This video presents a Christian perspective on salvation, explaining that salvation comes through faith in Jesus Christ's atonement on the cross rather than moral behavior alone. The speaker addresses complex questions about hell, including the age of accountability for children and teenagers, and discusses how moral culpability relates to one's knowledge of God and access to divine revelation. The content emphasizes that while good people should be saved according to earthly morality, Christianity teaches that only Christ's sacrifice can provide the perfect atonement necessary for eternal life, and that those who have access to Christian revelation bear greater responsibility for their rejection of faith.
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Atheist has 78 TOUGH QUESTIONS for Christians
Added:Hello everybody. How are we doing today?
Um, so I'm really interested to see how this video does because I've realized and this was not what I was expecting at all. We've reached a point now where actually my >> uh let me actually just check the audio sounds good. I've realized this was Yeah. Okay, cool. Uh, yeah. So, this was not how I expected things to be, but basically my atheist videos, as we should say, my videos responding to atheists are actually at this point doing worse than my videos responding to Catholics. So, I think Oh, hello. Sorry.
The um that's unfortunate the uh chat isn't appearing. Let me let me try and rectify that. But yeah, basically um yeah, I mean in a way it kind of suits me because obviously there's lots of people who respond to atheists and I'm not saying I'm I'm going to ever entirely stop doing that, but I think it's quite fun to also respond to Catholics and uh slightly more interest there. Now, obviously uh I'm going to be responding to this video by Medi I think his name is Medi. I want to say Medi Hassan, but isn't Medi Hassan like a a political commentator? I'm just confusing them. I think this guy's name is Medi though. He's an atheist and uh I think his name might be the friendly atheist and he has made 78 questions for Christians. So, it'll be interesting. The video is quite short.
I'm not sure exactly how much we're going to get through. I will actually, unfortunately, because it's so quick fire, the video is so short and there's 78 questions. I'm going to try and answer every single question, but let's see. Uh, it does mean I'm not going to be able to fiddle with the chat in the background. I don't quite know why it is. I can't see it. But yeah, hello Estac Benito. Let me There is like a way to force it, but it looks gross. Like I can make it look white, which is Hey, zombie pup. Okay, see if I can Is that going to work? Nope.
But then if I do, see what I can do is I can do this.
Am I autistic? The question stayed in my hand. So if I do this, it will work, but it will be gross and white. Not that I'm racist. There we go.
Um, uh, felt like at this point it would be hard not to have a stance on the theism versus atheism debate. Yeah, I'm finally on time to stream again. Hello, Extra Lee. or just we call you Ollie. Yeah.
Hello, Last Advocate. Anyway, okay. So, let's see how we do. I would almost, you would imagine it's only a six minute 48 second video, but let's see. I'm going to try and respond to every single question. In fact, let me actually make sure I've got the thing loaded up that Let me Okay. Yeah, cool. Oh, wait. No, I didn't need to.
Okay, whatever. All right. Is Anne Frank burning in hell right now?
>> Yes. Well, I get Well, the thing is you never exactly want to say, "Oh, such and such is definitely Oh, wait. Hold on. Is that that all your Okay. Yeah. Okay. Did good. Okay. Yeah. So, >> is Anne Frank burning in hell right now?
>> So, this is actually there are some reasons why this is slightly complicated because of course Anne Frank was quite young. So, you have that issue of where exactly is the age of accountability.
You have some questions with exactly how much can we say definitively about hell because obviously we can talk about how those who very explicitly knowingly willfully reject Jesus are seemingly condemned. They're they're apart separated from the good grace and the blessings of God. Um, so it's hard to say is the short answer and it's actually not as simple as it sounds. Ultimately, I think the the main reason why we would imagine that wouldn't be the case and the main reason we might not want it to be the case is because she was so young. And that is of course I think one of the challenges that Christianity faces which is that obviously we all understand that babies, toddlers, children all go to heaven because they're below the age of accountability. They haven't done any sins because they are not in a position where they would have a moral consciousness such that they could do something sinful. The problem is you do have this window in sort of teenage adolescence period where you're like well surely at this point these people know the difference between right and wrong but at the same time it feels a little bit unfair that someone who's 15 16 17 goes to hell uh for that reason and I think ultimately clearly the Bible talks about those who and you know you see it with the story of the rich man Lazarus talks about those who have rejected God. But this is this is uh you know we talk about that rich man. We're talking about someone who's lived their entire life. And when he's when it's explained to him, hey, you know what about my uh brothers? Go to them so that they don't suffer the same fate I do. Um Abraham, I hope I'm right this Abraham.
Abraham says that well they have the prophets. Let them read the prophets.
With this said, I think there's an implication that your moral culpability on some level comes down to your knowledge of the fact you have access to this stuff. And I think there is maybe a possibility that those who die in a situation where it's like, okay, they they couldn't possibly have known, maybe in that situation there's a, oh, real quick, you know, Jesus Christ died for you. you're going to accept that so you get a chance possibly. Again, I don't know. What I do know is obviously if Annef Frank then lived to be 20, 30, 40 years old and she's still Jewish, well, at that point it's 100% on her.
Um, that's a good point. Yeah. Also, because she did something good and good people should go to heaven according to simple earthly morality. I mean, this is kind of the weird thing, right? Anne Frank didn't actually do anything good though, right? I mean, Anne Frank just she died, which lots of people died, and she wrote a book about. I wouldn't say it's like a morally good thing to have done. I'm not saying it's morally, you know, I'm not saying it's immoral, but I'm just saying Anne Frank is kind of neutral. I I guess the reason she's being brought up is because she is a, you know, such a famous example of someone who died who definitely was not Christian. Uh, but again, yeah, the short answer is we can't say for absolute certain. Um, obviously if I met a a teenage girl who identified as Jewish, I would 100% beseech her to get saved to put her trust in Jesus Christ. Uh, and you know the things I don't I don't necessarily go down the complete Catholic route of well, you know, uh, God gives everyone.
I was just trying to see if I could get the the black. I don't know why. It's so weird to me that sometimes the cuz basically, you know, I I have like a dark mode version and a light mode version of um of the chat. And for some reason, sometimes the dark mode doesn't work. Even though the dark mode, I'm sure we can all agree, is far more visually appealing. Although, now saying that, neither of them seem to be working. Uh-oh. So, whatever. I think we we'll stick with the light mode.
Whatever. It'll be a slightly ugly stream. At least I'm pretty sure this guy has a Yeah, this guy has a white background. So, yeah, I think we can just about get away with it.
Except, yeah, I thought we can get away with it. And now now it's not working either way. But you know what? Actually, I bet I bet the fact it's not working either way means now it's going to work the other way. This is what I'm I'm discovering.
Anyway, by the way, I can already tell that his next question is going to be, "What about Mahatma Gandhi?" which is fun because obviously that that one's a much easier one to answer because Mahatma Gandhi wasn't even that good.
Hey, there we go. We got it fixed. All right.
>> How about Mahatma Gandhi is >> Okay, there we go. So, how about Mahatma Gandhi? So, the thing about Mahatma Gandhi is uh one he did all sorts of terrible things. Well, he had like a weird thing with kids. This is a well-known fact. like he used to kind of sleep in the same bed like a Michael Jackson thing. Um, and also even the thing he was doing like it wasn't that great. Like at the end of the day, uh, I'm British. I like being British. So I'm not going to sit here and say that Mahatma Gandhi was a hero for fighting for India to not be British anymore. Why wouldn't you want to be British? You know, George Washington can get in the bin, too. Why wouldn't you want to be British? Being British is great. So I don't even think like M like he's a hero personally to the Indians because you know he got there even though again I don't know I feel like there's probably some Indians who don't even particularly care that much about uh not being British and like yeah I'm so glad we're not part of the British Empire cuz obviously plenty of Indians moved to the UK. So you'd think that on some level they're like well you know if only we only Britain stayed around we wouldn't have to deal with this whatever. But then of course the third thing about Mahatma Gandhi is he unambiguously just rejected Christianity. He rejected the gospel. He had the ability. He had the wherewithal to investigate the Bible to look into it and he chose not to. So again I I don't like to talk and just to clarify the reason why I don't really like to talk in these really strong terms about hell is because and this is the kind of frame of reference I always give. The Jews were absolutely certain that the Messiah would be this great military leader who would come down to earth and have this military victory and he would defeat all his enemies in a violent conquest. That's what the Jews imagined the Messiah was going to be like. And then of course you get Jesus who is this very different character and he actually defeats his enemies through you know love and this spiritual thing and he has this much more kind of peaceful reconciliatory approach to it and based on that I do think to myself is it not possible that there is a similar subversion that might happen with the final judgment. Having said that, again, I would not say like I think functionally speaking, Christians should assume eternal conscious torment and preach the gospel with the urgency of those being mistakes and also preach that ultimately we are sinners and a just God does have every prerogative to condemn us to some sort of punishment.
And obviously if he is a perfectly holy God who cannot abide with unpunished sin then it is ultimately on us if we choose not to accept the atonement of Jesus Christ on the cross. So that's basically my stance and yeah when it comes to Mahatma Gandhi so I'm not going to say oh yeah he's definitely in hell but I will say that he as far as rejecting the atonement of Jesus Christ in the cross I mean it seems pretty clear he did that and therefore when he stood before God the only thing that it seems would have happened is that he would have been judged by his works and his works certainly weren't perfect and indeed might have actually been worse than the average person. Um, yes. Uh, yeah, obviously worth keeping in mind, God wants to extend grace. Not much beyond that can be said. Yeah, that's basically it. Like I I don't want to definitively say how things are, but I can say, well, this is how it seems to be. And obviously, I can make some effort to defend how things seem to be, although there are aspects of hell which I'll admit I think again, I don't really know how I feel about it. Especially like I say that that situation of people who are teenagers, young adults who you think I mean they're definitely morally responsible. Like when you are 14, 15, 16 years old, you know the difference between right and wrong. You are definitely morally responsible for what you're doing. But at the same time, if you die at 14, 15, 16 years old, it does seem to me very unfair that you would be condemned to hell based on that. Which again, the Bible never explicitly says you would be. It talks about some people being condemned to hell and uh it talks about Jesus being the only way. But there are actually all sorts of potential ways because that's thing you always want to have that difference between what does the Bible say? What does the Bible explicitly exclude? And then what things are there that are in this massive gap in between where they're not explicitly said by the Bible, but they aren't explicitly ex excluded. And I do think actually that there are a fair few things when it comes to eternal damnation aren't explicitly excluded. Anyway, whatever.
We we'll proceed.
>> Fred Phelps in heaven because he believed in the divinity of Jesus.
>> So believing in the divinity of Jesus, I do not think is what saves you. There's a variety of reasons why I think that's the case. I think what saves you is uh having trust in the effectiveness of Christ's atonement on the cross in terms of being able to uh as such merit you with eternal life imputed entirely by faith.
That's what I think you ultimately have to believe in order to be saved. With that said, uh I I I've heard it said that Fred Phelps was some sort of sinless perfectionist or something like that. Like basically one of those people who says, "Oh, you have to actually defeat sin and basically you do have to make it in some way about your works."
I'm not sure. My inclination is to say Fred Phelps probably was saved. Um and because when you look at Fred Phelps, he seems to be quite a a typical example of a a Christian fundamentalist. One of the the interesting things you can look for uh in terms of seeing how serious Christian is is first of all, thank you.
You might notice like, oh, if they really really don't like gay people, well, that's one thing, but what I think is interesting is when you get that combination of they don't like gay people, but they are very anti-racist.
And to me, when I have that specific combination, I'm like, "Okay, that person's probably saved because they're clearly not just exploiting this for a generic kind of extremist right-wing talking point because there are people who are they'll talk about Christianity, but then they will uh preach a white nationalist message." And white nationalism is obviously contrary to the Bible. Again, depending on how you define white nationalism. I'm not necessarily saying that every single Christian has to be complete open borders. But someone who believes that only white people are are righteous or moral and that all non-white people are inferior in some way, that's obviously contrary to Christianity because Christianity talks about how, you know, there's neither Jew nor Gentile. It talks about not being uh obsessed with and concerned with genealogies. It's very clear that the Bible is anti-racist.
And with that said, the fact that Fred Phelps, if you don't know, he actually started off as a civil rights lawyer and he he has always been anti-racist.
I mean, he's dead now, but yeah, he he was anti-racist. So, to me, that suggests that he took the Bible seriously, and the fact he took the Bible seriously on its morality probably indicates he took the Bible seriously when it comes to the gospel. And as such, yeah, he's probably in heaven.
Should a killer who genuinely repents be able to go to heaven?
>> Uh, so I would say depends what they're repenting of. If they're saying, "Oh, I'm so sorry. I I wish I'd never done that. I feel terrible about it every single day of my life. Um, I just regret it. I wish I could take that moment back more than anything." That's not going to merit them heaven. What's going to merit them heaven is repenting of their unbelief.
If they say, "Hey, you know, I know I'm a sinner. I know I'm going to heaven, but Jesus Christ paid the price for my sins on the cross, and based on that, I can have the free offer of eternal salvation. Therefore, I'm going to save." That's what means they should go to heaven. So, in a way, obviously, from this guy's perspective, it's actually worse because you don't actually need to repent of your sins in order to be saved. You need to repent of your unbelief. So the answer is yes, but depends what he's repenting of because you can be repenting and of course in the Bible repenting isn't always a good thing. It talks about God repenting in the Bible. Um or rather sorry. So so that is a phrase uh repenting first of all is not always a sin because God repents. So you can actually uh repent of something and still be perfectly moral. But the other thing is repenting isn't always a good thing because uh there's one moment where uh it's talking about God saying, "Oh, you know, if the Israelites see battle, I don't want them to repent and turn back to Egypt." So, in that context, he's saying he doesn't want them to repent of going into the promised land. So, he doesn't want them to repent of the thing that they're supposed to be doing. So, you can repent of um bad things like sin and unbelief, but you can also repent of good things.
a man who gets divorced is repenting of his marriage. And obviously that's a terrible thing to do.
>> Should a kind-hearted atheist be forced to go burn in hell for all of eternity?
>> So this feels like kind of the same thing we've already got. And the basic answer is that again ignoring various potential complexities around hell ultimately being a kindhearted atheist cannot compare to what Jesus Christ showed was necessary to live a perfect life. I don't think there is any kind-hearted atheist who would uh first of all live a life and again obviously different standards of perfection but I think everyone pretty much agree that Jesus life was pretty perfect. He was constantly loving people being kind to people going out of his way to take care of people and then of course the big thing he does is dies on the cross for the sake of even his worst enemies. Even as he's being crucified, he's saying, "Lord, forgive them. They know not what they do." I don't know if there's any atheist who would even claim that they they've reached that like they're on that level at all. So, that's the problem. Ultimately, good enough isn't good enough.
>> What about any non-Christian good person? Should they be burning in hell?
>> I need some water. Um, so I will say this in the case of someone who is not atheist, I would say that is even worse as a scenario because in that case they know there's a god. They explicitly recognize there's a god and yet they are then almost more so consciously choosing to reject the true god at the end of the day. And you know, obviously, see, my basic stance is that the closer you get to Christianity, the less excusable it is, right? So, someone who's an atheist who has no reason at all to think any of this Christianity stuff is serious cuz they're like, "Well, I don't even believe in God. I don't believe in any of it." Well, you can kind of understand why they're not looking into it. Someone who's a Hindu, all right, well, you know, they they believe in some kind of spiritual realm. So, you think, eh, they should probably look into it. like they they should really investigate the other major religions but all right fine they're Hindu they don't really have any reason to think about Christianity someone who's a Muslim they should definitely look into Christianity right I mean if they're saying that they believe in Muhammad and Muhammad is supposed to be the final prophet of the Abrahamic faiths well obviously take a minute this is your eternal destiny you're talking about you believe as a Muslim that Muhammad came as as a messenger from a perfect divine God and you don't think well let me actually look back at this earlier stuff and see if it makes sense and let's be honest if you compare Christianity and Islam for just a few hours of honest inquiry you're going to very quickly see one of them makes far more sense than the other if you're a Jew you have every obligation to like at that point you're literally reading the Old Testament you can see Isaiah you can see all of these uh prefigurations of Christ and yet you're rejecting it. You're you're even less with, you know, you have even less excuse at that point. It's like you're just so obviously the only motivation at that point you seem to have is that you just reject Jesus. You hate Jesus. So h how do you think Jesus is going to react when he's uh Lord? And then obviously Catholics. Catholics arguably the worst case scenario because they have all of the correct Bible. They have all of the verses telling them, "You're saved by faith, not by works." To whosoever believes shall not perish, but have everlasting life. To him who workketh not, but believe in him who justifith the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness. Uh if it is by faith is or sorry, if it is by grace, it is no more of works. And if it is by works, it is no more of grace. They have all of these verses really clearly telling them that it's I mean James 2, right? um whosoever seeks to be justified by the law, you are obligated to keep the whole law. They have all of these verses telling them that if you try to just include even the little smallest amount of works in your justification, in your salvation, then you have rejected the gospel. The gospel that is by faith alone that is through believing in Jesus is not compatible with any oh and you have to go do the sacraments you have to go confess you have to cooperate with God's grace by doing good works so they they have the least excuse and that's the thing you know when I always talk about this idea of that maybe hell is locked from the inside I'm like well I don't know about that I mean you know maybe there's some atheists some Hindus who will genuinely be like well we didn't know no you know if if we we No, Jesus.
Come on. We We would worship Jesus. But then you think about like someone like Trent Horn or Jay Dier or something like that.
Well, I kind of think to myself, even when they're in hell and Jesus is like they they can see plain as day Jesus has saved those who put their faith in him, those who put their trust in him and he has condemned and commanded to depart from him, those who sought to add works to Christ's atonement on the cross. I feel like they'll still be like, "But I I don't want it." you know, I don't want Christ salvation because again, it's as blatant as it could be in the printed word in the Bible. So, even when Jesus shows up and tells them, hey, you know, guys, you're going to uh the only way you would have been saved is by putting your faith entirely in me and not in your own dead works.
They're going to be like, "Oh, wow, Jesus. So, you think you can just interpret the Bible for yourself outside of the Holy Magisterium?" Anyway, uh, hey Zach and hello Blake. Atheist debate starter pack presupposed comical satire of Calvinism in the right is the right to take Christianity. Step two, never not do that.
Goofy goop. If that's blatant, I'm probably going to hell. Oh no. Yeah.
Well, that would be sad for you.
>> You be happy in heaven if someone you loved was in hell. If >> Okay, this is a good question. And some of these questions are genuinely good.
Let me actually get some water. I'm really thirsty. So, I feel bad for my wife because my wife always gets me a chamomile tea because I like to have a chamomile tea before I go to sleep and I record these, you know, in the evening.
But then recently, I've just been super thirsty, too. So, now I'm going to have my water. I kind of want to have some milk, too. He needs some milk. I need some milk. Okay. Sorry. I'll be gone for a second.
Oh, okay. I'm actually shocked that didn't disconnect. I just like fully kicked the uh cable that connects my laptop to the internet and yeah, seems like we're fine. So, yeah, the question is, would I be happy in heaven knowing there are people I love in hell? This is again a really tough question and I will say, you know, I'm kind of excited for when we move on from the house stuff because as you can tell, I'm one not especially comfortable with what there potentially is to say about hell, but two, I also actually think that there is some potential room for error around hell.
I'm always reminded of on this note RC Sprout has a quote where he says, "Oh, when you're in heaven, you will be able to look at your own mother burning in hell and laugh with joy because you'll be so happy to see a sinner experiencing God's uh wrath." And there's a few issues I have with that that as a claim, but the main issue I have is it's such a speculative thing to say. And what if you're wrong? Like what if you say that as like a a statement, which of course is not a statement that's ever explicitly said in the Bible. And then you get to heaven and God's like, "Oh no, actually, you know, you you you miss something. It's it's slightly different from how you would have thought." It's you know a little bit because obvious you know I mean again like I said I think there is some room for some kind of things not being exactly I mean there's very few things we know for absolute certain in the Bible. So I said I think there is that room for that you've misunderstood something. So to make such a extreme claim like that when you've misunderstood things would be terrible.
So the short answer is, you know, I don't even want to think about people I love who are still alive and haven't been saved. I certainly don't want to think about those who I know and loved who died having not been saved and they are already dead. I don't want to like think about that or talk about the specific examples but obviously I can say that the idea that such a person could be in hell would you know is is a really horrible thing to consider.
Um and the basic answer is again kind of as it is for all this health all this hell talk I don't know.
What I do know is there's lots of really good stuff in the Bible. And I think that there is clearly what the Bible's unamiguous about is that there is this this problem in how hell or sorry, how sin impacts our relationship with God and that God sent his son down to earth to die for us to mend that relationship.
And I think that is a beautiful enough message that it is worth spreading and preaching. Um, and it's not worth really getting into the weeds and kind of creating all of these potential stumbling blocks out of making really definitive statements about hell. With that said, you know, I I honestly think that's all that needs to be said.
basically um unless you have put your faith in Christ, there is clearly going to be this barrier in your relationship with God. And it seems that the Bible presents as having eternal consequences.
It seems potentially like that is eternal conscious torment.
And obviously that's not a pleasant thing to think about.
There's all sorts of ways that it could play out though in the future. And we're talking about something beyond this life. and I would rather focus on this life and the implications of Christianity I think for this life directly and that's basically my stance.
Um all heaven and hell talk seems very speculative to me. I think there isn't much that can we can actually know about it other than hell equals bad heaven.
Yeah, I mean that's the thing. Yeah, we we we'll see. We'll see. is the answer, I guess, to that question.
>> If your son or daughter were dying, and I hope that never happens, would you just pray for them or would you take them to a doctor? And >> so that that's a very easy one.
Obviously, I would take him to a doctor as well.
>> If you say you would do both, which one do you think has more of an impact?
>> Um, that that's uh I think it's kind of a tough one because they're sort of doing different things.
I mean obviously the the impact of praying is that you are seeking the comfort of God. And I think God can give you comfort in a way that a scientist can't.
Um I I mean the I don't necessarily have a problem and obviously this is supposed to be the point, right? I don't have a problem with saying that materially speaking the thing that is going to do more to cure someone who has a disease is going to be modern medicine. I'm fine saying that. Obviously there are many reasons why praying is good. There's also the fact that praying I think can actually tip the balance. Um and then of course there's the fact that uh you can also be doing prayers of thanks and ultimately you can be even thanking God for the doctors and things like that. So I'm fine with that. Hello Dylan Carbo.
>> Whose prayers does God answer? And if it's ultimately >> whose prayers does God answer?
So I mean Christians obviously like you have to actually be a safe Christian in order for God to answer your prayers. um or I suppose you could say on the verge of becoming a safe Christian if we're talking about specifically the prayer of you know oh God please open up your heart to me like that's basically I think a prayer ultimately has to be an expression of some degree of faith so I guess my answer would be God answers the prayers of those who reach out to him in faith whether those are people who don't yet have saving faith but are taking a small step of faith or those who have saving faith faith, but still obviously have this dayto-day sustaining faith where they're still thinking, okay, you know, I know that God is there and that he is uh that I can rely on him in all of these different things in my life.
Um, so yeah, that that's I I think the basic answer. Obviously, a question might be asked. Well, it doesn't seem to me like he always answers everyone's prayers, but I think I'll see if he's going to um say that >> God's will what happens. Why even bother praying?
>> So if it's all God's will, what happens?
Why bother praying?
I used to be of the position basically that prayer can't change what God's doing. And therefore you just by praying to him, you're kind of cosigning on what he's doing. So you're saying, "Oh, you know, God, I pray that it would be your will for this to be the case." But I've actually changed my mind on that. I um I I'm now of the position that human action can impede God's plans.
And what I mean by that is that if human beings pray for things and lots of human beings pray for something, I think that God will say, "All right, I'll do that." and that there is actually a relationship between them praying for it and doing it. I also think it's the case that God can have a plan for your life and you can frustrate that plan. So this is the the reason I say this is I was looking into kind of a Bible study of Acts and I am now of the position that God's plan God's will was for Paul to go to Spain.
And I think that the fact that Paul didn't go to Spain, but instead went to Jerusalem was Paul frustrating God's plans and actually did have a real world material impact. I don't think it's a coincidence that Spain was the foremost country that was persecuting Christians during the Inquisition. I think that wouldn't have happened if Paul because you got to bear in mind Spain arguably is you I think you could genuinely say that Spain is the country where the fewest people have ever preached the gospel. I think that is genuinely a possibility because you look at it obviously you had um this Catholicism had a strangle hold on the country. You had the Inquisition and then you had obviously the uh philangist Catholic Franco dictatorship which was again very firmly Catholic and then once that went away Spain became I think a very uh sort of atheistic country because people had such bad like the Catholic Church has this negative association with this dictatorship that have been overthrown and I feel like that there's really such a small amount of um of evangelism happening in Spain that I'm aware of to speak of. And I think that it would make complete sense to me that that goes back to Paul didn't preach there. Paul was supposed to go to Spain and in going there he was supposed to kind of do do that ministry, start some church, things like that, but he didn't. And the end result of that is again I think possibly I I'm I'm actually quite comfortable speculating.
I don't think it's wildly speculative to say that yeah there is no place there is no country there is no land mass on earth where the gospel has been preached fewer times than in Spain. I mean obviously maybe you can say Antarctica and things like but that's you know being silly.
>> If you have cancer right now what's going to help you more drugs or prayer?
kind of already had that question. I think we can just skip it.
>> Let's say you had an amputated limb.
Would prayer ever bring it back? If >> Okay, question here is would prayer being back bring back an amputated limb?
The the issue here is it's this thing that you get a lot from atheists where they think that there is the supernatural and there is the natural and those two things are in contention.
And as such what they imagine is well if you want to prove the existence of God you should look for these things that go against the natural order of the world.
But from a Christian perspective we know that actually God created the natural world. He created these scientific laws.
And as such these these this natural world and these scientific laws are a huge testament to God. And therefore we shouldn't expect God to just be breaking these natural laws willy-nilly. rather we should expect to see here sort of having a a more subtle influence over them which is basically exactly what we're expecting to see with prayer.
We're not expecting God to just completely upend the rules that he wrote for the universe because we respect God as the author of those very rules. But we are recognizing that God is sovereign over the universe. And as such, we're asking him, well, you know, could you lean things in my favor when it comes to the skill of the doctors, the mentality of the doctors, um, and then, you know, even just on on the the cellular level, what's happening to, let's say, the cancer cells and things like that.
You've heard stories about an amputated limb ever growing back. How come there's never a camera around when anything like that happens?
>> Yeah. So, I basically, like I say, I don't think that you actually do get in the modern day these uh blatant defiances of natural science that are miraculous. I think that yeah, like I say, God, he designed these natural laws. He designed these scientific laws that we investigate. God is a God of order. He is a god of logic. He is a god of reason. That's why we who are made in his image have these tendencies to logic and reason things like that. Uh however, in very specific situations as in the Bible, you do have God doing these miraculous things in order to prove like a specific point. So why would I say that we don't have uh miraculous limbs going back? Why do we not have cameras showing these uh natural the natural science defying miracles? Well, because those were put there to authenticate prophets, but there are not prophets in the modern day. Um Jesus was a seal of the pro. Now, yes, we prophesy by which I mean we just we preach the gospel. But Jesus was the seal of the prophets. He he was the last prophet because that prophetic system which was kind of the old Mosaic law and that way of doing things went away with Jesus. And then you get preachers and ministry and things like that. So yeah, obviously I I realize the apostles also had miracles but the point I'm making is that these very particular special preachers who were adding to and part of kind of God's unfolding revelation were then authenticated with these miracles.
The reason why we don't see miracles in the modern day is because there's no one adding to God's revelation. So, they don't need miracles to prove that they're right.
>> How come they're >> um is part of secular talk, right? Is secular talk the thing with KL Kolinsky.
Yeah, I I've seen this video before and I was interested to kind of respond to it based on that.
>> No cameras around when any miracles happen. If you had an exam coming up, what do you think would help you earn a higher score? Prayer or studying for the test? if you prayed for me over YouTube right now.
>> It is weird cuz 78 is a very specific number and yet there are so many duplicates here as if he's kind of it's as if he's like bulking it out as if he thought that getting to 78 was particularly important.
>> Do you think I would know it some >> Wait, sorry. Oh, wait. What was the question?
>> Fast. If you prayed for me over YouTube right now, do you think I would know it somehow?
>> Let's find out.
Dear Lord. Um, I should have looked up his name. I should have confirmed his name. Hold on.
Okay.
The atheist voice. That's his name.
Dear Lord, please open up the heart and mind of the atheist voice. Please um give him the inclination to look into the Bible and to see within it the wisdom that is hereto for eluded him to feel convicted by its message about the human conviction and to see the truth of that in his consideration of his own life and see how Jesus Christ is anticip anticipated miraculously by the Old Testament prophets that he fulfills so many prefigurations and messianic prophecies um and that he is ultimately part of your plan for the redemption of this world and that in seeing your plan for the redemption of this world that he would want to be part of that and be a small part of your ongoing redemption of this world right now in putting his faith and trust in you and becoming justified. by that faith in you. Amen. We'll see. I mean, you know, maybe it'll happen. Maybe he'll right now. I need to look in the Bible. Don't know what time it is for him here or there.
>> What matters to God more? The quantity of prayer?
>> Everyone pray. Everyone pray for this guy >> or the quality of the prayers if >> that's an interest. I like that question cuz it's not like a gotcha question. It seems to be like a genuine. So uh the answer is I mean the Bible actually very explicitly addresses this because Jesus says don't heap up empty phrases like the pagans do. So it yeah basically while there is uh there are situations of extreme emotional distress where you might just be praying the same thing over and over again which we see from Jesus in Gethsemane um ultimately you should be praying something that has meaning that has substance to it. Hello Axiom. Um, yeah, you shouldn't just be praying the same thing, the same memorized prayers over and over again.
>> It's the quantity that matters. How come the most popular team doesn't always win the Super Bowl? And if it's the quality that matters, how come people we really love, people who are close to us, how come they died no matter what we say to God?
>> Well, that doesn't Sorry. So that doesn't prove that it's the the quality that matters or the quality mattering doesn't mean that just because you care about something more it's automatically going to succeed. Um ultimately there are one aspect of the prayer having quality I would say is that the prayer comes from a place that is honoring God and not just entirely self-s serving and also recognizes that God is sovereign over certain things like life and death. Like that's the thing. I never would pray for God to stop someone dying as if he doesn't have the authority to ignore that prayer. Oh, hello. The camera just froze. That's a bit weird. Um, but yeah, no, obviously like uh what what I can hope is that he might I mean like Jesus prayed, right? um I if this cup can be taken from me then good but if not not my will but yours that's I think that's the basic kind of I don't want to die or I don't want this person to die prayer which is if there's some way around this then please could you um go down that other route but if not I accept that this is ultimately your choice is it possible that your prayers have no supernatural effect and only serve to make you feel better. Um, so I mean obviously it's possible, but then it's kind of like it's it's possible. I remember one time I had a conversation with an atheist where they just said, "Is it possible that God doesn't exist?"
I think that well said, "Is it possible you're wrong about God existing?" I was like, "Yeah, it's possible I'm wrong."
And they were like, "All right, well, in that case, that's fine. You know, we don't need to have the rest of the conversation." I was like, "Okay, cool."
Like, it was almost like they viewed me just saying, "Well, it's possible I'm wrong." as like, "That's it. That's victory enough for them." It's like, yeah, I mean, it's possible I'm wrong about pretty much everything, right? So, yeah, obviously it's possible that prayer isn't actually affecting anything. And personally, I don't have any incredible stories of answered prayer. I did have Oh, no, no, I didn't. No, sorry. I didn't actually have a a story of I had a story of something that felt kind of serendipitous in a really shocking way, but it wasn't actually a prayer. So, >> and if that were true, would you ever admit it? Is there >> um I wouldn't I don't think there's any way you could know it's true. Like, that's the thing. So, I guess the answer is if it was true, would I ever admit it? No.
Because even if it was true, I don't think there's any way I could possibly confirm beyond all doubt that it is true.
>> Anything in your life right now that makes you doubt God's existence? Um, I I think the only thing I would say that is in my life that makes me doubt God's existence would be like I don't know how to put this, but like um all of the uh sort of gross sex things I'm aware of, you know, cuz like sometimes I think to myself, um well, cuz here's the thing that there's things in the universe that make me think, oh, That's weird. Like basically like things like sec uh higher dimensions and stuff like that. I'm always like well why why why did God make like why bother with all these higher dimensions things like that? Um but the reason why I say what I say is because sometimes I think to myself that there's this idea or I think maybe a desire to imagine sin as always kind of in some way dignified.
And I don't know if anyone's going to agree with me on this, but I always kind of imagine like when you think about s like, oh, you know, I've oh, I've been self- serving and blah blah blah and all that kind of stuff. And in that context, it sort of seems like, oh, but we're called to something greater. I guess that's what I'm thinking. I always like when you think about sin, sin is often this kind of um this thing where it feels like it can still be part of this this redemptive story and almost have some kind of role in that redemptive story where like I say, it's this idea of oh man, I was supposed to be uh better than this, but then when you look at the kind of depraved um goonification that happens in certain like pockets of the internet and stuff like that um and you're just aware of it as a facet of human sexuality that exists. You think to yourself, man, are we really called for something better? Are we are we really like like how is I don't know. But yeah, it just like that that's the one thing which I s think about.
Is this like really these these um I don't know if dark's the right word I I'm not even sure what the I suppose let's say undignified like these kind of undignified human desires we have. Are these actually part of some grand story of redemption where it's like yeah eventually? But I I mean I suppose the answer is yes. It just it just always seems It I it seems weird to me that human beings even have inclinations towards some of the things they have inclinations towards because you know like stealing murder I get it like that stuff is just like you know you want to steal things murder things but and obviously I'm not giving specific examples but I'm sure you know there's all sorts of like really depraved sex acts and it's like do why why do we even have that desire and it's like ultimately If we are just at base essentially just animals, it kind of makes more sense.
But again, that's one thing. So, I just thought I'd give an answer. Obviously, I think there are many other reasons to think God is real.
>> If you did doubt God's existence, how would your life change?
>> Well, I used to be an atheist. Um, if I did doubt, I mean, my life would change a lot because if I was being honest, I wouldn't be able to go to church. my marriage would suffer, but also, you know, my my friend group and I would lose the support of the church community. Of course, you could say that by me admitting that I'm admitting that I have a motive to not admit if I'm wrong. So, silly me. Was Jesus white? Why?
>> Um, so short answer is kind of.
Basically, the thing is we don't really have when you're dealing with the Middle East, the idea of whiteness kind of falls apart because obviously there are some Arabs who look really white. And because here's the thing, was Jesus white? Well, nowadays we tend to say that Greeks and Italians and Spanish people are all white.
And we wouldn't think too much of a English actor playing a Roman politician or something in in a TV show about Rome.
So, well, Rome is not that far removed from uh Palestine, and therefore there's not really a problem with a white English person playing Jesus, like an an Anglo-Saxon person playing Jesus, because there are Anglo-Saxons, there are Arabs who look like me, there are Palestinians who look like me, there are obviously there's Jews who look like me, but then, you know, you got the whole thing about to what extent are modern Jews, even actually Jews. Um, there are Iranians who look like me.
Basically, all of those kind of regions, Afghanistan, those areas. Actually, there's lots of people there who look like me. And I'm, as far as I know, pretty Anglo-Saxon, maybe a bit of Irish thrown in there, but I'm pretty just unambiguously white.
And Jesus could have looked like me. So, in some sense, was he white? Sort of. In a much more meaningful sense, the whole racial category thing doesn't even really work when you go that far back in time.
>> Why does it seem God is more likely to help someone who's a talented athlete over a starving child overseas?
>> Well, so he's not is the answer. Um, obviously in reality that talented athlete is more successful because they're a talented athlete and they probably don't actually need God very much. um in terms of succeeding at their athletic career. And I would say a lot of talented athletes probably aren't saved, but I mean, you know, I'm sure some am. Some some am, some are. Uh yeah, ultimately the reality is, like I say, God's not going to completely overturn everything.
So, of course, someone who is a talented athlete is going to, if they are helped by God, be helped by God in a way that's going to be much more obvious than a starving child who then being helped by God might be them just finding food that day when they otherwise wouldn't have.
>> Why does God seem to hate Africa? If a >> Okay, then why does God seem to hate Africa? Obviously, I mean there is just the basic fact actually Africa is uh not super bad. Like ultimately Africa still does have nice places. This idea that Africa is just one giant impoverished starving um continent is nonsense. Um and in some ways maybe Africa is going to start doing well for itself and and actually even replace Europe. Who knows?
or replace like basically it's possible that Africa could completely develop into a really nice place in which case then well they've got all sorts of resources. There's lots of reasons why Africa isn't doing so terribly or doesn't have the uh deck super stacked against them. Ultimately though, I mean if you want to talk about why Africa is in a bad situation, you can kind of turn it around on them, right? Because the main reason why Africa got colonized, why did they get colonized? Because of um the uh collapse of the slave trade.
Why was the collapse of the slave trade so disastrous for Africa? Because Africa had built a huge amount of their economy on the slave trade and trading of Europeans. So when Europeans stopped the slave trade, Africa had a massive economic collapse which then caused a huge amount of social disorder which then meant that the Europeans were able to just sweep it all up. That's basically the the short story of how Africa got colonized. And you kind of say, well, they sort of made their own bed with that. So no, God doesn't really hate Africa. I mean, if there's one group of people God hates, it's, you know, the Jews. A >> group of people from, say, Africa came to your community with the intent to convert you to their tribal faith. Would you listen to them and take them seriously? So, obviously there's uh a few reasons why not. One, because that religion has no proven like reason to be taken seriously compared to other place.
Like obviously, Christianity would have already spread to lots of other places, been taken seriously by lots of other people. But there's also the fact that the these tribal religions, they don't have like this sophisticated theology. They don't have this um you know, a whole text about it that explains all of the deep deeper points of what's being gotten at.
Ultimately, these these tribal religions, they're very clearly just poor imitations of trying to get at true theology. Like basically primitive human beings were able to recognize some kind of supernatural dimension to the world but they didn't realize they didn't know about God through the Bible and therefore they came up with these just much vagger stories. But of course in reality none of these stories are actually compelling. That's why basically nobody is unironically a neopagan. Or would you just dismiss them because they don't believe what you already believe?
>> No. Yeah, I wouldn't dismiss them for that reason. I mean, there are other religions that I take much more seriously. They're just not random African tribal religions.
>> God speak to you personally.
>> Um, obviously not like with a literal um audible voice that I can like hear or anything like that. Um, sometimes I do feel like when I'm so often I feel like when I'm praying I do feel like I don't talk the way that I normally do. And it it sometimes praying to me feels surprisingly effortless in a way that genuinely makes me feel like I can actually there is actually a a spirit putting words into my mouth. I I do feel like that because sometimes I will start praying in a certain context like if it's um at a a church thing or something like that and people are praying and I'll start praying and I'll be like you know I'll pray cuz you know I got some stuff I need to pray about but I know and I'll like start praying like wow like as I'm praying like wow this is good this is this is good oh wow you're really touching on everything right there. Oh, and what a you and and and you're pulling in like the scriptural references to who God is and why you can trust him. Wow, you're really um and the on the subject of scripture, there's also the fact that sometimes when I'm making an argument, like the perfect piece of scripture will come to my mind.
Again, I mean, I'm not saying that's like undeniably miraculous, but as far as does God speak to me? The closest I can think of is sometimes I will find that words come to me that do not feel like they are the natural words I was using or the words I was expecting to use in that particular situation. Um pray praying can bring about the lurggical code switching. That's quite a funny way of saying it. Um king critical doesn't keep up to date with neopagan revival movements. The thing is though even those movements are they that serious right? Because when you look at the people who say, "Oh, we I I believe in Odin and stuff like saying, do you do you really though?" I mean, that's the other thing like the the problem with these pagan religions is often times just like, "Okay, they got a cool story. Okay, good. I'm glad you got a cool story. That's not a good reason to believe in a religion.
If God spoke to you and told you to kill your child, would you do it?"
>> Oh, we we did a whole video on this. I responded to Mind Shift on the story of Abraham. Uh basic answer is no.
Obviously, there's all sorts of confusing things here because you'd be like, well, you know, if I literally know it is God, which is kind of the parameters of the question, then I guess like technically, I mean, if I literally know it's God, well, wow, I got confirmation God exists. That's a weird thing to ask, but you know, I mean, I literally know this is God asking me, so maybe I guess like that. But then obviously, if you take this more as, well, if I just thought I heard God, would I ever do it? No. And that's because obviously the Bible is very clear that God doesn't agree with human sacrifice. Um that's like the whole point of the story of the binding of Isaac. So I'd be like, well, this doesn't sound like the real God. So no.
So in so far as I tend to give a a short answer, I usually would say no.
Obviously, there are there are ways you can phrase it and ways you can approach the question where you get to the answer of yes because you can just say, well, you know what? if it's definitely God and we're defining God as the perfect holy author of life who can always be trusted and blah blah blah. It's like well okay I mean I guess then technically I mean it's a weird thing for that guy to be asking but like technically but yeah there's also many ways or many reasons to say no. Uh and I would say there are more reasons to say no like the fact he just doesn't make sense theologically with even specifically the point of the bising binding of Isaac. Uh there's also the fact that even if we're saying God, well maybe this is some evil Lovecraftian trickster god. Uh because again, I mean, if this god's telling me something that doesn't seem to be in keeping with the character of God in the um in the Bible, well then maybe this is maybe uhoh sucks to discover this, but maybe the Bible God isn't true. And it turns out this actually just an evil Lovecraftian trickster god who's trying to get me to kill my child for fun. And then the answer is no. So there's many ways of saying no. If God told >> would you listen to God if he wasn't God? Yeah.
>> Told you to kill me, would you do it? Is God always >> Oh, sorry. Wait. Sorry. The question was would I Okay, so no. The answer is no.
Um I I was I was reading the comments.
There we go. Yeah.
>> Watching over you. How about >> uh yes.
>> When you're on the toilet.
>> Um yes. Obviously, we we don't know exactly what him watching over us means.
um is the short answer. And you know, it's it's probably not in the sense of like just it's maybe not in the way that we would think about it like looking through a little um spy glass and being like oo. So I that's the reality. And also to be honest, like even I I've said this before, I think Christians often are are weirdly not able to just immediately recognize that a lot of the always and um like all of the all statements in the Bible, all is often the kind of thing that is um contextual or sometimes even just metaphorical. Uh and things like all knowing, he's always watching us. this could just be a metaphorical way of referring to his um vast and extreme concern for us. So I think there are actually ways saying that God he's not actually in any way that we really need to tie ourselves in knots over directly watching me right now in a physical sense that's possible.
Again I don't know is the short answer.
I think there's a way of saying well you know if I'm praying to God he can hear me. if I'm sinning, God is probably aware of it. And he's like actually even trying to think of some kind of way to bring me back on the right track.
Whether that's gentle guidance or chastisement, ultimately it's hard to say. Having said that, I will say that if he was watching us while we're on the toilet, there wouldn't be like some inconsistency there. I mean, he did invent our um digestive tracks and things like that.
Um he's trying to mock. You can tell this is an old video because nobody would be convinced by this today. Well, yeah, this does feel like very sort of um early YouTube atheism.
>> What do you say to Muslims who believe?
>> That's something I would think about in second grade and then get scared to go poop over.
Oh dear. Yeah, >> the Quran is the holy book.
>> Oh my goodness. I mean, how what would I say? So yeah, there's just so many reasons why the Quran can't be taken seriously. Flashback to when we had that Muslim in the chat a few live streams ago who literally said that the fact that the Quran says that the sun revolves around the earth is proof that the Quran is miraculously scientifically accurate. Um yeah the the Quran is just really not a very credible book at all and there's just a wealth of reasons why we can dispute it. And I I I've been I've said before, I think a strong argument against atheism is that it doesn't make sense that there would be this massive gap between the Bible and the Quran in terms of credibility if they were both just a result of human um thought.
>> Are they wrong? Have you read?
>> Uh yes, they're wrong.
>> The Quran?
>> Yes. Um but also so to the thing is it's kind of famous to say if you read the Quran. So, uh I have at the same time it's weird cuz like with these kind of deeper books reading them isn't actually worth that much. Like I have read the Quran cover to cover, but uh I have definitely learned more about it through basically secondhand sources of people talking about it and studying specific things because ultimately I mean there's there's huge amounts of the Quran I don't really know anything about because again reading something isn't actually it's not actually all that's cracked on to me, you know, because you can if if you read like I'm guaranteeing if you read the Quran right now and and you just like power through it cover to cover. Uh obviously probably not in one sitting, although it's a reasonably short book. I feel like it might even be shorter than the New Testament, but I could be wrong about that. Um you you aren't going to cuz I mean that's the thing, right? If you just read the New Test like Christians have to study the New Testament for ages and I've read the New Testament through more times than I can count and yet there's still verses where I'm like, "Oh, I never even thought about that." Or verses I'm just completely off on. like verses I I couldn't even remember being mentioned.
So I have read the Quran, but actually that's not worth that much is the point I'm making and I actually value more. Uh learning about um like basically just just learning the basic reasons why it's incorrect and then just having conversations with Muslims about it rather than I mean it's not you're not exactly wasting your time reading the Quran. Like it's fine you can read it but you're not going to learn anything from reading the Quran.
And why >> thoughts on Tavia Singer? So, is he the Jew the Jewish guy or is he Tvia Singer?
I think he's Jewish, right?
>> You so easily dismiss their holy >> uh wait, what happened a few streams ago? So, you heard me say, right, that basically there was a Muslim who came and they said that the Quran contains scientific miracles and it was actually quite entertaining. The the stream was specifically so it was actually responding to an atheist. the it was basically an atheist who said, "Oh, we should judge the Bible by the same standards as the Quran." Was basically their argument. And they were essentially arguing Christians were hypocrites because all the criticisms we make of the Quran applied to the Bible as well. But because the Bible was because the video was about Islam. In the comment section, a Muslim showed up and you know, while I was in the middle of saying, "Oh, you know, that the reason why is if we apply the standard to the Quran, it completely falls apart, but the Bible holds up." And they're like, "No, actually the Quran is great."
book and then why do you get upset at >> wait sorry I think I probably accidentally got straight >> and why do you so is the holy book you're on the toilet would you what do you say to Muslim Quran and why do you so easily dismiss their holy book >> yeah cuz it's just it's so easy to dismiss >> and then why do you get upset at atheists who dismiss yours >> um because the issue is that there is just so much more to the Bible and to be I don't get like super upset at atheists who dismiss it. I I would say the thing that I guess bothers me about atheists who dismiss it is that what the story that the Bible is presenting is an incredible story, you know, like and there's lots of ways the way I would like to phrase it is God loves you so much that he would rather die than be in heaven without you. But if like that's the thing, most atheists I think they know the basic story of the Bible. They know enough to know this is a story about God coming down to earth, living a perfect life and dying on the cross so that in doing so he can be uh both just in terms of exacting punishment upon sin but also the justifier and that he actually takes the punishment for that sin upon themselves.
That is an incredible story and as such I I have a mild lack of respect for atheists who just refuse to engage with that story seriously at all. And then with that said, if an atheist is going to engage in that story, seriously, I think that they do need to look into the I mean, the main thing I focus on is that the prefigurations and the um sort of uh I'm trying to think of what the exact word I'm looking for, but basically the the setting up of that narrative and that redemptive plan throughout the Old Testament. and consider, could this have really just come from a human origin?
Was there really, when you look at this continuous narrative throughout the Bible, no overarching overseeing um authorship happening here.
And yeah, basically that's what I would like to see atheists consider. And I think in so far as atheists do fall short that I am disappointed basically.
But here here's the difference, right?
With the Quran, there is nothing to it. What what is like the great story of the Quran?
There's nothing. The great story of the Quran is the same story every other book offers, which is, "Oh, my guy, he heard a special command." Like, that's the interesting thing about the Bible is it doesn't matter who wrote it. It doesn't matter. Like, we're not saying, "Oh, Paul, Paul's a really great guy. John, John's where it's at. Moses, Isaiah, Isaiah, they're just the best and they they heard this stuff. So, listen to them." No, we're saying the story itself is incredible.
There is like it's actually embarrassing.
Islam has no story. What is the story?
There is no story. It's it's there's nothing. It's nothing.
The story of the Quran is just like if you ask him like what is what is the the ultimate thing about the what is the the main thing just the thing that really kind of gives it its point and I'll say the the main thing is that we have true monotheism.
Wow. Oh be I'm tearing up. You have true monotheism. Wow. No, that's not again like I it's embarrassing if if the Quran is true, which it's not, but if it was, can you imagine that? It's like you like, "Oh, my great story." It's like God's like, "Hey, everyone, my great story is that I'm just one.
There's just one of me, just one God, one person." Uh unlike that Bible where they say that I'm I'm three persons.
It's like, okay, yeah, but are you not a bit embarrassed about the fact the Bible has this incredible story that presents you, well, presents a God that is just so loving and wonderful and has this just incredible mixture of love and justice and mercy and just an intimate concern for human beings and and the human condition, this deep understanding of it. Do you not kind of feel like you you got a bit mogged there in terms of like story and significance? Is acting on one's homosexuality a sin?
>> Oh, by the way, I didn't really answer your question, but Tobias Singh, I don't really know much about him, but I will say in general, I don't take Jews to be like to me, Jews just come across as they overintellectualize and not actually very smart. Um, I've had people glorify Paul and call me agnostic when I try to question some of his writings. The thing is that I wouldn't say that's not I don't think people just saying that Paul is I mean obviously Christians do respect Paul because Paul is I mean he he actually does have an incredible story in itself.
Um but I think obviously the main thing is that we respect Paul um in terms of his contributions to the Bible and Christian theology and the Christian religion and that when you um go against or when you question some of his writings obviously you open up a can of worms about like well then how do Um, how do we determine what in the Bible we're actually going to take seriously? I feel like I got distracted from what you said. Wait, >> atheists who dismiss yours? Is acting on one's homosexuality a sin?
>> Uh, so again, too too big of a question.
Essentially, what's undeniable is that the Bible condemns um many things that are common with homosexuality, which would be promiscuity. Uh, I mean, that's I mean, clearly the Bible condemns promiscuity. And when you look at certain statistics, it's very clear that in gay culture, uh, there's a huge amount of promiscuity is in a hypothetical scenario, and I'm not saying this is necessarily hypothetical, but in a hypothetical scenario of someone who has a relationship that is exactly equivalent to my relationship with my wife, where it's a monogous relationship, it is um characterized by uh fidelity and chastity, you obviously when appropriate and things like that.
Uh and they're like, "Yeah, I have that same thing, but I'm a dude and it's with another dude." Is that necessarily immoral?
I don't know. Because but what I do know is that certainly the Bible is unambiguously condemning in broad terms homosexuality as it manifests in the vast majority of cases. because in the vast majority of cases this is something and you don't have to look too far around in the gay community and you'll see plenty of evidence of it being um yeah I mean we really don't have to go much further than just the fact that it's promiscuous and the amount of promiscuity is clearly a problem even just in strict scientific terms. I mean it's led to all sorts of terrible results whatever. Um, obviously because I'm not personally gay, I don't know exactly what's going on through a gay person's heart when they decide to do that. Casey, who are your favorite Christian streamers? Good question. Uh, so interestingly, with streamers, I mean, the only one I can think of is needed God.net.
And there's a few people I'm subscribed to because I'm like, oh, they make good stuff. But to be honest, I I must confess, I don't really end up watching their streams because there's someone called um I'm not going to remember his name. I'm going to check. I think it's called like the Bible line. See if I'm They stream often enough that I often see them in like chat. Uh oh, where is Yeah. Okay. Yeah, Bible Line. Yeah, Bible Line. They do they do streams and I think their streams are pretty good, but I don't watch them that often to be honest. So, yeah, in terms of streams, that's what I would say. Um, anyway, sorry, I got distracted by something.
>> Is homosexuality itself a sin? Do you believe >> I feel like that was so I guess he means is homosexual attraction itself a sin? I don't I don't care. Um it might speak to some kind of sexual um sinful inclinations possibly because in a lot of cases I think it maybe comes from a broader intense indiscriminate sexual desire which is possibly a problem. Whatever >> gays and lesbians should have the right to get legally married.
>> I I don't I don't think that's like a you know in terms of legality and secularism. me. I've said before that if gay people are going to exist in society, it's probably better that they get married because then they're, you know, like then that establishes some sort of standard, which isn't the case.
It's just like, oh no, yeah, you can just sleep around with whoever you want.
So, I guess that's my answer. It's not really a a Christian thing, I don't think.
>> Would your church ever marry a gay or lesbian couple?
>> No, it wouldn't.
>> If not, and you believe that they should have the right to marry, why do you remain in that church? I I I've spoken about this before and I increasingly unironically believe it. Uh re reconquist reconquist 2026. I think that if someone's gay and they're genuinely like, hey, I believe in the gospel, but I I'm gay and I I totally am fine with being gay. I love being gay. Being gay is the best, but I'm a a saved Christian and I fully believe in God, but I'm just I I think that actually um he he would understand that I'm just gay and that's fine. Then I always say, "All right, then go to a mainline church because they'll accept you for being gay." And while you're there, you know, if you really want to preach the gospel, preach the gospel at the mainline church because Lord knows that they need the gospel at the mainline church. So that's that's what I'm calling it. The reconquer 2026. Take that, Redeem Zuma.
And that's basically my stance. You know, at the end of the day, I'm fine going to my church cuz I'm not gay. if I was gay and I genuinely was like, you know what, I I truly feel that um the the the passages in the Bible that talk about homosexuality, I don't think they're talking about me and my relationship with my husband because it's just my my relationship with my husband. It's pure. It's wonderful. It's a beautiful, loving thing that is just honorable and fantastic in every single way. And I just don't see how the description of uh homosexuality in the Bible applies to it at all. It's just it just doesn't resonate with me. I just think it must be wrong. Um if that was the case, then I guess I would probably go to an Anglican church. I'd be like, "Hey, you know, here's my husband. Here I am." And uh you know, we're going to teach you guys how to preach the gospel properly. That's what I would do. But that's not me, so I don't concern myself with it.
Why would God create people who are gay and then punish them for being gay? So again, obviously people So let's substitute gay here for homosexualities that manifest a lot of time. Why would God create these people who are um people like Freddy Mercury, you know, people who just slept around a huge amount? had, you know, I mean, you seen that like picture of Freddy Mercury is just he's like on a bed surrounded by like 20 guys. Um, why would God create someone like that and then punish him for having sex with like 20 guys in one night and then getting AIDS and dying?
Um, I think the answer is pretty simple, right? It's that just because you have that desire doesn't mean it is something that you should act on. And actually, it's quite a good thing to have the ability to moderate your desires. I mean, you could just as well ask, you know, why does God create me with the desire to sleep in until 910 a.m. every morning, but he says that sloth is a sin. So, instead, I have to force myself out of bed at like 6:40. The answer is actually very simple. It's that uh it's that actually it it self- disccipline is a good thing. So basically that that's it, right? God creates people with all sorts of different sinful desires. Um and we're just supposed to resist it. If God is already sending gay people who act on their homosexuality to hell, why do so many Christians feel the need to persecute them here on earth? Why is >> I I don't care. Okay, whatever. We're going to start skipping through some of these questions because I'm realizing that this is a six-minute video and I'm on track to be doing it not finishing it in one part which would be terrible.
>> Is God playing hideand seek with all of humanity? Do you believe?
>> Okay, that's way too much of a giant question. No, obviously God is not playing hide-and-seek. You can uh find him in the Bible. Uh there's actually plenty of evidence there to be found.
people who are ignoring him for the most part are willfully not choosing to engage with the biblical text which I think gives very strong evidence for God uh and you know God's hand on it and it'll ship >> believe Jesus is coming back to earth during your lifetime. Do I believe? Um, no. I think there's a possibility. I think there's maybe some reason to think that because it it kind of seems to me like uh the world is kind of accelerating in a way like when you look at how much cuz ulteniable that things have changed so much in say the last century.
But just imagine where we were in 1926 and you think where we are now. It seems like there is this insane acceleration.
So, I'm kind of like, how much further can it go? But that that's all I'll say.
>> If you do, what do you say to all those people who have been saying the same thing for centuries and who are no longer with us?
>> Yeah, I just anticipated that. There you go.
>> Why is the story of Jesus's birth and life so similar to that of mythological beings who lived before his time?
>> This is a well-known uh falsehood. This isn't actually true. uh these stories are totally um uh like manipulated and misrepresented.
>> And if you want to hear about those stories, we'll leave a link below. How do you decide which sections of the Bible are literally true and which ones are just metaphorical?
>> Okay, what are so this is actually a very easy thing to do. First of all, you can look at the fact that different parts of the Bible are easily grouped together. So, for example, if you look at the story of Job, there is no reason to think that Jo like Job could easily have literally happened. There's nothing to suggest it's impossible that someone had a really bad life, but because it is nestled right in the middle of uh Psalms and Proverbs and um Ecclesiastes and these books that are very much like treaties on life that don't have a narrative element to them, we can conclude that Job is presenting a um sort of thought experiment. Basically, it's telling us a story about this uh hypothetical person who goes through his life and his musings on what's happening are yeah, basically should be read in the same way that we read Psalms and um and Proverbs and Song of Solomon where it's not necessarily talking about literal people. It's just a reflection on these human conditions. The other thing I say, and I spoke about this before, is that it's very clear when you look at the Bible, you look at the authorship of the Bible, that people were writing close to the events they're describing. So, it does make sense to say that the further removed the authors get from the events they're describing, the more likely it is that they're going off impartial knowledge, which is basically my response to uh the issue of uh how do we interpret the first few chapters of Genesis? Well, those were written by Moses. Moses wasn't there to witness that stuff. So, it's very likely that he was just going off of the understanding available to him at the time. That's not even like a literal verse metaphorical thing so much. It's just a case of historical books are going to be reflections of the historical knowledge available to people at the time because again the Bible is God inspired. It is the word of God. It is God breathed but mediated through humans and all their idiosyncrasies.
What are >> the minimum requirements for being a Christian?
>> Yeah, whatever. I mean I've spoken about this before. Um, so I personally I would say that the minimum requirement in my view for being a Christian is actually to believe the the gospel which means specifically salvation by faith alone.
And obviously I mean in a way like I I would say oh and then also kind of the trinity and stuff like that. I don't even I I almost feel like actually the important things of the trinity are entailed in salvation by faith alone if you recognize the mechanism by which that happens which is of course Christ's atonement on the cross because again it doesn't really work if you don't have the fact that he was sinless and he can't have been sinless if he wasn't God um and yeah whatever it works but yeah we're going to try and just blast >> and who falls under that definition >> me >> Phelps >> yes >> Pat Robertson >> probably James Dobson?
>> I don't know who that is.
>> President Obama?
>> Um, probably not.
>> Do you really?
>> Probably most politicians. No.
>> Believe Mary was impregnated without ever having sex.
>> Yes.
>> If someone came up to you and said she was pregnant, but she was totally a virgin, would you believe her?
>> Uh, so I already kind of covered this.
Basically, we have these miracles in order to authenticate uh prophets who are revealing new revelations. And people need a reason to be like, "Well, why should I take this revelation seriously? Oh, there's a miracle that shows this person must have been authentic." Um, and and of course, so yeah, that that's one thing. But of course, the other thing is there's a very specific reason why Jesus was born to a virgin and it was because Jesus was going to live this sinless life. So while I don't think it is exactly a sin to have been conceived through sex, um ultimately it does speak to Christ's kind of unique puress that he wasn't even born through physical culation.
>> Why did God have to rape a teenage girl in order to become human?
>> So it's it's not rape. Uh he didn't have to do it in order to become human. Uh but obviously God works through human beings. That's just kind of a common thing he did. Uh yeah, as for it being rape, uh ultimately God is in a position to know how she would have feel felt about it. So it's pretty much obviously the thing that you want with sex is consent and especially affirmative consent and ultimately sometimes miscommunication happens because uh you know human beings are complicated. The good news is that God is able to understand human beings on a deep level. So you could say that what happened with Mary was the least rape of uh to have ever been in the history of sex because even uh even regular human beings might find it's like well you know I don't know if I don't know if she really wanted I don't know if she was really comfortable with that blah blah blah whatever. God doesn't even have to worry about that cuz he is God. If you could go back in time to when Jesus was being crucified, would you try to save him or would you stand back and do nothing since your entire faith depends on him being crucified?
>> Well, again, I think ultimately I would have to based on the fact that he told his disciples to not intervene. Yeah, it would seem like if I did try to intervene, he would just tell me not to.
So, pretty simple one. What would it take to change your mind about God's existence?
>> Uh, I'm not I'm not doing that one. I think like basically if someone show like a really big problem in the Bible, that would be a a big problem. That would throw me for a loop.
>> You think it's a little strange when someone says they're going to believe in something no matter what, even when all the evidence seems to point in the other direction.
>> Yeah, I think that would be weird if someone said that.
>> What is something your pastor has said in church that you totally disagree with? And when that happened, >> Wait. Sorry. Wait.
matter what, even when all the evidence seems to point in the other.
>> That's a good point. You don't need to say it was sex either. Yeah, that's a good point. Like, it wasn't even sex, right? It was just a a miraculous pregnancy. Um, >> direction. What is something your pastor has said in church that you totally disagree with?
>> This is really funny. I actually emailed my pastor recently because he uh said some stuff that sounded kind of work salvation-y. Um you know, I'm going to read you what and again this is not to look I don't know if I don't know is this I'm going to read you what he said.
I'm I'm read I'm saying this just because um I think it's probably kind of useful for um like instruction or something. I don't I feel like there there is a logic to it. Um, and I don't think like just for the record, this is not me like saying, "Oh, I'm going to call that." I just think it's it's interesting to show this is an example, a very explicit example I can point to is something that was said that I disagree with. So, um, this this is and I actually went back and I found the sermon and I uh and I I got the transcript.
If people choose to reject Jesus's rule over them, God will honor that choice, but the consequence is to be removed from his blessing. Now we might think that this is only a warning to those who refused to believe. But remember that the religious leaders were were the believers of their day. They might have thoughts they were living for God but they were actually living for themselves. They might have been claimed to be submitted to God but actually only doing what was best for them. So every believer and every church must also beware of rejecting the authority and supremity supremacy of Jesus. So again, the parable is asking us, do we refuse Jesus in some way in any way? Does he have authority over every part of our life? Are we bearing the fruits that God expects of us? We claim to repent of our sin, turn away from it. Is there fruit that shows that? Are there things that maybe we don't, we won't let Jesus touch, won't let him have a say in, but beware of rejecting the son. The consequences are great. So, I heard that and I'm sure as you can maybe anticipate um my thought was that sounds a little work salvationy um because you know obviously he's saying hey you know the Jews they were rejecting Jesus and that had a serious consequence but in a way it's like we're doing that when we don't let Jesus have authority over every part of our lives.
So I basically emailed him and I included that quote and I said, "Hey, you know, this is a little bit concerning because obviously nobody lets Jesus be in authority over every part of our life. We all have things that we sin, all have moments where there are things we won't let Jesus have a say in." I basically pointed out that his wording kind of makes it sound like every single Christian is going to hell and that Christians need to work to uh basically bring their entire life into line with Jesus's commands in order to avoid the same fate as the religious leaders of Jesus's day, which is to say the unsaved Jews. Um, so I emailed him, which I think the next question was going to be, >> "And when that happened, did you confront your pastor about it or did you just let it slide?"
>> Okay, so there we go. I again, Confront is like an aggressive I I I offered up a a gentle, friendly uh expression of my thoughts to my pastor.
>> Why are there so >> Okay, so I was I wasn't sure if there's going to be another thing. Anyway, and then he basically replied and he said, "Yeah, um, reading it back, I think it was a little bit clumsily worded." And basically he then said, "Obviously, uh, I I don't actually believe that."
And yeah, again, whatever. He he had a response. Like I say, we're we're kind of trying to get through this video, but there you go. That's that's a little story for you.
>> So many Christian denominations and are the people who are in those.
>> So why are there so many? Obviously, part of it is just kind of unimportant things. Ultimately, it's not the worst scenario in the world if there are like two different denominations. Like if someone's a different denomination than me, I don't think it's an issue. When there are denominational splits over serious matters, that is, I think, a lot of the time because of rebellion, because people refusing to read the word of God or people just kind of having wrongheaded ideas um that aren't necessarily salvation issues, but just they've missed the point.
>> Different denominations, bad Christians.
>> I mean, no, it depends on the denomination. Obviously, there are different denominations where people do believe seriously wrong things. wrong.
Which denomination is right?
>> Mine >> or which group of denominations is right?
>> Uh broadly evangelical Baptist.
>> Who or what do you think is responsible for natural disasters like earthquakes or tsunamis? So obviously God like I say created the universe with uh logic and laws and things like that and basically the the way the world works is that those things happen in the ultimate sense. God is responsible for them but obviously he doesn't directly individually cause them in the same way that kind of pagans imagine it. Can you pause the video right now and tell me what the Ten Commandments are?
Don't have any other god before God.
Don't take Oh, don't make any idols of God. Don't take the Lord's name in vain.
Honor the Sabbath day and keep it holy.
Honor your father and mother.
Do not murder.
Do not steal. Do not commit adultery.
Don't do false witness.
Don't cover it. Boom.
>> And if you know them, and good for you if you do, why do so many Christians believe that the first four of them belong on government property and in the classrooms?
>> I don't care.
>> Would you feel comfortable saying the pledge of allegiance in class every day if the words were, "One nation under no God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all?"
>> No. I I mean the pledge of allegiance is kind of a silly idea in general. I think I can skip this one.
>> Do you think it's again since we're we're past the time when I would usually be recording. So we're powering through.
>> Just a coincidence that different religions are popular in different parts of the world.
>> Uh this guy's Reddit personified. Yeah, he does kind of have that vibe. Uh no.
So obviously the thing is what I actually think is is insane is that uh this religion that was originally confined to just such a small pocket of the world in uh Roman Judea Palestina has now gone on to spread to become the again like nominally dominant religion.
Obviously again you could get into the fact that Catholics aren't really Christians and obviously even people who are kind of theologically on the right track when it comes to their religion or sorry even people who are normally on the right track when it comes to religion don't always necessarily believe it. I realize all that but just in terms of its cultural influence and significance and uh its recognition by the majority of people to be nominally Christianity. Christianity is the dominant religion on what six and a half continents. The only one it hasn't fully conquered is Asia or sorry the only one that it doesn't have much of an impact in at all is Asia. But like that's actually insane to me. So actually this idea of wow isn't it crazy that different religion? No actually it's like the vast majority of the world is Christian. Some parts of it are Muslim and then there's like India and China and that's it. Boom. And again China is becoming quite evangelical now as well.
>> Do you believe that if you were born in Saudi Arabia you would be a Muslim rather than a Christian?
>> I I honestly don't think so. I think that I am naturally inquisitive enough that I think I would have become a Christian no matter what. Like genuinely, I think my vibe is that I I do just, you know, I'm kind of a genius.
>> Is it possible that religion has less to do with what's true and more to do with the circumstances of where and when you were born? So whether an individual person like religion in terms of what the average person believes probably yes in terms of the ultimate truth uh no obviously it's it's necessarily about what's true not about where you were born. I mean obviously for example someone's belief in certain scientific ideas is going to vary depending on where they were born. If they were born like a very kind of traditional uh area that's kind of cut off from the rest of the world then they'll likely believe a lot more crazy ideas. Apparently a certain percentage of people in Iceland believe in elves and it's like over half the population or something like that.
But yeah, basically even then though you wouldn't say well is the existence of elves about where you were born or about ultimate truth.
Well it's about ultimate truth obviously. Do you believe child birth is an example of a miracle? Does that mean Hitler was once a miracle baby?
>> Okay.
Uh child birth is in a kind of metaphorical like we obviously talk about it being American say oh isn't it beautiful blah blah blah was Hitler's birth in some way beautiful uh yeah I would say Hitler's birth was in some way beautiful and a light a life entered into the world isn't that nice >> and if childbirth is a miracle how come that miracle happens thousands and thousands of times every week >> this is that's a weird one to end on so that was this 78 questions and you end on like one that's just like quite weak actually like the the final question is just oh man you know child birth is a miracle but it happens pretty often kind of funny isn't it I don't know weird weird ending I would say but whatever okay >> my name is he met Meta and I write it friendly atheist >> oh he met Meta what did I say his name was I think I I wanted to call him Medi Hassan which is again I knew it wasn't him um anyway.com So, that's that. I think we're done. I kind of I feel really sleepy. I think I just got tired because of like the rapid fire nature of the questions. I think um Oof, that's that. Oh, uh so my wife is being induced. I mentioned this, but my wife's being induced on Wednesday. So, as always, keep us in your prayers um in that regard um for the uh forthcoming baby. Pray for everything in that regard. it would be very much appreciated. Um, and I'm not going to, of course, based on that make any promises as to when I'll see you. We'll see exactly what the temperament of the baby is. Um, hello Wesley Curry. Good to have you here. And yeah, of course, remember to give the streamer a like um on your way out or indeed on your way in if you happen to have just arrived. Have you chosen a name? Yes. Uh, Jonathan Anthony. There we go. That's a first and middle name. I almost wouldn't mind telling you my surname because it's actually so common, it doesn't matter. There you go. I'll tell you my surname. My surname is Brown. There you go. So, if you ever wonder, my surname is Brown. Good luck doxing me based on one of the most common surnames that there probably is.
So, Jonathan Anthony Brown. Um, my name is Michael Anthony Brown, in case you're There we go. So, I assume most you knew my first name is Michael, but again, I I keep my uh second name somewhat secretive as if it isn't such a common name. Anyway, um thanks Wesley Curry. That's very enthusiastic. Anyway, I'll see you all um again later at some point. We'll see.
And who knows, it might be a situation where because I can stream with the baby in my hands. Of course, there's also the World Cup happening soon, so I don't know how I'm going to negotiate that. Um all right, bye everyone. See you all later.
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