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Sept. 24, 2019 - The Matt Walsh Show
51:49
Ep. 338 - Climate Alarmism Is Child Abuse

Asia is by far the biggest producer of water pollution and carbon emissions. Why is all of the outrage directed at the West? Also, we'll talk about why climate alarmism is child abuse. And Denzel Washington might be cast as a Jewish Holocaust survivor. Why isn't this provoking outrage from the Woke Mob? Date: 09-24-2019 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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So here's what I'm trying to figure out.
Greta Thunberg has been going around the US and Europe lecturing everybody about climate change and this is what environmentalists do, right?
They wag their fingers and they lecture and they yell at us and that's their main thing.
And sometimes they do it like we talked about yesterday.
Sometimes they'll go into the middle of the street On a work day during rush hour to wag their fingers, or as was the case yesterday, even to wag their butts, you know, is what they were doing in the streets yesterday.
They're wagging something, though, to tell us that climate change is a terrible thing.
But they always seem to be focused... Here's the thing that I don't understand.
They always seem to be focused on the U.S.
and Europe.
Have you noticed that?
That's where all of the focus seems to be.
They train their ire and their contempt on us.
And that's kind of strange, isn't it?
Because, you know, according to some theories, there are actually other countries in the world.
Now, I can't confirm this.
I can't confirm that there are other countries.
I've never been to them.
And the flat earthers tell me that the world is a much smaller and flatter place than you might imagine, so I don't know.
But according to my research, there is this place called Asia.
Asia exists, okay?
And Asia not only exists, but it in fact is by far, by far, by far the biggest problem when it comes to carbon emissions and pollution.
As noted in an article in Forbes, China alone emits more carbon dioxide than the US and Europe combined.
Okay.
And it's not just because they have more people either.
They do have more people.
They've got 1.3 billion people.
The US and Europe together have, I don't know, a billion, 1.1 billion.
But that extra 0.2 or 0.3 billion, that's not going to account for their carbon contributions.
They're doing more than their fair share of the work here as far as making the climate warmer.
If, in fact, that is what's happening.
The air pollution in China is so bad that their solar panels don't work because there's so much pollution.
The light cannot penetrate through the pollution to get to the solar panels.
That's how bad it is in China.
And not only that, it's not just air pollution.
Most of the most polluted rivers in the world are in Asia.
The top five.
Five of the... The five of the top five most polluted rivers are in Asia.
And that's why a handful of Asian countries, like four or five Asian countries, are dumping more plastic into the river than the rest of the world combined.
Okay?
You want to know how bad the water pollution in Asia is?
I want you to take a look at this picture.
Look at this picture right here.
Here's a picture of, this is a picture of the Sitaram River in Indonesia.
Alright?
It's the Sitaram River in Indonesia.
And if you're listening right now and not watching, and you can't see this, it is a picture of essentially a floating garbage, not essentially, it's literally a floating garbage dump is this river, Sitaram.
It's the most polluted river in the world.
And by the way, I got that picture from a Houston Chronicle article, which I tell you not just to give them credit, but also because the story attached to that picture is kind of interesting.
It's a story about an Indonesian fisherman who was out in the river fishing, in that river if you can imagine it, and he thought that he had hooked on a really big fish, but it turns out to be a dead human body.
Okay, not a joke.
So this is bad.
This is very bad.
These rivers are very bad.
And it just makes you wonder why we aren't including Asia in this discussion.
Now, they get mentioned every once in a while.
It's kind of like an honorable... They get an honorable mention as contributors to pollution and climate change.
But they're not honorable mentions.
They are number one.
So I say again, okay?
When it comes to Carbon emissions and water pollution is the two biggest climate catastrophes or climate problems that we hear about.
By far, the biggest problem comes from Asia.
The water pollution thing is so bad that actually, you know, the United States could, from here on out, produce no more pollution.
We could stop forever using plastic straws, plastic bottles.
We could stop with all plastics.
And we could convert the entire country to disposable paper, recyclable stuff.
And it would make almost no difference to the water pollution problem.
It would make almost no difference.
It would be like a thimble, a literal thimble in the ocean, because of what Asia is doing.
So why aren't they getting not only mentioned more, but why aren't they getting the lion's share of the blame when they deserve it?
Why is that?
Well, I think it's because A lot of this stuff is just posturing, and posturing isn't fun, and it isn't as politically expedient when you do it in Asia, okay?
Can you imagine?
Now, the optics of a 16-year-old child yelling at a bunch of white people A 16-year-old white child yelling at a bunch of white people about climate change.
Now, with that, the media says, oh, look at her.
She's so courageous and brave.
Now, if that 16-year-old white girl were to go to Asia and be yelling at a bunch of Asians, now, all of a sudden, it changes the picture.
And so that's why they don't do it.
But it really does call into question the basic sincerity of most of the climate alarmists, that they are training all of their fire on precisely the countries who are not only not contributing the most to it, but we're also the countries who are at least taking this seriously.
With Asian countries, it doesn't seem like they care at all about this.
So if we're talking about raising awareness, that's covered here.
We've got it covered.
We're all aware, and a lot of people are worried about it, and we are taking some steps at least.
But in some of these Asian countries, particularly China, we haven't even gotten to the raise awareness level yet.
So why aren't we over there doing that?
Interesting question.
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Okay, speaking of Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old girl selected by the media, as we've been talking about, to be the poster child of climate alarmism, she was, you know, giving another hysterical speech on Monday at the UN and This time she declared that the Earth is undergoing a, quote, mass extinction, which she warns probably can't be averted.
We're probably screwed anyway.
I know you've probably seen this by now, her speech, but I'll play it for you anyway, and then we'll talk about it.
Watch this.
This is all wrong.
I shouldn't be up here.
I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean.
Yet you all come to us young people for hope.
How dare you?
You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words.
And yet I'm one of the lucky ones.
People are suffering.
People are dying.
Entire ecosystems are collapsing.
We are in the beginning of a mass extinction and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth.
How dare you?
Okay, so, how dare you, she says.
How dare you.
You've stolen my dreams and my childhood.
On one level, I can relate to this sentiment because it's exactly what I said after I watched the Lion King remake.
It's exactly what I said to Disney.
How dare you.
You have stolen my dreams and my childhood.
On another level, though, as a parent, I find this girl very hard to watch.
And what I mean is that it's difficult to watch because it's obvious that she really believes her delusional doomsday fantasies.
And it's not her fantasies, right?
She's repeating what she's been told by the adults around her who should know better.
That's what makes it hard to watch.
We can have some fun with some of this stuff, but you can't help but have a little fun with Some of the climate alarmism, because it's so absurd, but when it comes to this particular girl, she's a child abuse victim.
That's what we're seeing.
Now, as the media likes to remind us, Thunberg is autistic and OCD.
There was a Daily Beast profile done about her, and it's a very celebratory profile, of course.
And let me read a relevant portion of this profile from the Daily Beast.
It says, but thanks to the formal diagnosis of Asperger's syndrome, coupled with high-functioning autism and obsessive-compulsive disorder, the now 16-year-old Swede has become, quite literally, the poster child for the generation that will have to deal with the destruction of our planet.
Once she started receiving multifaceted treatment, Thunberg was able to channel her anxiety into something we should all be concerned about, the health of the planet and the science behind apocalyptic warnings of its demise.
In October 2018, Thunberg started having anxiety-ridden 3 a.m.
nightmares, but unlike before, they were not about her.
The recurring nightmares were about the impact of global warming on the planet, according to the book, Scenes from the Heart, she wrote with her parents and her sister, Bietta, who also suffers from many of the same emotional conditions.
This time, instead of holing up in her bedroom, as she did before the treatment, she decided that her anxiety about the climate needed to become everyone else's, too.
One of the aspects of her complicated diagnosis is obsession.
Her family says she wouldn't let the idea go that the planet was burning up and there was ample science to prove it.
Okay, so the Daily Beast recounts all of this like we shouldn't be concerned about it.
They recount it kind of matter-of-factly or even approvingly.
But what we're being told is that an obsessive, troubled young girl, someone who's been dealing with recurring nightmares, anxiety-ridden... I mean, these are the words being used in the Daily Beast profile.
And we're being told that a child like that came to believe, mistakenly, that the apocalypse is upon us.
That is a mistake.
Okay, the human race is not in the midst of a mass extinction.
And it would be nice if some of the brave, courageous media fact-checkers would maybe step up to the plate and do a fact-check of that.
Because that's just not the case.
But that's what she came to believe.
And they even tell us, they tell us that she was You know, she'd already been prone to this kind of anxiety and sort of paranoia about things, but she started to redirect that anxiety in the direction of this global warming stuff, which means that it's inevitable that somebody with that tendency, when they start to worry about something,
They're going to worry obsessively about it, and they're going to worry overly much about it.
I should know, because I haven't been diagnosed with anything, but I am no stranger to anxiety myself.
I'm no stranger to paranoia, not about the climate, but about other things.
And so I should know that when I get it into my head, To worry about something, I can't worry about it a little bit.
For me, it becomes this obsessive, and then I start, in my head, I start extrapolating and I build this whole nightmare scenario that I then start worrying about.
And I think that's how anxiety works for a lot of people, and it gets even worse if you have an anxiety disorder or whatever else.
The point is, rather than go to this girl and calm these fears, And redirect her in a healthier direction.
And say to her, listen, yeah, you know, it's good that we want to protect the planet, and it's good that you want to do it, but you're not going to die.
Okay?
The world's not coming to an end.
It's going to be okay.
Rather than go to her and say this, the adults in her life have only encouraged her paranoia.
And now the media is only too happy to exploit her fear in order to stoke even more fear.
Creating fear with fear.
That's the media's specialty.
This, I say again, is child abuse.
If any grown-up in Thunberg's life really cared about her psychological and emotional well-being, they would sit her down and they would explain to her that climate change is not going to destroy human civilization.
Yes, the climate is changing.
Climates tend to do that.
Climates always change.
They have since there ever was a climate.
Ever since there's been a climate or an atmosphere on Earth, it has changed wildly.
It has fluctuated in extremes.
And it was doing that before there was even human beings on the planet.
And they would explain that to her.
And they would explain that whatever role humans have played in that process, and yeah, we probably have played some role, but it's highly debatable how much of a role we've played, And it seems to me that in comparison to other things that drive the climate, such as the sun and the cycles of the sun, our role is minuscule, it would seem to me.
But whatever the case, you know, it's not going to result in the end of all life as we know it.
Talk of a 10-year, 12-year, 20-year timeline before planetary catastrophe is an invention of politicians and media personalities.
This is not how scientists speak.
You're not going to find a credible scientist anywhere who will endorse this idea that 12 years from now the world's going to come to an end.
You're not going to hear that.
This is what would be told to Greta Thunberg if any of the adults in her life really cared about her.
When I was a child, they told us about an imminent future where there wouldn't be any rainforests.
Well, now I'm living in that imminent future.
A future that I was told would not have rainforests, and there are rainforests.
And actually, by the way, the rainforests are doing pretty well.
They're on the rebound.
Sure, there was a problem with deforestation.
Sure, we don't want to cut down trees for no reason.
We don't want to just...
You know, recklessly destroy forests and rainforests.
That's true.
But the dystopian vision of the world, this vision of a world without trees, was, and I couldn't have known this at the time because I was a child, completely insane.
So it is possible to say, hey listen, trees are good and we shouldn't just destroy them recklessly, without also adding, oh and by the way, soon all the trees will be gone and we're all going to suffocate.
But the environmental alarmists, they always tack on that apocalyptic bit at the end, undermining the validity of their own message and creating unnecessary panic.
So once again, I think we have to call this, was it, what it is.
It is child abuse.
Not just child abuse of Greta Thunberg, but child abuse of all children who are being told this stuff and are being scared to death about it and are being, you know, traumatized and terrified With these claims of the end of the world coming upon us.
It may be a smart political move to traumatize children this way, but it is morally atrocious.
So yeah, go ahead and tell kids to recycle, tell them to pick up trash, to plant trees, all of that.
That's all fine, that's worthwhile, that's good.
But the hysteria is unjustified and wrong.
Let kids be kids.
They shouldn't have to wake up every morning with hallucinatory fears about the planet's demise.
When I hear about a child waking up at three o'clock in the morning with fears of the end times, I don't think, oh, isn't that nice?
How wonderful.
I think that's terrible.
That child needs help.
That's what I would do for my child.
If my child was waking up at three in the morning, my kids wake up sometimes with nightmares.
If they're waking up every single night with a nightmare about the end of the world, I would go and try to get them help.
That's no way to live.
And it's also not true, okay?
It's not true.
There is no, that is not a credible claim.
We can debate the degrees and all of that of how exactly humans contribute to the problem of climate change, but the apocalyptic stuff is clickbait, it's political manipulation, it's hysteria, it's hype, you know, it's all those things.
It's not science.
That is not science.
All right.
One other thing that's not that important at all, but I wanted to mention it.
Certainly not as important as the apocalypse.
A few days ago, it was reported that Marvel is considering their casting for their new X-Men movie.
I guess.
And they're considering casting Denzel Washington as Magneto in the new X-Men film.
Magneto is, if you're not...
If you're not into comic book movies because you're an adult, Magneto is one of the villains in X-Men and he's played by Ian McKellen in the original X-Men movie that came out in, whatever, the early 2000s.
Um, so now they're saying they might have Denzel Washington.
And this news was greeted with applause, of course, by most people, because it's a black actor being cast in this project.
And really, can I just say, finally, somebody is giving Denzel Washington his big break.
I think it's about time.
This guy's been at it for so long, playing bit parts, you know, more of a character actor.
Finally, he's getting his shot at the big time.
And so, on one level, I can see how that is cause for celebration.
But on another level, this is also, I think, a perfect example of the hypocrisy of identity politics.
Because Magneto, although he's a fictional character, he is supposed to be a Jewish Holocaust survivor.
And this is a crucial aspect of his backstory.
It's not a small detail.
This is a big part.
Now, I'm no X-Men expert, but...
Um, I think anyone who is will agree with me, right?
That Magneto, Holocaust, Jewish Holocaust survivor, this is a really crucial, important, central aspect of his character that speaks to his motivations and everything else.
And I think that's how he became, wasn't it?
That's how he became Magneto was through some Nazi experiment.
I could be wrong about that part.
Don't quote me.
Okay.
That might be non-canonical, but, um, at the, at the, at the very least it's, it's a big part of his character.
I know that.
Okay.
Um, Well, now they're talking about either casting a black American as a German Jew, or, which would be totally absurd, or they would be erasing that backstory entirely for the sake of casting a black American in that role.
Here's the thing, this is exactly the kind of thing That if done in the reverse, prompts outraged cries of whitewashing and appropriation and the rest of it.
I mean, can you imagine, can you possibly imagine, if they did a Shaft remake, and rather than having Samuel L. Jackson reprise his role as Shaft, like he did in the Shaft movie that came out back in the early 2000s or whenever it was, imagine if rather than Samuel L. Jackson, they had some white guy.
Playing Shaft.
Can you possibly conceive of the outrage that would follow?
I really believe there would be riots in the street.
I really think there would be.
I'm not even exaggerating.
Am I wrong?
They whitewash Shaft and give that role to a white guy?
There would be riots.
There would be.
Over that.
That's how upset the woke mob would be.
And you can't say, well, it's all about representation!
Okay, tell me, how many black characters are there in the comic books universe, the film comic books universe?
Compare the number of black characters, and black actors, of which I think there are many, to how many Jewish characters there are.
Because, is Magneto like the only one, as of right now?
So you're talking about taking that away, That Jewish character way, but it's just, it doesn't, it's, of course, why even point it out at this point, but it's entirely hypocritical and inconsistent and it just, look, either this stuff matters or it doesn't, right?
Either it matters that we remain, that characters and how they're portrayed remain racially and ethnically consistent for the sake of representation and all that kind of stuff, Either that matters, or it doesn't.
Now, look, if we're all gonna agree that it doesn't matter, because these are fictional characters, and there can be different versions of them, and the main thing is just to find an interesting actor who can play that role, and hey, maybe changing it up sometimes can be kind of fun just to see what else you can do with it.
If that's our attitude, then fine, I'm all on board for that.
In that case, let's do it.
If that's what we're gonna say, Then fine, make Magneto black, make James Bond into a woman, do whatever you want.
You know, make Indiana Jones into a 13-year-old Chinese girl, you know, whatever.
But, then you can't stop there, because then also, if we take a black character, make him white, make him Hispanic, whatever, then you can't complain about that, right?
Because if that's the approach, if we're all going to agree to that, Then I say, great.
I think that's perfectly reasonable because these are fictional characters after all, and we all are taking this way too seriously.
But what we can't do is say, when it pertains to characters of a certain skin pigmentation, that it doesn't matter if you switch them up, but if they have different pigmentation, then it does.
Now see, that doesn't make any sense.
We can't do that.
That's not, that doesn't work.
That's insane.
So it matters or it doesn't.
Which one is it?
As far as I can tell right now, what we've agreed on is that it does matter, and so this matters actually.
Not by my rules.
Not by my rules, but by the rules that have been established, it really matters, and it is therefore an outrage that they're talking about giving Denzel Washington this role.
All right, matwalshowatgmail.com.
matwalshowatgmail.com is the email address.
We will go to emails then.
This is from Scott.
And I guess a little bit of background here.
We've been talking about... Well, the conversation has developed in the email portion, but...
A few days ago, somebody wrote to the show talking about, you know, why do young people leave the church?
And why is it so, in some churches denominations, it's as high as 80 or 90% of young people.
But no matter what church you're looking at, it is a high percentage, a troubling percentage of young people leaving the church.
The question was, why is that?
I think there are a lot of reasons.
One of the answers I gave is that I think there are a lot of young people coming up in the church, as they get older, they start to think of difficult, but still very good and valid questions.
Theological questions, moral philosophical questions, scientific questions, that all revolve around this question, around God and Christianity and faith and all these things.
Because our churches are not dealing with these very serious, mature, adult, theological, philosophical questions.
And instead, most churches are just giving you self-help lectures every Sunday.
Because of that, young people are, you know, they're going on the internet, they're going on YouTube, they're going elsewhere to find those answers.
And then eventually they decide, based on the answers that they've found, that, oh, what?
You know what?
I don't believe this anymore.
And my solution is, one solution, you know, not the solution, but one thing we could do, an important step, is our churches could start dealing with some of these questions.
Start encouraging and facilitating serious study of not just the Bible, but the moral and philosophical questions surrounding faith.
And parents should be doing this too with their kids.
Maybe that's one thing we could do to raise up a generation of serious-minded Christians who are not going to necessarily have to go to YouTube or whatever to find answers to these questions because they're going to find them in church.
They're going to find them in their home.
That was my thing.
And then I got an email yesterday from someone saying that, well, I'm totally wrong in my assessment of the problem, because actually, if somebody leaves the faith, if they decide at the age of 20 or 30 or 40 or 50, that they actually don't believe, and they leave, then that means that they were never Christian to begin with.
Because, according to the person that emailed yesterday, it's impossible.
If you ever actually really believe in the gospel, then you could never not believe it.
You could never make the choice to not believe it.
You could never decide you don't believe it.
You can't.
You believe it, you believe that's it.
And this doctrine has many names.
Perseverance of the Saints, Once Saved Always Saved, various slogans.
But that's the basic idea.
Got a lot of emails about that from people defending this doctrine, and so I'll read just one of them and respond to it.
This is from Scott.
It says, Matt, you are unbiblical in your assessment of someone leaving the faith, especially in your response to the emailer who disagreed with you.
You used a lot of, I think, statements, but not once referenced any sort of scripture in your response.
Frankly, it doesn't matter what you think about it, or what I think about it.
You basically strawmanned his entire response into shrugging off doubts people have about Christianity, but that's not what he said.
You accused him of calling anyone with questions or doubts a fake Christian, and that's not what he said.
He said those who leave the faith were never believers to begin with, so therein lies the question.
Well, and that's not, ironically, you're strawmanning me.
I didn't say that he said that everyone with doubts is a fake Christian.
I said that what he's saying is that anyone who had doubts and then comes to the conclusion, I think mistaken conclusion, that Christianity is false, was therefore never a real Christian, was always fake, and their entire 20, 30, 40 years experience of being a Christian is invalid.
That's what I accused him of saying, which is exactly what he said, and it's exactly what you're saying.
And my point is that, among other things, not only is that wrong, but it has the effect of just chasing these people further away from the truth.
What do you think it's going to do?
When you're telling someone that their 40 years... When you're trying to read their mind and tell them that what they thought they believed for 40 years, they never actually believed, and their whole experience of 40 years of being a dedicated Christian wasn't real, Why should they listen to anything else you have to say?
You have no basis to make that declaration.
It comes off as extremely pretentious and arrogant.
And that's my point, okay?
I think it's a straw man.
I am addressing head-on.
Your claim, and I'm telling you, no offense meant.
I just think that it does come off as pretentious and arrogant.
Don't take it from me, okay?
Take it from the people who have left the church.
Talk to them.
Ask them what kind of response they got from other Christians.
And they're going to tell you that they got this a lot.
What you need to do is you were never a real Christian to begin with.
Again, that is what you're saying, Scott.
You're saying if someone leaves, they were never a real Christian.
Isn't that what you're saying?
I just read it.
And that's what Miles said.
And before we even get to whether or not that's true, which it isn't, but talking about how helpful is that to say to people who do leave the faith, but maybe could be brought back in.
That should be our goal, right?
To bring them back in?
Are we going to do that if we tell them that their whole experience of 40 years was untrue, invalid, illegitimate, not real?
All right.
Let me go back.
Sorry to interrupt.
I'm going to read your whole email.
Okay.
So, regarding eternal security, this is back to Scott.
The Bible is very clear about it.
2 Corinthians 5.17 describes us as a whole new creation when saved, not the same person.
You cannot go back to your previous self if you were in fact saved.
Ephesians 1.13-14 says we are sealed, some version says guaranteed, by the promise of the Holy Spirit.
Even John 3.16, which everyone knows, says those who believe in him have eternal life.
There are many others, of course, but these are clear to show that one who is saved is marked for eternity.
If we can walk away from the faith and lose salvation, then those passages are all lies.
We were not made into new creations, we were not sealed, and we did not have eternal life, if there is a chance of losing it again.
All that said, someone who leaves the faith was never a brother or sister of Christ to begin with.
Okay, so that is what you're saying, right?
That's what I said you said.
That's what I said Miles said yesterday, and that is what you're saying.
1 John 2.19 addresses those who stop continuing in the faith, and clearly says they were never of the faith to begin with.
In Matthew 7.21-23, Jesus also says many will believe they are saved, but they never were.
These passages show that salvation is not something we can lose.
It also shows that there are many people who may even fool themselves into believing they are born again, but they're not.
Those who leave the faith fall into that category.
One who has doubts is natural.
We all have doubts at some point, but a follower of Christ will understand that their human understanding is inferior to God's perfect ways, and the correct answers are out there.
Isaiah 55, 8 is what he quotes, or doesn't quote, but references.
Those who trust their own understanding over God are showing they never believed Him to be the ultimate Savior and Lord of their life.
One who allows doubts to grow into disbelief was never sealed, or it wouldn't have been able to pull them away.
You mentioned the idea of a 40-year Christian who leaves the faith.
Since the Bible is clear on eternal salvation, only two options remain for that individual.
Either the person is still saved, even though he rejects and curses God, or the person never understood God, his character, and the gift of salvation.
Which one of those is more likely?
Christians need to do a better job of addressing questions and doubts when they arise in our own lives or in the lives of those in the church body.
The devil will use anything possible to get us to question God's nature, going all the way back to the garden.
A Bible believer will go to the word with these questions as God has revealed himself To those who seek him.
James 4.8, Psalms 119.
Okay, so there's Scott.
Scott, I... Again, I don't think I straw-manned him at all, or I'm not going to straw-man you.
He said, it's impossible for anyone who once believed to not believe anymore.
I find that proposition absurd.
Frankly, and...
Yes, I'm aware that lots of Christians agree with him, but I think it is a false doctrine, and it does a lot of harm in a lot of ways.
That's my view.
You say I didn't give any scripture passages.
That's true.
You gave some.
You didn't actually quote most of them.
You just threw out the verses, which is a tactic I notice Christians can do sometimes, where they say, oh, the Bible supports me on this, and they throw out a verse.
Well, especially if it's a verbal conversation.
You know the person's not going to sit there and look it up right there, so they have to just take your word for your interpretation of it.
I think it's important if you're going to throw out verses to actually give the verses.
I think what you're doing here is proof texting.
Okay?
I think you have a doctrine in mind that you want to support.
And so you're skimming through the text to find a verse here and there that seems to prop it up.
The problem is that any doctrine can be supported that way.
Any doctrine.
Going all the way back to the beginning, going back to, you know, think about the Council of Nicaea in the year 313.
Think about the Arians who believe that Jesus Christ was not eternally begotten of the Father, is not one in substance with the Father, but was actually a created being.
Okay.
They had verses they could cite.
They had a lot of verses they could cite to prove, quote-unquote, that assertion.
They could do their own proof texting.
I mean, they could go to Jesus saying, why do you call me good?
There's only one that's good, God the Father.
Now, in a vacuum, that would seem to be Jesus distinguishing himself from God the Father and saying, God's good, don't call me that because that's God, that's not me.
But once we look at the totality of the gospel, then we start to understand that one in context.
You see, that's the danger of proof texting.
And that's why I'm just... And that's one of the reasons why, when I address these issues, I try to...
Look at it to take a general view of what we're being told in the Gospels and in Christian tradition, because I know that if I just – you can't just take one verse and say, well, there you go, because anyone can do that for anything.
You see, that's the problem.
You have to wrestle with that.
And this is one of the reasons why our debates within Christianity never get anywhere.
Because everyone has their two or three verses.
Their two or three favorite verses to prop up whatever doctrine they like.
And we just throw them at each other like a food fight.
And we all go home believing what we believed before.
And what we believe is probably not what we learned from scripture study.
Now, I don't know, Scott.
I could be wrong with this.
Talk about presumptuous.
This is a presumption on my part.
I could be wrong.
But I think it seems highly likely that this idea of eternal salvation, once saved, always saved, that you didn't get that from scripture study.
You were told that growing up, and then you were given the verses that supposedly support it.
And I think that's an important distinction.
I could be wrong, but I think that's where a lot of people get Their doctrines.
It doesn't mean the doctrines are wrong.
It just means that at a certain point you've got to go back and look at it again.
Now, one thing, and here's one thing that leads me to that conclusion, is that you say the scripture is very clear.
But you're saying the scripture is clear about a doctrine that didn't really exist in any significant form in Christian tradition until the Calvinists came up with it 1,500 years after Christ was crucified.
Now, yeah, it's true that Augustine said a few things that you may call a sort of almost proto-version of that, but not exactly.
But it is just a fact of Christian history that this idea of eternal security, once saved, always saved, this was not a doctrine that existed in any significant way for about 1,500 years.
And it's a doctrine that the vast majority of Christians today and throughout history from the beginning have either outright rejected or never even heard of.
Now, doesn't that mean that it isn't true?
It doesn't mean that it isn't true, but doesn't that mean that it probably isn't as clear as what you're saying?
All you have to do is look at the history of Christianity.
And I think an appreciation of its history will lead you inevitably to the conclusion That this doctrine, at a minimum, is unclear.
So, I don't understand when Christians do this.
They take some highly contested doctrine, that people have been arguing about for centuries, and they say, it's clear!
Well, if it's so clear, then why is everyone arguing about it?
Unless you're suggesting that everybody is stupid, except for you, and I don't think you are suggesting that.
But if you're not suggesting that, then you have to admit that it's at least possible for sincere and intelligent and faithful Christians to read the same text you're reading and come to the opposite conclusion.
And in fact, billions of Christians from the very beginning have done just that.
Which means that your conclusion, correct or not, is not entirely clear.
So I would just urge maybe, for all of us, a little bit of humility.
When we're dealing with these, and I say this to myself too, when we're dealing with these highly contentious doctrines, especially ones that, as I said, didn't really exist for about 1,500 years.
You might say they existed because they're in the Gospels or they're in the Epistles, which is mostly what you mentioned.
Okay, well, at a minimum, nobody had noticed them for about 1,500 years.
Which would seem, at least means you should pump the brakes on, it's very clear.
Okay.
Now, so I could throw verses at you too.
Hebrews 10, 26, for if we sin willfully, after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remains no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.
Hebrews 10 38, Now the just shall live by faith, but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.
But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition, but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.
What I get from verses like this, and the dozens of others like it, is that a person can willfully draw back after having come to believe.
I could say just as well, it's clear, it's right there in the verse.
Willfully draw back, which seems to tell me you could believe and then willfully draw back, because that's what it says, right?
There's nothing in those verses that supports one saved, always saved, unless you're determined to take the few verses you mentioned, interpret them a certain way, and then interpret every other verse through that lens.
But here's the problem.
You're interpreting all the rest of the verses through the few verses you cited.
Well, how do you know that you're not supposed to be interpreting those verses through the lens of the verses that I cited?
How do you know that?
Now, you actually mentioned this.
You mentioned Matthew 7.21.
Although you didn't quote it.
Let me quote it.
Not everyone that says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that does the will of my Father which is in heaven.
Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name, and in your name have cast out devils, and in your name done many wonderful works?
And then I will profess to them, I never knew you.
Depart from me, you evildoers.
Now, this is very important, because the way that you interpreted that is that you said what Jesus was saying is that, yeah, there are a lot of people who thought they believed, and then it's going to turn out that they really didn't.
That's not what he said, though.
That is not what he said.
There is no version of this verse that I'm aware of in any translation anywhere, ever, that says that.
All of the translations either say, evil-doers, or something like, workers of iniquity.
That's the King James Version, I believe.
So he doesn't say, depart from me, you never believed, you just thought you believed.
He says, depart from me because you did the wrong thing.
So he's talking about willful actions, workers of iniquity, evil doers.
Now, again, you have your doctrine in mind.
You have those few verses.
You're interpreting it through a certain lens.
So you are determined to interpret that as him really saying that, well, the reason they did the wrong thing is because they didn't really believe.
That's not what he actually said, though.
That's just the lens through which you are viewing it.
I think if you take him at his own word, it really seems like Jesus is saying, there are people who basically are Christians, but they do evil, and so they're not coming.
Taking Jesus at his own words here, that seems to really be what he's saying.
And then there's a lot of stuff like this in Galatians.
It is freedom for Christ that Christ has set us free.
Stand firm then and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.
Why are we being told to stand firm?
Why are we being exhorted to stand firm if standing firm is somehow an automatic consequence of once having been saved?
Why are there so many passages in the Bible telling us to stand firm if we automatically do that with no effort?
And then there's this kind of thing in Matthew, and if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away, it's better to lose one part of your body than for the whole body to go into hell.
I mean, that sounds an awful lot like an injunction to believers.
It sounds an awful lot like Jesus is saying this to people who already believe, and now he's exhorting you, he's telling you, commanding you to be very careful, and if you're sinning, to cut off this aspect of your life or that aspect of your life, which really seems to suggest that you could be a believer and still go to hell.
Which also would really seem to suggest that you could be a believer and then stop being one.
I mean, why does Jesus, and this is my point about looking at the totality of scripture, why does Jesus spend so much time giving commands and exhortations to believers if their continued belief and thus salvation is already guaranteed?
What's the point?
It just doesn't seem like there's any point to it.
In fact, what's the point about 90% of the Bible, considering that almost all of it is directed to believers, and so much of it contains instructions about what we should do to get on and stay on the path to salvation?
And this is why I don't want to just throw verses at you.
What I'm saying is, look at the entire thing!
I think your doctrine here has just Negated almost all of it.
Because there's no point of it.
I'm sure you would say to Christians, make sure you read your Bible, make sure you stay strong in your faith.
Why though?
You just said it's automatic.
Now you might say, well, if you're really a Christian, you'll want to read your Bible.
Okay, well that's totally different though.
I mean, do you think Christians should?
Not do they want to, should they?
I think they should, but why do you think they should?
You're saying that it's guaranteed, hey, you're going to heaven, nothing's going to change it, nothing can change it, you can't even change it, so what's the point?
At a minimum, yeah, you could read the Bible, or don't.
You're going to heaven either way, right?
According to you.
And by the way, how did Adam and Eve get kicked out of the Garden of Eden?
They believed, didn't they?
No, there's nothing in there.
In fact, there's nothing in there about belief at all.
In fact, in the entire Old Testament, there's almost nothing about belief.
There's really no emphasis on belief, hardly at all, in the Old Testament.
It's all about doing what you do, your willful actions.
Starting with the thing that kicked it off in the Garden of Eden, they were in paradise physically.
They changed their minds, they lost it.
What about Satan?
Satan was in heaven.
He was in heaven already as an angel.
Changed his mind.
So Adam and Eve can lose paradise, Satan can lose heaven, but we can't change our minds?
It's impossible?
Does that make any sense?
If once saved, always saved is true, then the fall could not have happened.
The fact that the fall happened clearly indicates that we can be In Christ, on earth, on earth, and then leave.
Clearly indicates that.
I mean, you could say, well, if you really believe, why would God let you leave?
That's a good question.
Why did he let Adam and Eve leave?
Why did he let Satan leave?
That's an entirely different question.
All I know is that he does let those things happen because our whole faith is based on that.
And then we get to the common sense aspect of this, and I gotta wrap this up, but common sense tells us that human beings are perfectly capable of believing something, and really believing with all their hearts, and then not believing it anymore.
You know, you are insisting not only contrary to scripture, but contrary to the collective experience of all human beings, that we can't change our mind about something like this, yet we all know that we can.
You know, and you still haven't accounted for all the millions of people who have changed their minds.
They thought they believed when they didn't?
I mean, what does that even mean?
What does that actually mean?
How can you think you believe something that you don't really believe?
Can you explain that?
How can a person for 40 years thinks he believes something, but then he doesn't believe it?
It turns out he never believed it the whole time.
He thought he believed it, but he doesn't.
Isn't thinking you believe something exactly the same as believing it?
Tell me the distinction.
Between thinking you believe something and believing it.
I want you to define that distinction.
I don't think you can, because I think it's exactly the same.
Now, it's one thing to say, he thought something was true, and then he thought it wasn't.
It's another thing to say, he thought he thought something was true, and then he realized he never thought it.
I mean, what?
Does that even make sense, Scott?
It doesn't make sense to me.
I literally cannot make sense of that.
I don't even know what that means.
So that's part of my problem with this whole doctrine, is that it seems logically incoherent.
Because you are proposing a state of mind that is impossible for a human.
You're proposing a state of mind where you, at one level, believe something totally and completely, and at another level, not at all.
Now, this might be possible for people with split brain syndrome, but for those of us with an intact, fully functioning brain, it doesn't seem possible.
So it seems that based on your reading of a few Bible verses you are discounting every other Bible verse and along the way also discounting the personal experience of millions of people and proposing that you can speak for their mental states better than they can.
And at the same time you're suggesting that the human mind can do something namely accept and reject a proposition simultaneously that I think it really cannot do.
So that's my issue.
Okay.
And I will I think I've said enough on the topic at this point.
I can go for another two hours if you want, if anyone's interested.
All right, but I do appreciate the emails, and I do, and these are the kinds of questions, I mean, really, these are the kind of questions that interest me more than any of this political stuff or climate change.
I don't know if you can tell that, but that's why I spend most of my time on this stuff.
I just find it a lot more interesting.
So I appreciate all of the feedback.
Thanks, everybody, for watching.
Thanks for listening.
Godspeed.
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