John McCain says he’ll vote for tax reform, Nancy Pelosi has called on the longest-serving member of Congress from her own party to resign, the Daily Show mocks Senator Lie-awatha Warren and calls Trump woke. Did Christmas come early? Jason Russell and Vincent Butta discuss. Plus, speaking of Christmas, we’ll talk to author Leo Severino about his new book, “Going Deeper: A Reasoned Exploration of God and Truth.” Then, all of your questions will be answered in the Mailbag!
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John McCain says that he will vote for tax reform.
What a chilly day in hell.
Nancy Pelosi has called on the longest-serving member of Congress from her own party to resign.
And The Daily Show mocks Senator Liawatha Elizabeth Warren and calls Trump woke.
Did Christmas come early?
We will analyze alongside our award-winning panel of deplorables, Jason Russell of The Washington Examiner and Vincent Buda of Live from Studio 6B. Plus, speaking of Christmas...
We will talk to author Leo Severino about his new book, Going Deeper, A Reasoned Exploration of God and Truth.
Then all of your questions will be answered in the mailbag.
I'm Michael Knowles.
This is The Michael Knowles Show.
So much to talk about today.
There is so much good covfefe stuff going on.
Before we can talk about it, though, we have to remember the reason for the season.
Before we open our Christmas presents of tax cuts and weird sex stuff and Democrats eating their own, we have to remember that Christmas isn't about presents.
It's about God.
And in that spirit, we bring on author Leo Severino to talk about his new book, Going Deeper, A Reasoned Exploration of God and Truth.
Leo, thank you for being here.
You, like me, are a decadent, gaudy, saint-venerating papist.
Your book presents a number of clearly laid-out arguments for the existence of God and his nature, largely drawing on St.
Thomas Aquinas.
I've actually been referring to the book around the office as the Summa Theologica, because it's some of it, you know, it's not the whole encyclopedia of Theologica, but it is an excellent, you know, concise edition, and it offers a concise taste of Aquinas.
So my first question is, why did you write this book, and why did you write it now?
Well, first of all, thank you for being such a venerable company as St.
Thomas Aquinas and Michael Knowles.
I appreciate that.
Star-studded Hall of Fame I've been added to.
Thank you so much for that.
My pleasure.
The reason I wrote the book was essentially it was very personal because it was kind of my journey from the result of being part of a university system that was rooted in more modern philosophy Through a more realistic approach to life and philosophy.
So it was really cathartic for me to just kind of put out my experience kind of logically, theologically, mentally, philosophically.
I do find that college kids now, they seem to think that philosophy began with Descartes, and they don't even really get him or any of his contemporaries, but they don't understand that the human search for knowledge and meaning and God and their own nature goes back a little further than 300 years.
So you felt that on campus there was this dearth of wisdom.
That's right.
So what led you to the arguments you make in the book?
Well, I was part of that.
I only realized much later that philosophy kind of ended with Descartes.
It didn't really start with Descartes.
But, no, I can't cast aspersion because I was part of that world.
I studied philosophy and was quite apt at it, quite good at it.
And by that I meant I was quite good at putting up such silly notions as there is no truth, as if that were true.
That's why I started it, right?
And so I was really submersed in this for a very long time.
It took me actually through law school before I started realizing that there was a whole world prior to 300 years ago that actually saw things very clearly.
That evolution where you finally hit and you realize, oh, you know, the statement there is no truth is a self-defeating statement because obviously if there is no truth, then that includes the statement there is no truth and you end up with nothing.
You begin the book with that argument and you lead into another, a number of other arguments, the unmoved mover, the argument from teleology, also, All excellent, compelling arguments.
I think for a lot of people who are steeped in modern philosophy and have never heard these things, it will give you a good rational basis for God and the existence of God.
But I remember reading, I think it was in Jesus of Nazareth in the Infancy Narratives by Pope Benedict.
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, that he doesn't believe that people can come to believe in God through arguments.
I always convinced myself that I was first brought to believe in God through arguments, but I'm not so sure.
He believes that there has to be a base level of faith That God has to approach you before you can reach back to Him.
Did you find that to be the case, or do you think that right now, for this rationalist, materialist culture, the way that we can bring people to God is primarily through these arguments?
I tend to side with St.
Paul, as much as he says that God can be known by other things that were created.
And I think it's actually pretty close to a tentative faith that We can't know God by sheer life reasons.
I think back to the Council of Florence and a couple of other places that were set forth.
What I find to be compelling to me is this.
Either it is or it is.
And if it is at some level, even if we obviously can't know the full depth of inner workings of the Holy Trinity, that God is knowable.
I think it's something that could be produced, and that's my attempt.
But, you know, one of my favorite arguments that you didn't include in the book, but I really like it, it's one that really convinced me, is the ontological argument, which, in a nutshell, there are much more elegant versions of it, but in a nutshell, it's God is the maximally great being.
And if he's maximally great, it's better to exist than not to exist, so therefore God exists.
And it doesn't convince a lot of people.
I find it lovely.
I really enjoy that argument.
Is there something about these arguments that is so whimsical that that speaks to the character of God himself and the character of the world that we see?
Or is it all just logical drudgery?
No, no, no.
I think there's something really beautiful to it.
I had a philosophy...
Professor, he's since passed.
His name was Dallas Willard at USC. And he was a theist.
And he always told me, you know, if you can't explain it to your grandmother, and even my grandmother, and let's just say she wasn't exactly a scholar, a beautiful, beautiful woman.
He said, if you can't explain it to your grandmother, you don't know what's interesting.
And I think that's the irony of it, is that there's not only truth, and truth, I think, are two sides of the same form.
And when we know something, there's a beauty to it.
Symmetry is the It's clarity that it's global by just about anybody.
That's absolutely right.
There's truth and beauty, and that's all we know on earth and all we need to know, and they clearly have a relation to one another.
So if you are ignorant about these arguments for God, which I think a lot of people are, go out.
This is a really clear book.
It's really concise.
You can read it quickly.
This isn't an 800-page tome.
It's really a nice overview of these arguments for God.
I'm certain that you'll be convinced if you take the argument seriously enough.
And so go check it out.
It's Going Deeper, A Reasoned Exploration of God and Truth by Leo Severino.
Leo, thank you for being here.
Good to have you, and we'll have to have you back.
Congratulations on all your good work, Michael.
Thank you so much.
Thanks.
Okay, before we bring on our panel, before we do that, we've got to pay for our Christmas presents.
We don't just get to present all of our Christmas presents like John McCain giving his tax cuts and all the weird sex stuff on the Democratic side.
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Alright, thanks to Helix Sleep, now let's get to the presents.
Let's open up the presents, baby.
It is Christmas time in November.
We have to bring on the panel, we have Jason Russell from the Washington Examiner and Vincent Buda of Live from Studio 6B. Gentlemen, thank you for being here.
Let's get right into it.
It is a chilly day in hell.
Senator John McCain tweets, quote, after careful consideration, I have decided to support the Senate tax reform bill.
Though not perfect, this bill will deliver much-needed reform to our tax code, grow the economy, and provide long-overdue tax relief for American families.
I'm just going to, let's just have a moment, let's try to process this without our brains frying up.
Vincent, is this possible?
Is he going to pull the rug out from under us, or are we going to get tax reform?
Well, I say thank you, John McCain, finally coming to your senses.
But, you know, this guy's hatred for Trump has just gone way too far.
It's like, listen, the topic that we're talking about right now is we're so happy and surprised he's actually got along with it, right?
Something he's run on, something the whole party believes in.
And we're like, oh, thank you, John McCain.
This is what he should do, not let his personal hatred of Donald Trump change how he votes on things or policy, you know?
So, You know, for me, it's very frustrating.
I'm like, OK, great.
Thank you, John McCain.
Hallelujah.
It is Christmas.
I know.
I didn't think I would be saying that phrase before the end of the year, but thanks, John McCain, as long as you follow through.
Jason, Marco Rubio and Mike Lee have proposed an amendment to this tax reform bill to raise the corporate tax rate from 20 percent to 22 percent in exchange for higher child care credits.
Since when is it up to conservatives?
Since when is it the conservative opinion that a 20% corporate tax rate is too low?
Yeah, it's a pretty interesting amendment they have.
And I think it's an interesting conservative debate about whether you want to increase the child tax credit as a result of that.
I don't personally think it's a great idea.
I would rather see that corporate tax rate stay at 20% and then the child tax credit stay at the current rate that it is at the proposal.
You know, hopefully this doesn't blow up the whole thing.
You know, I say put it up for a vote, and if it gets enough 50 votes and they say go for it, then fine.
You know, I still think that even if that is included, it's still a better bill than the status quo.
And I hope that Mike Lee and Marco Rubio agree.
I hope even if this amendment doesn't get included, that they will still vote for tax reform because this is much better than the status quo, including in terms of the child tax credit.
And I'm actually just confused about why Mike Lee would put his name on this.
I understand little Marco might want to get a little squishy.
He's the favorite conservative of every conservative who lives surrounded by liberals.
But Mike Lee is a pretty rock-ribbed guy.
It's hard to get more right-wing and conservative than him.
Vincent, why is Mike Lee on board with this?
Oh boy, I'd say that's a great question because it's shocking to me that Mike Lee's on board with that overall.
So I don't really know why he's doing this.
The only things I could surmise is that many Republicans, and we have seen this particularly in the last year, seem to be somewhat scared of the Democrats and what they may want.
So they try to proactively react so they can get things through while they control everything.
The House and the Senate.
So you have Republicans like Rubio and Ali, I think, reacting to those things.
Listen, as your other guest just said, I agree.
Even with this, it's still a better deal.
So I'll take that.
But Mike Lee, this is really strange, unless he's feeling some pressure from...
You know, voters in his neck of the woods that are on the left and thinking we've got to do something more with child care credits.
I don't get it.
And that is the trouble.
It's very easy for me because all I have to do is talk to this microphone and look into the camera.
It's very easy for me to say we should have a 15% corporate tax rate and it doesn't matter that we need to increase the child tax credit.
I don't have to answer to constituents.
These guys do.
It's a much harder TV ad when it says Mike Lee voted for corporations instead of giving your children some extra money or whatever.
I do understand that.
That said, I don't know.
He's a rock-ribbed guy, and I'm just surprised at him, and I wish that we could be more rock-ribbed about this.
I was pushing for that 15% corporate tax rate, but sure, I'll take what I can get, especially if John McCain's on board.
It's a lot harder to make the sausage than it is to go criticize and look at the sausage factory.
Jason, one aspect of this that has gotten a lot of attention is graduate students.
So for tuition, right now graduate students do not have to pay income tax on their tuition credits.
Let's say the grad school pays them 20 grand a year in stipends.
They also pay them 30 grand a year as tuition, but you never see that.
They just keep the money and it's a matter of accounting.
Now, their taxable income could go to that full $50,000.
My fiancé is a graduate student.
I could be personally negatively affected by this.
But that said, who cares?
There was a walkout yesterday among graduate students.
There was a big national protest, a big walkout.
What they misunderstand is that for a walkout to work, you have to provide a service.
So there has to be a demand for your service, but there's no service being provided.
They can just keep on walking.
Do you think that we ought to rectify this aspect of the tax proposal, or should we let the university sort it out and let the grad students pay a little more?
Yeah, I could see this either way.
In my personal opinion, I side a little bit with the graduate students on this one.
And that's because, again, like you said, this is kind of an accounting thing.
The universities don't actually give this money to the students.
They just keep it basically and say, well, we'll take money off of your tuition and the cost of that, right?
So it doesn't really seem like income.
It's basically just saying, the university is saying, we're going to give you this service for free instead of paying for you to then just give it straight back to us.
But that service is pretty expensive.
It's an in-kind donation at least, right?
Shouldn't it be regulated as such?
Yeah, yeah.
And so I could see it either way, like I said.
But, you know, again, it's not a huge deal to me.
And when it comes to that walkout thing, you know, I don't see how that's going to be effective.
You know, maybe that makes some noise on your college campus.
But, you know, the members of Congress are not on your college campus.
They're here in D.C. So how they expect to make a big stink with a walkout on their own college campuses that no one in D.C. or in Congress is going to notice...
And as you point out, this is a matter of accounting.
If the universities aren't going to lose all of their consumers, all of their customers, they're not going to let it happen.
So they'll probably just account for tuition in a different way and get around all of this.
But as a matter, the American campuses have been in crisis for decades, for 40 years.
Alan Bloom wrote it expertly in The Closing of the American Mind.
There's a crisis not only of the institution, but of liberal education generally.
These crazy fields of study, they usually end in studies.
Harold Bloom, the great literary critic, referred to it as the school of resentment.
It isn't a serious engagement with scholarship.
It's basically political activism masquerading as scholarship.
As the left frequently does, it hollows out great institutions, and then they just become zombie institutions for their political agendas.
It doesn't seem to me that we need as many graduate students as we have.
It seems to me, especially when I talk to my friends, millennials, who have a ton of student debt, very few career prospects in the academy, it's virtually impossible to get a job.
It seems to me not a terrible thing that we would maybe disincentivize or stop subsidizing people from following this path.
It doesn't seem...
It's like a great path for a lot of them.
And for those who are the elite of the elite and the intellectual elite, they'll find the money.
The universities will account for it, I think, and they can find outside funding as well.
It does not seem to me that we should be...
The solution to this awful crisis of intellect and of scholarship over the last 40 years, it doesn't seem to me that we will be correcting it by continuing to subsidize the perpetrators.
But that's just me.
I'm sure I'm going to get a lot of hate mail from my millennial pals After saying that.
Let's move on to more shocking news.
Let's move on.
You're not going to believe this one.
Hold your breath.
If you've had any hot drinks, please spit it out now or swallow.
The Democrats are holding their own accountable for their weird sex crimes.
We didn't expect this either, but here is Nancy Pelosi explaining the issue with John Conyers.
The allegations against Congressman Conyers, as we have learned more since Sunday, are serious, disappointing, and very credible.
It's very sad.
The brave women who came forward are owed justice.
I pray for Congressman Conyers and his family and wish them well, however Congressman Conyers should resign.
As Dean, Congressman Conyers has served our Congress for more than five decades and shaped some of the most consequential legislation of the last half century.
However, zero tolerance means consequences for everyone.
No matter how great the legacy, it's no license to harass or discriminate.
There is a lot to dissect in that statement.
John Conyers, by the way, is the dean of the House of Representatives.
He's the longest-serving representative in Congress.
He's a Democrat.
He's been around since the Johnson administration.
He's been serving since the 1960s.
Vincent, why are they willing to throw John Conyers under the bus, but not Al Franken?
Oh, my goodness.
First of all, Nancy Pelosi goes on Meet the Press, and she doesn't have a big issue with it.
She's saying, well, they need to investigate it, and I don't know.
I don't know the women who said this.
Do I believe them or not?
I don't know.
She had all these defensive things to say because there was no chance that she was going to support this or try to have him removed or anybody else removed because they seem to just all be like a flock of sheep following each other blindly.
Then she gets pressure put on her from those comments from Meet the Press, which even people on the left were appalled by.
One thing that people don't talk about with this whole situation, he paid someone off.
He used monies to silence someone that accused him of something.
That's admitting guilt.
It's not just a couple of women coming out and saying he groped or did this and that, which is bad enough.
There were payoffs, absolutely.
So that's what drives me crazy.
Jason, is Al Franken next?
Are they going to let these other guys fall?
Or is Conyers just the old, desiccated, no longer politically useful corpse of the sacrificial lamb?
Yeah, I think it's, Franken hasn't been thrown under the bus yet because he's a little bit more prominent, one, as a senator, but two, because he's famous, Al Franken, everyone knows him from Saturday Night Live, he's the funny man in the Senate.
He's good enough, he's smart enough, and God, doggone it, Democrats like him.
Yes, but if the accusations against him continue to grow, which I think they probably will, then I expect at some point they will start to say, yes, Franken has to go as well.
There's just really no excuse for the kind of behavior that he's been doing.
I don't know.
You're more optimistic than me, I think.
You give them more credit than I do.
I think Conyers is about 150 years old and useless, and they can toss him under the bus and not sacrifice their younger, more promising talent.
But maybe I'm just a little cynical.
I don't know.
Let's get to this wonderful clip.
This might have been my favorite clip of all.
From The Daily Show, Trevor Noah called Donald Trump woke and he slammed Elizabeth Liawatha Warren.
Here's the clip.
I don't think Donald Trump was actually trying to offend those Native American war veterans.
I know it's crazy to say it, but he doesn't care about them.
He saw an opportunity to feud with Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, because he's been calling her Pocahontas long before he met with these heroes.
You might be thinking, wait, Trevor, I'm confused.
Is Elizabeth Warren Native American?
And you see, that's the question.
But in his own way, he's hitting Elizabeth Warren for saying she was Native American when she wasn't, something she's never apologized for or owned up to.
So, as weird as it is to say, in his own racially offensive way, Donald Trump was being woke.
Yeah.
And that's, unfortunately, the truth.
And like a Bernie Sanders pop album, the truth isn't always something we want to hear.
Unbelievable.
Every late night show, every single one, I think there are now 750 across network and cable, they are all left wing.
Every single one of them, all they do is make Trump jokes.
Stephen Colbert would have been canceled if not for Donald Trump.
It gave him a new surge.
But all of these guys put together...
Get not very many more viewers than in the old days Jay Leno used to get just by himself.
Jay Leno was a much more middle America, even keel, not that political comedian.
Is this a sign, Vincent, that comedians are finally realizing that maybe they shouldn't utterly ignore and mock half of the country?
Or is it just the case that Elizabeth Warren is such a joke they couldn't resist making it?
How long can they continue the hypocrisy is really my question.
You know, I used to like Trevor Noah, too.
But like Stephen Colbert and others, it's all hate comedy.
But he's right.
You know, if you think about how Donald Trump operates, he points out hypocrisy, and that's what he was pointing out.
And these late-night comedians, what I don't understand, here's my big question.
They're alienating 50% of the audience every time they pull one of these hate jokes they use.
Now, the fact that Trevor Noah actually came out and said something truthful, you didn't hear the audience respond, by the way.
Dead silence.
You didn't hear a pin drop.
Oh my goodness, I couldn't believe it.
If this was anything bad against Trump, it would have been a standing ovation and the wave would have been done.
Actually, I didn't put it in that clip.
It's hypocrisy.
But he did say, he prefaced his comments where he said basically Trump is right about this and Liz Warren is despicable for pretending to be a Native American.
He had to preface it by saying, look, look, I think Trump is racist and everything.
And then they started mooing and hooing and cheering.
But that was just perfunctory.
He had to do it or they would have stormed out.
Jason, has Trump...
Permanently branded Liz Warren as a fraud, as a deceiver.
You know, Little Marco, Low Energy Jeb, Lion Ted, those things stuck like glue.
Does she have a chance in 2020 if she is just forever Pocahontas?
I don't think she has a chance in 2020, but I don't think it's because of Pocahontas.
A lot of other reasons.
I think people will be like, oh, Bernie Sanders again, but this time it's slightly different.
Yeah, less funny.
Less funny, less interesting to watch, give speeches, things like that.
I don't think she has a chance because of that.
She's just not very fun to watch, doesn't give great speeches, and...
Most of all, it does not connect with ordinary Americans in middle America and what they stand for and what they believe in.
So, you know, perhaps the Pocahontas thing will stick by her.
Maybe she'll eventually have to apologize for that.
Maybe even her Democratic opponents would attack her on that.
But we'll see.
But there are lots of reasons she's not going to win in 2020, and that is a minor one, if one at all.
I love that pitch to Democrat voters, like a Hollywood pitch.
Okay, listen, here's the nominee.
She's going to have all of the intellect of a desiccated old socialist who can't hold a job, but she'll be a humorless scold.
Isn't that what America, why isn't that what middle America is going to vote for?
I don't think so.
Too bad.
Gentlemen, thank you for being here.
Excellent to have you both.
We will have to get you back again.
And yeah, Jason, Vincent, thank you for being here.
And we have to move on to the mailbag.
Thank you.
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Okay.
We've got to get to the mailbag.
We have to change.
Your lives for the better.
So the first question is from Justin.
Dear patron saint of smug Catholics, I'm an evangelical curious about Catholicism, but one major point I don't understand is the church's reverence for the Virgin Mary.
Why is she considered so much greater than other biblical figures that have furthered the faith like St.
Paul, Moses, John the Baptist, etc.?
Love the show, Justin.
Thanks, Justin.
That's a good question.
Consider the question.
I don't mean to mock your question at all.
I get this a lot, and it's a serious question raised by a lot of Christians.
But consider the question.
You've just asked, why do Catholics venerate the Mother of God?
Basically, that's the answer.
That's the end of it.
Mary is the mother of God, chosen by God to be the new Ark of the Covenant.
She is in her womb, is God, conceived by the Holy Spirit, out of which he becomes man.
When we recite the Nicene Creed...
We kneel at that point when we say Christ was conceived of the Holy Spirit and he became a man through the Virgin Mary.
That is a miracle second only to the resurrection.
The physical and the metaphysical uniting in Mary's womb.
But the other reason...
Endless reasons as to why we ought to venerate and adore Mary as the mother of our Lord and a mother that he has given to us from the cross when he says to the apostle John, behold your mother, mother behold your son.
He gives her to us as a mother.
But the other reason is that there is this essential marriage, this beautiful marriage of grace and liberty that we find in the infancy narratives.
Right now I'm reading...
Jesus of Nazareth, The Infancy Narratives by Pope Benedict XVI. It is a wonderful little book.
It reads like poetry.
I'm reading it at the recommendation of the Supreme Master of the Multiverse, Andrew Clavin.
You have to read it for Advent.
It is just so beautiful.
And savor it.
You could read the whole thing in two hours, but really read it slowly.
It's really beautiful.
And there is this essential...
It's a combination of grace and liberty in Mary.
Pope Benedict describes it as all of the heavens holding their breath when the angel Gabriel comes down and says, Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you.
You've found favor with the Lord.
And...
You're going to birth the Son of God.
He'll be born of you.
And they all wait because she has to obey.
There isn't just purely grace.
We're humans with a free will, and that freedom has to come too.
So God comes down the mountain, offers everything to us, but we have the free will to turn away from God.
Mary does not turn away from God.
She accepts it.
Her response is, Behold, I am the servant of the Lord.
Let it be to me according to your word.
And in that obedience, we have the salvation of the world.
So that's just part of it.
There are plenty of other reasons as well for why Mary is a pretty cool lady, and we all like her very much.
But that's an introduction, and I recommend...
I recommend certainly Googling it, but reading more about Mary, studying Marianology a little bit, and understanding how the veneration of Mary has come about, because I think there's a Protestant misconception that it's this weird pagan thing, but certainly that isn't the case.
Mary does sit right at the inception of human salvation, right at the heart of it.
It begins in her womb.
Alright, I want to keep changing your life for the better, folks, but we've got to say goodbye to Facebook and YouTube.
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You keep Covfefe in my mug.
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Treat yourself.
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We're talking a lot about religion right now.
It is not as sacred as holy water.
It is not as sacred as that.
But it is pretty sweet, guys.
It's below, but it's not that far below.
The Leftist Tears, they are so delicious.
They're even fairly comforting.
You can have them hot or cold, always salty and delicious.
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By now, we'll be right back.
Master Knowles, this question comes from Kyle.
Master Knowles, I was raised Christian but am now agnostic as I have had issues believing in Christ due to the comparison of the New Testament to personification of astronomy.
I have seen several comparisons that show that the story of Christ is very similar to other older religions and that use the story as a way to explain the journey of the Sun throughout the year and it's been compelling enough to me to make me question the New Testament but not God himself.
I ask you to debunk this.
I gladly will, pal.
Not to debunk Christianity or Catholicism, but rather that I can get a clear explanation as to why this theory is false.
Please assist me, if you will, in coming closer to God with many thanks, Kyle.
It would be my pleasure, pal.
I also was an agnostic atheist type for a decade, beginning actually at my confirmation, so I can empathize with you.
This is a little weird.
I think there's a kind of logical error just...
In your thinking about this, you see, or you've been told, you actually haven't seen similarities in other religions, but you've been told by some authority that there are many similarities and that Christianity is just a sort of copy of those religions.
But so what?
Christianity is the greatest story ever told.
By Christianity, we know that Christ is the logos of the universe that breathed creation into existence, so it It isn't surprising that there would be echoes of the story, the greatest story ever told, throughout mythology, throughout all of mythology, and throughout history, and in our own human nature and in our own heart.
What I think you're getting at, though, is that you don't believe that Jesus existed as we know him to exist.
You don't believe the story of Jesus in the New Testament.
But this puts you in a real minority of people who have thought about this, a virtual minority of one.
I think what you're getting at is something called the Christ myth, the idea that the historical Jesus, if there even was one, is completely different than the guy we know attested to in all of these documents that we call the New Testament.
The Christ myth theory only originated in the late 18th century, so within 300 years, a little over 200 years ago.
One of the major theorists of this was Constantin Volny, who believed a lot of other nonsense, too.
He also believed that Abraham and Sarah were derived from Hindu deities, Brahma, Saraswati, and the Christ as a version of Krishna.
He really also thought that Christianity is just a version of Syrian, Egyptian, and Persian myths, like that of Sol Invictus.
You kind of hear this.
No serious scholar believes this.
It is rejected by scholars of the New Testament and of first century Rome and Palestine.
We know more about Jesus of Nazareth than we know about basically any person of that period, with the exception perhaps of the other Prince of Peace who was reigning in Rome, That said, so we know this history about him.
I wouldn't really question, do the research yourself, but I don't think there's any reason to doubt that.
So then the question is, well, how come some religions seem similar to Christianity?
A lot of atheists will tell you, well, it's just a copy of that.
But you don't really see it in all of these myths that we're talking about, whether they are Persian myths or Hindu myths or whatever.
The intersection of the metaphysical with the physical, the encounter between heaven and earth, is categorically different.
In many mythologies, you'll see the gods come down and have sex with a mortal or something, and they give birth to demigods.
Or you'll see ancient monarchs, ancient kings, suggesting that they are part divine.
But that is fundamentally different than...
The virgin birth, then Christ being fully man and fully human.
There's a theology to that.
Where there isn't really a theology to these older myths, there's a mythology.
And those are categorically different things.
That said, I've I've studied a lot of the Hindu religion and mythology there, and there are resemblances between, say, Krishna and Christ or what have you.
But this makes perfect sense because man is born with an innate longing for God.
This is one argument for God's existence.
We're born with a thirst for water, and water exists to quench that.
We're born with a hunger for food.
Food exists so that we can be full.
And we're born with a longing for God.
Everywhere, every place on earth for all of history were born with a longing for God and fairly similar conceptions of God.
And therefore it seems perfectly reasonable to me that there is a, for many other reasons as well, there is something to quench that thirst.
There is something to satiate that longing.
So when you see resemblances, Between the greatest story ever told, between Christianity and other mythologies, a little hint of true religion in Norwegian mythology, or, sorry, Norse mythology, or Hinduism, or this, that, or the other thing.
That's lovely, and that makes perfect sense, because the God who created the entire universe echoes throughout it, and we're born with similar conceptions of him.
But it requires theology, not mythology, to figure out which the right one is, and the right one is...
Is Christianity.
I'm happy to tell you so that you can return to your faith.
Good question.
Gary.
Oh, this is another really serious and esoteric question.
Is covfefe leftist tears, are covfefe leftist tears, strained through a French press?
Obviously that's the case.
That's the only device through which they could be strained.
And by the way, if you spill your covfefe leftist tears, you can always mop them up with the flag of the French army.
So France pervades this entire process.
Great question.
From Christian.
Hey Michael, I've always believed in God.
Notice Notice how much God we get.
We get so many religious questions, I think, because this materialist culture is unsatisfactory, and people are longing for that answer, as I did, as a lot of people I know have gone through that stage.
Back to the question.
I've always believed in God.
I never got into religion.
How do I know which religion is right?
Christianity.
That's the right one.
If you want to know, there are a few that you could think about.
You know, there are two types of religion.
That Edwin Bevan talks about in a book I've mentioned a few times, Symbolism and Belief.
It's a book that C.S. Lewis talks about in Miracles.
And he says there are two types of religion.
There's theistic religion and non-theistic religion.
So the religions that believe in God, like Christianity, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, and Islam, and religions that don't believe in God.
So Hinduism, Buddhism, Shintoism, other religions.
You can't even really say East and West, though.
Zoroastrianism is an Eastern religion, but it's theistic.
Islam is practically an Eastern religion, but it's theistic.
So those are two visions of the world, and it will require thinking about theology to decide which of those is correct.
We talked to Leo Severino today, who did this book.
There are a lot of great books.
The one that I would always recommend is Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis.
Lewis is such an incredible writer that he takes the most impossibly complex things and explains them for a three-year-old.
And when I read it, I had the theological intelligence of a three-year-old, so it worked out very well.
Once you conclude that God exists, which I think you will, then you have to deal with Christ.
So...
If the Hebrew Messiah hasn't yet come, then you're probably a Jew.
If the Hebrew Messiah has come, you're probably a Christian.
If Christ was a prophet, if you believe in some of Christianity, but you reject the essence of it, you reject the most important claims of it, then you might fall into the category of Islam, which was founded after Muhammad spent weeks with a heretical Christian monk in Syria.
So it bears a lot of resemblance to Christianity, but on essential, important matters, it doesn't hold up because Muhammad founded his religion after hanging out with a heretic for a very long time.
So you know what I think about theology and Christology.
And I would explore down that route, and you might reach a different conclusion than I have, but I don't think you will.
I think you'll reach that one.
So good luck in your journey.
By the way, it isn't just books, I should point out.
Andrew Klavan has a great video called How to Find God in 60 Days.
He says, just act as though God exists.
And pray.
Praying is essential.
Because we're not just, especially with Christianity, we're not just talking about a philosophy.
We're not just talking about ideas that you can learn.
We're not talking about Gnosticism.
We're talking about a relationship with the God that created you and saved you.
Very personal.
You can't just get that in a book.
A book can help you get there, but that's a relationship with a person.
So you'll have to dig a little deeper than you would researching history or natural science or something.
Next question from Michael.
Michael, could you convince Ben and Jeremy to let you change your background to a wall of bookshelves filled with your bestseller?
I feel like Ben doesn't take you seriously enough, and because of your extreme humility, viewers are likely unaware of your life's work.
Mike, I appreciate it, man.
I appreciate you acknowledging my magnum opus, Reasons to Vote for Democrats, a comprehensive guide, which sat number one on the bestseller list for almost two weeks and was endorsed personally by President Donald Trump on Twitter.
It makes a great stocking stuffer, by the way.
It is true.
You know, great works of genius are very often not recognized during the author's lifetime.
They might be underappreciated during the author's lifetime.
But as I wrote in the first pages in the preface to Reasons to Vote for Democrats, a comprehensive guide, quoting Thucydides, I have written my work not as an essay to win the applause of the moment, but as a possession for all time.
So perhaps if it can't be constantly displayed for this popular audience, it will reach an esoteric elite audience now and for generations to come.
Thank you for appreciating true scholarship.
From Cliff.
Swarthy Mike.
That is my real name, by the way.
What do you think we would be talking about right now if Hillary had won?
For example, instead of a battle about anthem kneeling, the conversation would be about changing the name of Redskins.
Or instead of North Korea, it would be a war on gun owners.
Any ideas?
Thanks.
Clifford the Great.
Yes.
Yes.
Two things on this.
And it's one where Trump's critics on the right don't give him enough credit because all they see, first of all, there's all the great stuff Trump has done, but there are some things that Trump has done that perhaps we don't all agree with, might have gone too far, might have been counterproductive.
Some of them might have been flat out bad ideas of them.
The handling of James Comey seems to be the worst decision of his presidency so far because it led to this Mueller investigation, which is a big cloud hanging over the administration.
So there are two sides of this.
One, what would we be talking about on the cultural conversation?
You're right.
We'd be talking about bathrooms.
We'd be talking about gender bathrooms.
You know, the issue that affects seven people in the entire country, that would dominate the national conversation because it's a way of Getting the left's arguments and premises in by the back door.
Taking compassion for a handful of people and squeezing in all of their relativism and their vision of politics as groups of people just battling each other for interests rather than as a civil discourse in a united body politic.
So that would be the cultural conversation.
But as a matter of policy, it would be Horrible.
I'm glad that I can't be profane in my language on this show because there are so many words I could use to explain how awful it would be.
We would have Hillary Clinton campaigned on damaging, if not outright undercutting, the First and Second Amendment.
She campaigned.
There were separate pages on her website about this.
The Citizens United decision, which Citizens United was overturned, Rather, Citizens United was ruled and overturned campaign finance laws, McCain-Feingold, because they were a violation of the First Amendment.
The question was, can you criticize Hillary Clinton a few weeks before an election?
It was centered around Hillary.
So now we have our robust First Amendment, which is under attack from all corners of the left, and the Second Amendment.
If we had that Supreme Court justice, if we had a lefty replace Antonin Scalia, we would have Awful decisions that seriously threatened your liberty and mine coming down the pike to say nothing of legislation, to say nothing.
We might have been able to obstruct a little bit, but it's hard to predict these things.
So on both sides, on the real policy side and on the cultural conversation, things are looking a lot better, not even because Trump is in.
I think that's also true.
But just because Hillary isn't, things are so much better, and that's great.
Christmas came early, I guess.
From Ian.
Do you have any advice on how I can start to see him in my own life?
Thanks, Ian.
Yeah.
Yes, I can.
It's an evil generation that looks for signs and wonders.
Don't forget that.
So I think the way to see him is to stop looking at you.
It's to stop looking at your own life and stop looking inward at yourself and look at him.
The evidence of him is all around you.
You know that it's all around you because you see it everywhere else.
Don't go looking for signs and wonders.
It isn't a good thing.
I mean, you'll see them all the time.
Once it clicks in, you will see it in every little seemingly ridiculous coincidence in your life.
Father George Rutler has an excellent book on apparently random coincidences.
It's called Coincidentally.
It's very enjoyable, very funny, and it does make a sort of serious point about Providence.
The quote he uses on the cover is, from Alexander Pope's essay on man, All nature is but art unknown to thee, all chance direction which thou canst not see.
It seems to me that you are not seeing that direction in your own life.
If you can see it when you look elsewhere and you can't see it when you look at yourself, then I would keep looking elsewhere, keep looking forward.
Keep doing you, kid.
Just do the right thing.
Keep your head down and live your life.
And if you don't harp on your own feelings of abandonment by God or how God wronged you or how anybody else wronged you or all the problems in your life, if you just keep doing what you can do, remember...
Suffering is not immoral.
It's morally neutral.
It's how we react to suffering that is moral.
We can either react to suffering in a good way or we can react to suffering in a sinful way.
We can either react to it with perseverance and kissing it up to God, as we used to say, or you can react to it and say, woe is me and life is terrible and why does everyone have it so much better than me?
One of those is a good moral choice.
One of those is a bad moral choice.
So keep your eyes ahead and look out for God.
I think that you'll find him.
And pray.
That's our entire show today.
A very godly show.
I guess it's because Christmas came early.
I guess that's why.
Talk about providence, folks.
Okay, that's our show for the week.
But don't forget this weekend.
You'll get another kingdom.
You'll be able to save yourself from the chaos of the Clavenless weekend.
Go to iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, wherever.
Great narrative podcasts about Hollywood schlubs who fall into fantasy worlds with bloody daggers and dead damsels written by conservative people who also work in the arts and perform by them too.
Wherever those are downloaded, you can get another kingdom and survive the Clavenless weekend until Monday.
I'm Michael Knowles.
This is The Michael Knowles Show.
We will see you then.
The Michael Knowles Show is produced by Marshall Benson.
Executive producer, Jeremy Boring.
Senior producer, Jonathan Hay.
Supervising producer, Mathis Glover.
Our technical producer is Austin Stevens.
Edited by Alex Zingaro.
Audio is mixed by Mike Coromina.
Hair and makeup is by Jesua Olvera.
The Michael Knowles Show is a Daily Wire forward publishing production.
