Ep. 212 - You're Not Allowed To Dislike Female-Led Action Films, You Sexist
Today on the Matt Walsh Show, with "Captain Marvel" coming out this Friday, feminists are patrolling cyberspace to make sure that everyone pretends to like it. Also, government mandated paid family leave is getting bipartisan support. I think it’s a terrible idea and I'll explain why. Finally, at what point should an artist's bad actions cause us to stop enjoying his art? Date: 03-06-2019
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Today on The Matt Walsh Show, in case you hadn't noticed, you're not allowed to dislike female-led action movies.
You have to like them no matter what.
So with this movie Captain Marvel coming out, a feminist action movie, feminists are going into overdrive insisting that we like it.
We have to like it, so we'll discuss that.
Also, paid family leave.
Mandated paid family leave is getting bipartisan support.
I think that it is a terrible idea, as bipartisan ideas often are, and I'll explain why.
And finally, at what point should an artist's bad actions, should the bad actions of an artist cause us to stop enjoying their art?
We'll try to get into that question as well today on The Matt Walsh Show.
One of the dumbest things about our culture, and I hesitate in saying that because I realize
it's quite a statement, there are so many dumb things to choose from, but I do believe
one of the dumbest is how you aren't allowed to dislike female-led action movies.
And that's why Ghostbusters, which is more of an action comedy with big fat scare quotes around action and comedy, But it was critically acclaimed, despite being mediocre at best and also being an absolute swan dive in terms of quality in comparison to the originals.
And that's why Wonder Woman was praised in the kind of effusive, ecstatic, almost poetic terms that we usually reserve for Renaissance art.
Because that's the way it works.
If it's a female action movie, Um, and it's bad, then you have to say that it's at least pretty good.
But if it's a female action movie that's already pretty good or decent, then it's amazing, incredible, the grades, it's a cinematic achievement!
Which is why, I mean, Wonder Woman was, at most, okay.
The most you could possibly say about it in objective terms, but you aren't allowed to be objective when it comes to female action movies.
And now Captain Marvel is coming out, the movie Captain Marvel with Brie Larson, The woman who said she doesn't want white men reviewing her movie and she promises it will be the, the, and I quote, the biggest feminist movie of all time, which the biggest feminist movie of all time is this superhero movie, which is, is literally the worst possible way to sell a superhero movie.
You could not think of a worst market marketing pitch than that.
You may as well try to sell a horror film by saying it's the cutest love story of all time.
You're using a sales pitch that is exactly the opposite of what almost everyone in that genre's fanbase wants.
But that's what Brie Larson said.
And in any case, it's a big, big feminist movie, and men aren't allowed to review it.
Others have echoed this sentiment.
Alyssa Klein is apparently a film journalist, according to her Twitter bio, and she was on Twitter yesterday blasting the male critics who dared to review this movie.
And not just dared to review it, but some of them, if you can believe it, gave it a negative review.
And so she was sort of busily posting all of the negative Reviews from men and trying to sick her followers on these people for daring to dislike the movie.
Meanwhile, a feminist website called the Mary Sue claimed that all of the negative reviews of this movie, which comes out on Friday, all of the negative reviews are from men.
This has become a rallying cry among feminists and as always with these things, but Um, it's not true by the way.
There are plenty of women who've, who, who have, uh, given a negative reviews as well, but just think about the stupidity in the fact that there is even a rallying cry at all around a movie about a magical ninja in a rubber suit who goes around shooting lasers out of her, out of her hands or eyes or whatever.
I think there are lasers involved, right?
With Captain Marvel.
I'm not sure, but usually there is with superheroes.
Now, There are articles being written about the controversy surrounding Captain Marvel reviews.
What's the controversy?
Well, the controversy is that some people didn't like it.
That's what the controversy is.
They didn't like it because, in their opinion, it just wasn't a very good movie.
As far as I'm aware, there hasn't been any review written by a man taking issue with the movie because Brie Larson should have been in the kitchen making her man a lasagna rather than messing around with all the superhero stuff.
Okay, that's not what anyone is saying.
No one is saying, that's man's work, woman.
Now get rid of that cape and put on an apron.
That's where you belong.
No, that's not what, no man is, as far as I know, no man is saying that.
It's just, some people have said, eh, you know, it's not a great movie.
It's okay, it's just not great.
I mean, that's what some people have said.
But feminists respond to that criticism with a banshee-like shrieking, which is how they respond to everything.
Because you're not allowed to like a movie about a girl kicking butt.
If it's a butt-kicking girl movie, you're not allowed to do it.
You have to like it.
You cannot not like it.
Which is why it's kind of funny.
And I recommend after the show, go to Rotten Tomatoes, the review aggregator site, and check out the reviews of this movie.
The reviews started coming out yesterday.
There are, like I said, there are some negative reviews, including some negative reviews from women, but most critics will not dare to write a fully negative review about a female-led action movie.
They just won't do it.
Because they know that this is how stupid everything is.
That they know they take their careers into their hands if they commit the sin of disliking a movie about a woman fighting bad guys.
So what you find on Rotten Tomatoes are a bunch of critics desperately trying to find a reason, any reason, to give this movie a positive grade.
It's pretty clear that it's not a very good movie.
It's kind of a stupid movie.
But there are all these critics, I think it's got like an 84, 85% rating on Rotten Tomatoes right now, because all of these critics are trying to find, they know they have to like it, and so they're finding some way to like this movie.
And so let me read you some of the descriptions from positive reviews.
Okay, these are some of the adjectives, some of the descriptions.
that the positive reviews compiled by Rotten Tomatoes have used.
Descriptions like convoluted plotting, predictable, exhausting, shaky and confused, flawed, a disappointment, mid-tier, not gonna reinvent the wheel, Forgettable.
A work in progress.
Okay, these are the positive reviews of the movie.
These are people who didn't like the movie, pretty clearly.
They thought that it was forgettable, dull, boring, a disappointment.
But they knew that they had to give it a thumbs up anyway.
This is the bigotry of low expectations on steroids.
This is, yeah, it's a disappointment, forgettable, dull, boring, but it's got a lady in it.
There's a woman in it, so it must be good.
The real reason for all the positive reviews can be summed up by one of the less hesitant positive reviews that I found.
One of the reviewers said this, We are still at the point where the visuals of such a powerful female hero are rare enough that its sheer existence makes you giddy.
Okay, this is what someone said.
The sheer existence of this movie, doesn't matter if it's good, doesn't matter what it's about, just its sheer existence is enough for you to praise it.
The thing that's so funny about that is that I wrote my own review of Captain Marvel and published it to the Daily Wire yesterday, and the title of my review is, uh, Captain Marvel is a Towering Artistic Achievement.
And the joke, of course, is that I'm showering the movie with ridiculous praise simply because I don't want anyone to call me a sexist.
Uh, even though I admit that I haven't even seen the movie, I never planned to, but I am heaping all this praise on it.
But let me, here's a paragraph from my, now keep in mind that real review, I just, a snippet of that real review that I just read to you.
Here's a snippet of my fake satirical review.
I said, does Brie Larson do a good job acting in the movie?
Well, your question is stunningly misogynistic.
Brie Larson isn't there to impress you.
You have no right to judge her performance.
She's not a puppet dancing on your string, you scum.
All you need to know is that Larson is there, in the film, existing, breathing, being.
Her performance was already magnificent before she stepped one foot onto the set.
Her performance was inspiring and beautiful even before she was born.
This moment, this movie, was written in the stars, destined from the beginning of time.
Now, I didn't read that other reel review before writing that.
I meant it as a joke.
That Brie Larson's sheer existence in the film is enough reason to love it.
But then some real film reviewer actually made that same point in all seriousness.
My god.
Of course, the other meme that you get with these movies is that angry... What you always hear is the same thing with Ghostbusters.
What you always hear is that the media... What the media says, well, it's a bunch of angry white men.
A bunch of angry white men are losing their minds over this movie.
They hate that this movie is out there.
In fact, right on cue, the Daily Beast has an article with that title verbatim.
The title is, How Brie Larson's Captain Marvel Made Angry White Men Lose Their Damn Minds.
Meanwhile, no man is losing his mind over this.
Men are just going, eh, okay, it's not great.
That's what men are doing.
That's being called losing their minds, but men are just saying, yeah, feminists are the ones who are losing their minds.
So the way that the conversation goes is, uh, men say, yeah, you know, didn't love it.
And then feminists say, why didn't you love it?
You sexist, you pig, you scum.
Why don't you die?
And then men say, okay, okay, take it easy.
And then feminists say, why are you so angry?
Calm down.
That's the way that the conversation always goes.
So, um, What is this all about?
Why does it, you know, now every time there's one of these female action movies, which by the way is nothing new, you know, there have been female-led action movies for decades.
Kill Bill came out in what, like 2002 or 2003?
And that was a female-led action movie.
And there have been plenty since and before that.
But why has it now become this, why is it now this whole thing where it comes out, it's this whole event and everyone has to pretend to like it?
Well, I think it just shows the incredible insecurity of feminists, yet again.
Insecurity is what drives most of their positions.
Most of what they do and say really just comes down to insecurity.
Feminists are insecure about the fact that they themselves are not men.
This has always been the paradox of feminism is that they hate men, but they also want to be men.
They hate men because they themselves are not men and they wish they were, which is pretty typical, I guess.
Maybe it's not even paradoxical.
It's pretty typical that when you, uh, that people generally hate whoever they are envious of.
And so they see what they see is that, uh, is that men have a lot of action movies.
There are a lot of action hero men, and so they want their own.
The only reason they want it is because men have it.
That's the only reason.
It's not because they find anything objectively good about it or anything.
It's just they want it because men have it.
And then they want theirs to be just as good.
And if you say that theirs isn't just as good or if it's, or whatever, uh, they have, they have a temper tantrum over it.
And that's the way it goes.
It's the same thing with, I mentioned before, feminists are very insecure about, um, the fact that about, about, you know, sense about, about humor, uh, comedy.
And they know that most of the greatest comedians in, in, in, in history have been men.
Most of the funniest movies that have come out have been written by men, directed by men, starring men.
And so they get very insecure about that.
And they insist, no, no, men are funny, men have funny things, we need to have funny things too, because we need to be just like men.
And so they have their own comedians and their own movies, and some of their comedians are legitimately funny, and some of their movies are legitimately funny, but some of them really aren't.
But you're not allowed to say that.
You have to pretend.
Right?
When someone like Amy Schumer comes along and really she's not funny at all and has no actual real jokes, but you have to pretend.
Well, she's a woman though, so we have to grade her on a curve and pretend that she's funny.
So that's what it comes down to.
It's just kind of this really silly insecurity on the part of feminists.
All right.
Switching gears here.
I want to talk about something that has been gaining a lot of steam recently.
And that is the issue of paid family leave.
Okay, paid family leave is an idea that is gaining bipartisan support, which is which you should always be.
What the media tells us is that anytime something is getting bipartisan support, that means it's probably a good idea, and we should pay attention to it.
But in reality, it goes the other way.
Is that when something is getting bipartisan support, that's when you should be really suspicious of it.
Because, I mean, it's bad enough when one group of idiots likes a certain proposal, but when both groups of idiots like it, well then now you know it must be really bad, right?
But it's, you know, it is getting a lot of, Democrats love the idea, Republicans are getting behind it, Trump is in favor of it.
I was at CPAC last week and Rick Santorum was there stumping for paid family leave.
He had this big sign that was out near Broad Crack, It's called Broadcast Row, where all the TV stations and radio stations and stuff are set up at CPAC.
And he had this big sign there that said something like paid family leave is a conservative position or conservative priority.
Now, paid family leave, of course, is not a new idea.
Many employers offer paid leave to their employees for maternity sickness, other medical or family issues and so on.
But some employers don't offer it.
Especially small employers, small businesses often cannot afford it.
Because if you've got a small business, and you've only got five employees, You probably can't afford to pay one of your employees to be gone for five weeks.
You just can't afford it.
You don't have the resources for that, especially because when you pay your employee to be gone for five weeks, you also have to pay someone else to temporarily come in and take that person's place.
And so now it's double the cost and you just can't afford it.
But Republicans and Democrats now want to mandate it.
And that's the way it always works with government, right?
They see how there's a certain thing that isn't happening, or at least isn't happening enough, according to them, and it's not happening enough because people can't afford it, they can't do it.
And so the solution from our illustrious politicians is to just mandate it.
It's to say, oh, well, you can't afford it?
Well, you have to do it now.
That's how we'll solve that problem.
They want to tell employers that they must offer paid family leave, and not just that they must, but these politicians are going to mandate how much time will be offered and for what reasons, and they're gonna set all the other parameters as well, right?
So they are sitting up on their perch in D.C.
They're surveying the whole landscape and declaring what everyone should do.
They're making their declaration.
This is what everybody has to do.
Not taking into account individual cases, not taking into account exceptions, not taking into account the situation, the actual real world situations that employers find themselves in, not taking anything into account but the political spectacle of it.
All that they care about is that the voters We'll see the politicians trying to give them, the voters, something.
That's all that they want.
Now, there are different ideas for how to structure this kind of entitlement plan, and it is certainly an entitlement plan.
It's literally an entitlement.
Politicians are saying everybody is entitled to three or five or 12 weeks of a paid family leave.
Different ideas on how to structure it, different ideas how to fund it.
But no matter what, it will be costly.
No matter what, private citizens and businesses will be footing the bill for this thing, whether they can afford it or not.
And remember, the whole reason why some employers don't have paid family leave is because they can't afford it.
I'm sure that if you have a business with five employees, you would love it if you actually had a business with 500 employees and you could afford to do something.
But that's just not the situation that you're in.
Call me an optimist, but you'd be the first to ever call me that.
But call me an optimist.
I don't think that there are very many employers out there who decline to offer paid leave Just because they're like, you know, Grinches or Scrooges or whatever, and they don't offer it because they want to see their employees suffering.
You know, when I think of private business owners, unlike a lot of people, I don't imagine Some evil old white guy, you know, chomping on his cigar, sitting behind a big oak desk, you know, petting his white cat and laughing maniacally to himself when he thinks about all the all the all of his employees who he's not giving paid leave to.
That's not what I imagine.
When I think of business owners, I think most of them are just, you know, they own small to medium sized businesses and they're trying to make it by.
And it's You know, they don't have a lot of room to work with.
And if they're not offering these kinds of programs, it's because they just can't.
They'd love to, but they can't.
So I think when we talk about something like this, we don't even need to get into the cost of it.
We don't even need to get into the practical aspects, which is which is an important aspect, of course.
And I think it is the cost alone is prohibitive.
But I think that's not really the point.
There is rather, I would say, a philosophical question here.
And it's a philosophical question that, at some point, we just sort of stopped asking ourselves.
But I think we need to ask ourselves this question.
And that is, what is the point of government?
You know, fundamentally, what is government supposed to do?
Why do we have a government?
What is its job?
And I really think that a lot of people, they go their whole lives, they never ask themselves that question.
They never develop any sense of, any idea of what the government even is or what it's supposed to do, yet they still have all these opinions.
about different policies they support and different laws and everything.
And it's all kind of haphazard.
And, and, and, you know, they just all they they come up with these with their with their positions and their opinions.
It's all isolated.
Right?
There's nothing coherent about it.
I think most people don't bother coming up with a coherent kind of philosophy of government.
Well, fortunately, our founding fathers did bother coming up with a coherent philosophy of government.
And their philosophy was that government exists to protect our liberty, to protect our rights.
That's why we have government.
That is the fundamental philosophical reason why government exists.
I think most people today, although again, they don't really stop to think about it.
They don't come up with a coherent idea of it, but when it comes down to it, what they really think is that the government exists to protect, fund, facilitate our lifestyles and our comfort.
Government exists to provide for us.
Government is sort of the ultimate daddy.
It's everyone's daddy that's just up there and giving us what we need.
That's the idea of government that a lot of people have.
And when you have that idea of government, then I guess it makes sense.
Something like paid family leave, in that case, just makes a whole lot of sense.
Because it would make our lives a lot easier if we had paid family leave.
It would make us a lot more comfortable.
And so the government should Give us that because that's really, that's, that's the argument that most people have.
It's just, you know, it would be nice to have that thing.
It would make my life easier.
And so the government should see that I have it.
That's, that's all.
I don't, why should I need any more reason than that?
It's, it's, it's something that I want.
It would be good for me.
It would help me.
And so, you know, the government should give it to me.
And that's why when you have this discussion, And you take the position that, no, I don't think the government should provide that.
A lot of people, when they hear you make that argument, they're going to respond by explaining why that thing itself is good.
So you'll say, no, I don't think the government should provide paid family leave.
And so the response will be, yeah, but paid family leave is good.
It would really help me.
They respond by explaining all the ways That paid family leave is good.
Well, no, but you're not arguing that there's anything wrong with paid family leave itself.
Paid family leave is great.
You're just arguing that the government shouldn't mandate it.
That's the point.
Just like, I don't think that the government should be involved in healthcare.
I'm not against healthcare.
I think healthcare is great.
I think it's great for people to go to the doctor.
I think everyone, it's a wonderful thing.
Modern medicine is a wonderful thing.
I just don't think the government should be involved in it.
But there's that nuance, that really obvious and important nuance, right?
That obvious distinction that many people in our country today don't understand.
They don't understand the difference between opposing something in and of itself and opposing the government's involvement in that thing.
They, they don't, they cannot comprehend the difference.
And that's why we just instead of we need to get control the entitlement state, we need to get control of our debt problem.
That's what we need to do.
But instead, we keep going in the opposite direction, more debt, more entitlement.
And a lot of it is because of this fundamental confusion that plagues many, many voters.
All right, let's see.
Something else I wanted to mention, maybe I'll save this for tomorrow, but Sean Oakman is a former football player at Baylor University.
And he was he was supposed to be, you know, potentially a first round draft pick in the NFL.
But he was accused of and charged with raping a woman.
And this was like two or three years ago.
And it completely derailed his career.
He wasn't drafted by the NFL.
So he's been out of football now for three years, and just a couple of days ago, he was found not guilty of sexual assault.
And whether or not he'll be able to get his career back remains to be seen.
But this is an interesting case, and it shows the It shows the consequences of an accusation, even if it's a false accusation.
But I think we'll, because there are a few interesting emails I want to get to, I think we'll save that discussion for tomorrow.
I want to get into that in more detail, into the specifics of this particular case.
Let's go to emails.
MattWalshow at gmail.com.
MattWalshow at gmail.com is the email address.
This is from Matt.
We had a Matt write-in yesterday, so the Matts are all uniting.
I think that's great.
This is from a different Matt.
He says, you talked at length today about how Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez does not appear to take her own doomsday prophecies seriously because she continues to utilize supposedly world-ending technologies.
If she really thought cars and planes were destroying the planet, you say, she'd be screaming at the top of her lungs in fear and or anger, or at least taking the metro more often.
I couldn't help but notice a correlation between the way AOC chooses to live despite her beliefs and the way pro-lifers live despite theirs.
I, for instance, am pro-life above all else.
Which means I truly do believe that 60 million innocent human beings have been legally killed over the last quarter century.
One might suggest that given this horrifying injustice, I ought to be tirelessly riding in the streets.
While I do dedicate a good amount of time to activism, certainly I could be doing much, much more.
Simply put, Practicality plays a big role in the time I spend marching or writing.
How much difference could I, a single person, truly make?
Is it worth sacrificing a family, a job?
I think that, to some extent, climate change activists could use this same excuse.
The problem, according to them, is so massive that their individual contribution or sacrifice is negligible.
Is it worth the massive inconvenience?
Will they really make that much of a difference?
Let me know what you think.
Love the show.
Keep up the great work.
I think that is an excellent point, and I totally agree that pro-lifers often don't live like they believe what they're saying.
And that's a problem.
They don't do enough.
We don't do enough.
I don't do enough.
And you're absolutely right about that.
But I think there is a difference between the case of the pro-lifers who are not involved enough in activism and in fighting the cause, and this.
Okay?
Environmentalists, at least the ones like Ocasio-Cortez, the extremist ones, they believe That things like cars and planes are directly causing, directly bringing about the end of the world, okay?
Cortez says that the world is going to end in 12 years.
So there's a difference between choosing not to actively take steps to address the issue that you claim to care about, which many pro-lifers are guilty of, and, on the other hand, continuing to do a thing that you claim is going to destroy all human life in a very short amount of time.
So I think that there's a difference between those two things.
In other words, I'm not blaming environmentalists for their lack of activism.
That's not my point.
I'm not saying that environmentalists should be out there doing more activism, marching more and all that kind of stuff.
I'm not blaming them for what they're not doing.
I'm blaming them for what they continue to do, which is to directly contribute to the destruction of human civilization, in their minds anyway.
So I just think, you know, as a pro-lifer, you might stop and say to yourself, I could be doing more.
I need to be out there more.
And that's true.
We could all be doing more.
But if you are an environmental extremist, and you really believe that because we drive around in cars and use fossil fuels, the world is going to come to an end.
It's one thing to not go out in the streets screaming about it, which I'm kind of happy that they don't do.
They do it sometimes, but if they want to cut back on that, I'm fine.
There's a difference between that and then on the other hand, actually getting into a car and driving around in it while thinking that you are directly contributing To the end of human, maybe in a very small way, but you are directly contributing into the end of human civilization.
I just, I can't imagine doing that.
I think another way of looking at this is if you're an environmental activist who believes this, then you must conclude that it is objectively morally wrong to drive a car.
How could it not be?
If the world is ending in 12 years because of this kind of thing, it must be objectively wrong to do it.
And yet you continue to do it.
And so, yeah, I think that there is a... Their hypocrisy, I think, is quite a bit more extreme and pervasive.
This is from Fish.
He says, Hi Matt, huge fan of the show.
Thank you for your comments on Michael Jackson.
I agree that his legacy should be ruined because of his atrocities.
However, when someone on Twitter pointed out that one of your favorite authors had a history of stalking and harassment, you said, if you only like artists without demons, you are really limiting yourself.
How do you reconcile those two views?
Where do you draw the line on what demons are acceptable and what aren't?
Thank you.
Another great point.
I think if I remember that conversation on Twitter from months ago, I think that was in reference to David Foster Wallace, I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, which is one of my favorite writers.
And he had a lot of demons.
I mean, the guy killed himself.
So he certainly had a lot of demons.
There's no question about that.
And he was accused of, I believe, essentially stalking and harassing another author who he was infatuated with.
And I think he had a relationship with her on and off again.
I'm pretty sure.
Anyway, I guess the way that I reconcile this is by taking into account two factors.
One is the severity of the claim against the person, the seriousness of the demon that we're talking about.
And two, the value of their art.
And then also three, I guess I'll take a third thing into consideration, and that would be time.
Like, how long ago did this person live?
I do think that matters.
Now, Wallace and Michael Jackson, they both lived and died around the same time.
So that isn't a factor in this discussion in this comparison.
But I do think that the historical proximity of the of the person's life matters to some extent.
Because if they did a horrible thing, and their victims are still around, and still affected by it, Then I do think you weigh that as opposed to someone, let's say some Renaissance artist who who lived and died 400 years ago.
And so anyway, but let's focus on points one and two.
I guess as far as one goes, I just think that serial child molestation is in a whole different league than what from from what some someone like Wallace was accused of doing.
I mean, there are demons.
And then there's being a pedophile, and I just think that the two things aren't even close.
If Wallace was guilty of stalking and harassing a woman, or even being abusive at various points of his life, that matters.
I mean, it's bad.
But it just doesn't come anywhere close to seeking, grooming and then raping seven year old boys.
It's just it's not in the same league.
It's just it's that you can't even compare them.
You can't even put them on the same Venn diagram.
And if you did, there's not going to really be hardly anything in that middle bubble.
Right.
So, yes, I think we have to allow for the fact that artists have demons.
Everybody does.
Everyone is flawed.
And artists, especially per the stereotype, tend to be kind of messed up.
We know that.
But child rape, again, is something entirely different.
That's worse than murder in my mind.
It is literally the worst thing a person can do.
The worst.
So where's the line?
I don't know exactly.
But I think the line is somewhere before you get to the worst possible thing.
So Michael Jackson did the worst possible thing.
He was the worst kind of person that can exist.
And yeah, there's at some point you cross a line and wherever that line is, I don't know exactly, but I am positive that Michael Jackson is on the wrong side of it.
And then factor two, I guess we don't even need to discuss, but it does matter.
I think Wallace was not just a genius, but someone who had a profound insight into the human condition.
He wrote things that were often hilarious, startling, poignant, sometimes beautiful.
And so you do weigh that.
You have to think, do we want to throw this away?
Can we afford to throw this away?
Or is it too valuable?
So whatever Michelangelo is accused of doing, well, we cannot afford to get rid of the Sistine Chapel or the Pieta.
As a species, we just can't afford it.
It's too beautiful, too powerful, too valuable.
The art stands on its own, has taken on a life of its own.
And we can't be without it.
It would be a tragedy for the human race if the Sistine Chapel were to crumble.
And the fact that he lived 500 years ago I think also makes a difference in my opinion.
So we have to ask, I guess.
Is Thriller, or Billie Jean, or Beat It, are these things so incredible, so beautiful, So powerful, so absolutely staggering in their genius that even serial child rape, which occurred as recently as this past decade, couldn't cause us to stop enjoying it.
I would say no.
That's my opinion.
Finally, from Travis, he says, Hi Matt, I always enjoy hearing your perspective on all things related to the Bible and especially enjoyed your commentary on the Young Earth Theory.
Well, that makes one of you, Travis.
In searching for related topics, I stumbled upon Dr. Frank Turek of Cross Examined.
He seems to have a good approach for defending the Christian faith.
Just curious if you have read his book, I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist, and hope to get your thoughts on his arguments.
I am familiar with Frank Turek.
I haven't read his book, but I've seen some of his lectures and some of his debates.
I think he's a brilliant guy, great debater, very impressive in that format.
Now, I will say, though, that I have grown to really dislike That particular argument, which is in the title of his book, I don't have enough faith to be an atheist, right?
And I know that this is a theme that Turek hammers on all the time.
A lot of Christian apologists, especially these days, it's kind of a common thing, especially in modern times among Christian apologists, where they say this thing about, no, no, no, atheists are the ones who have faith.
They have too much faith.
It takes more faith to be an atheist than it does to be a Christian.
I guess In Christian apologetics, this has been determined to be some kind of very powerful argument, and I disagree.
Now, there are some arguments that Christians and atheists make which the other side finds formidable and serious.
So as a Christian, I think that the atheist arguments, arguments like the argument from suffering, the argument from divine hiddenness, These are formidable and serious arguments from atheists that Christians have to grapple with.
And on the other side, I know that even guys like Richard Dawkins have admitted that the fine-tuning argument, the arguments about these universal constants, which make life possible, and which seem, it seems so highly improbable that they could have happened on their own.
Now, even someone like Richard Dawkins has said that that is a serious argument.
But then there are arguments that both sides make, which the other sides just roll their eyes at and treat with total disregard and contempt because they find it to be lazy and ridiculous.
So as a Christian, that's how I treat the whole bit about God as a magical sky fairy, right?
Christians, as an atheist, the moment you say that, the moment you make that argument, every Christian tunes you out.
Because it's so ridiculous, it's so silly, it's a childish, off-base characterization that we cannot possibly take seriously.
But on the other side, I know that atheists feel that way about the it-takes-more-faith-to-be-an-atheist argument.
That's just not an argument that any atheist anywhere takes seriously.
I would challenge you to find one single atheist who will say that he's stopped in his track by that argument.
There's not gonna be an atheist who says, wait a minute, it does take more faith for me to be an atheist.
No, what they do when they hear that argument is they just roll their eyes and they say, okay, all right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's because the whole point of atheism is that they're saying to us, okay, you've made a claim about the Christian God, about Jesus, about scripture, and so on, and we've listened to you, and we don't believe your claim.
We don't accept it.
We just don't believe it.
We don't think you've met the burden of proof.
We are declining to believe what you are saying.
Much in the same way that we as Christians will listen to a Muslim and say, okay, I hear what you're saying about Muhammad and the Qur'an, but I don't believe.
I do not believe what you're saying.
That is not what I believe.
I am declining to believe in Muhammad the Prophet and in Allah.
I'm declining to believe that.
Now, obviously, I think that atheists should believe I think that there are good reasons to believe what we believe, obviously.
But declining to believe a claim does not require faith.
It requires the lack of faith.
It's the opposite of faith.
Declining to believe what someone is saying, that means that you don't have faith in what they're saying.
Maybe you should have faith in it, but you don't.
That's the point.
And if we have any chance of communicating with atheists and maybe even convincing them, we need to show that we understand their basic position.
You can't engage with someone if you're refusing to understand what they're saying to you.
And it's the same for them.
So that's why it totally shuts down the conversation the moment that an atheist goes, oh, you just believe in a magical sky fairy.
Because then as Christians, we say, you're not listening to us.
You're just not listening.
That's not what we're saying.
We don't believe that.
And if you insist on painting our views that way, we can't have a conversation.
It's not going to work.
And it's the same thing on the other side, where atheists are saying, no, no, that's not what we're saying.
We're not saying that we have faith in some other proposition.
We're just declining to believe your proposition.
And so when a Christian says, yeah, but you must have a lot of faith to do that, the atheists, all they say is, okay, you're not listening to me.
And so that's why atheists and Christians, they end up walking away from each other, because the one side is saying, Sky Fairy, the other side is saying, you have more faith than us.
And then both just walk away and say, all right, I just believe strongly we need to listen to the argument they're making at least, and then you can engage with it.
So no, atheists don't have faith.
Atheists have a lack of faith by definition.
Right.
And here's my other problem.
Not only is the atheists have more faith than us thing kind of a mischaracterization and a straw man, But here's the biggest problem.
It also turns faith into a dirty word.
It seems almost that we're ashamed to have faith.
And so we're saying, we don't have faith.
You do.
We're not the ones with faith.
You're the ones with faith.
Why even get into that competition?
Why are we ashamed of it?
We should be saying, yes, we do it.
You don't have faith.
We do.
We're proud of it.
We're proud to have faith.
We shouldn't be trying to prove to them that they have more faith than us.
Faith is a virtue, right?
Why would we even be doing that?
And faith must be more than an assumption, a best guess based on the evidence.
It's more than that.
We believe that faith is basically the testimony of the Holy Spirit within us, right?
It is the internal testimony of the Holy Spirit.
That's what faith is.
So, when we believe in God, it's not just about having weighed the evidence.
It is also about the internal testimony, and that's what faith is.
So, when we say that atheists have faith, what are we saying?
That their own internal testimony from the Holy Spirit is that God doesn't exist?
That doesn't make any sense.
So, yeah, I appreciate him.
I appreciate a lot of Christian apologists.
I just think that I read a lot of this stuff, and I watch a lot of, you know, lectures and things from Christian apologists.
I watch a lot of debates.
You know, I'm basically obsessed with all this stuff.
And there are certain arguments that I've just come to, maybe loathe is too strong a term, but I've come to really dislike because I find them to be so incredibly ineffective.
And so that's one of them.
But thanks for the email.
Thanks everybody for watching.
We'll leave it there.
Godspeed.
Hey everybody, it's Andrew Klavan, host of The Andrew Klavan Show.
You know, the media is trying to cover up for Democrat anti-Semitism by saying it's a problem on both sides, the left and the right.
Well, it is on the left and the right, but the right-wing anti-Semites are lunatics and outsiders.
