The Lesson to Learn from Matt Dillahunty’s Rage Quit

Welcome to The Counsel of Trent podcast, a production of Catholic Answers.

So when Christians have debated atheists in the past, they tended to be on the defensive, but now you’re seeing more Christians who are taking an assertive approach and they’re attacking atheism directly. Now, I think this approach does have merit, but we also need to be careful to not go too far and turn into the angry atheists we might be engaging. Welcome to The Counsel of Trent podcast. I’m your host Catholic apologist, Trent Horn. Before we continue though, please click the subscribe button before I lose all faith in God and humanity and become an angry atheist myself. I’m just kidding. I just don’t want you to miss out on our content or the chance to help people know more about the channel, and you can also help support us at trenthornpodcast.com to get all kinds of great bonus content.

And by the way, when I was saying angry atheist, I put quotation marks because there are many atheists that I enjoy speaking to who are not angry. We can have really good conversations, and there are some Christians I don’t enjoy speaking to because they can get pretty angry or aggressive or they’re just not great for having a dialogue with. So what’s interesting, sometimes what happens in debates is I have an atheist who’s really outspoken and a Christian who is a bit more mild and not willing to call an atheist out directly. But what happens if you have a Christian who is willing to do that and is a bit more assertive or aggressive in their approach? Well, here’s what happens.

So on November 4th, the YouTube channel Modern Day Debate hosted a series of in-person debates that were streamed online. They actually approached me a few months ago to debate Matt Dillahunty in this format. Dillahunty, by the way, is an online atheist. He’s done a bunch of debates. He was part of The Atheist Experience in Austin, I don’t know if he’s still with them or not, but he and I, we debated previously on the resurrection on Pints with Aquinas. They invited me to do the debate, but they said it would be a two on two debate, so I declined. Normally, I’m not interested in those. I’ll make rare exceptions, but normally I’m not interested in that. But I said, I’d like to do a one-on-one debate with Matt Dillahunty in the spring, and we’ve worked on scheduling that, but I doubt it’s going to happen on the modern day debate channel because Matt Dillahunty said he won’t do any more debates for modern day debate after what happened in this recent debate. So here’s what happened.

Instead of getting me and another person, they got Andrew Wilson. He is an Eastern Orthodox Christian. He hosts a YouTube channel called The Crucible. They got him to debate Dillahunty on this question, Christianity versus secular humanism, which has the best ethical foundation? So Dillahunty’s opening statement, he basically just quoted the Humanist Manifesto talking about reason and human value and why secularism is good for ethics for that reason. And then he attacked Christian ethics as a foundation, and the way he did that was he basically just went after the new speaker of the House for his views on LGBT issues.

Mike Johnson’s the new speaker of the House in the United States. He’s homophobic. He’s all, get out. He’s argued to criminalize homosexuality. Homosexuality is, by the way, are US citizens with specific rights that he wants to take away. Moreover, he advocates for gay conversion therapy, which is unscientific and torturous because he thinks he can help them pray the gay away and the gay can be eliminated. He’s not anti-gay. He just wants them to cease to exist as gay. They get to keep being human beings. He thinks there’s no right to sodomy. Privacy laws don’t protect everything, and he thinks that what sort of sex do you have should be his to regulate. 2022, he presented what was called The Don’t Say Gay bill outlawing any discussion of gender identity, sexual orientation, or related subjects, which was incredibly problematic.

Now, this is important to remember because Dillahunty’s argument was basically this, Christianity should not be a foundation for ethics because it leads to immoral conclusions involving LGBT issues. Remember that form of the argument for later to see what Dillahunty gets upset about. So Wilson then gave his opening statement and he tried a unique approach actually. He said, even if atheism were true and God does not exist, it would be better for the world if it pretended Christianity was true and followed Christian ethics instead.

I’m just going to grant Matt’s entire worldview.

Wilson then said, secular humanism should be rejected because it leads to absurdities like celebrating sexual identity disorders aka a man can become a transgender woman.

You see human flourishing. The cornerstone of Matt’s ideology in that of secular humanism is totally meaningless, flourishing by who’s metric? From my perspective for instance, attempting to lie to people who claim men can be women, isn’t human flourishing. We have to do what’s good for human society and human flourishing, and if you don’t call these deranged lunatics something they obviously aren’t, they might self terminate. So in order to avoid that, we need to make everybody on planet Earth lie to them. This is human flourishing.

Wilson also asserted that secular humanism does not promote human flourishing because it promotes simulated sex acts, which I think he means maybe some kind of pornography and other sexual evils like children having sex with each other, which he claimed Dillahunty supported. After that statement, the debate went into an open discussion period and Dillahunty was not happy.

I’m not going to sit here and dignify the preparation that I went through and what people were here for.

You’re so indignant.

Keep interrupting me.

I am. You’re so indignant.

Would the moderator like to step in so that I can finish this [inaudible 00:05:51]?

Please man, how dare someone have an opposing worldview?

I’m not going to sit here and dignify what was supposed to be a debate about Christianity versus secular humanism, which one’s better for the world.

Yes.

With someone who clearly showed up with an agenda that has nothing to do with that. Someone who refers to trans people as deranged lunatics who will self terminate if you dare to question them.

How am I wrong, Matt?

Someone who misrepresents a quote from a debate where I said I wouldn’t make a law about nine-year-olds having sex being legal with respect to the nine-year-olds. Not that I was in any way in favor of it and that I was actually opposed to it, which I addressed during that debate. But moreover, this is not remotely an honest interaction on the front of whether or not secular humanism is valuable because this, when he presented his position here, has nothing to do with secular humanism. From the get-go, it’s all about me. Matt thinks. Matt thinks. Matt thinks. I’m giving what Matt thinks. What Matt thinks. Matt thinks.

What’s Matt’s position? Matt’s position.

Well, yeah, in a debate, you are debating what the other person thinks is true. That person’s position. This objection is up there with the time that the atheist, Dan Barker tried to stop James White from quoting Barker’s own book in the debate that they were having. Check out the link below if you want to watch that exchange. But let’s continue.

I came in with the secular Humanist Manifesto. I came in with positions that aren’t merely my position.

Oh, well, as long as multiple people hold the position.

This guy’s not serious, and I’m leaving. James, if you want a refund, you let me know.

Well, good day, sir. And I’ll cover your refund, Mr. Matt.

He just said he’d cover my refund.

I’ll cover his refund.

No, I’m not going to dignify a debate with someone who warp it, who trash talk people and be smug and all of the things that he’s being right now.

I really appreciate the atheist YouTube channel PineCreek’s response to what Matt just said here.

This is just so ironic. I’m not going to dignify this with the response for someone who trash talked me, who’s smug, when Matt himself does this all the time, trash talks theists, smug with theists. Why not be the better man, Matt? Sit down, try to find points of agreement, try to take one issue.

He’s already said he will cover my expense. You don’t have anything to worry about. This debate is over.

Goodbye.

Jackass.

Did you call me a jackass, Matt? Well, you and your husband have a good day, man. Have a wonderful day, Matt.

I think the reason Dillahunty got like this was because Wilson brought up transgenderism and wouldn’t let that go. It was central to his argument. Dillahunty is currently dating/romantically involved with a man who claims to be a woman. That’s why he said your husband. He’s involved with a man who claims to be a woman, a transgender woman, and this man also produces his own pornography. He goes by the names Arden Hart or Arden of Eden. I’ve seen both used online and he’s appeared on several episodes of shows with Dillahunty over the past few years. In 2021, he actually raised $10,000 for breast augmentation surgery. Here’s what Arden said on Twitter after the debate ended. “Just got referred to as my partner’s husband in front of a crowd of people by a guy who calls himself big papa fascist platform by Modern Day Debate. I think it’s also important to note the topic of the debate was Christianity or secular humanism, which is better for the world? Trans issues were literally not relevant at all and were the entirety of his opening statement.”

Except they were relevant. They became fair game because Matt Dillahunty made the exact same argument against Christianity. Remember I said this was important. Don’t forget it. Remember that Dillahunty said Christianity is a bad foundation for ethics because it leads to immoral positions on LGBT issues, which from Dillahunty’s perspective means not celebrating LGBT stuff. Wilson made the exact same argument. Secular humanism is bad because it leads to immoral positions on LGBT stuff, namely celebrating it. It’s the exact same argument, just in reverse. So the question then becomes, well, which seems worse, not affirming transgenderism or affirming it? For most normal people, when they hear about the mutilation and regret that can be involved with transgender surgeries, they’re naturally repulsed. Most people only go along with this because they fear being ostracized online or losing their jobs.

They’re the silent majority. They don’t like it. They don’t agree with it, but they just try to keep their heads down and try to get on with their lives. But opinion polls from Gallup and Pew polling are showing that people are actually becoming less accepting of transgender identity, especially in areas like transgender women, transgender women-men competing against actual women in sports. So it was absolutely a fair response. And a secular debater who was not emotionally involved in the issue could have responded to it. Dillahunty could have doubled down. He could have tried to argue that societies which accept LGBT, they just are better. They have better health outcomes or some other approach.

Now of course, you could still counter that with data, but at least it would’ve been some kind of a response. Or Dillahunty could have said, you know what? Transgenderism is not an issue because there are secular humanists who oppose transgender ideology, and there are Christians who accept transgender ideology, and so that can’t tell us which worldview is correct, but instead of doing any of that, Dillahunty just did a rage quit on the debate, which by the way, as advice to aspiring apologists, if you want to go out and do debates and defend the faith, it’s almost never a good idea to quit in the middle of a debate.

You almost always end up looking bad if you do that. Maybe in rare cases if the other person is just acting like a maniac and the vast majority of the audience, including people on the other side of the issue would agree with you that their guy is acting like a nutcase. And so there’s no point in continuing, it would no longer be worthwhile, but otherwise just quitting because you’re mad about how the other person is acting. It is just not good to do that. You should call the person out for what they’re doing. Continue making your argument. Quitting is just not a good idea. In fact, this reminds me of when the Christian apologist, Jonathan McLatchie quit a debate with Matt Dillahunty on the resurrection.

If you’re just going to keep dismissing the evidence, then we’re done.

Yes, we are. We are. And you know whose fault it is? The God that you believe in, because the God that you believe in is too stupid to understand that when he presents something in a way where it’s indistinguishable from other things that are false, that’s the end of the conversation. I didn’t make up the rules about what counts as evidence. Oh, did he just leave?

No. I mean, he’s definitely not here, but I don’t know…

I heard him say we’re done.

I don’t know if it’s… I’d be surprised if it was a rage [inaudible 00:13:42].

I’m pretty sure he just quit because I’m not going to accept the stories from his book. While he’s not giving me any reason why he’s rejecting the stories from other people’s books.

McLatchie later came back into the debate and he apologized for quitting, but the damage is done. And Dillahunty commented on this in his review of that debate.

He came back, he apologized. He let people know that it was because he was frustrated that I had interrupted him, but that was the format that we had agreed to before the debate. So he can’t run off and say, oh, Matt was mean to me. Matt interrupted me. Matt talked over me, and that’s just totally not the sort of thing we should be doing in a debate. That’s the format that he agreed to. And instead of making use of the rules and talking to the moderator, he decided in a little pissy fit of frustration to hang up and go away.

Physician heal thyself. But I think Dillahunty gets emotional in debates when something is brought up that he has a personal stake in. For example, the YouTube channel, Orthodox Shahada did a nice compilation of the debate Dillahunty and I had on the resurrection, it was like a year or two ago on Pints with Aquinas. So we were debating whether it’s reasonable to believe Jesus rose from the dead. Dillahunty has a common retort. He’ll say, well, I’m not convinced. Instead of refuting an argument, he’ll just say, I’m not convinced of this, and I was prepared for him to say that in this debate. So in order to prove the resurrection is reasonable, I don’t have to prove it’s convincing to Matt Dillahunty because there could be beliefs that are reasonable that don’t convince Matt Dillahunty.

So I brought up one example of that. I brought up the example of ethical veganism that was practiced at that time by Alex O’Connor, the cosmic skeptic. In previous interviews with him, Matt said he was not personally convinced of veganism, but he still thinks that Alex was reasonable. But when I brought this up in the debate to show Matt an example of something that is reasonable, even though it does not convince him, and so maybe the resurrection could be reasonable, even if it doesn’t convince Matt, he was displeased.

At least from what I saw with your engagement with Alex O’Connor, you do not believe the person…

Oh my God.

What’s wrong?

What the hell does Alex O’Connor have to do with this? You’ve mentioned him twice. He’s an atheist where the discussion wasn’t about…

What I’m trying to find is that there is a belief you are not convinced of, but you wouldn’t say is unreasonable. Do you think ethical veganism that Alex endorses is unreasonable?

Yes. I would never… So I don’t have a problem with veganism, which is one of the reasons why this keeps coming up as a matter of fact.

Do you think ethical veganism that Alex endorses is unreasonable?

Yes.

I think you said at one point that you do consider it to be a moral virtue. You think it is a good thing to…

[inaudible 00:16:39] convinced that it’s likely a moral virtue. I know people who do it for health reasons. I know people who do it for ethical reasons, and I don’t have any objection. My lone objection was to ethical vegans who say, if you eat meat, you are an immoral person.

And for the record, I don’t think you’re an immoral person for eating meat. I just think that what you’re doing is immoral.

That I can see.

Do you think ethical veganism that Alex endorses is unreasonable?

Yes.

So I think it’s useful for Christians to go on the offensive when they’re engaging defenders of secularism, especially in popular audiences and contexts, and to point out the ridiculously absurd conclusions of their worldview. They try to do that to us all the time. So Dillahunty tried to do that to Wilson, and Wilson said, fine, look at your view. It leads to the insanity of saying that a man can become a woman. That’s why in my debate with Destiny on the issue of abortion, I took time to show that Destiny’s view on abortion would end up allowing things like creating brainless human beings and using them for all kinds of insane and gross purposes.

So let’s say we had people who took fetuses, made them permanently unconscious and made them infant toddler or child sex dolls. So we have unconscious infants and toddlers. They were never conscious. They’re used as child sex dolls. Your only objection to that practice would be if it caused more pedophilia among other conscious…

Correct. Yeah, I would say there’s no person is being harmed there.

So child sex dolls could be on the table?

Kind of, although I would fight the framing of this because child is intuition pumping the idea that it’s a fully formed developed human, and I would never call a brainless thing.

So then I would say…

A human body lacking a brain, I would say you can do whatever you want with it.

A biological human organism that precedes through the child stages, that is never conscious.

Sure. There we go.

So it’s fair to take this approach, but you also have to be prepared to defend the foundations of your own worldview from people who say that its conclusions are absurd. I also think there is a place for a more aggressive style of interaction in debates. So in this clip, Wilson was interrupting Dillahunty, but Dillahunty was filibustering. He was making a speech to the audience when this was a time where the two of them were supposed to engage each other. So I do think it was fair for Wilson to chime in.

No, I don’t think so. I’m not going to sit here and dignify the preparation that I went through and what people were here for.

You’re so indignant.

Keep interrupting me.

I am. You’re so indignant.

Would the moderator like to step in so that I can finish this [inaudible 00:19:32]?

Please, Matt, how dare someone have an opposing worldview?

I’m not going to sit here and dignify what was supposed to be a debate about Christianity versus secular humanism, which one’s better for the world?

Yes.

With someone who clearly showed up with an agenda that has nothing to do with that.

I just laid…

However, it’s not fair to constantly interrupt someone when they’re trying to make a point, and they’re not just monologuing. That’s bad faith and apologists who have a more aggressive approach, they need to be careful to not do that, or else they’re just going to come off as bullies who lack a real argument. Remember, the goal is to try to convince the people who disagree with you, especially more receptive people who are in the middle. The cheerleaders for the other guy, they’re probably not going to change their minds. They might, but people who are on the fence watching the debate, they are the ones most likely to change their minds on the issue. However, they also have a lower tolerance for rude behavior. They’re not your fans, so you have to keep that in mind when you’re being assertive. Finally, I want to make it clear that I don’t endorse all of the methods that Wilson uses in his presentations or all of the positions he takes on issues.

But my overall message would just be this. In some cases, Christians have been too meek when engaging popular culture, and they don’t just call out people’s nonsense. Some cases I might be a bit too reserved, but we also don’t want to go to the other extreme. So it’s easy to be really aggressive when you’re engaging certain atheists or LGBT advocates because they’re being aggressive, even deceptive. But the philosopher, Frederick Nietzsche, I love what he said. He said, “Those who fight monsters must take steps to ensure they don’t become monsters.” Not saying, everyone who disagrees with me is a monster. I’m just saying some people have a monstrous attitude. They’re aggressive, they’re belligerent, and when we are trying to engage that person properly, we have to take steps to make sure we don’t imitate the same evils. This is something we should all remember when we work to fight error and to share truth so that people can come to know the truth in the gospel of Jesus Christ. In any case, thank you guys so much for watching, and I hope you have a very blessed day.

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