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Sept. 3, 2019 - The Matt Walsh Show

39:49

Ep. 323 - Gun Confiscation By Another Name

Democrats propose mandatory gun buy back programs. What's the difference between that and confiscation? There isn't one. Also, colleges take down portraits of white male scientists in order to make everyone feel safer. And a Catholic school bans Harry Potter. But why is Harry Potter spiritually dangerous if Lord Of The Rings isn't? Date: 09-03-2019 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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	So an author, a Pulitzer Prize finalist by the way, wrote on Twitter yesterday that people should stop wearing red hats.
	Not just MAGA hats, they should stop wearing red hats in general.
	Any red hat at all is deeply triggering.
	Now, Rebecca Mackay said, she said, is anyone else made really uncomfortable these days by anyone wearing any kind of red baseball cap?
	Like, I see one and my heart does weird stuff, and then I realize... And then I... She didn't say stuff, she said the S-word.
	And then I finally realize it only says Titleist or whatever.
	Maybe don't wear red caps anymore, normal people?
	Also, for the love of God, the clever folks wearing Make America Read Again or whatever caps, no, you're making everyone scared.
	Don't do it.
	If you're here to be contrary, an equivalent here would be Western Hindus choosing not to use the swastika symbol in public despite it being sacred to their faith because it would offend slash frighten people.
	The red hat has become a symbol of hate because of how its wearers act.
	You know, I have to really agree with Rebecca on this one.
	I think she makes a good point.
	But I would go a step further because personally, I'm frightened at this point by anything red at all.
	I don't care what it is.
	Any kind of red thing whatsoever.
	I was, just for example, I was walking through a garden the other day and I came up to a tomato plant and I just vomited.
	All over the tomato plant and wept.
	And I broke down in tears.
	I cried there for 15 minutes because I was so triggered and traumatized by the sight of the red thing.
	I panicked at a stop sign last week.
	Which of course is red and I plowed right into a whole group of people and that's Trump's fault
	Not mine red is very frightening for me. I'm like a bull in a rodeo. It's just uh,
	It just triggers me in that way. So stop with all the red people. I'm I'm uh, I'm in agreement with that
	actually in all seriousness the real truth is and I don't know if i'm alone in this but
	When I see the red hats, I still I guess i'm stuck in the 90s because when I see red hats
	I still think of fred durst I don't think of Donald Trump, which is also pretty traumatizing, actually.
	So, I guess, I don't know if I'm, that used to be, if you didn't grow up in the 90s, you don't know this, but Red Hats used to be a, someone else used to have that brand, and Trump co-opted it.
	Which I think is pretty offensive.
	Okay, so the Democrats somehow are getting more extreme in their anti-gun rhetoric.
	Maybe you didn't think that was possible, but here we are.
	After that terrible mass shooting in Texas on Saturday, a psychotic killer, as I'm sure you heard, went nuts and started driving around murdering random people.
	Killed seven people, injured more than 20.
	Absolutely horrible, and the most Horrible thing about it is just how completely normal this has become.
	We talk about it every time this happens.
	It's the same thing.
	You think back 20 years ago and this sort of thing seemed like it was much less frequent and when it did happen it was A huge news cycle for months afterward, it seemed like.
	It was like the only thing you talked about for months.
	You think about Columbine, for instance.
	But now it happens, and a couple days later, we've all moved on because we're just so used to it.
	And that's a terrible thing.
	It shouldn't be normal.
	It's become normal, but it shouldn't be.
	That's how it's become.
	Now, Democrats have their answer.
	And their answer is, obviously, to confiscate guns.
	When, in many cases, as with this case, the real answer would have been, in many of these cases, there are warning signs ahead of time, and if the appropriate people who were in a position to do something had done something, then it probably wouldn't have happened.
	So we don't need to get into laws and policies and everything else.
	We don't need additional laws.
	If the laws that were already in place had been enforced, and the people who were in a position to do something had done something, then this might have been prevented.
	Because that's the thing about laws.
	You can add 50 additional laws.
	You can pass 500 new anti-gun laws.
	It wouldn't matter if they're not enforced.
	And if we're not enforcing the ones we already have on the books, then what's the point of adding new ones?
	So we don't even need to get into the ideological aspect of it.
	It's just, if we're not enforcing the ones we already have on the books, then what's the point of additional laws?
	In this case, it's not a matter of having enforced gun laws, but it turns out that the killer called the police.
	He was fired from his job on the day that this happened.
	He called the police himself.
	And his job called the police.
	And apparently, I think the FBI was notified as well.
	But nothing was done, and then this happens.
	So, we don't need to get into talking about gun laws, but of course we will, and that's what's happened over the last few days.
	Now, you may recall that up until very recently, Democrats pretended that they were not interested in confiscating guns.
	They were very clear about that.
	Uh, that's not what they're looking to do.
	They want common sense gun regulation, so on and so forth, but they're not looking to confiscate guns.
	Now, for the first time, they're being relatively upfront about it.
	As upfront as these people are capable of being anyway.
	Here's Beto O'Rourke talking to reporters on Saturday, and listen to what he had to say.
	How do you address the fears that the government is going to take away those assault rifles, as you call them, if you're talking about buybacks and banning them?
	Yeah.
	So I want to be really clear that that's exactly what we're going to do.
	Americans who own AR-15s, AK-47s, will have to sell them to the government.
	We're not going to allow them to stay on our streets, to show up in our communities, to be used against us in our synagogues, our churches, our mosques, our Walmarts, our public places.
	And then on Twitter, in reaction to the news that the shooter had used an AR-15, he said simply, buy them all back, period.
	Buy them all back.
	Now, I call this only relatively upfront.
	It's more upfront than Democrats have been in the past, but it's only relatively because the term buyback is, of course, a euphemism.
	It's like, it would be like if I were to commit an armed robbery.
	And when the police come, I said, hey, it wasn't armed robbery, it was a compelled donation, is all.
	It's the same kind of thing.
	A mandatory buyback.
	Which is what the Dems want.
	Is the same as confiscation.
	It is confiscation by another name.
	It's the exact same thing.
	It's confiscation with maybe a financial compensation tied to it.
	But the problem with the financial compensation is that it does nothing to address the violation of rights, the fundamental and underlying violation of rights that's taking place.
	You can't undo that by just giving someone money.
	So that's a problem, and it's compelled, and the government is just, in effect, giving you back your own money.
	Let's remember that if the government has money, whatever money the government has, it has because it's taken it from you and from me.
	And so now, they want to take your guns and then give you money in exchange, but they're giving your own money back to you.
	So they're buying back your gun with your money.
	It's basically like they're Taking your gun and then taking your wallet out of your back pocket and taking a few dollars out of your own wallet and saying, here you go, here's for your trouble, here's for the gun.
	It's just, it's completely absurd.
	Meanwhile, here's what Joe Biden had to say about guns.
	The idea that we don't have elimination of assault-type weapons, magazines that can hold multiple bullets in them, is absolutely mindless.
	It is no violation of the Second Amendment.
	It's just a bow to the special interest of the gun manufacturers in the NRA.
	It's got to stop.
	Now, yes, obviously it's easy to make fun of Joe Biden talking about magazines with multiple bullets.
	All magazines have multiple bullets.
	That's the point of a magazine.
	You might as well ban six-packs that have more than one beer, right?
	That's sort of the whole point of it.
	So once again, the opponents of guns reveal that they really know nothing about guns, which is a problem.
	And it is a very telling thing that almost everyone who has a knowledge of the subject seems to be in favor of gun rights.
	That's an interesting correlation there. But the most significant thing, aside
	from the ignorance on display, is just that the general anti-gun rhetoric, which is way
	more extreme and direct than it's ever been before. And what's really troubling about that, that the
	only reason why Democrats are doing this right now during the primary on the campaign trail is
	because they sense, they know, they've looked at the numbers, they've looked at the polls, they've
	done the focus groups and everything else, they have their internal polling data, and they know that
	at least on their side of the aisle there is a real appetite for this now.
	So if this was just a few radical politicians going around saying, oh, we gotta confiscate all the guns, I wouldn't be worried about that.
	What is worrying is that this is a trend now among Democratic politicians because they are pandering to their base, which means there are millions of average Americans who are in favor of this.
	Not a majority by any stretch, but they're out there.
	I think it's certainly a growing number of the mob now.
	This is what they want.
	And that's what's really troubling.
	That's what we have to, I think, worry about.
	All right, moving on.
	Here's a story that I've been wanting to talk about for the last few days.
	If I can pull it up here.
	Okay, this is as reported by NPR.
	It says that the title is Academic Science Rethinks All Too White Dude Walls of Honor.
	Now that headline doesn't make a lot of sense.
	So this is what it says.
	A few years ago, TV celebrity Rachel Maddow.
	Was that TV celebrity Rachel Maddow?
	You know, it's interesting.
	label for it, was at Rockefeller University to hand out a prize that's given each year to a prominent female scientist.
	As Maddow entered the auditorium, someone overheard her say, what's up with the dude wall?
	She was referring to a wall covered with portraits of scientists from the university who have won either a Nobel Prize or the Lasker Award, a major medical prize.
	100% of them are men.
	It's probably 30 headshots of 30 men, so it's imposing, says Leslie Vosthall, a neurobiologist with the University and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
	Vosthall says Maddow's remark and the word dude wall Crystalize something that has been bothering her for years as she travels around the country to give lectures and attend conferences at scientific institutions.
	She constantly encounters lobbies, conference rooms, passageways, and lecture halls that are decorated with portraits of white men.
	Boss Hall says it just sends the message every day when you walk by it that science consists of old white men.
	I think every institution needs to go out in the hallway and ask, what kind of message are we sending with these oil portraits and dusty old photographs?
	She's now on a committee that's redesigning the wall of portraits at Rockefeller University to add more diversity.
	Now, I'm not going to keep reading from it, but adding more diversity means, of course, taking down some of those portraits of those dastardly old white men.
	Those old white men who just so happen to accomplish marvelous things, and that's how they earn their spot on that wall.
	But we're going to take them down.
	Not because they've been superseded in accomplishment by somebody else, but just because they don't have the right skin color or the right reproductive organs.
	So we're going to take down their portraits and put up portraits of women or people who don't have white skin, darker skin.
	Let's ask ourselves, though.
	Why do all of these schools have all of these portraits, or why did they, at least, have all these portraits of white male scientists and doctors?
	Well, and I'm going to try to be as diplomatic as I can be when I say this, so as not to offend anyone.
	But the reason is that most of the greatest scientists and medical pioneers in history Have been white males.
	Okay, so I just want to emphasize that.
	Most, by far, in fact, I mean this is an understatement.
	By far, most of the greatest scientists in history have been white males.
	Not exclusively, but primarily.
	That's just a historical fact.
	Okay, it just is.
	You think about the greatest scientists in history.
	I mean, just whatever, rattle off the names that come immediately to your head.
	Newton, Einstein, Copernicus, Galileo, Tesla, Hawking, you know, Kepler, Hubble, Herschel.
	You know, I'm blending time periods and disciplines here, but you get the point.
	Most of the greatest scientific minds in history have been white men.
	That's a reality.
	We could talk about why that is.
	And that's a different discussion.
	That's an interesting discussion.
	But that's not the discussion I'm having here.
	What I'm simply establishing is that it is.
	I'm not talking about why it is.
	I'm saying that it is.
	As for why, what I will say is this.
	You can't claim that, well, white men were the only ones who had the opportunity to invent modern science.
	They're the only ones who could do it because of the patriarchal and racist societies of the past, so they're the only ones who had the chance, and so they're the ones who did it.
	No.
	Let me tell you something.
	Isaac Newton, okay, did not become Isaac Newton as we know him today because he benefited from the patriarchy.
	Isaac Newton is Isaac Newton because he was a towering genius.
	The genius level of a guy like Isaac Newton, I never said that I was a genius.
	The genius level, the force of his genius is what made him a scientific revolutionary.
	And that's all.
	Okay, there's no additional, oh, he had help from the patriarchy.
	No.
	This was just... If you understand how incredibly brilliant this guy was, He went into a room and thought about it and invented calculus, okay?
	Same for Einstein and Copernicus and these other guys.
	Just so incredibly brilliant.
	And that's why they're scientific pioneers.
	And that's why they get the credit for that.
	But here's the point.
	What I also would not say, when we talk about, okay, so we have the fact that most of the greatest scientists in history have been white men.
	Not all, but most.
	The question of why is a different question.
	I'm not getting into that.
	What I will say, it's not that, well, white men are superior or smarter generally, and that's why they're the ones who did all that.
	No, I'm not saying that.
	That's not the case.
	And I think one of the ridiculous things about white supremacists, those that do exist, is that it's like they're trying to take credit for things that other people did.
	Newton was a genius.
	I would love if I could take some of that credit and say, oh yeah, he was on my team as a white man, so I get some credit too.
	We did it.
	No, it wasn't a we.
	He happened to be a white guy and he was the genius.
	I didn't do it.
	I don't get any credit for that.
	Aside from the moral...
	The moral derangement of the white supremacist viewpoint, one of the other problems with it is just that you have these people who haven't done anything but post on message boards and play video games that are trying to take credit for these things that people other than themselves have done.
	So that's not the case.
	But it's just a simple fact.
	That white men, most of the great scientists have been white men.
	Here's the main point though.
	I don't see this as a point of shame or embarrassment.
	Okay, we are now told that we should be ashamed and we should be embarrassed that white men have done so much good in the world.
	And it's an interesting message because on one hand we're told, oh white men are toxic bullies and oppressors.
	And on the other hand, we're essentially told they've done too much good in the world.
	They've contributed too much to medicine and science, so we have to take down their portraits and pretend that they didn't do it.
	Because it's not fair.
	They didn't give anyone else a chance.
	But I don't think embarrassment or anything like that is the right emotion.
	I would suggest a different emotion.
	Maybe gratitude.
	Maybe we should be grateful for what these men have accomplished.
	Not because they're men or because they're white, but just because of what they accomplished.
	Maybe we should be grateful for that.
	Rather than whining that they didn't have different reproductive organs or darker skin, why don't we have gratitude for what they did and what they accomplished?
	And how much easier they made our lives through the invention of modern science.
	I think probably that's a better reaction than one of embarrassment or shame or resentment, jealousy, envy.
	Because I think it's great.
	If you're saying, well, we need to get more women involved in science.
	Fine.
	Great.
	Go for it.
	But when we start taking down and covering up the portraits and the statues so that they don't feel bad, that's not the right message.
	If you have a young woman entering a university, she wants to be a scientist, she should be looking up to these guys.
	You gotta keep their portraits up.
	Because you could say, look at what these incredible people achieved.
	Maybe you could do the same.
	So it's aspirational.
	But you lose that effect if you start taking it down and hiding it and saying, oh, don't worry about them.
	And it's absurd anyway, because if you're in a school, and you're trying to get into the sciences, and you're learning, and you're reading textbooks, these white men whose portraits you've covered up or taken down, they're gonna be all over the textbooks, because like I said, these are mostly the people who invented modern science, so you can't escape them, even if you want to.
	All right.
	There's one other thing I wanted to talk about, another article I wanted to read partially, mainly because it raises a question I've had for a while, and maybe you guys can help me out with it.
	This is just a question that I have.
	I don't fully understand it.
	It's from CBS News.
	It says a Catholic school in Nashville, Tennessee has banned the Harry Potter series because a reverend at the school claims the books include both good and evil magic, as well as spells, which, if read by a human, can conjure evil spirits, according to the Tennessean.
	The publication obtained an email from Reverend Dan Rehill, a pastor at St.
	Edward's Catholic School, Paris, which was sent to parents.
	In the email, Rehill explains that he consulted several exorcists in the U.S.
	and in Rome, and it was recommended that the school remove the books, the Tennessean reports.
	Reverend Rehill said of the Harry Potter series, these books represent or present magic as both good and evil, which is not true, but in fact a clever deception.
	The curses and spells used in the books are actual curses and spells, which when read by a human being, risk conjuring evil spirits into the presence of the person reading the text.
	And then it goes on, other parents had complained and so on, and so they took out the Harry Potter books.
	I've heard this from other people, that the spells, the magic spells in Harry Potter are quote, actual magic spells.
	Are they though?
	Actual magic spells?
	Because I don't think magic spells exist in reality.
	Have you ever seen anyone say a magic spell and then something magical happens?
	Have you ever seen that in your life?
	I never have.
	That's something that exists in fantasy books.
	It's not a real thing.
	But this problem with Harry Potter, this is a thing among some Christians.
	A not insignificant number of Christians, in my experience.
	Some Christians are very uncomfortable with Harry Potter.
	And maybe that's understating it.
	But I have to say that I don't understand it personally.
	I'm not a Harry Potter fan.
	I think quality-wise, it's nothing special, but this, and I haven't read it, and yes, I do say that even though I haven't read it.
	I mean, I also haven't read Twilight or Fifty Shades of Grey, but I feel confident that I can say those are not literary classics, even though I haven't read them.
	Harry Potter, I'm not going to say is quite down at that level, but I don't think it's at the level of something like Lord of the Rings.
	But this idea that it's somehow spiritually dangerous, that I don't get.
	Yes, there are magic spells, there are evil spirits, evil forces, all that, but all of that exists, being a Lord of the Rings, all of that exists in Lord of the Rings too.
	And I get that Tolkien was a Christian and there are some Christian elements in the Lord of the Rings.
	Lord of the Rings is not a Christian allegory, as some people like to claim.
	Tolkien himself was clear that it was not that, wasn't meant to be that, but he was a Christian, a devout Christian.
	So, yeah, that's true.
	But still, it's a fantasy story dealing with good and evil forces and magic spells and so on and so forth, just like Harry Potter.
	So why is Harry Potter a problem, but not Lord of the Rings?
	I don't quite understand that.
	I think, here's what I say, I think the depiction of evil in a story Whether it's magical evil or ordinary everyday evil really doesn't much matter.
	The depiction only becomes problematic when the evil is either glorified or when we're given sort of a nihilistic view where there's really no difference between good and evil and they all blend together and in the end there is no good or evil.
	I think both of those are problems, especially for kids.
	So I would agree with that.
	And I'm not saying there's anything inherently absurd about, you know, being concerned about a fiction story.
	Because I also think this idea that, well, it's just make-believe, it doesn't matter what happens in the story.
	No, I don't think that's true at all.
	It definitely matters.
	And people are shaped and formed and influenced by the stories they read.
	This is part of human nature.
	It's been the case ever since the dawn of human civilization.
	We tell stories and this is one of the things that moves and motivates and, as I said, forms us.
	So it does matter what those stories contain and what sort of stories we're dealing with.
	But I think that's where it becomes a problem, where there is no difference between good and evil, or where evil is actually glorified.
	And there are many examples of both of those things, both in modern literature and in modern television and movies and everything else.
	But my understanding is that Harry Potter, and as I said, haven't read it.
	I've seen a little bit of some of the movies, but that's all.
	My understanding is that Harry Potter is a pretty straightforward good character, and the story is all about his struggle, his ultimately successful struggle, right, against the bad guys.
	So, there's no problem as far as that's concerned.
	I mean, are kids likely to read Harry Potter and come away identifying with Voldemort?
	Come away rooting for Voldemort to win?
	You do see that with some fictional stories where the bad guys are kind of cooler
	and those are the ones the kids identify with.
	What about Darth Vader?
	When I was a kid, I was never a big Star Wars fan, but I definitely thought, like most people,
	I thought Darth Vader was by far the coolest Star Wars character.
	I still think he is.
	But you never hear Christians worrying about Star Wars.
	There you've got magical forces, you've got the Force, right?
	Bad Jedis, good Jedis.
	You've got Darth Vader, who's the cool bad guy that everyone sort of is more interested in.
	Yet, as I said, Christians aren't worried about that.
	And so I don't quite understand it.
	Now there's a trend on the other side of the coin.
	To get rid of literary classics like Huckleberry Finn and so on because it isn't politically correct and because it has language that they say is problematic.
	The stuff with Harry Potter, though I don't think that Harry Potter is a literary classic, but this stuff seems a little like the Christian version of that.
	If we're going to say, and I do say, that books with the n-word Books such as Mark Twain books, with the N word in it, should be allowed to stay on the shelves in schools because kids can be expected to take that in context and understand it in its context.
	If we're going to say that, then can't we expect kids to understand magical spells in their context?
	Namely, the context of make-believe?
	There's an interesting thing there, but I welcome your emails on that subject, and I'm sure I will receive them.
	MattWalshow at gmail.com.
	MattWalshow at gmail.com.
	I would be interested if a Christian could explain to me why Harry Potter is a spiritual problem, but Lord of the Rings and Star Wars, for example, are not.
	That's the specific question I would like to Read an answer to.
	And maybe I'll find out that there's a good answer.
	I just don't know what it is.
	All right, Matt Walshow at gmail.com is the email address.
	Let's answer a few emails.
	This is from Terry, says, Matt, I agree with you about FaceTime in public, but what about speakerphone?
	Is that better or worse?
	We talked about this on Twitter a few days ago.
	I was saying that, and this should be obvious.
	I shouldn't need to say it.
	I can't believe I need to say it, but using FaceTime in public is completely, outrageously inappropriate, and it's an absolute jerk move to do that.
	Yet, it seems to me, in my experience, that this is becoming more and more common.
	Where you've got people that are sitting in a coffee shop or something like that, and they've got their little pal on FaceTime talking to them as if they're in the room.
	Like, just pick up the phone and talk to them.
	You don't need to see their face the whole time.
	Now, is it like speakerphone?
	No, speakerphone is actually worse because there's really no reason for that.
	And there are people who do that too.
	They'll sit there in public talking on speakerphone.
	In that case, you can't even see their face.
	So there's really no reason at all to not just pick up the phone and talk to them.
	We don't all need to hear the conversation.
	Now, I know the answer is, well, what's the difference between sitting at a coffee shop, you've got someone on FaceTime talking to them, what's the difference between that and having an actual person sitting, you know, in the chair?
	Well, I think there is a difference.
	The FaceTime is louder.
	Just the tone and everything is louder.
	You can hear it more if you're not involved in the conversation.
	And it's also completely unnecessary.
	If you really want to see that person's face, then go to wherever they are and talk to them.
	One excuse I've heard from people is, well, I travel a lot and so I have to FaceTime my kids.
	Okay, I travel a lot too.
	But you know what?
	That's not an excuse.
	You can go to your hotel room and FaceTime them.
	You can go somewhere in private and FaceTime them.
	And if you really need to FaceTime in public, you know what?
	Just talk to them on the phone and while you're talking to them, to your kids, just stare at a Polaroid of them or something.
	Have a little Polaroid picture.
	You remember those?
	And just look at the picture while you're talking to them.
	How about that?
	It's no excuse.
	This is from... Danny says, Hi Matt.
	As a Catholic, I take it you are not a fan of Martin Luther.
	Correct, Danny.
	But I am interested in your take on this quote from him that I ran across recently.
	And the quote is, Reason must be deluded, blinded, and destroyed.
	Faith must trample underfoot all reason, sense, and understanding.
	And whatever it sees must be put out of sight and know nothing but the Word of God.
	End quote.
	What do you think?
	Should faith come before reason, or reason before faith?
	Yes, Danny, as with so many other things, I must disagree with Martin Luther here.
	And in fairness, that quote there, I'm sure there's a larger context to it, and I don't have the context here, so I'm just engaging with it as it's presented, out of its context.
	Taking it like that, I would disagree with it.
	I think it's a big problem to sort of put faith over here, and then reason and understanding over here, as if they're two completely different categories of things.
	And then to say that they're at odds with each other, and we should choose one or the other.
	I think that's a problem.
	That's the stereotype of faith.
	The negative view of faith.
	The negative version that we get from atheists.
	When I hear Christians confirming it, it really makes me cringe.
	And I do hear this.
	Putting this Martin Luther quote aside, I hear this kind of thing from Christians sometimes.
	If we have to choose faith over reason, sense, and understanding, how do we... If you're saying, well, I have faith.
	Completely apart.
	From your reason, your sense, and your understanding, then what do you mean that you have faith?
	What does that even mean in that context?
	What does it mean to say, I think this proposition is true, that there is a God, that Jesus is the Son of God, the Bible is the Word of God, etc.
	What does it mean to say that you think that proposition is true if you are accepting it apart from reason and understanding?
	What does that mean?
	I think it's true.
	Well, you can't think anything without reason.
	And you can't understand the distinction between truth and falsehood without reason.
	That's what you use your reason for.
	It's what makes us human.
	To call something true is a judgment of reason, it seems to me.
	All of these things are linked, is what I'm saying.
	I don't think you can neatly separate them and put them into different compartments and different categories.
	I just don't see how you can do that.
	Look, if someone asks you, why do you believe in God?
	Which, if you're a believer, I assume you have been asked that question many times, and it's certainly a question that you must be prepared to answer.
	So, what do you say when you're asked that question?
	I guess you could say, well, I just feel like it's true.
	I feel it.
	But that would be a very unconvincing answer.
	That will leave you, by the way, totally exposed to the obvious follow-up from your, let's say, atheist questioner.
	The obvious follow-up is, well, I feel like God isn't true.
	And Hindus feel like their God is true, and Muslims feel like their God is true, and the ancient pagans felt like their gods were true, and tribesmen in the Amazon feel like their gods are true.
	If all you have are your feelings, then how do you know that your feelings are more true than anyone else's?
	It does no good to say, well, I just really, really feel it, and I assume that they must not feel it, or they're misunderstanding their feelings, or something.
	How do you know that?
	You can't say that.
	You have no idea.
	You've only experienced the world through your own mind.
	You've only had your own feelings.
	You cannot make those kinds of statements about other people.
	That's why it would be a problem.
	And if you're trying to answer that question, why do you believe in God?
	If you're trying to answer it totally apart from reason, understanding, and sense, then it seems like that's the only answer you have left.
	It's just, I sort of feel it.
	But probably that's not what you would say, or that's probably not what you have said when you've been asked this question.
	If you're asked why you think God is true, why God is real, probably you give some answer that hinges on reason.
	And certainly it must hinge on sense and understanding.
	I mean, even saying, I feel like it's true or whatever, that's a sense.
	Another way of putting that is, I sense that it's true.
	So it seems to me that's kind of what faith is.
	It's a certain spiritual sense of the truth of this thing.
	So to even say faith without sense, well now you're really, now I just have no idea what faith is.
	If it's not even sense, then what the hell is it?
	Pardon the expression.
	So, anyone who would agree with that quote, I would challenge you to come up with a definition of faith that is completely separate from any notion of sense, understanding, or reason.
	I don't think you can.
	I don't think you can come up with a coherent, intelligible definition of faith that has nothing to do with any of those things.
	So, I think we just create a false dichotomy here.
	And like I said, our I think any time you come to the conclusion that something is true, your reason is always involved in that.
	Always.
	That's kind of the definition of what reason is.
	Or that's part of it anyway, is the ability to contemplate.
	the truth or falsehood of a particular idea or proposition and come to a conclusion.
	Animals can't do that.
	We can, because we have the ability to reason.
	And that is very much involved in faith as well, it would seem to me.
	So, when you read the Bible, for example, when you read the Gospels, And you say to yourself, it really seems to me that this is true.
	That's faith, but it's also reason.
	What do you mean, it seems to you?
	It obviously seems to you as reasonable.
	It seems to you as something that is true.
	So that's your reason talking there.
	Even just the ability to understand what you're reading.
	You couldn't possibly read the Bible without reason.
	You literally couldn't read it.
	You wouldn't know.
	You wouldn't be able to put together what any of the words even mean.
	To be able to read words and understand what they mean is reason.
	All right.
	So we'll leave it there, I suppose.
	Thanks everybody for watching.
	Thanks for listening.
	Godspeed.
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