My Facebook feed is always chock full of every kind of Christian quote, post, article, share, and event possible. A few weeks ago, I noticed that a few of my Facebook friends were liking and sharing statuses and links from someone named Matt Walsh. At first I thought it might be some popular guy from school that everyone knew except for me, but after clicking on his profile, I saw that he was in fact a well-known blogger for The Blaze. That’s when it all went downhill and I discovered the writings of one of most hateful, bigoted, close-minded, judgmental people I have ever heard of.
I’m not one to rant or to point out Christians that I specifically can’t stand, but this guy really got under my skin. His blog, consists mostly of:
- Hatred for believers in pro-choice and abortion
- Condemning transgender and homosexuality to a mental illness
- Commanding that Christians be more in-your-face and less accepting
- Political hatred
- A little hatred left over for the rest of us like atheists and millennials, specifically college students
His first post that I read is called “Dear Christians, If You Vote For A Godless Man, You Are Asking For Tyranny.” Most of the post is specifically about Donald Trump and his evils and awfulness and all of that that we are all too familiar with. My problem, however, is that he seems to blame all of these indecencies on the fact that Trump isn’t a Christian. It’s debatable whether Trump actually is a Christian or not, but that’s irrelevant because Mr. Walsh has his own very specific definition of a Christian, which is someone who is just as hateful as he is towards, well, everything and everyone.
Anyways, in this article alone, he manages to tell Christians that they may never vote for an atheist, as well as claim that atheists don’t have the same right as Christians, atheists cannot be trusted, atheists have “no true strength, no identity, no fidelity to truth,” and they are “spinning uncontrollably in the darkness.” I guess if Matt Walsh says I am spinning uncontrollably in the darkness, then it must be true, because this man can say no wrong (especially since the subheading on his website specifies that his posts contain either absolute truths or alpaca grooming tips, the second of which I have yet to see but don’t find funny coming from someone this abhorrent).
One of my favorite posts was when Mr. Walsh talked about how terrible it was that people got upset when a prominent boxer discussed homosexuality from a Christian point of view – err, when a prominent boxer said that if we approve of homosexuality, then we are worse than animals. What’s more, Mr. Walsh is upset and disappointed that this boxer had the gall to publicly apologize after realizing how many people he offended and how many people’s feelings he hurt! How dare he admit that homosexuals are people just as much as the rest of us!? The nerve.
I knew that someone as conservative, opinionated, and most of all, hateful, as this man must have some strong and blunt words blatantly spewing hatred at atheists as well. One post that I found that specifically targeted atheists was “A proposition for my dear atheist friends.” (Unfortunately, this post no longer exists.) Now, I have to cut this guy some slack because he has way bigger fish to fry and more people to hate, and only so much time in a day that he hasn’t been able to take the time to learn what atheism actually is and what it implies. Any atheist knows that all atheism is, is the denial of the existence of a deity, and all that it implies is, well, nothing. There are several worldviews under the atheist umbrella, including humanism, naturalism, nihilism, and existentialism, and they are all different ways of determining the meaning, or lack thereof, in this natural world of ours. Like many attackers of atheism, Mr. Walsh assumes that all atheists must be nihilists, and he uses this to draw the conclusion that atheists don’t have rights since the rights don’t originate from a divine being.
He goes on to use a technicality to try to prove why atheists don’t actually want religion to be removed from of government and schools. Mr. Walsh defines religion as “A set of values and beliefs, generally shared by a group of people. Specifically and especially, beliefs about the cause, nature, and purpose of humanity and reality.” Conveniently, he chose a definition that could also be used to define the word worldview; most definitions of the word religion do make mention of divinity, a superhuman being, deities, faith, worship, holiness, etc., etc. He then tries to use his definition of religion to argue that any statement on morality or rights or what we ought to do is a religious statement, when it is not. These statements do relate back to one’s worldview, but one does not need a religion to be moral or to hold any particular belief or worldview.
This man’s hypocrisy dumbfounds me, especially knowing that a good handful of my Facebook friends follow, like, and share his content. Something that bothers me possibly more than anything else is that this is how he represents Christianity; it’s not often that I feel bad for Christians, but I know that they’re not all like this, and they shouldn’t be represented this way. Even if heaven was real, if it was full of people like Matt Walsh, I wouldn’t want to live there.