Ep. 337 - Environmentalists Save The Environment By Littering
Today, environmentalists in DC heroically saved the environment by blocking traffic and throwing trash. We'll talk about the increasingly absurd and counter productive climate protests plaguing the country. Also, Megan Fox is applauded for sending her son to school in a dress. Is this enlightened parenting or bad parenting? My answer won't shock you. Date: 09-23-2019
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Everything went okay for me, save my Baltimore Ravens losing yesterday.
Though I did enjoy one thing that happened during the game.
I went to a bar with my wife to watch it because we got three kids.
So if I want to watch a game, this is the point we're at now.
If I want to watch a football game, I've got to hire a babysitter, leave the house, go to a bar.
Not that I'm complaining.
My life is so hard, I had to watch a football game at a bar.
That's how difficult my life is.
Anyway, we were there, and at one point, the Ravens marched down the field.
They scored a touchdown.
Not enough to win the game, but this fan at another table, after the touchdown, he turns to someone else at the table, and he goes, see?
What'd I tell you?
They need to take the ball, go down the field, and score a touchdown!
And that's one of the things I enjoy about watching football, is that it gives you a chance To make insightful observations like that, and everyone does it.
And I do the same thing.
Actually, at a different point during the game, the Ravens were trailing, and so I turned to my wife and I said, we really got to put some points on the board here.
And it was just, it was a moment of inspiration that came to me and I realized, you know what we could use?
Points.
That's the thing.
And oftentimes, the best part is when you give advice to the players while they're playing.
So a lot of times, like if a player drops, you know, wide receiver drops the ball, doesn't make the catch, I'll say something, I'll say, oh come on, you gotta catch that, it was in your hands!
And the great thing is, because they can hear that of course, and it is also good advice, because then they hear that and they say, oh that's, catch it you mean, that's what I'm supposed to do.
So that's part of watching football.
But I hope that you're, if you're a football fan, But it went better for you, and if you're not a football fan, then get the hell out of the country, you communist.
Speaking of communists, there were a bunch of climate protesters swarming D.C.
this morning, shutting down the morning commute, trying to shut down D.C., as they put it, which, in another context, I'm perfectly fine with shutting down D.C.
I'm all about that.
But not the way they went about it.
But it leaves a question of what were they trying to accomplish exactly?
And whatever they were trying to accomplish, is this...
A reasonable way to go about it.
We're going to try to tackle that today.
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Okay, so we talked last week about the climate strikes and climate walkouts at school.
Well, that's still going on.
Today, a group of hippies decided to shut down a bunch of intersections in D.C.
as a means to save the environment, I guess.
But of course, forcing a bunch of cars to idle in the road probably isn't going to do much to help the environment.
Stopping global warming by causing traffic jams.
That's certainly a counterintuitive way to do it.
But I think, I'm not sure how much it's really going to accomplish.
The group's Facebook page says they're going to, quote, block key infrastructures to stop business as usual, bringing the whole city to a gridlock standstill.
Parents, workers, college students, and everyone who's concerned about the climate crisis will skip work and school and put off their other responsibilities to take action on the climate crisis.
This is the mass uprising that everyone with climate anxiety has been waiting for.
This is an uprising for life itself, fighting back against the forces of destruction.
This is your chance to take action to save the people, plants, and animals you love.
Let's rise to the challenge and shut down D.C.
Mass uprising!
Let's take a look at this mass uprising.
Here are some sights and sounds as documented by Spectrum News.
Look at this.
There you go.
There you go.
There is the mass uprising.
They're going to save the planet, and that's how they're doing it.
They're dancing in the street.
And here's a group called Extinction Rebellion, which sounds like the lamest name for a 90s punk band you've ever heard.
But they're not making music.
They are instead strapping themselves to a boat in the middle of the street.
Again, this is to save the climate, save the environment, remember?
And here's what that looked like.
After the natural treasure that we're losing every single day and also because it's a huge barrier.
So there you go there there and police had to come.
And spend a lot of time getting those people unstuck from the boat because they weren't going to tow the boat off of the road without first cutting the chains to get them out.
Now, I think you could make an argument.
Look, if you're going to disable a vehicle or tow a boat out into the middle of the highway and then chain yourself to it, I think police would be well within the rights to just tow the thing off the road with you attached to it.
Because that was your choice.
Right?
But they weren't going to do that.
In fact, the police were extremely understanding and polite and cooperative the entire time.
And this seems to be a theme with left-wing protests.
And we call it protests.
This isn't really a protest.
This is illegal, is what it is, to walk into the street and shut down traffic.
You can't do that.
That's not legal.
You're not allowed to just do that.
If I went into the middle of the street, if I went out Outside right now and just sat down in the middle of the street.
Okay, the police would probably come and drag me off the street if not arrest me.
But the thing with these left-wing quote-unquote protests is that it seems like they're given a ton of leeway to just do what they want and nobody gets arrested.
Julio Rosas on Twitter gives us a view of, just to give you an idea of the traffic and
the gridlock that was caused by this.
He gives us a view of one of the traffic jams caused by these people.
Take a look at this.
Now, if you've ever been to DC, which I don't recommend going, but if you have ever been,
especially during rush hour, especially on a Monday of all days, you know that it's hell
on earth as it is.
It is absolutely miserable.
I have no idea why anyone would choose to live in a place like D.C., but that's another discussion entirely.
But you take that, imagine how it goes when it's already that bad without any idiots in the street blocking traffic on purpose.
Imagine how it would be when you do have the idiots in the street blocking traffic on purpose.
It's obvious, of course, that most of these protesters don't have jobs.
They were just protesting last week!
And the kids were skipping school last week, so now they're skipping school again.
But not all of these people are school age, as you could tell.
Some of them would look like they are working age, yet they're not working.
And that's how they're able to protest four days a week.
But now they're trying to stop other people who do have jobs from getting to their jobs and making money to feed their families.
And let's remember that it's not like D.C.
is made up only of lobbyists and bureaucrats.
That is an unfortunate percentage of D.C.
But there are also working class people who work, you know, in the restaurants and in the places where those lobbyists and bureaucrats go for lunch or whatever else.
These protesters are stopping those folks, those working class folks, from getting to their jobs also.
And that's the thing about left-wing protests, is that they so often betray a total contempt for the working class.
Because they have no compunction about shutting down traffic, about preventing people from getting to their jobs.
They don't care about that.
Because they don't have jobs themselves, because they've got mommy and daddy taking care of them.
Or they've got daddy government taking care of them.
And so as far as they're concerned, the rest of you can just screw off.
They don't care.
Not their problem.
I really hope all those people who are stuck in traffic, I hope they took note of who these people are and whose side they're on, or more precisely, who's on their side.
Because the people on their side are not on the side of the working class, that's for sure.
So, let's review.
In order to save the environment, they're causing traffic jams, they're causing local law enforcement to waste resources, they're impeding people's abilities to get to their jobs.
That's the plan here.
That's the strategy.
Oh, and they're littering also, on purpose.
Watch this.
Ho-ho!
Fossil fuels have got to go!
Hey, hey!
Ho ho!
Bots on the heels of Dr. Joe!
Yeah!
Ho ho!
Bots on the heels of Dr. Joe!
Yes, yes, that'll do it.
Great job there.
That'll save the planet.
I mean, that guy is literally prancing down the street, throwing trash on the ground.
He's skipping down the road, just throwing trash on the ground.
And this is a protest in favor of the environment, and that's what he's doing.
You might as well just take an aerosol can and spray it in the air.
Save the environment!
Yes!
You might as well just do that.
It's the same exact thing.
Oh, and they're lighting trash on fire too.
Look at this picture that somebody took.
An actual dumpster fire that was lit by these people who care so much about the environment.
So, as with every other left-wing protest, Much of this is just an excuse for unemployed morons to dance around in the street and feel important.
That's what most of this is.
They're begging for attention.
Attention not for the cause, but for themselves.
They want attention for themselves.
That's what a lot of this is.
And that's why protesting is so popular these days.
I don't think it's a coincidence that we've got all these protests, that it seems like now that everybody's got phones, and everyone's on social media, and so everyone's also carrying a camera around in their pocket, it seems like now that that's the case, we've got protests four times a week.
And why is that?
Because these people, they want the opportunity for the selfie.
They know they're going to be on Twitter, on social media, and that's what they want.
It's for them.
It's got nothing to do with the cause.
That's what it really comes down to.
And I'm not trying to be cynical about it.
You know me, I would never be cynical.
That's the last thing I am.
No one would ever accuse me of that.
But it seems to me, if you really cared about the environment, you wouldn't be blocking traffic, You wouldn't be stopping people from getting their jobs.
You wouldn't be littering.
You wouldn't be dancing in the street.
All of which has nothing to do with helping the environment and is only going to undermine your case both by the damage it does to the environment and also by the fact that you're just taking everybody off and you're making them less sympathetic to your cause.
Who is going to see that?
If you're in traffic because of these people, Are you going to be more or less likely to be sympathetic to their cause?
If you didn't care that much about the environment when you got in your car to go to work that morning, are you going to care more about it now because you've got a bunch of environmentalists in the street stopping you from getting there?
Is there any chance of a strategy like this doing anything positive for the cause that it's ostensibly supposed to help?
No, of course not.
Which leads me to the cynical conclusion that this isn't really about all these protests.
Whether it's this or Antifa or whatever, it's not about whatever thing they have on the banners and on the poster boards.
It's just about them.
If you really cared about the environment, I think what you would be doing instead, you would take a more serious and sober approach, and you would be leading by example.
Now, whenever someone makes this point, and I've made this point before, and I'm always accused of doing a kind of cheap, lame, gotcha thing.
Ah, if you really cared about the environment, then what are you doing on your phone?
Wouldn't you be?
But there's truth to that.
It's not a gotcha.
If you're telling me, look, if you really believe That the world is actually coming to an end, potentially, and soon, in the next few years.
You really believe that?
And you really believe that what we're doing, the way that we're living, is bringing about a doomsday?
Wouldn't you be making radical changes in your own life and thereby, number one, making sure that you yourself are not contributing to the problem, and number two, leading by example?
If you think that radical Changes need to be made in the way people live, which is supposedly your message, then why aren't you making those radical changes yourself and showing us how to do it and showing us that it can be done?
Why aren't you doing that?
And these environmentalists, they're not, because you can see them.
They're just like anybody else.
Yeah, they go to the protests and then they go home to their normal house with their phone and all this.
They got their refrigerator.
They got everything.
They got their car.
They're not making any changes in the way they live.
It's not a gotcha moment.
Like with AOC, when she says, oh, we got to get rid of airplanes and air travel because of what it's doing to the environment.
And then she gets on an airplane and she flies.
And we say, well, what are you doing flying?
And then the response is, oh, come on, don't do that.
You're being pedantic.
It's not pedantic.
If you're saying that this is a sacrifice we need to make, then make the sacrifice.
Show us.
Yeah, it would be very difficult to have a job that requires travel and not use an airplane.
That is difficult.
But you're the one telling us that, well, those are difficult things we need to do.
So do it and show us.
So AOC could actually say, you know what, I'm not going to board a plane.
As difficult as that is, as hard as it's going to make my life, doing what I do, whatever that happens to be, I'm not going to do it, and I'll show people that it is possible.
Yeah, it's harder, but it's possible.
It's just very striking that very few of these environmentalists are doing that.
Yeah, you know what?
I mean, I think I've mentioned before, I have one of my There are people very close to me who I know, in my family, who live out on homesteads and solar energy, okay?
All of that stuff.
Compost toilet, alright?
People who are close to me that live that way.
Not because they're environmentalist hippies, but just because that's how they want to live.
But, so I know it's possible to live that way.
Why aren't more environmentalists living that way?
It's a sacrifice, for sure.
It's a very different way to live.
It's possible to do.
There's a lot to be said for it, actually, even if you're not an environmentalist.
I think there's a lot to be said for it.
I can definitely see the appeal.
So why aren't they doing it?
I mean, for goodness sakes, we've got, what, 12 years until the end of the world?
Or at least until something catastrophic that will potentially be the end of human civilization at a minimum, then I just don't get it.
Yeah, I think these people that are out in the street, they really should.
They should be out living in the woods, in a cabin, compost toilets, solar energy, you Living on nuts and berries like John the Baptist.
Locusts and wild honey.
Maybe you hunt for game.
I don't know.
I'm not sure if that's okay or not because of the environmentalist thing.
But whatever.
I think that that's how they should be living.
Show us.
Show us how to do it.
And how wonderful it is.
And how possible it is to live that way.
Until you're going to do that, I reserve the right to just completely ignore you.
Because I think you're a fraud.
And if you don't take your own This is the same thing that I say about Christians.
I've had this message many times.
We, as Christians, we have to take our own religious claims.
And like I said last week, environmentalism really is a religion.
If you don't take your own religious claims seriously and try to live by them, then why should anyone pay attention to what you have to say?
If you don't even take it seriously, then why should they?
All right, a couple of things before we get to emails.
This one quickly.
Megan Fox.
Remember her?
She was in... What was she in?
She was in some stuff.
She was in some movies, I think.
Anyway, she appeared on a talk show a couple days ago, and there's no better way to regain some relevance in America than to go on a talk show and brag about your cross-dressing child.
That's the way to do it.
You want to get attention.
Speaking of getting attention, you want to be relevant, and that's what you do.
And she did, and she's being celebrated for this by the media, people on social media.
Here's what she had to say about her cross-dressing six-year-old boy.
Listen to this.
He's really into fashion, and he's the one, like, sometimes he'll dress himself and he likes to wear dresses sometimes, and I send him to a really liberal, like, hippie school, but even there, here in California, he still has little boys going, like, boys don't wear dresses or boys don't wear pink, and so we're going through that now where I'm trying to teach him to be confident no matter what anyone else says.
He just, he finally, he had stopped wearing dresses for a while.
He just wore one two days ago to school and he came home and I was like, how was it?
Did any of the friends at school have anything to say?
And he was like, well, all the boys laughed when I came in, but he's like, but I don't care.
I love dresses too much.
Okay, a couple of brief things here.
The other boys at her son's school are correct.
They are correct that boys don't wear dresses.
So she says that like it's a bad thing.
She says, I sent my kid to a hippie liberal school, but even those boys say, oh, boys don't wear that.
Yeah, they're right.
That's right.
They are correct.
Their reaction of looking sideways that of maybe even laughing at it, that's the right
reaction. Because you know why? Because it's absurd.
It is absurd for a six-year-old boy to be wearing a dress and going to school.
That is an absurdity. It's an absurd thing. And as human beings, when we see absurdities, we react to it.
We react in a way, usually, that is consistent with the fact that the thing we're looking at is absurd.
Now, it's very sad and unfortunate that her six-year-old boy is dealing with that and has to endure that treatment.
I don't like that.
I think it's a terrible thing.
I think it's very, very sad.
But whose fault is it?
Here's the point.
Whose fault is that?
Is it the fault of the other six-year-old boys?
Is it really their fault?
When they see some kid coming in to wear a dress, it's really their fault that they're looking at that like, what's he doing?
We're going to blame them and not you as the mother for putting your six-year-old boy in a dress.
Who's to blame here?
And don't tell me, oh, I didn't put him in that.
He chose it.
Oh, shut up.
You put him in that.
Your six-year-old boy does not have any clothing that you didn't buy for him.
He doesn't wear anything that you don't let him wear.
So don't tell me, oh, he made his own choice.
And it's just such a coincidence, isn't it?
That you have all these radical, liberal parents who just so happen to have kids and sons who just so happen to want to express their gender identity by cross-dressing.
No, you didn't encourage that at all.
No, not at all.
They just so happen to want that.
Bull.
Okay, that's bull.
Your six-year-old boy wants to wear a dress.
99% chance it's because you pushed him in that direction.
Because you want that.
Because it makes you feel enlightened and everything.
And even if it ostracizes your kid or makes him feel uncomfortable or puts him in line for bullying, you don't care because this is all about you.
Your child is just like some accessory, some fashion statement.
I really hate this.
I hate what people do to their kids.
I hate it when they treat their kids this way.
If you're a six-year-old boy, and you know what else?
I'm willing to bet Megan Fox and her, these Hollywood parents, I'm willing to bet if their kids wanted to go to school in Kmart clothing, what if they wanted that?
What if they wanted to go to school in Kmart clothing?
What if they wanted to go to school in clothing that was dirty and had holes in it?
I bet you then you'd have a problem.
You'd say, no, no, no, you don't wear that to school.
Because that's going to make you look poor and cheap, and you don't want that.
So if your kid's going to wear a dress to school, it's going to be a nice dress, isn't it?
It's going to be a really nice one.
It's going to be expensive.
Brand name.
I just let my kid express himself.
No, you don't.
You let your kid express himself in ways that are reflective of your ideology.
That's what you're doing, and you know it.
What if your kid wanted to go to school every day in mismatching shoes?
What about that?
You know, what if he wanted to wear a Nike on one foot and Adidas on the other?
I bet you wouldn't let him.
And you shouldn't, actually.
Is it gonna hurt him?
Is it morally wrong to wear mismatching shoes?
If you want to take a really reductive view of it, is it a big deal at all?
No.
But it's absurd.
Okay, so unless you are poor or something, and that's all you have, and that's all you can put your kid in, in that case, you do what you gotta do to survive, to get by.
But if you have an option, you're gonna put your kid in matching shoes, even if he wants to wear mismatching shoes at six years old.
Now, if he's two years old and he wants to run around the house in mismatching shoes, you say, oh, that's cute, you laugh about it.
But at six years old, he's old enough now, you wear matching shoes.
Why?
Just because that's what people do.
You're teaching your child how to be a functioning person in a civilized society.
And so you tell them, no, this is how you wear your shoes.
You want to wear the shoes on the wrong feet because that's how you express yourself?
No.
You want to, but you're not going to.
Because kids want to do a lot of things that we shouldn't let them do.
Isn't that the crazy thing?
I got three kids.
I got a fourth on the way.
I find myself saying no to my children constantly.
Um, and having nothing to do with them wanting to genderbend, because fortunately that hasn't been an issue.
Again, coincidentally, you know, I don't have any great desire for my kids to genderbend, and so, weirdly, coincidentally, strangely, they themselves have never expressed any real desire for that.
Again, it's just that it's an odd coincidence where you have these really super liberal enlightened parents who just so happen to have kids, who just so happen to want that.
Weird, isn't it?
That's not conditioning at all, is it?
But in any case, in so many other contexts, I am telling my kids, no, you can't do that, you can't do that, stop doing that, stop climbing that, stop trying to eat that, stop wearing that, stop, you know, this is what you do as parents.
Because we have to.
Because kids don't know anything about anything.
They have no idea how to function as humans in society.
So you teach them.
And that's going to require a lot of know.
It's going to require a lot of control, especially in the beginning.
And then as they get older, you give them more and more freedom.
And if they get to be 18 years old and they want to wear mismatching shoes, they can.
If they want to wear a boot on their head and go out, you know, they can.
You would recommend they don't, but they can.
In the beginning, though, as parents, we are there to give them instructions.
And, look, even if you Even if you personally see no real problem with a kid cross-dressing and doing the gender bend routine.
Even if you personally see no real issue with it.
And you should, because there are issues with it.
But even if you don't.
I mean, how about just protect your kid?
How about just don't put him in line for that kind of bullying?
Again, I know it makes you feel good.
It makes you feel good to have kids that are bullied for that, because it makes you feel like a really enlightened and courageous parent.
So, great.
Good for you.
Pat on the back.
Here's a cookie.
You want a lollipop?
You can have one too, okay?
But it's not good for your kid.
Your kid is not a social experiment.
So why not give him a chance to just have a normal childhood and be a normal kid, a normal boy, make friends?
You know, how about just give him that chance?
And if he gets to be 18, he wants to go wear a dress out, but he can do that.
But by then, it's going to really be his choice, not yours.
I really hate this stuff we're doing with our kids.
I hate it so much.
It is so unfair to these kids.
Alright, finally, ABC News has a video of what they're calling Husband of the Year.
Husband of the year's wife was in labor for two days, so he went to the delivery room with his camera rolling, of course.
And, well, let me, now, so I want to show you this.
I want to get, I'm interested to get your opinion.
That's the honest truth.
Especially as a woman, if you're a woman watching this, I would like to get your opinion, or a man, because men can have babies too, I'm told.
So if you're a man with a baby or a woman with a baby, either way, I'm interested to get your opinion on this, what you think of it.
And I'll give you my opinion.
I'm not looking to, you know, make fun of this guy.
But he's the one who put this online for everyone to see.
So, he put it online, so let's take a look at it.
This is what he did for his wife who was in labor.
Watch this.
Okay, what do you think about that, ladies, if you're in labor?
If you're listening on iTunes or SoundCloud, you couldn't see that.
What happened was this woman, she was in labor for two days, and her husband came into the delivery room with these big flashcards, and on the flashcards, he had little messages that he wrote, little loving messages, and he had it on camera, and he had the camera rolling, and he showed her, one at a time, the messages on the flashcard, which said a bunch of nice stuff about how I don't know.
I love you and you'll be a great mother and blah, blah, blah.
And so, but here's my question.
Why?
What?
Why?
I feel like if my wife's going to be in labor any day now, any day now, we're coming up against it.
And when she's in labor, I feel like if I went in with a whole stack of flashcards And said, hey honey, I want to show you something.
If you could just stop, if you could just calm down for a second.
I want to show you this.
Look at these flashcards.
And I just started going through the flashcards.
She would be sitting there with this look on her face like, what?
And then she would either laugh in my face or kick me in the stomach, maybe both.
I think maybe a kick in the stomach, a swift kick in the stomach, and then laugh in my face, maybe the other way around, I don't know.
But I think that would be her reaction.
If you want to go and be supportive of your wife while she's giving birth, that's a great idea.
Why not just say it?
Whatever you wanted to say on the flashcard, just say it.
Use your words.
Like I say to my kids all the time, use your words and say it.
There's an idea.
I don't know.
But my main thing is, why do you need to have it on film?
That's what I don't get.
Why do you gotta put it on?
Your wife's giving birth, the delivery room, there is no reason to ever, in my opinion, have a video camera rolling in the delivery room.
You don't need to, especially not if you want to put it online, but even for your own recollections, the experience of someone giving birth It's going to be very vivid in your mind.
You won't need to go back and see the camera footage to remember it.
You'll remember it.
So I can't imagine if I had video of my wife in the living room, I can't imagine sitting there years later and, oh, you remember this?
Let's watch the video again.
But even if you want to do that, that's your business.
Just don't put it online.
You want to do something nice for your wife?
Whether it plays or not, whether it works out, it doesn't need to be videotaped, does it?
Videotape.
I don't know why I still say videotape.
You don't need to videotape it so you can put it in your VCR.
Kids these days.
Alright.
But that was very sweet.
That was a very nice one.
MattWalshow at gmail.com.
MattWalshow at gmail.com is the email address.
This is from Michael.
Says, Hi Matt.
Thank you for your honest and accurate assessment of why young people are leaving the church.
For the Southern Baptist Convention, the figure is 80% plus from 2005 of young people that leave the church at 18 years old and never return.
It's staggering.
It's a staggering number.
As a newcomer to the Christian Church myself, I experienced exactly the problems you spoke about, i.e.
evasion, easy but incorrect answers, etc.
I had to come to Christ partially on my own and also through the good example of my landlord
who invited me to the Alpha Class program because I was desperate for answers and heard
only bad things and tales of hypocrisy from so-called Christians.
Now that I have found Christ, I understand it is still a constant battle to maintain
my beliefs and faith.
For example, am I really a Protestant or is Catholicism the correct faith?
And that is a minor point compared to doubts that crop up from time to time about things I read in the New and Old Testaments.
The bottom line is, as you say, that we need a mature and modern understanding of these documents, one that puts them in proper historical, cultural, archaeological, and theological perspectives, but that doesn't shy away from the disagreements within branches of Christianity while also uniting believers around Christ, which is what the Alpha Program tries to do.
That what Christ asks us to do and what we want to do are often not the same things.
If we didn't have to battle with sin, we would be God.
But since we do, it is honest to admit that we fall short of the glory of God.
Anyways, long story short, just wanted to thank you for your honest and accurate talk from today's September 21st version of the show.
Thank you at Godspeed.
And thank you for that, Michael.
There's nothing I really need to add to that, but I thank you for listening and for that input and insight as well.
Especially as someone who just recently entered the church, and congratulations on that, by the way.
This is from Jeffrey, he says, Dear Matt, as a church-going high schooler who is deeply
involved in my youth group and church, I could not agree with you more on your perspective on
youth ministry.
I've read my Bible consistently for the past 400 days, and I get the impression that I do it more than the vast majority of mature adult Christians.
You certainly do.
If you've been reading it consistently for 400 days, that's more than most adult Christians have ever spent reading the Bible.
I also feel like that in order to get the deep, hard-hitting theology and apologetics that I crave, I'm forced to seek it out independently, whether that be looking for the internet, sitting in on adult small groups that occasionally meet at my house, or reading the books by intelligent theologians like Sproul, Lewis, Ham, or Piper.
One of those names does not belong with the others, that's all I'll say.
Three of those people are brilliant.
Nobody ever discussing things like the apparent contradictions of the hard and difficult passages at my youth group or in
chapel sessions at my school, which has filled me with a deep resentment for both activities.
I also get the feeling that my pastor is oblivious to this because he never avoids hard questions or difficult
passages.
And so he's really the only person in my life I have interest in listening to.
As a youth myself, it is blatantly obvious to me why my peers are falling away.
The people that are supposed to be educating and training us are only trying to make Jesus look appealing and not preaching anything that will be of serious use when we move away and go to college, where our faith will be harshly challenged and the allure of sin will be strong.
I think that all young Christians should realize that their faith has to be taken extremely seriously, and I also believe that the adult church that is supposed to be an example to us is seriously lacking.
And thank you for that again, Jeffrey.
Okay, so they weren't, I didn't only get emails of agreement, believe you me on that one.
This is one from someone who's not quite in agreement.
It says, from Miles, Matt, I thought your analysis of why people leave the faith was way off and very troubling.
If anyone leaves, it means they were never in it to begin with.
If you lose your faith, you never had it.
It's not possible to lose faith if it's real.
The fact that you don't realize this makes me question your faith, frankly.
Well, Miles, thanks for that.
Really appreciate it.
You're totally wrong, unfortunately.
What's more, I think your position is arrogant and pretentious and a sign of intellectual cowardice.
And I really don't mean any offense by that.
You want to think that anyone who leaves must have been a fraud all along, because that gives you an excuse to not take them seriously, to not listen to them, and especially not to listen to any of the questions they might have about faith.
Not to listen to any of the reasons they might give for why they left.
It gives you license to ignore their objections completely and to continue living in your bubble, and I find that, frankly, pathetic.
And I don't mind saying that because, you know, you clearly wanted to make this a personal thing.
I don't mean it as a personal thing.
That's just how I see that.
And you're by no means alone in this idea that anyone who, it's not, if you really have faith, it's not possible ever to lose it.
I just, to me, that's ridiculous.
To me, that is self-evidently ridiculous.
You're suggesting that it's impossible to believe something and then not believe it anymore.
You're denying a basic fact of human nature.
It's just, it is definitely possible for someone to believe something and then not believe it.
They really believed it and now they don't.
That's a thing.
People do that.
Now, and they could be wrong.
You know, someone could believe something and be right and then believe something that's wrong.
That happens.
Or they could be wrong and then believe something else.
These things happen.
That's how the human mind works.
We're not, you know, just because you come to a conclusion and say, oh, I think this, That doesn't mean you're going to stick with that conclusion forever.
You could change your mind, for better or worse.
That does happen, and to deny that it happens, it's just, why?
Well, I know why, and I'll get to that in a minute, but there's no rational basis to deny that.
You know in your own experience, Miles.
That there have, I would hope, there have been things that you believed, putting religion aside, maybe not religiously, but there have been things that you believed, and then later came to the conclusion that you were wrong.
Or have you never done that?
Have you never in your life ever changed your mind about anything?
If so, then I would say that that's a sign of being a very closed-minded person.
But probably you haven't, so you know how that works.
You really believe something, and now you don't.
Okay?
It does happen.
Um, but I think, uh, the bigger problem is, is, is you are accusing every single person who has ever left the faith of either being liars or too stupid to understand their own reasons and their own mind.
So when they say, yeah, you know, I really believe this and now I don't anymore because, and they give a reason like, you know, whatever.
I rattled off a bunch of the objections and questions people have who leave the faith.
I did that in the last show.
You can listen to it.
But, um, Okay, just for one example.
Someone says, I left the faith.
I really believed in God, but I didn't because, for example, I was reading the Old Testament and it just seemed to me that the God of the Old Testament is a moral monster and I just can't believe that anyone would endorse this kind of stuff.
Okay.
That's a very common objection that you hear from people who leave the faith.
Very, in my experience, very common they'll cite the Old Testament and the things in there.
Slavery, genocide, rape, you know, all these things.
Not all of it, certainly, endorsed or commanded by God, but that's the impression that many people have when they read it, actually.
And that's the reason they give.
Now, rather than you engaging with that reason and saying, you know, listen, I think you have a misunderstanding of the Old Testament text.
Let me talk to you about it.
Rather than doing that, what you're saying is, oh, then you never believed at all.
You were a fraud.
You're lying now.
That's not really why you left.
Or, you're too stupid to understand why you left.
You never really believed in the first place.
That's what you're saying to them.
Maybe not in those words, but that's the message.
That's the message they hear.
No, it is indeed possible for a person to believe in God with all their heart, and then to, at a later date, come to the conclusion that they were wrong.
In my opinion, that's a wrong conclusion.
The new conclusion is wrong.
They were right before.
But that happens.
People do that.
You know, they were right and now they're wrong.
You just have no basis at all.
None.
None.
To claim that they never believed what they say they believed before.
That's how you want to look at it.
You see, Miles, that's why I call it intellectual cowardice.
Is that you want to see it that way.
You hope that it's that way.
That's how you would prefer to see it.
Because you don't want to take them seriously.
And you don't want to engage their objections.
Maybe you don't know how to.
Maybe you haven't studied this stuff yourself.
The objections that people raise, for example, about the Old Testament, those are serious objections.
They're not crazy.
The fact is, read the Old Testament.
Read it.
There is some really troubling stuff in there that you can't deny.
Denying that is not going to help.
And so, to confront those objections head-on, it can be a difficult thing.
Intellectually, emotionally, And so it seems to me that you would prefer to avoid that, and so instead you're like, ah, you never believe, I don't have to test, whatever.
This is exactly the kind of attitude that makes the problem worse.
You know, you're making it worse.
You, personally, are making it worse.
If someone has a crisis of faith, if they leave the faith, And you're sitting there completely delegitimizing their experience, completely discounting their reasons for leaving, and waving away their previous however many years.
I mean, let's say someone was Christian for 40 years, and then they had a crisis of faith, all this stuff, they leave.
You're just waving away 40 years of their life.
Nah, it was nothing.
Didn't mean anything.
Wasn't real.
It was perfectly reasonable for them to respond and say, how dare you?
Who the hell do you think you are?
How could you possibly know what was in my mind before?
Where do you get off making those kinds of declarations?
This is just not the right approach.
I cannot stress this enough.
I feel so strongly about this, as you could tell.
That's why I'm talking about it again.
It's really, really bad.
This is not the right way to go about it.
You are chasing people away.
You might as well go to a church with a broom and just swat people away and say, get out!
Get out of here!
You might as well do that.
It's the same kind of thing.
It's just so, so wrong.
I think the right approach is to go to them and say, Listen, your doubts are valid, even reasonable.
Your questions are good questions.
The things that you're bringing up about this or that, Old Testament, problem of suffering, you know, going down the list.
Those things, I've thought about them too.
This is what you could say, I thought about them too.
It's something that I've had, I have wrestled with it also.
If you've never wrestled with it, then you certainly have no business passing any judgment on them if you've never even wrestled with these questions.
But if you have wrestled with them, then that's all the more reason to go up to them and say, look, I get it.
I understand why you're wrestling.
This is tough stuff, but let's talk about it.
Let me give you some ideas about how we might sort through this.
Let me give you some people you might read who've done a good job, who helped me when I was going through the same thing you did.
I think that's the right response.
Saying, oh, you were never a Christian to begin with, you're a fraud, that is a remarkably stupid way to respond to a person's crisis of faith.
And all you are doing is all but ensuring that they will never come back.
Because this is the other thing I hear.
I told you yesterday, I hear from all these people who've had these crises.
Talking about the questions that they had and so on.
The other thing I hear very often is that when they were in the midst of this crisis, or even when they came out on the other end of it and they found that they had no faith anymore, the response from the church and from other Christians was so horrendously bad that they just said, you know what?
I want nothing to do with these people.
These people are... this is... I don't want to... I wouldn't want to... I'm done.
Goodbye.
This is a real problem.
It is a real problem in the church.
And I'm sure I've been guilty of it to myself, but we really need to...
Take a step back, because 80%, the number you had, this is the second email I've gotten now, people claiming 80, 90%, from what I've read, I have read those studies, and it depends on what denomination, what church, but some churches, some denominations are losing 80 to 90% of the next generation.
A good figure would be like losing 60% or something.
This is catastrophic.
It cannot go on.
Don't you understand?
If it continues like this, there will not be Christianity in America in another 50 years.
It won't exist in this country.
That's where we're headed.
So, I think it's a good idea to step back.
And to do a serious re-examination of everything, I mean, just all the ways that we usually have approached this problem, our entire way of thinking about this problem, of people leaving the faith, why they leave, how we should deal with it, we need to re-examine all of that, because it's clear that we are doing something wildly wrong.
And I think, Miles, you gave us an example, helpfully, of one of the very wrong ways that we go about this.
All right.
I guess we'll leave it there.
Thanks, everybody, for watching.
Thanks for listening.
If you're in D.C.
today, I feel sorry for you.
I'll pray for you.
God have mercy on your soul, and Godspeed.
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