Today on the show, does it make sense for feminists to celebrate burqas? Also, an Evangelical leader takes a bold stand, proclaiming that there is no Gospel argument for white supremacy. Except nobody is making a Gospel argument for white supremacy, so what’s the point of declaring something like that? And should we look at historical figures in the context of their times or should we judge them by modern standards? Date: 04-30-2019
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Today on the Matt Wall Show, does it make sense for feminists to celebrate burkas?
Or does that kind of contradict their entire narrative?
We'll talk about that.
Also, an evangelical leader has taken a bold stand proclaiming that there is no biblical argument for white supremacy, she says.
Well, that's true, of course, but nobody is making a biblical argument for white supremacy, so what's the point of declaring something like that?
And finally, should we look at historical figures in the context of their times?
Or should we judge them by the moral standards of modern times?
We'll discuss that as well today on The Matt Wall Show.
You know, I want to say one thing here at the top, and I was thinking about this yesterday as I was out checking my hive.
I think one of the great marketing decisions of all time, maybe the greatest really, was to call it honey.
rather than bee vomit, which is basically what it really is.
When you put honey like on your toast or whatever, you are smearing bee puke all over a piece of bread.
Let's be honest about it.
Well, not technically puke.
I mean, the bee does store the nectar in a stomach that's separate from the one used for digestion.
But at the end of the day, you're eating something that thousands of bees regurgitated.
I mean, that's just what's happening.
And in fact, actually, they regurgitate it into combs, right?
And the combs are made from wax, which is secreted out of the bees' pores, like a sort of gelatinous sweat.
And then what happens is the bee vomit is scooped out of the bee goop, And put into bottles, and then you put it in your tea.
You freak!
What is wrong with you?
Anyway, just a, just a, just a thought.
Speaking though of, actually I could do a transition here.
Speaking of rebranding attempts, the left is celebrating today what CNN describes as boundary-breaking Muslim supermodel Halima Aden, who has made history once again, they say, by becoming the first model to wear a hijab and burkini.
In the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue.
Now, here's a picture of her.
There it is.
And that's a so-called burkini, which is a combination of a burka and a bikini.
Really, it's just a wetsuit.
It's like something that somebody would wear, you know, scuba diving or something.
But this is supposed to be some kind of great moment of cultural diversity.
And as I said, the left and feminists are very excited about it.
So I have a few things to say here.
First of all, combining a burqa and a bikini makes about as much sense as putting an iced coffee in the microwave.
These are opposites.
They are doing two opposite things.
You can't really combine them.
The whole point of a burqa is extreme sexual modesty.
That's the entire point of it.
And the point of a bikini is sort of the opposite of that.
So, to wear a garment that is meant for sexual modesty while striking a pose and rolling around in the sand so that your picture can be taken and put in a magazine alongside a bunch of barely clothed supermodels, well, that really makes no sense at all.
More to the point, though, I certainly believe that Muslim women should be allowed to wear what they want.
I'm a die-hard supporter of religious liberty for all people.
But it requires an extraordinary amount of cognitive dissonance for feminists in America to celebrate burqas and hijabs.
Hijabs.
I don't know.
I'm probably pronouncing that wrong.
Hijabs.
Hijabs.
Is that the one?
Anyway.
It's one thing to say, yes, women have the right to wear those things.
Well, of course they do.
And nobody disputes that.
At least nobody in America disputes that.
But to celebrate it, as feminists tend to do in America, is absurd.
Women in Muslim countries are required to wear these things according to societal standards of extreme sexual modesty.
In some countries, they can be imprisoned or killed for not wearing them.
The idea behind it is that only a woman's husband is allowed to see her entire head, basically.
So, this is about enforced modesty, and it's about the authority that a husband has over his wife, and that, more generally speaking, that men have over women.
There's a reason why women are supposed to wear the burqas and stuff, not men.
Because men can show their hair and they can have their whole heads visible, but women can't Because the woman is the property of the man Just to just to put this in a context The website Islam question and answer so website you can go check out which provides answers about Islam.
And this website provides proudly some quotations from the Hadith in the Quran about the hijab and about why women are supposed to wear it.
So here's one quotation that's provided.
It says, and tell the believing women to lower their gaze and protect their private parts, and not to show off their adornment except only that which is apparent, like both eyes for necessity, to see the way, or outer palms of hands, or one eye, or dress like veil, gloves, head cover, apron.
And to draw their veils all over their bodies, and not to reveal their adornment except to their husbands, or their fathers, or their husbands' fathers, or their sons, or their husbands' sons, or their brothers, or their brothers' sons, or their sisters' sons, or their Muslim women, or the female slaves whom their right hands possess, or old male servants who lack vigor, or small children who have no sense of feminine sex.
"...and let them not stamp their feet so as to reveal what they hide of their adornment.
And all of you beg Allah to forgive you all, O believers, that you may be successful."
Okay.
So, this is... I mean, this is the handmaid's tale, but in real life.
This is... Women are... They can show it to the men in their life.
They can show their hair and their full head, at the very least.
But not beyond that, so that it is not tempting to, you know, men out in public.
You know, feminists are running around claiming that The Handmaid's Tale is about to be a reality in America because Mike Pence is vice president.
Meanwhile, The Handmaid's Tale actually is a reality in places like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, and they say nothing about it.
In fact, let me show you this.
Look at this graphic here.
People were polled by Pew.
Say that five times fast.
In a variety of Muslim countries, as you see there is Tunisia, Egypt, Turkey, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia.
And they were asked how a woman should dress.
And, as you can see from the responses, sizable majorities in these countries thought that, at most, a woman should show her nose, eyes, and mouth.
That's the most she should be able to show.
Nothing else.
No hair, even.
Not even, like, the chin.
And in places like Saudi Arabia, most thought that women shouldn't show anything but their eyes.
These respondents were also asked if women should be allowed to wear something else if they want.
Like, should they be allowed to choose or should they be forced to wear these things?
And 40-50% in these countries said no, they should not be allowed to choose.
They should not be allowed to choose their own outfits.
They should be forced, legally, to wear the hijab or the burqa.
And feminists say nothing about this.
Worse than nothing, they celebrate this clothing item, which is a symbol of exactly the sort of oppression and suppression and persecution that they pretend to be fighting against in this country.
Now, as I said, I have no problem with religious modesty.
I don't have a problem with that.
I think, obviously, when you get to the point where women are essentially walking around in body bags or burlap sacks, basically, that is extreme.
That is oppression.
There is a distinction between modesty and oppression, and that's oppression.
But the greater problem here is, first of all, the prevailing attitude in many Muslim
countries is that this modesty should be obligatory, with rather harsh penalties up to and including
death.
Now, even for the most extreme forms, like where only the eye is shown, if a woman in this country wanted to walk around like that, then, you know, I respect that choice, because it's not forced.
But the problem is, in many Muslim countries, it is either forced by law or by societal custom.
Now, you'll see that there are apologists who will say, oh, no, they'll pull up a Wikipedia article or something, and they'll say, no, I mean, in Muslim countries, women can wear what they want, most of these countries.
You know, it's only the most extreme and conservative, like Saudi Arabia, where they're required by law to wear this stuff, but, you know, legally they can wear it.
Yeah, that might be the case legally.
In fact, I think even in Afghanistan, technically, legally, a woman can basically wear what she wants, but she can't really, because the societal pressure means that she has to wear the burqa.
And if she doesn't, she puts her life in jeopardy.
So that's the problem.
Also, the point is that the left, Certainly does have a problem with religious modesty most of the time, except where it pertains to Muslims.
You know, you don't see them celebrating conservative Christian women who wear, you know, the long skirts that go down to the ankles.
You don't see them celebrating nuns in what nuns wear.
You don't see them celebrating the modesty of Orthodox Jewish women.
In fact, in all of those cases, feminists will mock and sneer And point to that as an example of why, you know, Christianity is sexually repressive and repressed and all of that.
But with Muslims, suddenly, it's a cause for celebration!
The hypocrisy is extraordinary, truly.
It really is.
And this is why American feminists are some of the most fraudulent cowards you will ever encounter.
Feminism in America, I've said it a million times, I'll say it a million more times, feminism in America is totally worthless.
It is a worthless, hypocritical, cowardly pageant, basically.
And nothing more than that.
Because if feminism meant anything, if these feminists really cared about women's rights, they would be focusing almost all of their energy on what's happening to women in Muslim countries.
Because in America, women can wear what they want.
They can do what they want.
They can say what they want.
They have all the same rights as men.
In fact, they have rights that men don't have.
They have more rights than men, arguably.
Not even arguably.
The right to kill your child is a right possessed only by women, not by men.
So if they actually cared about women's rights, they would say, oh, look, well, we succeeded in America.
Mission accomplished.
Good for us.
Let's go focus on Saudi Arabia and Pakistan and Afghanistan.
But they don't.
Not only do they ignore that, but they celebrate the persecution of women over there.
Hypocritical cowards.
All of them.
All right.
I wanted to mention this.
Beth Moore is a prominent evangelical.
I suppose a Christian leader is what she's considered anyway.
And she sent out a tweet yesterday that's worth discussing for a moment.
Here's the tweet.
It says, there are simply no gospel grounds for defending white supremacy.
None.
This isn't theological rocket science.
The Savior of the world gave himself on the cross for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, wearing a brown body.
Now, actually putting aside the phrase there, wearing a body, that has a little bit of a Vaguely heretical sound to it.
But putting that aside, obviously I agree.
Okay?
You agree.
We all agree.
And that's the point, that we all agree.
This is another example of paper tiger Christianity.
This is a Christian taking a stand that's supposed to seem bold and brave and necessary, but actually is safe and obvious and certain to provoke no disagreement whatsoever from anyone.
Now, notice how she phrases this.
She says, there are simply no gospel grounds for defending white supremacy.
None.
Period.
As if she's arguing with someone.
But who is she arguing with?
Who is making a gospel argument for white supremacy?
Has anyone done that?
Now, there are some white supremacists out there that we know, and those people are evil freaks, all of them.
But they are a very small minority, and they are condemned by almost everyone else, and I've never heard even anyone in their camp make a gospel-based argument.
These evil sociopaths who shoot up synagogues, maybe in their manifestos they might say something about Jesus.
I don't know.
I don't read the manifestos, so I don't really know what they say because I don't care what they have to say or what their opinions are.
But I'm pretty sure, I could be wrong, I'm pretty sure that these freaks are not offering theological arguments for mass shootings.
These manifestos are not theological dissertations, right?
So, even in the community of people who actually believe in white supremacy, the argument is not a theological one.
So, what Beth Moore is doing here is twofold.
Number one, she's pretending to be bold and brave and courageous by staking out a position that 99% of everyone agrees with.
Number two, more insidiously, she's implying She is strongly implying that there is a sizable percentage of Christians who do think that the Bible supports white supremacy.
She, an evangelical Christian, a supposed Christian leader, is making a straw man of Christianity and painting Christians as white supremacists, and she's doing it all to make herself look better by comparison.
That's the game here.
This is not just about someone virtue signaling by taking on an easy subject and pretending that it's difficult.
It is that too, and there's way too much of that going on in Christianity in America these days.
But it's also, as I said, a straw man.
It's the kind of thing you expect an atheist to say.
Ranting against Christians who use the Bible to justify racism, even though almost no Christian is really doing that.
So if you're going to get up there and say, well, there is no biblical argument for XYZ, then you should be able to provide examples of people, especially prominent people, who are trying to make a biblical argument for X, Y, Z. And if you can't provide any examples at all, then the question is, why are you even saying that?
What's the point of making that?
It's like if I got up there and said, I don't know, there is no gospel argument for robbing liquor stores.
There is no gospel argument for armed robbery.
None.
Jesus condemns it.
Now, that's true, of course, but if I'm going to say that, then I think it is logical for you to respond and say, who's making that argument?
Is anybody?
And if nobody is making it, then why am I even saying this?
We all agree.
What's the point of it?
Well, there is a point.
And as I just explained, and I think the point is actually shameful.
Alright, this is important.
Watch Beto O'Rourke.
He was on MSNBC last night.
This is very important.
You need to see this.
Watch.
Let me just sharpen this a little bit, though, because I think this sort of gets to kind of the nub of the issue, right?
I mean, we haven't done this yet.
We have been standing idly by while we've been emitting more and more carbon into the atmosphere.
We've made it harder.
We now have to undertake some kind of crash program.
And I guess my question to you is, do you see the oil and gas industry as an opponent in that?
Won't you have to fight them?
Won't you have to declare yourself in opposition to their interests?
Well, I think the short answer is yes, in some significant way.
We know that certain oil and gas corporations have been fighting public policy on this issue, have been hiding their own science and research at the expense of our climate and human life.
So wherever those two things come in contrast or in opposition, I'm always going to choose the people of this country.
Having said that, I want to make sure that those who work in the oil and gas industry, those who work in the fossil fuel industry, are brought along as partners to make sure that we make this transition in the 10 years that we have left to us as the science And scientists tell us to make the kind of bold change that we need.
We cannot afford to alienate a significant part of this country.
We cannot do this by half measure or by only half of us.
It can't be Democrats versus Republicans, big cities versus small towns.
We all have a shared interest in a cleaner future for this country.
So I'm going to work with, listen to everyone, anytime, anywhere to make sure that we advance this agenda and get to zero.
Net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
Did you catch that?
10 years.
It's 10 years now.
Beto says that we have 10 years left to live.
It was 12 years.
I mean, we had 12 years.
Okay, so, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said like six months ago that we had 12 years, and now we have 10 years left to live.
So we lost two years in six months.
So by that rate, really, we have what?
I mean, by that rate, we're all going to be dead probably by, you know, in three or four years.
Yeah, you know.
But still, I mean, ten years is... As long as we have a few years left, I guess, is the point.
We have time to eat, drink, and be merry.
I mean, if we're all going to die anyway, that's what I don't get.
If you're saying we're all going to die anyway, then what's the point of It sounds like we can't salvage it.
The Earth is doomed.
Any effort we make now to prevent it will be futile.
And so, let's just not worry about it.
In fact, I mean, why even have an election in 2020?
Let's just have no more elections, no more government or, you know, or presidents or anything.
And, you know, we'll have 10 years of anarchy while we just kind of party and live it up and then we all die.
All right, finally, before emails, I wanted to get back into a subject that we discussed yesterday, kind of a follow-up, clearing up two items related to the subject we talked about.
We talked yesterday about Trump's comments pertaining to Robert E. Lee.
Trump called Robert E. Lee a great general, and then the left freaked out, and I said yesterday that Trump was absolutely right.
Lee was, in fact, a great general, and there's nothing wrong with pointing that out.
I also said that we have to understand Lee and the other Confederate generals and Confederate soldiers in the context of their time.
We have to understand them within their own context.
We can't judge them by modern standards.
Which isn't to say that we have to see slavery as being okay.
Obviously it isn't, it wasn't, it never was, never will be.
But we can't expect people in history to have the exact same perspective that we have today.
Now, there were two general responses to my arguments that I want to address quickly.
One is that, slavery aside, the Confederates were traitors, and we shouldn't honor traitors or respect them.
And then the other is that it's morally relativistic to say that we have to judge people by the standards of their time.
That's moral relativism.
That's the argument.
So, I'll answer both those arguments.
As for the first, That the Confederates were traitors.
I would say this.
You can disagree with the reason why they seceded.
I do.
There's no question that slavery was a large factor in the secession.
Now, slavery was largely the reason for secession.
It was not the reason for the war.
And that's the distinction that people seem to miss.
That's the nuance here.
The war, from the North's perspective, the war was a war to preserve the Union.
It was not a war to abolish slavery.
That was a political kind of recasting of the war that happened midway through
with the Emancipation Proclamation.
Lincoln did that and it was a brilliant political move.
And he did that for several reasons.
One of them was to ensure that Europe did not intervene on the side of the South,
because once he could recast this as, oh, we're trying to liberate the slaves,
then the Europeans would already abolish slavery, we're not gonna wanna get involved to defend slavery.
But to begin with, that's not what the war was about.
It was not about abolishing slavery, it was about preserving the Union.
And for the South, it was not about protecting slavery, at least for the people that were doing the fighting,
it was about defending their home and achieving independence.
But, so the causes of the war, or the reasons for the war and the causes of secession
are not exactly the same.
These are really two different things.
But as for secession, yes, it is certainly valid to say that they seceded for bad reasons.
Fine.
But putting aside the reason for a moment, it seems that people are arguing that regardless of the reason, to secede is to be a traitor.
And that, I think, is not true.
Or, if it is true, then the word traitor is not necessarily always a bad word.
Because the Confederates, they were not trying to overthrow the government.
They were not trying to take over the country.
They were trying to break away from the country.
They wanted to take their own land in their own states and do their own thing.
Which is not the same thing as trying to overthrow a government, which is usually what civil wars are about.
And that's why many people argue that the civil war was not really a civil war at all.
That we should call it the war between the states, because a civil war is usually a war where two sides are fighting for control of a central government.
That's not what the civil war was.
You had one side trying to get away from the central government and start their own government.
The point is that secession, when you think of it that way, and again, you put aside the reasons, but just talk about secession itself.
Secession is exactly what the colonists did.
They said they wanted to take their land and their colonies and they wanted to do their own thing.
They weren't trying to overthrow the king.
They weren't doing that.
They wanted to just do their own thing and have their own country.
And if they had failed, then George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and those guys, they would have been hung as traitors.
And that's how we would remember them today, probably.
But it's a similar thing.
And that similarity was not lost on people at the time.
This is one of the arguments that Southerners made.
They said, well, we're just doing what the founders did originally.
We're doing what people did.
That's how this country was.
This country is based on secession.
And it is.
This country is literally founded on secession.
That's what the colonists did.
And that comparison was also not lost on the British at the time.
They saw it and they saw it as basically the same kind of thing.
And you could say, well, again, the colonists had good reasons and Southerners had bad reasons.
Okay, fine, but we're talking about what secession is.
And in fact, I think the colonists did have good reasons for secession or rebellion, but That's not quite as obvious or straightforward as we tend to think it is.
You could make an argument that the American Revolution was not necessarily justified.
Now, I'm not making that argument.
I think it was.
But when you actually sit down and study the history and the surrounding circumstances, it's a little bit more complex than we tend to think.
And, you know, just like the American Civil War, there were many reasons that led up to it.
But with the American Revolution, one of the primary reasons was taxation.
But one of the reasons why the king was trying to extract taxes from the colonies was to pay for the defense of the colonies, which is not unreasonable, right?
Anyway, the point is, that's a little bit more of a complex moral subject than I think we sometimes make it out to be.
But either way, if we are saying that, well, you're not allowed to secede, and to secede is to be a traitor, well, then what does that say about George Washington?
So I think the argument is not about, well, they're traitors because they seceded.
The argument is about the reasons for it, right?
Now, as for the charge that I'm a moral relativist because I advocate judging people by the standards of their time, well, here's the distinction there.
We judge right and wrong objectively.
But we assess moral culpability in the light of historical context.
So, for instance, a person who held slaves in, let's say, the year 1400, when slavery was an accepted institution everywhere in the world, that person is probably less morally culpable than you would be today for the same action.
Now, the action itself is just as wrong.
Slavery was just as wrong in the year 1400 as it is today in 2019.
But the moral culpability, the personal culpability of a person who engaged in that practice 500 years ago is going to be much more mitigated than it would be for us today.
Another way of putting this is that there are certain moral insights that seem obvious to us today, but were not obvious to our ancestors.
And we have no right to feel superior to them because we didn't earn these insights.
We just were born into them.
It's part of our culture.
But it was not always a part of the culture.
I mentioned yesterday that Lincoln was an avowed racist.
He said that in 1858, in his debate with Stephen Douglas, he said that he doesn't believe that black people and white people are equal.
He doesn't support their equality.
He thinks that the superior position of the white race should always be maintained legally.
That's what he said.
Clearly, if a politician said that today, he would be run out of office, and rightly so, and he would be a disgrace, he would be shunned, he would go down in history as a racist scumbag and nothing more.
But Lincoln said that in 1858, and we tend to kind of overlook it and look at the overall context, and we try to, at least with him, we look at it in a perspective as well we should.
Because the idea that all people across the world are equal in worth and dignity, and that even people who look completely different from you are still entirely human, just like you are, that idea was not apparent to the vast majority of people everywhere in the world for most of human civilization.
It's apparent to us, which is good, but it was not apparent to our ancestors.
Um, and not just our white ancestors, but our ancestors everywhere in the world.
I mean, in, in, in certainly in the, in the, you know, let's say the going back to the 1400s, anywhere in the world you went to, you would, you would encounter racism and tribalism everywhere in the world, among all races.
It's just how people operated back then.
It was still wrong, but the point is that it was a, It was just taken for granted.
And the idea that all people are equal, that is an insight that developed slowly over time.
And only very, very, very recently has it become kind of mainstream.
And even then, only in certain countries.
There are still plenty of countries where it's not.
So we can either choose to condemn almost all of our ancestors of all races as barbaric scumbags,
or we can try to see them in the context of their times and afford them that grace and that,
you know, that perspective. And I think we have, if we're going to study history,
then that we have to, we have to have that perspective.
We have to afford them that grace.
I know that there are actually plenty of people in America today who would have no problem saying, yeah, you know what?
Our ancestors are a bunch of barbaric scumbags, all of them.
They're a bunch of worthless animals.
There are people that would say that.
And those are almost all people who don't study history, have not studied it.
Because when you have nothing but contempt for people of history, then you're probably not going to be inclined to study history.
And if you do study it, your vantage point is going to be so skewed and so biased that you're not going to be able to learn anything.
So you have to be able to take off the modern lenses for a minute.
and try to see the world through their lenses, that's the only way to study history.
It's the only way to see history and understand it.
And if we're going to do that, if we're going to see things in perspective, in a historical context, then I think we have to afford that same generosity to the Confederates, which isn't to say that we have to see slavery as okay.
Again, it wasn't.
It's objectively wrong.
And even, you know, in 1860, you know, in the year 1400, everyone thought slavery was okay.
In 1860, there were a lot of people who knew that was wrong.
So, that historical context doesn't let them off the hook the same way that it would in the year 1400.
Because we can say of a person in 1860, yeah, you should have known better, and they should have.
Um, but overall it was not as racially enlightened at a time as it is today.
And so that is a context that we have to apply to everybody.
All right.
Um, let's check emails.
Matt Walsh show at gmail.com.
Matt Walsh show at gmail.com.
Um, Let's see, this is from Anonymous, says, Dear Supreme Dictator and Overlord Walsh, relevant backstory, raised in a loving Catholic home until I graduated high school, early to mid-20s, fell away from the church, premarital sex, drugs, alcohol abuse all through college, currently still in mid-20s, I've sobered up, routinely participate in confession, I attend weekly Mass, I am desperately working towards renewing my faith, prayer life, and stopping my cavalier cafeteria Catholic lifestyle.
In a steady, exclusive, increasingly serious relationship with a great girl, but in my regrettable period of debauchery, before my girlfriend and I were ever together, I unknowingly had a one-night stand with her sister during a bullet bourbon blackout.
The sister and I decided to never tell my girlfriend about our indiscretion to avoid the myriad of consequences, although recently a part of me wants to come clean, so I ask, is the truth at all times, despite the consequences, always the correct path?
Do I continue to live with my guilt while pretending nothing happened at every one of her family get-togethers, every date night, every sign of peace at mass, to prevent her feelings of sadness and betrayal?
Do I break up with her to save her the heartbreak, even though I don't want to break up with her?
Um, this all could have been avoided by better choices.
I get it.
But any words of advice moving forward would be helpful.
Well, thanks for the email.
Listen, I think you're, you're right to realize, um, that we need to exercise prudence in deciding what to share with people, even with those whom we're in a relationship.
Um, it's not necessarily the right move to just vomit out all of your deepest, darkest secrets and air all of your dirty laundry.
Um, So you're right about that.
But in this case, I think you need to tell your girlfriend about this.
She needs to know, and I'll tell you why.
At this point, it's not really about what you did before you were with her.
Now it's about the secret that you're keeping with her sister, who's another woman.
And which you have apparently communicated with her sister about.
You said you both made a decision not to tell her, so clearly you've talked about this, the two of you.
And that's the problem, I think.
The problem, it's not that you have a past.
It isn't that you made bad decisions when you were younger.
We all have a past.
A lot of us made bad decisions.
And that's okay.
You're moving past it.
You're changing.
You're confronting it.
You're dealing with it.
And that's all great.
But this isn't about the past.
It's about right now.
And right now, you're keeping a secret with another woman.
And that woman happens to be your girlfriend's sister.
Even if it wasn't.
I mean, even if she was just some other random girl, the fact that you're keeping a secret with a woman is a problem because a secret is intimacy.
There is intimacy in keeping a secret with someone.
And that's why when you're in a serious relationship, you simply cannot have secrets with other women.
I mean, you can't confide in members of the opposite sex when you're in a relationship, keep secrets with them and that sort of thing.
The fact that she's the sister just makes Even more the case so I would tell her I think you should just tell her and Explain it as you explained it to me just now I can pretty much guarantee that her main bone of contention with you will be the secret that you guys kept It's not gonna be what you did.
The first thing she's gonna be upset about is the secret I don't know how long you've kept it, but that's gonna be the thing she's upset about first and foremost But the longer you keep the secret the more hurtful it will be so I would just tell her.
And if your relationship is meant to be, if it's strong, if it's made of the stuff that lasts, then it will survive this.
It's going to be difficult.
I mean, you guys are going to have a tough time, I think, probably, for a bit.
And I know it's difficult to think in these terms, but if it destroys the relationship and if it all falls apart, then that probably means that it just wasn't meant to be.
But better to find that out now.
Better for you and for your girlfriend.
From Barth says, Hi, Mr. Walsh.
I'm a freshman at a Catholic school.
I'm a huge fan of your show.
I agree with you so much of the time that I have not felt the need to email.
But when you came after The Office, you came after me.
You said that The Office peaked around season four.
This is completely untrue.
The best string of episodes from The Office is at the very end of the series with the Florida episodes until the episode where Andy returns from his trip to the Caribbean.
I will now join the resistance to your theocratic dictatorship instead of a submissive serf.
Well, Barth, the life expectancy of a submissive serf under my regime is quite a bit longer than the life expectancy of a member of the Resistance.
But, you know, you do what you think is best.
As for The Office, yeah, I was talking about this on Twitter yesterday.
You know, The Office stopped being funny in Season 5.
I mean, Season 4 is when the drop-off happened.
Seasons 1 through 3 are the classics.
And as I explained, here's what happened with The Office, and this is what happens with every comedy that sticks around too long.
It happened with South Park.
I mean, it happens with every comedy, with all great comedies.
And that's why I think every comedy should end.
Four or five seasons is probably enough to tell the story and to wring everything you can out of the main joke.
And then at that point, you gotta end it.
And what happened with The Office is that it started and what made it great and relatable and funny
and all those things and charming, was that these were a collection of basically normal people
who had this weird, awkward boss and this other, his dorky sidekick.
And they were just kind of existing and getting through the day, you know, dealing with the dynamics of the office.
And that's what made it funny is that it was, it was normal.
It was real.
You could kind of imagine meeting all these people in real life that kind of reminded you of people that you knew.
But as time went on and the writers ran out of material and they couldn't figure out how to generate comedy anymore out of these mundane situations, they just turned everybody in the office into a cartoon.
And pretty soon, around season five is when the switch happened, where everybody in the office was absurd and stupid and ridiculous and not human at all.
And when that happens, it's just not funny anymore.
All right, we'll do one more.
Let's see.
This is from Dave, says, in school my religion teacher preaches Dorothy Soleil's, don't know if I'm pronouncing that right, interpretation of God as a supernatural but not omnipotent entity, which, because if God, in her opinion, was omnipotent, he would be a cruel God since he let the Holocaust happen.
This is sort of simplified because Soleil, of course, goes way deeper into the issue.
Can you explain how to argue for an omnipotent God to that sort of Christian?
Well, if we're dealing with someone who already believes in God, then I think it's pretty easy to argue for omnipotence, because all we have to do is establish what his bare minimum abilities would need to be in order for him to be a God in the first place, right?
As far as that goes, if he didn't create the world, if he is not the creative force behind the world, then he is just a created being himself, Which means he's not God.
At that point, he's just a more powerful version of a human being.
He's maybe like a very advanced alien or something like that.
So, God, to be God, would need to be first.
He would need to be the first being, not a created being.
And therefore, if he's the first being, then he is the creative force which created everything else.
And that brings up the question, is it possible for a non-omnipotent being To exist from all eternity and then at some point decide to create, out of nothing, 100 billion galaxies.
Can a non-omnipotent being create even a blade of grass, let alone 100 billion galaxies?
That's the question.
And I would say no.
Because creating something out of nothing is the ultimate power.
All other powers that you can think of involve manipulating things that already exist in our environment, but to create from nothing, you know, to just have nothingness, and in that nothingness to make something appear, it doesn't even matter what that thing is.
Well, that is the hallmark of unlimited power, of omnipotence.
And so, that's why God is omnipotent.
I guess maybe another way of framing it is if God is powerful enough to create the universe from nothing, what do you think he can't do?
So if she's saying that God isn't omnipotent, then Then she must have some things in mind that she thinks he can't do.
Well, what would those things be?
Can you list some things that would be out of the reach of a god who can create a universe from nothing?
I can't.
That doesn't work.
That seems to me to be a kind of a cheap and silly way of getting around the problem of evil and all of that.
And that is a complex problem.
It's a difficult problem.
Why didn't God stop the Holocaust?
Why doesn't God allow bad things to happen, so on and so forth?
And that is a whole separate question.
We've talked about it before.
We could talk about it for five hours, right?
But I certainly know that trying to dethrone God, essentially, to take away His power, is not the way to deal with that question.
Because at that point, you're only a step away from atheism.
If you're going to say, well, the Holocaust happened because God couldn't stop it, then, I mean, why not just say the Holocaust happened because there is no God?
It seems like that you're kind of marching in that direction.
All right, we'll leave it there.
Thanks for watching, everybody.
Thanks for listening.
Godspeed.
Hi, everyone.
I'm Andrew Klavan, host of The Andrew Klavan Show.
Well, Joe Biden is right about one thing.
We are in a battle for the soul of America.
It's a battle between one vision, where the deep state runs everything, and another, where we run it.
