please stop dressing like a slob.
Continue.
Real quick, I'm going to quiz you.
I want to see how well you know your patron saints.
Okay.
Okay.
I'll try.
Yep.
This rapid fire.
Patron saint of playing card manufacturers.
No idea.
Saint Balthazar.
Okay.
Patron saint of PR and advertising.
No idea.
Saint Bernardino of Siena.
That's you're not too, man.
Okay.
Let's hope you get a few of these.
Uh-oh.
Patron saint of coffee houses and patron saint of ugly people.
Oh, are they the same one?
I guess so.
No, yeah, no idea.
Saint Drago.
Drogo.
Oh, Saint Drago.
I should pray to him more.
Patron Saint of the Internet.
It wouldn't be Saint Claire, would it?
She's the patron saint of television.
Saint Isidore.
Oh, okay.
Well, he's doing a poor job.
Patron saint of comedians.
I don't know.
Saint Genesius of Rome.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
He's also the patron saint of, I think, actors.
Correct.
Correct.
My daughter actually, she's his, he is her favorite patron saint.
She loves him.
She loves St. Genesis.
All right.
Now, as the porn expert, maybe you'll know this one.
Patron Saint of people with STDs.
Oh, dear.
Do not know.
Saint Fiakra.
That sounds never heard.
Oh, it's profane.
Fiacre.
Fiacre.
Yeah.
Well, this is this is great.
We got two more.
Okay, finally, patron saints of disappointing children.
My new favorite.
Saint Monica?
I don't know.
Oh, my kids.
Saint guessed that.
Clotilde?
Clotilde.
Clotilde.
All right.
Can I share with you something funny in regards to patron saints?
Okay, Thomas Aquinas was a contemporary of Saint Bonaventure.
Okay.
Bonaventure was a Franciscan.
Thomas Aquinas was a Dominican.
Both are doctors of the church, and so their writings are held in great esteem.
But, you know, Bonaventure coming from the Franciscan tradition, Thomas from the Dominican tradition, they're sometimes at odds within the sort of realm of acceptable theological discourse within the Catholic Church.
They died the same year.
And I'd like to remind people that St. Thomas Aquinas is the patron saint of universities and teachers.
St. Bonaventure is the patron saint of bowel issues.
So there's that.
Do they know?
They don't know what they're going to be the patron saint of.
That happens after they die.
I'm pretty sure it's sort of like a title that gets put on.
And it's not like the Pope is like, you shall be.
I think it's more of like a popular attribution.
People decide, you know, traditionally pray to him because he had some sort of like, do they go, oh, wait, there's no saint of bacon?
Are these there's something like they probably is.
We got to get somebody.
There better be.
We should look that up.
Coffee houses was all right.
What do you think?
Do you think GK Chesterton should be sainted?
People have been trying to do that.
Well, I think, I don't know.
I haven't looked into his life.
I know of his writings, which I think are brilliant, but obviously to be kind of canonized as saint, you need to kind of exhibit a heroic virtue.
And I don't know much about his life to be able to comment on that.
But I think it would be cool because he was such a simple person who, when I say simple, I don't mean a simpleton, but a person who really enjoyed the pleasures of the world, hopefully without going to extremes.
Although, given the size of him, I don't know.
So we'll have to wait and see.
It's a hormonal issue.
All right.
Well, let's actually.
It's my thyroid.
I did.
Shut up and put down the cake.
They do say that nobody that knew Chesterton knew him to be a big eater.
That's an interesting fact.
Yeah, interesting.
He was, yeah, he was this massive guy, but who knows?
All right, let's get into our subscriber portion.
Can you guys feel the change in the room?
It's changing the temperatures.
I'm feeling it.
Coming up next for Babylon B subscribers.
Have you ever punched anyone or been punched?
I have kicked someone in the face.
Care to elaborate?
Yes.
Yeah, just have self-control.
Hey, I like to fast from the 17th slice of pizza.
If you could interview St. Thomas, what would be the first theological question you would ask him?
I might ask him, is he aware that he was wrong about enjoying this hard-hitting interview?
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