Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Alrighty, folks, it's a brand new year, and what worse way to start the new year than with an episode that I did with my not-so-much friend, Michael Knowles. Actually, it's a great episode. Give it a listen. Would you lean Catholic over Protestant?
Very, very good question. It's very spicy. I actually know the answer. I don't know if you know the answer to this, but I do know the answer to this.
I would be shocked if you had any other answer. It's an obvious answer. I know you think it's an obvious answer.
Chapter 2: What controversial question does Ben ask Michael about faith?
Welcome to Yes or No, the bibulous battle to discover who knows whom better. My guest today is Ben Shapiro. How do we play? I'll ask Ben a yes or no question. He will select his answer away from my prying eyes. Then I'll guess how he answered. If I guess correctly, I get a point. If I guess incorrectly, I lose a point. No matter what, I'll probably drink. Then it's Ben's turn.
Neither of us has seen the questions beforehand. Whoever has the most points at the end wins. The stakes could be higher. You know, the stakes for America are also high, which is why you need to get Ben's new book, Lions and Scavengers, The True Story of America. Pre-order it right now. Ben? Thank you for coming to my show in your soundstage. I mean, this is magical. It's pretty cool, huh?
It is pretty awesome. Since the last time you were on, we've kind of raised the rent a little bit. Yeah, you definitely have. So we're spending even more money. I didn't think it was possible. Now we have moving lights.
Now, I have to ask, what are you drinking? I don't know. Whatever they gave me. This, because there was a debate. Apple juice, apparently. I'll let people in on it. It's a little early. It's the morning. Yes. And so I said, I'll have a martini, dry, a little dirty, blue cheese olives.
Chapter 3: How do Ben and Michael define the role of religion in American life?
Breakfast of champions. But apparently, I think they gave you a non-alcoholic drink. Did they? I don't know. Or is it the whiskey? I told him to give you the whiskey. It's whiskey. Is it? Yeah. All right. There we go. All right. I'm glad to hear that. It's kosher. It's kosher. Do you know the rules? I think so. I don't. I don't. But I'll go first. Okay.
If I were running for president of the United States, would I need to kiss the wall? Do I have to... Wow, that's a very realistic... The AI has gotten good. Professor Jacob, your co-religionist, made this up on AI the other day and showed it. This is not my first time seeing this picture, but the question is a serious one. Both parties, people go to the wall in Jerusalem.
Chapter 4: What is the significance of the Pope in their discussion?
Yes. If I were running, would I need to kiss the wall?
I have to... You have to get... I'm going to answer it, and then I think you have to guess what I would say. Yes, okay. Okay, you ready?
Okay. What does Ben think? That you would have to do, yes. I can see Shapiro-esque arguments for both answers here. You would say... No. No, I would not have to.
Yes, you would not have to.
Because I'm Catholic.
Right. If I were evangelical, I would. By the way, I don't have to. If you're Jewish, no one has to kiss the wall. It's ridiculous. It's not even like a Jewish thing. I was trying to explain this to someone. People do if they want to, but it's not like a commandment to visit the wall. I've said this to Ted Cruz. All these people, they'll come to synagogues. I'll put on a yarmulke. I'm like, why?
You're not Jewish. I don't care.
I think he would have to kiss the wall. I think... I think for evangelical Protestants or Baptists, I think it plays very well to kiss the wall. Because it largely came out of evangelical movements in the 20th century. Whereas for Catholics, that's not like a traditional thing to do. You go to the Holy Sepulchre, you go to all these different places. But I tried to explain this to someone.
I was like, because people say that you kiss the wall basically because the Jews force you to. I was like, the reason American politicians have started kissing that wall or praying at the wall or whatever, I think, I don't know, maybe you tell me if Saad has any other view. It seems to me the reason is
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Chapter 5: How do they view the future of conservatism in America?
That's actually where they tell you, all right, he's coming. He can be president now. Okay, you're up.
Okay. Clear answer. Okay. Do you, Michael Moles, have dual loyalty to the Vatican?
I'm warning you so you don't think that I'm cheating. This answer goes down about three levels.
I know. I actually think I know what the answer is going to be here. OK. Go ahead. Okay. Correct. Why? Because you have sole loyalty to the Vatican.
That's like the second level of it. So I would say if not for an unfortunate event in history, well, a few unfortunate events that concluded with the Lateran Treaty, but one of them was this event that began with this awful man Garibaldi who stole a lot of land from the church and from the Pope and all these problems into the 20th century. there could be real territory.
Now, I'm still an American. None of my family, they all came from either North Africa, also known as Sicily, or from England and Ireland. But if the Vatican had, you know, the papal suaves with that great uniform and a sword and I could go, I don't know, like slay Saracens or Lombards or something, we're cool. I'm in. But the reason I would say no, I don't have dual loyalty,
is because the loyalty to the Vatican as presently constituted, which is about half a square mile of a space, and to the United States are loyalties of a different kind. So one is a national loyalty, one is a spiritual loyalty. Just like my loyalty to the Yankees is of a different kind than my loyalty to, well, I have no loyalty to Ben Davies, but to someone on my producing team. Yes.
That is the reason why But if they reconstituted the Vatican's army, no, no, I don't know.
I don't know that they put on a pressure. I mean, honestly, when I said that, I was kind of half joking, but not totally. And the reason I'm saying that is because of what you're saying, which is we have a very dumbed down conversation about the nature of identity. Yes. And the truth is that everybody has layers of identity, right?
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Chapter 6: What are the implications of AI on personal beliefs and society?
We definitely went to the moon. That's going to give me 100% went to the moon. We went to the moon, right? Yeah. And the thing is, it's not, as I said on the show, I think there, in the political fight over the gender of the First Lady of France, there are all sorts of legal and political maneuvers that could turn lawsuits out in any direction.
All sorts of things that are not necessarily relying on biology. But we live in a time when transgenderism is accepted. We live in a time when people think transgenderism, some people think it's normal. We live in a time when people go to the doctors to get chopped up and usually they don't really look that convincing, but whatever.
So I cannot be convinced that the Soviet Union would have let us get away with lying about the moon. That's my biggest problem with all the moon stuff. Why, if it were all fake, And so obviously fake that anyone in his dorm room can figure it out. Why would the Soviet Union let us get away with it?
I mean, that's a great question. Also questions would be like, we went back there multiple times. And then golfed, right? Also, we developed like actual inventions based on things like travel to space that ended with the landing on the moon. Space, yes. But they would say, yeah, we've been to lower orbit. So here is my thing. Obviously, both of these things are untrue.
We did land on the moon, and Brigitte Macron does not have a penis. However— What about Carla Bruni? Did you—what about— But you are right that actually the basis of the dismissal of a case in France about this was not whether or not Brigitte Macron had a penis. It was that the court said, you cannot show that there are damages from claiming that Brigitte Macron has a penis.
Meaning, like, you can't even say that's an insult. in France. So no damages, therefore, attend to the case. It got dismissed on that basis. And so you're right that the widespread acceptance of the silliness means that anything is at least slightly possible.
I would go even further, like, yes, because you say, how are their damages? That's a good thing.
If anything, you should be happy.
Tolerant and happy, yeah, exactly. But the other thing is on actual malice. You know, you have to prove actual malice, which means either you knew you were lying, you knew it wasn't true, but you said it anyway, or you had a reckless disregard for the truth. To me, again, I'm not a lawyer, but when you're talking about the transgender issue, Everyone tells us it's totally normal.
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Chapter 7: How do they analyze the impact of TikTok versus fentanyl?
In a hash box. Yeah, you're not going to send it to a glue factory. No, I guess that's horses. I mean, my son did say this the other day. He, for some reason, was just in a...
dark mood he turns to me it's like i'm very sad the dog is gonna die and i was like yeah the dog's really young i mean the dog's like two and a half years old probably live to be 15 or whatever that's the most shapiro like you're a shapiro kid you're just like well in 11 years this is what's gonna happen yes i need to prepare he's like he's still like kind of sad like listen you know we can we can talk about this but let's let's be real like in a billion years the sun's gonna explode and eat the earth so like you know let me just put off this conversation for another day
I love this idea. He's like, you think the dog's going to die? Wait until you hear what's going to happen to us someday. Exactly. At least we won't be dead by then. He asked me about that one time. He's like, is it true the sun's going to eat the earth? I was like, yeah, we'll all be dead by then. Who cares? Yeah, we'll all be. Whatever.
I know. I know. I was just talking about this with Elisa last night. She was like, how do we tell the kids about death? They're reading fairy tales, and they're talking about it. So-and-so died. So-and-so almost died. And they're starting to wonder about death. It's like, what do we tell them? Yeah. We're going to tell them.
brutal realities, which includes some hope, but it's going to be... By the way, I mean, death kind of naturally comes up in a biblical worldview pretty much all the time.
Yeah.
I mean, like, it's within the first few chapters of the Bible. Like, you're there.
We were walking around a church in Italy, and so it's like, the tour guide said there's the skull over there of a saint. I don't remember what saint. But, you know, it's very controversial, the veneration of relics. It's not controversial to me, but it's very controversial, and I don't know if you want to see the... And then my two-year-old is like, I want to see the skull. Show me the skull.
There you go, buddy. My son, we were in Italy. We went to one of these, it was actually Malta. We went to one of these catacombs. And they had unburied some of the, there's like a skull and some bones there. And my son was like, I can't believe. And so later he turns to me and said, you know, Dad, I never thought that I was actually going to see that face to head. I was looking right at him.
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