The Bible contains cosmological claims (such as a solid dome sky) that conflict with modern scientific understanding, and Christians must decide whether these passages represent divine accommodation (God using familiar ancient concepts to convey theological truths) or literal revelation, which raises questions about how to distinguish between the two and whether an all-knowing God would intentionally communicate inaccurate information.
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The Bible Is UNBELIEVABLE! Disagree? Call in
Added:All right, looks like we're good to go.
What's up, folks? Welcome to Echapot.
Let's get ready to dive in.
Uh, let me make sure we got everybody in. Go live on Instagram. Should be live now. And let me check Facebook to make sure we're good there.
Come on into the chat.
Let's get ready to do the do.
Uh Daryl Williams, I don't know if anybody's ever gonna beat you into the chat, my guy. I appreciate you showing up and ready to rock.
Salutations indeed.
I'm posting a link in uh Facebook right now.
Make sure I pin it.
This is a call-in show today.
Mondays and Tuesdays are call-ins.
Thursday, uh, exit strategy, even though this week will not be doing exit strategy on Thursday, because tomorrow night, Wednesday night, I'm going to be on the line with Matt Dahanti. So, I'm going to be taking Thursday off and then getting ready to travel uh Friday. So, um, this week it'll be Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, no Thursday.
All right, let me pin this and make sure we're good to go there. Okay.
Yes. So, come on into the chat. Greet somebody in reason's name. Let's get ready to do the do without faith is here. Good to see you. Says, "Yay! Even Colin time, I made it." Oh, even Cali time. Is that Kelly? Even Kelly time I made it. That's what's up. Uh, without faith, I'm just curious being where you are. So, it's 2:30 where you are. I used to come on somewhere between 3 and 4. Is later greater or is earlier um more the move.
My unique Monique, what's up? Says good afternoon everyone and welcome in reasons name. David Deau says hey.
All right.
And I agree. I don't say this often enough. I hardly ever say it. I'm not a good promoter of anything. I just I'm be honest with you. But yes, make sure to like and share and subscribe while you're here. And if you are a subscriber, you know, I've been putting up more shorter videos to make it easier to share with folks. So, if you say, "Man, I can't really support like I'd like to." One way you can support is by sharing the content and sparking up conversations with folks.
um would appreciate that. But in the meantime, I want to give a shout out to uh the Patreon supporters. Thank you guys so much for showing your appreciation. I appreciate that. And uh if your name is on the screen, yep, your name is in my heart for real. For real. um the book There is a God by Anthony Flu. Because of my travel and everything else that's going on, we're going to be doing that April, what did I say? April 15th, 14th.
Uh oh, sorry, April 15th or 16th. Uh might do both of them, but it's going to be at least one of those. I'll put that in the Patreon soon.
Um, and then Saturday, August 1st, I'm going to be doing a show with Derek Cologne, a Christian who called who uh called in, I think two weeks ago. Um, sent him my book. He's been reading the book, and we're going to be going through it, discussing it on August the 1st, which is a Saturday. All right, preliminaries out the way. And already got a caller in, and I believe this this is an atheist caller, a former Christian at least.
uh David Dau, but he's not at the ready at the moment.
Oh, here he goes. [laughter] Let me bring in David the Bau real quick. Well, let me make sure there's nothing else I need to say preliminarily.
Um I think we're good to go. Anything I'm forgetting, I'll come back on the other side. But let me bring in David real quick. What's up, David? What's good, man?
>> Hey, Brady, can you hear me? Okay, >> I can. And I forgot to connect my Bluetooth. So, give me one second.
There's always so much when I'm getting ready to do these shows, y'all. Like, I'm trying to get clips and uh Bible verses and all that kind of stuff, and then I forget something as simple as making sure the Bluetooth is connected.
One second, David.
>> Yeah.
>> All right. Say something else.
>> Okay. Testing one, two, three, 4.
>> Why can't I hear you?
One more time.
>> Test test. Mic check. One, two, three.
>> Can y'all hear David? Because I can't.
Maybe it's me.
Bluetooth is on. The right one is connected. Why can't I hear you?
Let me know if you can hear David. Say something else. David, >> I'm um calling in.
>> So, y'all hear him? Why wouldn't I be able to? Let me disconnect and reconnect the Bluetooth.
Let me try to play something real quick.
Uh, what can I play?
>> I'm calling in Brady show.
>> Oh, now I hear you. I don't know what happened. I hear you fine, man.
I didn't do anything different, but now I hear you. So, my fault. What's good?
>> Okay. Hey, hey, so mic check one, two, three. You got me now?
>> Yep, you're good.
>> All right. Good to know.
>> I'm gonna turn you up a little bit. Uh, so I'm going to keep this short again.
Uh, both because we want to prioritize theist callers and because this is a little bit of a follow on from your show yesterday and so it's not even quite on today's topic.
>> So if you indulge me like I'll try to keep this to just a couple of minutes if I can.
>> Something that your call uh yesterday put me in mind of because it was about questions for an atheist. Uh something that I read and studied during my time in seminary that's kind of stuck with me ever since was uh a book on Christian ethics written by a Catholic. And one of his arguments had to do with the debate following the Second World War and the Holocaust about >> what could ethically be done with scientific research performed by Nazis who had obtained that knowledge inhumane experiments on their victims. M >> and so there was a faction of people who were putting forth the argument um at least something good maybe could be redeemed from the horrors inflicted on all of these victims.
>> Maybe uh >> advances in in human health and and flourishing can come from this. And then uh there was another faction of people saying >> absolutely not. Uh this research must be destroyed. there is no ethical way to use it because of the way in which it was obtained.
>> Uh and to continue to use it would like put the impremature of legitimacy on uh on the things that were done to the victims of the Holocaust.
>> Hey Daryl Williams, I see your uh I see your chat there. It was uh Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary on the north shore of Massachusetts.
Um [sighs] so >> a scholar who wrote this uh book on ethics was taking the side of the people who said no there is no moral no ethical way to use uh research that was obtained in such an inhumane way.
>> Now he then turned to apply that to the question of what to do with aborted fetal tissue.
That's really what he was driving at.
>> I was thinking two things. I was thinking about that in regards to stem cell research and all that.
>> I also was thinking about I don't know if this came into your mind but it was immediately in my mind a lot of medical advances came from them performing experiments on unwilling unwitting Africans in America during slavery. And so things that they did to study the female body, uh, incredibly inhumane things that they now we now know how the female body works because we had these.
So I I can't even imagine how I would begin to to process the question of do you throw away the insights and the advancements gained from that because of the source because like you said, you don't want to green light that. You don't want to ever I don't even know where I would even go, but go ahead. I'm just Go ahead. Yeah.
>> No, I appreciate that. And for that matter, uh what you said about um things done to uh African-Americans, you know, even continuing after slavery. I remember about a year and a half ago, I uh read the book um the um the the something life. I can't remember the adjective of of Henry at Alax and just the whole history of how they obtained her cell line and what it's been used for since. That was just >> powerful book.
>> Uh the immortal life of Henry at Alax.
That was it.
>> Anyway, um as part of this ethicist's argument that he's marshalling, uh he actually invokes something that's even going to be a little bit topical today because we just had the movie The Odyssey out. Um but during uh the predecessor book, The Iliad, part of the account of the um the Trojan War involves the hero Achilles slaying his chief rival Hector and then >> um disgracing the dead corpse of Hector by dragging it by chariot around the city of Troy.
And what the scholar was getting at is we human societies tend to recognize uh that ethics apply even to the dead.
That the way we either honor or uh dispose of >> the body of of a deceased person >> is like a continuation of whatever standard of of ethics we apply to them in life. Uh, and so that that sign dragging the dead body of Hector around Troy, he was saying like >> did no further harm to Hector. He was already dead, >> but it was still a moral act or an [laughter] immoral act. And so he's again trying to say >> we can't just >> step back uh in the discussion of what to do with aborted fetal remains and say these individuals, however you want to classify them, are already dead uh and no further harm can be done to them because you know there is still >> a continuation of a moral um burden placed on what we do with it. [sighs] Now, what I'm getting at that connected to what you were saying yesterday, this is like questions for an atheist.
>> Sometimes these days, I am now an atheist. I should have led with that.
I'm sorry for people who don't know already. I'm a deconverted >> evangelical.
>> Um, my process has some similarities to uh Brady's. It happened over a long period of time until I finally just reached a point where it was the tipping point. But as an atheist now, sometimes if I'm considering a moral question, I find myself kind of agreeing with something I might have thought of as a as a Christian and having to then say, "Okay, >> why do I feel that way?" uh is it a holdover from uh the morality and the system of morality that I just sort of um absorbed uh from my Christian family and society >> uh socialization?
>> Great question.
>> Uh am I finding other reasons uh that are not based in religion to continue to hold similar kinds of positions? And in some cases I do. And in cases where I >> um am not actually sure that what I believe has a solid logical foundation, uh what do I do today as an atheist? Um >> I think most of the time I just I I sit with it and just continue to consider it. But I run into that from time to time and I expect you probably do too and a lot of us who are deconverted former Christians and now atheists >> face this kind of inner question of >> I I kind of have a sense of how I would want to establish a foundation for my morality today. Mhm.
>> But >> I'm still kind of the same person I was before in so many ways that like I'm trying to just tease out what threads in here are holdovers from Christianity.
And >> if I'm going to hold on to them, why?
>> So question for an atheist.
>> Yeah, that that's a great question. And I'm I'm going to let you go because I know you got other stuff going on. But as I think about that, me and Jay Wit, uh, who I started this podcast with, we talk about this often.
Some one of us will say something and we'll ask the other one like, "Is that a hold over from your Christian worldview?" And I often find myself saying, "I don't sometimes I think it is." And I I actually might want to shed it. But then when I think, "No, I think I want to keep that." What I often realize is wait, the only reason why I want to keep it is because that's where Christianity overlaps with humanism.
It's not because there's something unique or special about Christianity. It overlaps with my current worldview of humanism.
>> And humanism might actually do a better job of grounding it, but Christianity did a better job of maybe wording it. Or maybe it's just the familiarity I have with it. And so it feels like, so was it right? Well, no, no, it just it happened to coincide with with humanism.
Sometimes Christianity has kind of just imparted moral force to a position that is kind of essentially >> humanist because it yes >> derived from just our uh being social creatures and uh >> well that's the question Christians will ask you if you say this is moral this is immoral they'll say who's going to enforce your morality like so what you don't like the fact that I just stole your car or punched you in the face who's going to enforce it and the Christian says ah we've got a god with a gun. Like he's he's the cop on the beat that's going to come and freeze right there. And because their system has a makebelieve enforcer, the question is, is it a better system? Because at least there's the idea of enforcement so long as we don't rock the boat and show that the god's not really there.
>> Yeah.
All right.
>> I don't know if that makes it better.
Just makes it maybe Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead.
>> I don't want to take up a whole lot of today's time.
I'm going to do a show in the near future. I' I've been teasing this out for maybe over a year now. I want to do a show that's maybe a week, maybe a month on morality, but I'm still trying to get so many of my ducks in a row that I'm just like I'm going to hold off. So, yeah, we'll come back to it. I'm sure.
>> Okay. Peace.
>> Much love to you, man. Get with you.
So, I think it was a week or two ago where Matt Dillah Hunty put up a video where he says Ian um is it Ian? Uh I think it's Ian, one of the guys who I think we all most of us found out about him through Deconstruction Zone, but now you can find him on the line often. Um but Matt Delahunty says Ian changed his mind about there not being objective reality. Ian helped him to to say, "No, there is objective morality."
And I was sort of like I was I was sort of nervous to watch it because I'm like, "No, Matt, don't go that way."
[laughter] Uh but then when I finally I watched it yesterday. Yeah. Allegedly Ian, that's who it is. Uh dope. He He's real dope, dude. But um when I watched it, I was like, "Wait, I don't I didn't hear anything." I think it was actually Shannon Q a couple years ago that kind of helped me word what I was already thinking when I wrote Let There Be Gaslight. I wrote this book and the last couple chapters I dealt with morality because I wanted to figure out what do I think about morality before I hear anybody else.
And when I started hearing other people talk about morality after I had already written my book and put it out, I was like, "Yo, they're saying some of the same things I'm saying, but they just may have better better words for it."
And I think Shannon Q several years ago helped me to to word what I was saying a little better, but it was the same idea.
And I think I'm going to be on with Matt tomorrow night, so maybe I'll ask him.
I think the thing that I hear Matt saying allegedly Ian helped him arrive at to say there is objective morality.
I'm like wait that's the same thing that Shannon Q was saying like like mad long ago. Um so in my book I I sort of got to this idea. Well I don't even want to dive into it too deeply now because this isn't going to be a show about morality.
But anyway, I just say that to say the thing about those of us who have deconstructed after decon conversion and have had to reorient our world view, we're all always still putting it together. And I think it's sort of a work in progress that we're trying to arrive at either what we think about it or how to express it.
And the interesting thing is I remember when I was in in Bible college, my my um my my theology of God professor, one of my favorite professors in Bible college, he talked about the need to continue to do systematic theology. And he said it's not because we're going to discover something new about the Bible, whatever.
He says, "Maybe we will, but one of the one of the key reasons why we have theology and theologians and we do uh systematic theology." He says, "Because we can always get better at being more precise and more articulate and more accurate in what we're saying and how we're saying it." And so we refine and we refine and we refine because we can always get better at how we're saying what we're saying.
And I think that's sort of what's happening with uh um freethinkers, skeptics, atheists.
It's not that we're necessarily evolving on what we think about morality all the time. Sometimes it's I'm trying to find a better way to say this. I'm trying to get more accurate, more concise, more precise uh in how I'm saying this. or maybe I'm going to take new information into account and that's going to allow me to apply it to new situations that will augment what I was saying for the last five years. Maybe. So anyway, I say all that to say I am going to do a show on morality, several shows on morality, but I've got like copious notes on what I actually think about the subject and I'm still refining it. And I was pleasantly pleased to see in the episode that Matt did with allegedly Ian that he didn't say anything that made me say, "Oh, so I've got to go refine my thing now." I was like, "No, I I kind of was saying that already." Um, and maybe I'll watch it again in case there's some nuance that I'm missing. But, um, anyway, I don't know why I'm even saying that. I'm just I'm just sharing the ongoing process of what are we thinking? Why are we thinking that this is a good thing to think or good way to frame things and how are we framing it and can we help each other with that process? Um so that we can live better and be better. Um and even as I'm saying that I hear the Christian like what do you mean by better? Better by whose standards? And there those are all the things that I spend time thinking about how to address uh those kinds of questions. So, uh, anyhow, today's show, [laughter] unless we spend too much time on that.
Today's show is the Bible is unbelievable.
And I'm sorry, I'm 20 minutes in and I'm just getting to the the topic, but you've you've seen it in the title already. If you're on Facebook, if you're on Instagram, you want to call in. If you're on Facebook, the link is pinned there. If you're on Instagram, go up to my bio and you'll see where it says the Bible is unbelievable.
Disagree, call in and you'll be able to call in. Uh, click the link there and call in if you're here on YouTube. Um, it's the top comment, but I will post it again. And I'm sure somebody with a wrench has Oh, there it is. My unique Mon'nique just already posted it. Uh, so it's there. All right.
That's the link to call in. I'm saying the Bible is unbelievable.
Not like, yo, that's unbelievable. Like, no, that's unbelievable. Like, I can't believe that. Um, when I was reading only the Bible and only books by Christians, um, and when I turned a deaf ear to science and a deaf ear to like the things we've learned about the world, the Bible was much more believable then.
Now I I people ask me all the time like, "Hey, what would it take for you to go back to being a Christian?" Yesterday I prayed for the first time on the show. A Christian said to me, "Ah, see, you never spoke in tongues." And maybe if you had that experience where something uncontrollable was happening and the spirit of God, I don't know how I would know it was the spirit of God, but you attribute this uncontrollable thing happening as you as you vocalize and you're speaking in tongues. If you had that experience, then maybe you would have never be converted even. And I prayed the prayer yesterday. My sister uh probably jokingly my sister text me today and said, "How's it going? Like any did anything happen?" Uh, no, nothing happened. Uh, I'mma pop some gummies in a minute.
Maybe as the gummies kick in, maybe the spirit will kick in, too. I don't know.
But nothing's happened. And I'm trying to trying to, you know, lend myself to like what what position do I need to bend myself into for the spirit of God to say, "Oh, now perfect.
Got you." And then make me speak in tongues or something. I don't know. But I'm trying to It's not like I'm trying to believe because I can't make myself believe, but I'm trying to be open to what a God would do.
Um, but even if that happened, I think I would still struggle with, "Okay, God, now that I think you're real, now that I think you even showed up, I still You want me to believe that? I don't know how I'm going to get back to believing that.
Like maybe I could do the thing that some Christians do where they make so much of it metaphorical and figurative that you just like see it doesn't have to make sense or it doesn't have to be historical. It doesn't have to because it's it's this other thing.
But if so much of it is metaphorical at some point you've got to get to something real.
And the New Testament authors talk about the Old Testament as if it's something real. And so my question is always going to be like, what are you saying is real in this book?
And if it's all just a matter of faith, I'm going to have a hard time keeping the faith.
Um, and so I would love for some Christians to call in.
And if you're a Bible believer, help me understand why you believe the Bible.
Because I don't know how you can believe the Bible and know the things that I think we can now know about the world.
If you don't know those things, then yeah, you could believe the Bible.
There's nothing that's going to challenge it. But once you start realizing, wait, we already know this and we know this and we know this, yet the Bible says that.
So, I do have a caller. Uh caller, your microphone is muted. If you unmute the mic, then I'll know that you can hear me and you're ready to come on to the the the the pod.
Your camera is off. I would even enjoy seeing the person I'm talking to, but you don't have to turn your camera on.
If you do, that would be great. But soon as you unmute your mic, I will Oh, there we go. All right.
Welcome to APAD.
>> Turn my camera on right now.
>> Kenny, what's up, Kenny?
>> What's up?
Chilling, chilling, chilling. I heard you say you can't turn your camera on right now. No problem. It's all good.
Kenny, have we spoken before?
>> Yeah. Yeah, we spoke. We We speak on Facebook all the time.
>> On Facebook? How about on here? Have you ever spoken on here before?
>> Yeah.
>> Okay. Please don't take it personal. I I I won't remember. Maybe if we get deeper into the call, I'll like, "Oh, it's you." Uh, but for those who don't remember, like I don't my name on here.
I put Kenny as my middle name, but this is Aaron.
Aaron, I'm sorry it's still not ringing a bell. So, but it probably will if we talk a little bit more. So, don't take that personal at all. I talked to many many people and so I'm not going to remember them all right away. But can you remind me then? Uh uh should I call you Kenny or Aaron? Which do you prefer?
>> You can call me Kenny. That's cool.
>> Kenny, uh are you theist? Are you atheist? Are you agnostic? Where are you at with the question of God?
>> I'm a theist.
theist. And are you a theist of any particular stripe?
>> You can just I'm a Protestant.
>> Protestant. So, Christian, Bible believing.
>> Yeah.
>> And I'm sure you remember how this goes.
I'm just I'm curious. If you're a Bible believing Christian, do you believe that the Bible is inherent or infallible?
>> Oh, yeah. You asked me this before. Um, >> yeah.
>> Okay, cool. So I'm saying today that the Bible is unbelievable but you find it believable.
>> Yeah. Why would you say the Bible is unbel unbelievable?
>> Uh from my perspective it says so many things that I just I I call BS on unless you say oh that was a metaphor but then once you call it a metaphor I'm going to have a bunch of other problems. So let's just say for instance, right, uh Genesis 1, I think it's verse uh four maybe. Uh one of the things that God does in the beginning is God creates a firmament.
And depending on what Bible that you read, that word is going to be translated differently. Some versions say firmament, some say vault, some say um uh what are some of the other words?
Um dome. Basically, it paints the picture that the sky, it says he called the firmament or he called the vault. He called it sky. And the word in Hebrew is raka.
And a raka is something that is like like it's it's sort of like molten metal that's been hammered out. It's hard and shiny.
>> And it's a dome. And the purpose of the dome in Genesis 1, I think it's three.
Uh the purpose of the dome I think it's Genesis 1:4. The purpose of it though is to separate the waters above from the waters below because prior to that the waters above and the waters below were being separated by the spirit of God or the wind of God which is a better translation. Um do you think that there is a hard dome covering the earth?
>> Uh doesn't it doesn't appear to be a hard dome covering the earth. doesn't appear to be right now. Maybe you don't know or maybe you know but don't believe what I'm saying. But if the Bible really does say that God created this dome to cover the earth to separate the waters above from the waters below, would you say that the Bible is is at least not being literal right there? And at most it's just untrue.
Um, not necessarily. Um, and I I don't want to be I don't want to come off as being um what's the word? Um, uh, what do you call it when you're when you try to wiggle out of something? Um, >> there's a bunch of words. I'm not sure which one you're thinking of.
>> Snaky. Like I don't I don't want to come off as as if I'm being sneaky with my answer.
>> Dishonest.
>> Can you hear me? You're breaking up. I'm not sure.
>> They said they they couldn't hear you in the chat, so I turned you up.
>> Can you hear me?
>> I can hear you. Yeah.
>> Okay. Um Yeah. So, I'm not trying to be sneaky in my response, but I would say that um it would be true in in a different way of the word true.
>> So, help me understand what you mean, >> Dora. So when you say something >> and hold on and I'm sorry I'm only I'm saying help you help me understand what you mean because Christians have a variety of ways that they deal with this. Some say it could be phenomenological language meaning God let them write about the way it appeared to them.
>> Say again.
>> I'm an accommodationalist.
>> Accommodationalist. So God accommodated his truth to what they understood about the world already. He didn't necessarily reveal this to them. Maybe God revealed that whatever is holding back the waters.
God did it and then he let them call it whatever made sense to them. That's what an accommodationist would be.
>> Not necessarily. Um >> Okay. Give me your version of it.
>> Yeah. So when when you asked the question, is it is it true or is it untrue? So I was answering that question. So let me go back to answering that question first. So >> is it true in the sense of what you mean true? No. Is it true in the sense of what most people today would mean true?
No. Is it true in the sense that it maps on to um u let's say empirical reality? No.
It's not true in any of those senses.
Is it true in the sense that the writers were communicating true things of how they believe the world to be? Yes. So the writers themselves were not lying.
So, so hold on, hold on. I'm not so concerned with >> I'm not so concerned with whether art whether where the author is being truthful to how they saw the world. I'm more concerned with whether or not the God who said to be behind it is revealing true things about what he did.
Is it true in that sense?
>> That's a different question.
>> You say those are two different questions though because you said is it true? You didn't say is it true from the sense you just asked. So, you want me to answer that question now?
>> Well, well, it's not really a different question. You're changing the question.
You're answering the question of could the writers have believed it and they could have, but that doesn't make >> you as Okay, that's what I'm So Brady, the question you asked me was it true.
That's all you said. You didn't add any spec. So now you're being more specific.
>> Hold on. But no, but hold on.
>> Okay.
>> Even when I said is it true, you went through four different variations of how it's not true and then you gave me the one where you think it could be true.
But the one that you gave me where you think it could be true >> is is like true in their mind doesn't make it true.
>> That's not what I said.
>> I don't know how you're making that a a it's true in that sense. Go ahead. I'm sorry. Go ahead.
>> That's not what I said, Brady. So, let me let me go back so so you can pro probably still man.
>> What I originally said, I said it depends on what you mean by true. That's what I preference my statement with. Say it depends on what you mean by true.
Then I gave the examples of the ways it would not be true if you're looking at it from that lens.
>> Right. And you and the three different ways you gave me were were not true in those ways. Right.
>> Correct. 100% we're agreeing.
>> So then I gave you how it would be true from an historical standpoint. Meaning that the authors of the Bible are writing something true in their historical context. Now you can disagree and say, "Well, they were wrong."
Um, in regards >> how is it true just because that that's how they saw it? I'm trying to How are you using the word true there?
>> Yeah, because would you agree that the story in Genesis is commuting is communicating um or is is is wrapped up in the history of a people group.
So their ideas about the world, whether or not you agree those ideas are true or not, they're communicating their ideas of the world. You understand?
>> Hold on. I still don't know how you're getting out of the the critique that I have of your answer because no matter what they're communicating about their idea of the world, just because they truly held that idea doesn't make it a true idea.
>> Okay, so here's where we have to now. If you want to do that, which I think that it probably would be better for your argument if you wait to do that, but if you want to just go to how we know something is true then or what makes something the truest thing, then we can go straight there. No, no. I want to deal with what you're saying. I want to deal with what you're saying. How is it true for them just because that's how they saw things? How does that make it true for them?
>> Because it wouldn't be false.
>> Would you? So, is it false?
>> Are you saying that anything a person understands to be the the way reality works, no matter how no matter whether it's whether it's right or not, if they >> ask a different question now.
>> True.
You're asking a different question, Barry. Yeah. So, >> well, my my question is how is it true to them? And your answer seems to be that's how they understood the world.
>> No, I'm I'm saying that you're So, when you when you ask the question, which is why preference depends on what you mean by truth.
>> So, if you want to ask the question and actually preference what what you think the truth is and then say, well, how they're wrong, then I think it's probably better if you ask the question in that sense. But when you ask me the question and say was it true and I say it depends on what you mean by true and I give you the different ways it can be true. Can you show me? Can you tell me why what I just presented is in any way any way um at all is logically invalid like what I just communicated to you?
>> Can you not logically invalid >> or how you preface this with critical thinking or something like that?
>> You preface this with you're not trying to be you were trying to find the word uh sneaky or dishonest or disingenuous.
>> Correct. But then you gave me you gave me variations of true of is it true in this sense, true in this sense, true in this? No, no, no, no, no. Then you gave me a variation of can it be true in this sense? And you said yes. But in that sense, like basically what you're saying is it's true in in the in like almost like in a story book kind of way like in their understanding of the world in their mythology or in their uh um um mytho history. uh William an Craig created not William Craig um Bill T.
Davis created this term or introduced the term mytho history and William Craig adopted it and said what Genesis 1 through 111 is is it's mytho history. It's history told in mythological form.
Is that is does that make it like that's how he tries to get around it being true? You're not necessarily doing that.
But what what you're doing is just you're saying the way they understood the world made them calling the sky a rake, a hard dome, made it true for them. And I'm saying like just because that's what they understood and and God is accommodating himself to their their level of understanding.
Where is the truth in the statement that on the second day if that's what it was?
I think it was the second day. Where is the truth in the statement that on that day God said let there be a divider between the waters above and the waters below. And God called that divider sky.
Where is the truth in that s? Like no matter how you want to explain it, can you help me understand where the truth is in that that presentation of God creating the heavens and the earth?
Where's the truth in that? How is it true?
>> Can you explain real quickly? Can you explain um or clear out what do you mean by truth? So when you say truth, what do you mean?
An accurate reflection of reality or an accurate reflection of it?
>> An accurate reflection of reality?
>> Yes.
>> By what standard? How do we know we have an accurate reflection of reality?
>> Like how do we know if something I'm asking are you talking about like what what what discipline are you referring to when you say accurate school of reality? I'm talking about a correspondence theory of truth to the degree that we're able to >> Yeah, that's but that's not how they would have looked at the world though.
>> I understand that. All I'm trying to get you to tell me is based on how they looked at the world, how is it true?
>> Oh, that's what I was explaining to you.
>> That's what I that's what I that's what I was was explaining to you. So, so you agree that just real quick before you know before we go anywhere else, you agree that when the that what's communicated there is an accurate rep representation of >> Now, hold on. Now, hold wait >> wait. I'm I'm not going to I'm always trying to give the benefit of the doubt, but I'm going to stop doing that. I am not going to say that they did not have a correspondence theory of truth. I'm not going because we don't know that. I think apologists often like to try to say uh for them it was truth in story and they were they didn't think they didn't think the sky was really a hard dome. Every ancient people group that we know of I don't care if you go to the Australians I don't care what they all thought the sky was a hard dome.
Australians thought that babies come from the other side of that dome. This is an ancient view of the world. So to say that they didn't have a correspondence theory of truth, I don't I don't think that's true. I think they actually did. I think they looked up and they saw the sky and they saw that it had a color and they they realized that wait, if it's got a color, it must have a surface and they felt that there was a surface up there. I don't think that they did not have a correspondence theory of truth. So I'm going to stop giving that as a as a sort of a a olive branch to to theist like, oh no, they had some other theory of truth. I think they fought. They could say the sky was a hard dome because that's what it looked like. So maybe you have some room for phenomenological language there. But they also had no way to disprove that.
And so where do you get the idea that they didn't really think that when everybody in the ancient world thought that? They thought the earth was flat.
They thought, matter of fact, several times in in scripture, it talks about the sky being pitched like a tent. Well, what is the tent? The tent is something that starts on the ground, rises, and it comes back to the ground because the the earth is flat enough for that to happen.
They thought the earth was flat and the sky was like a tent stretched out over the earth. So, I don't I don't agree that they didn't have a a correspondence theory of truth.
Still with me?
Your mic is muted.
I can't unmute your mic, but your mic is muted.
while you get your mic together, I'm gonna just sort of I just realized that I had been doing that all the like I had been sort of giving away ground like oh no they was they were just talking phenomenal.
That's what apologists want to say today because you realize you can't take it literally anymore. I'm not doing that anymore. They I I think they had a correspondence theory of truth. They just didn't have any way to to falsify that theory and so they ran with it.
And it wasn't until you get, you know, a couple centuries later where people start realizing like, no, that can't the earth can't be flat. And maybe the expanse, that's the other word for rakia that's translated is expanse. Maybe we can't say that it's this hard thing anymore. We have to start calling it an expanse. Sorry, he dropped. I don't know if it's uh technical issues issues or what. Um, I had a few other people call while I was on with Kenny. If you want to call back, the line is open right now. Or maybe Kenny will get his situation together and call back. Um, somebody put in the private chat, somebody who called in, R.J., why don't you call back? R.J. says, "Bro, what happened? Like, how did you get here?"
With four question marks. Uh, call back R.J. I would love to talk to you about how I got here.
Yeah. But like I said, I'm no longer going to give that ground away. I'm going to fight for the ground that the authors of the Bible had a correspondence theory of truth, and I'm going to make the theist prove that they did not. I'm not going to give that away anymore.
And if you're curious about what I'm saying about how the ancients saw the skies a hard dome, I write about that in chapter 3 of Let There Be Gaslight. So you can check that out. I don't go super super in-depth, but I do talk about it there and I'll cite some sources that you can check out.
But that's one of the reasons why it's unbelievable to me because even if God is a you know he said I have he said I'm accommodationist accommodationists believe God was not interested in correcting their wrong cosmology their wrong uh human physiology their wrong um um uh I don't know um taxonomy when they put certain animals in categories that they don't belong in, God was not interested in correcting that. God let them think their earthbound thoughts and then just communicated his heavenly thoughts through their earthbound erroneous thinking.
And if you want to take that approach, that's one way to do it. But then you have to admit, okay, so then the Bible does contain some errors. But then they'll say, I'm sure the Christian will say, "Ah, but it's not erroneous in what it's trying to affirm." Genesis is not affirming that the sky is a hard dome.
It's only affirming that whatever the sky is, this is the God who made it.
That's the way the accommodationist tries to get out of dealing with the literal um understanding of these passages. But I don't want to do their work for them and give their side of the argument. But I just want you to understand that um I had to wrestle through all these issues and trying to figure out can I still believe this? And the compounding issues made me say R.J.
if you're still watching I can't believe this. These are the reasons why I can't believe this. Um, but if you're there or if you're watching and you're a theist, you're a Christian and you want to tell me why you believe the Bible, I want to know why you think it's believable. And maybe if you're open to having having your views stress tested, I will do that service for you to test out some of your views. And then if you want to ask me why I think it's unbelievable, we can go through why I think it's unbelievable.
and maybe you can help stress test mine and show me how it's maybe a little more believable than I've been saying.
The line is open. I'm posting the link in the chat again just in case anybody's like, "Give me the link. I can't find it." Uh, there it is again.
If you're on Instagram, the link is in my bio.
If you're on Facebook, it's the pinned comment up top.
All right, Kenny is back.
All right, welcome back to Ikapa. Kenny, what's good?
>> Sorry about that. I got a call from my sis. Um, yeah, I'm not sure where we left off on the conversation, though.
>> I'll just sum up what I was saying. I changed because I was giving you the benefit of the doubt like I do in my book and like I do when I talk to Christians that the authors are using phenomenological language and I'm I'm recanting on that. I'm willing to say that the authors did have a correspondence theory of truth. They simply had no way to prove or disprove whether or not the sky was a hard dome.
But the ancient Israelites or their authors or wherever they got their stories from. Most ancient peoples believe that the earth was flat and that the sky was a solid dome. This is why the Bible talks about the earth the sky being stretched out like a tent. Well, what do tents do? Tents don't just hang in the sky. tents touch the ground on one side and they touch the ground on the other side and then they they go up like a you know either a triangle or like a dome. The the biblical authors really did think that that's how the earth was. It was flat and the sky was stretched out over top but it touched the sides somewhere the edges of the earth. I I'm saying that they had a correspondence theory of truth and I know you want to say that they didn't.
So, I'd like for you to try to explain to me how they did not have a correspondence theory of truth.
>> Yeah, but why would I do that if if it's if it's your argument? You would have to provide me evidence that they did.
>> Well, there are very many passages of scripture where the sky is talked about like a tent or like something that has been hammered out like metal. This is the Bible saying this.
>> Okay?
>> So, I don't have to prove it to you. The Bible says this over and over again.
>> Okay? So, let me let me just make sure I got this right. Right. So, are you saying that the biblical authors believe that there was a solid dome over the earth? You're saying that >> Okay.
And you're saying I'm saying >> and I'm saying they're not alone because most ancient peoples thought that that's what the sky was.
>> Okay.
You're saying that the text teaches that there's a solid dome over the earth, right?
Well, I'm saying that the authors thought that that was the case. I'm not I'm not going to go as far as says they they taught that. No, actually, you know, I think I will.
>> But in the beginning, in the beginning, we get the story of how God created the heavens and the earth. And part of that story is God making the rakia, making the dome.
>> Okay.
>> So, that is a teaching.
>> Can I ask you a question about that then? So, so, so are you saying that God intended to reveal that there was a solid dome over the earth? Because those are two different claims. So, one claim is that the text teaches uh that there's a solid dome over the earth. One claim is that the biblical authors believe that there's a solid derm over the earth. And the other one is that God intended to reveal that there's a solid dome over the earth. So, I'm asking, >> you believe the Bible is the word of God from beginning to end, right?
Yeah, we were established that or for which >> and so 2 Timothy 3:16 says all scripture is breathed out by God and it's profitable. One of the things it's profitable for is teaching. So if all scripture is breathed out by God, then all scripture is teaching you something about God and and Genesis claims to be teaching us what God did in the beginning.
>> So are are you answering the question I just asked? Which one of the claims is it?
So is it that God intended >> the Bible is teaching that God created the Rakia. Whatever the Rakia is and the Rakia is a solid dome. Well then the God of the Bible is the one who created that.
>> Okay. Um I'm I'm actually having a hard hard time following because I I'm asking a question about which one of the claims out of the three options I just presented to you, which one of the claims are you making? Are you saying that the biblical authors believe there was a solid dome? Are you saying that the text teaches there's Okay. Yes to that one. Okay. Are you saying that the text teaches that there's a solid dome over the earth?
>> It does that several times throughout the Bible? Yes.
>> Okay. Good. Okay. So, are you also saying that God intended to reveal that there was a solid dome over the earth?
>> I'll say this. If he didn't intend to reveal that, he's a horrible communicator. But yes, I'm saying that he intended to teach that.
>> Okay. So, what evidence convinces you that the intention was to assert physical cosmology rather than just give some sort of um conceptual framework that their audience would have been familiar with >> for the purpose of what?
>> Um what do you mean to deliver their message? Give them a contextual framework that they're familiar with.
Why? Why do that? Why is God doing that?
Because you're asking me No, I'm saying they're they're using a contextual framework that they would have been familiar with. I'm saying I'm asking you between the two options. I'm asking you what evidence >> I need to know more about that option.
Hold on. I need to know more about that option. If God is simply using a contextual framework that they would be familiar with, what would God's intention be in doing that? If it's not to teach that he made the rakia, what would the intention of God be in that option so I can consider that more fully?
>> I don't think you understand the question I'm asking you. So >> I go ahead.
>> I'm asking you for what evidence convinces you because you just when I asked you the first three questions, you answered yes to all three of them.
Kenny, you have >> I'm asking you for clarity on the second option you gave me. I can't I can't rule that out until you tell me if God is doing that. if that's an option that I could choose that God was just using a contextual framework that they're familiar with. What would be the intention in that? Because you're asking me if God's intention was to teach that he made the raia. I'm saying yes. But then for your other option, I would need to know, well, what would what would the intention be for if he's not trying to teach him that he made that? What would the intention be for saying I'm just going to use the contextual framework that you all are familiar with. Why?
What's the intention in that? If I could understand that, then maybe I could choose that option.
>> Understand? It's it's it's it's actually in the actual like it's it's in it's in what I'm asking you. So when I say that it's to provide because remember what I said in the beginning of the conversation, I'm accommodationist, right? Mhm.
>> So if if if I said that he's using if if if language is being used >> right >> to um using a sort of observational framework that would have been familiar to the audience to deliver let's just call it theological truths. I'm asking you what evidence convinces you.
>> So hold on wait wait wait wait.
So are you saying the intention in using the framework that they're familiar with is simply to communicate a theological truth? God's not really concerned about whether or not there is a Rakia, whether he would have been the one who made the Rakia. The theological truth is simply God did something. What's the theological truth there that that you're saying that God is trying to get across?
>> I'm I'm confused by the question you're asking.
>> I'm trying to get clarity on what you just said. God is just using something that's familiar to them to communicate a theological truth. Right? That's the intention.
>> Yeah.
>> What is the theological truth?
>> That God is the creator >> of what?
>> The world.
>> Is the rakia part of the world? Is the is the dome part of the world?
>> I think. So now so now so now you're what you're doing is you're not interacting with me and you're trying to argue with a point that's not even being made. I ask you, >> you're telling me that God wants to communicate that he's the creator of the world by using something that's familiar to them.
>> The idea of the dome is familiar to them. But you're saying, but he's not communicating that that's part of the world.
>> He's just communicating that whatever y'all see as part of the world, I did it. And I'm not going to tell you that the thing that you think you see is not really a thing.
>> That's what you're saying, right?
>> No, that's not what I'm saying. What I am saying is that you made a claim in the beginning that you're now avoiding defending the original claim.
>> I'm not avoid I'm trying to understand what you're saying.
>> You No, you you clearly understand it because you're interacting with you're asking me questions that have nothing to do with it. Regard Let's just say I grant Let's say I grant this for a second, right? I'll grant the the point you're you're trying to make right now.
Can you answer my question now?
>> So, what are you granting? Let's let's be clear. What are you granting? I'm granting the fact that God is communicating to them through their worldview, their perception of the world. They believe that the world is in a dome. That's what they believe. And and God is accommodating with them to communicate that I am the creator. And he uses language that they would have been familiar with. So now that I've granted you that, can you answer my question?
>> Your question again is what now?
>> Okay. So >> because we we went around a whole bunch of Yeah. Go ahead. I I know that that's because you were trying to get understanding, brother. It's not my fault. I was just answering your questions. So, I I presented you with >> I wasn't blaming you. Go ahead.
>> Okay. I presented you with three options, right? I said, "Are the biblical I said the biblical authors believe that there that there was a solid dome over the earth." Right? You said yes to that. I said, >> um I said, "Is it that the text teaches that there's a solid dome?" You said yes, the text teaches that. I said, "Did God intend to reveal that there was a solid dome over the earth?" You said yes to all three. So then my question to you was, "What particular evidence convinces you that um that um the intent um what particular evidence convinces you that >> that God intended to teach that?" No, that what what that the that the intention was to assert physical cosmology rather than God using observational language um um with language that they would have been familiar with. That that's the question.
All I have all I have is my mind and my senses. And I'm I'm thinking God I if the if the sky is not a solid dome, God would know it's not right.
Would you agree?
>> I can't hear you, Kenny.
>> Yeah. God knows all things. Yeah.
>> All right. So, he knows it's not a solid dome. And the Bible says God's not a man that he should lie, right?
No. Okay.
>> I'm not saying I'm not necessarily saying he's lying, but we we know that God doesn't lie.
>> I don't understand how does this answer my question. You're >> asking me what convinces me that God intended to teach that. I'm I'm walking you through my reasoning. God doesn't lie.
>> I'm asking for evidence. I said, "What evidence convinces you?"
>> I can't give you evidence about what's in the heart of a God. I can't give you evidence about God's intentions. All I can do is reason to how I'm looking at this.
>> Okay. Go ahead. Go ahead and reason through. I'm I'm listening. Go ahead.
>> If the sky is or is not a solid dome, God would know that. Correct.
>> Yeah. Correct.
>> And God doesn't lie. Correct.
>> Yes. Correct.
>> Everything God says is true. Right.
>> Correct.
>> And the Bible is inspired or and the word inspired is a bad translation. It's really expired. It's really breathed out. The Bible is breathed out by it's God's speech, right? So the all the Bible is God's word. True.
>> Correct. Yeah.
>> Okay. So if if God knows the the the sky is not a solid dome and yet God communicates. He breathes out to them because the Bible doesn't say he's accommodating anything. It says he's revealing himself.
>> Bray, can I help here for a second?
Because I think maybe you shouldn't have granted because I don't think you realize what you did. So maybe I need to backtrack. Do you remember the third question I asked you? What was the third question I asked you?
>> If I remember correctly, the question you asked me is what what evidence or no. Do I think that God intended >> um >> to teach that there was >> teach cosmology something, right?
>> No, that >> because I said it one way and then you said no and then you rephrased it as do I think cosmology.
>> I asked you three questions. The three questions. First one was about what the people believe.
>> Just go to the third one. That's what we're on right now. Go to the third one.
>> Okay. The third question was, did God intended to teach that it was that um that they were under a dome? You said yes to that. But then when you started explaining and I and I asked you, you said, "I can't speak to God's intentions." So if you can't speak to God intentions, why would you answer yes to that third question?
>> I'm telling you what I believe. I'm telling you, I believe that Well, first of all, I don't believe that the God is real. Like if if there is a God intern.
No, you can't do that. You can't do that. That's you doing internal critique. You can't. It's not about what you believe. You're you're doing internal critique.
>> Right. Right. Right. So, so if so, if I go into the internal critique where there is a God and he knows all things and he's revealing >> this like so one of the things we didn't even get into is the way that I translate Genesis 1:1 is not in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The way I translate Genesis 1:1 is this is the story of in the beginning when God began to I would translate bar in Genesis 1:1 as separate, not create. And I have reasons for that. But this is the story of of in the beginning when God separated the heavens and the earth. So everything you read after Genesis 1:1 is the story of God separating out the heavens and the earth for their individual unique purposes.
Genesis 1:2 says, "A wind from God was hovering or suppressing the waters." And that to me, when I look at that, I talk about this in chapter 8 of my book, Let There Be Gaslight. Genesis 1:2 is not the spirit of God hovering over the waters. Like, what the heck does that mean? What is Genesis 1:2, especially when you look at comparative mythology from the stories of that time, Genesis 1:2 has a wind from God holding back the waters above from the waters below.
That's the separating the waters above from the waters below. And then God creates a dome to take over the job that the wind was doing. This is why I think the intention of the passage is to show that the God of the Bible created something that keeps the waters up there and these waters down here. He he created a space for life or human history to happen in between the waters above and the waters below. Once he puts the dome in place to hold back the waters, then the dry land can come forth and the history of of earth can happen.
That's the way the story unfolds. Now, if God simply intends to say I no, that's not literal. I'm just trying to tell you I just I made it so that life can happen. And whatever you think the sky is, whatever you think the earth came from, whatever you whatever you think cool, I just want you to know that I'm the one who did it. To me, that claim is useless because there's no way to take that claim and vet it. Any god can make a claim and say, "No, no, no.
I'm the one who did it." I'm saying, "Well, how do I know to trust either of you all? I'm only going to trust the one who can tell me something that that seems to have some kind of correspondence to reality." And I'll give you the I what I'm saying is in their day and age, they thought that that story had a lot of correspondence to reality because they thought the sky was a hard dome. A god could have corrected them about that if he knew knows the the uh the real story, but he doesn't. And yet the god says, I I only communicate truth, not truth that you understand. I'm not going to accommodate. I'm telling you what happened in the beginning when I made the heavens and the earth. I separated them and I I made a divider so that life can happen here on the earth. That's that's the way the story unfolds.
>> Yeah.
>> Now, is that true?
>> Yeah. So, I think I said a lot. Go ahead.
>> Yeah. A few things, right?
>> So, >> rather not, you know, we argue about your your um your translation of Genesis 1:2 is really doesn't have any bearing on the central claim of God's communicative attention. What what what I what I'm need to probably rephrase and I didn't and I realizing now I didn't do a good job is that I asked you what evidence convinces you and I probably shouldn't have done that but I kind of moved you out of doing an internal critique. Um, and I guess a better question is, >> yeah, a better question is, >> what in the text indicates that God's communicative intention is to teach physical cosmology? Because that's the argument. You're arguing that, hey, there's there's there's a contradiction here because what's what they're saying about about the physical what they're saying >> what they're saying about the physical.
Well, it is a contradiction because if I'm saying that the Bible is true, but there's something that isn't true in the in the Bible, that's a contradiction, right?
>> Well, I mean, it contradicts reality if you want to say it that way.
>> That's what I'm saying. So, it it would fall under a contradiction, which that's the point of the that's the point of the argument you're making. So, >> well, contradiction is saying one thing and then saying something else. Reality says something different than what the Bible says, but that's not necessarily a contradiction, but we don't even need to to to talk about that.
>> No, no, no. is a contradiction because if I say the the earth is not a therm dome but then the Bible says the earth is a dome and then I say >> the earth is a dome the earth has a dome >> the earth yeah you're right the earth has a dome and then I say the bible is true but also the earth doesn't have a dome then that would be a contradiction which that's what I thought you were trying to establish is that not what you're pointing to >> I kind of got lost in that I'm sorry >> don't worry about you you were going so here's a better question right what in the text indicates that God's intentions when he's communicated is to teach physical cosmology because you're giving your, you know, sort of um translation, you know, of of Genesis.
But I can I can easily respond to that and say, "Well, that like well just because Genesis describes a dome."
>> Mhm.
>> Um a description in in scripture um doesn't mean that God intends to to to actually teach that. Now, that's a hermeneutical issue, but I'm trying to get where because you answered yes to the third question. I'm trying to get where where in the text is bringing you to the conclusion that God's communicative intention is to teach physical cosmology. And if you can provide me that then I think it then then you'd have a good argument here.
But outside of that I I don't think that you you can just argue from you know like you were you were talking about your own reasoning and things of that nature and how you reason to that conclusion. I'm asking from the text.
So, I'm thinking about different passages of scripture, which I don't like doing. I don't like going to Psalms to try to prove what the author of Genesis is saying. Um, but you do have a world view from the authors of this this culture, this community where they're they're telling you that day unto day pours forth speech and night and night.
There's no there's no place where where the what's happening in the heavens does not speak to us about who our creator is. Now, if you want to say that God doesn't have to necessarily give you correct cosmology to take credit for the cosmology, okay. But if that's what you're going to say, that God's not God's not intentional or or his intention was not to to teach accurate cosmology, all you're really saying to me is there's no way to fact check this. I just have to trust that whatever they thought God was cool with letting them think so long as they gave him credit for it. And then I have to give the same God credit for that stuff even though we know now that it didn't happen that way.
And I don't trust that. I don't I don't think that's trustworthy. So why would >> What do you mean that? What do you mean by trustworthy? I don't understand. You said you don't think that that >> why why would I think that Israel's God is the God who made whatever the Rakia is even though the way it's explained cannot literally be true. Right? So we know it can't. and it's surrounded by a ton of other things that we know because it's not just the dome. Like the entire chapter is full of things that we know cannot be true. And so we can go verse by verse just talking about oh that's not true either and that's not true either and that's not true either and that's not true either. And then at the end you say oh but he wasn't trying to tell you about uh how humans came on the scene. He wasn't trying to tell you about whether the earth or the sun came for he wasn't trying to tell you about whether or not humans are related uh biologically to other all he was trying to tell you is that whatever happened >> this is the god who did it and to me that's a claim that I'm not willing to trust >> when when everything else that the god claims to take credit for we now know well that's not how it happened and the god could have told them how it really happened but he didn't care to do that >> so let clear what they understood at the time.
>> Let let me respond to to to that to that particular argument. That's a good that's a good argument, but I think that it falls apart in a few ways. But first, let me say that I think that if you're saying that um you know this accommodation, this view that you know um essentially I can just say well you know that's not what God has intended.
say it becomes unfalsifiable.
Um, and that's not trustworthy.
Therefore, you know, that's not um um you know, I'm I'm I'm not going to go with that because that's not trustworthy. I can dislike an alternative, but that doesn't establish my like what I'm arguing. So, I could say, well, I don't like that particular view because it's unfalsifiable.
Um, and therefore, I don't trust it. But that is that doesn't establish the view that I'm actually arguing for. So that brings me back to the question I asked you because you said that you that when I asked you the question, you said yes in regards to speaking to God's um communicative intention. You said yes to that. So now I ask you for evidence um in the text for that and you now you're going back to how well your view is unfalsifiable. And even if I were to grant you that my view is unfals falsifiable, it still has nothing. You still haven't established your view. So let me actually ask you um um let let me actually deal with that particular um view of a combination of of God accommodating with the people and show you how that's not true.
So accommodation doesn't mean that whatever they believe God was fine with that and he went and basically he just went along with it. Right? That's not what it means. It means that God can communicate something that is like God can communicate a true message through concepts and language that >> would have been available to his particular audience without necessarily correcting every incidental belief that would have been attached to those particular concepts. So when you say the whole factchecking thing um you know is every feature of their mental picture of the world scientifically correct?
No. But that's not what we're arguing about right now. We're trying to figure out why you have come to the conclusion that God's communicative intention is this that you said it is. And I'm looking for an argument for that. I could be wrong here, but that still won't prove your argument. So, what's your argument for the claim that you made about God's communicative intention?
>> So, this is [laughter] I'm going to take your approach now.
This is not me trying to be disingenuous. I I have questions about the question.
Do you think that God is trying to literally communicate anything in Genesis 1 or is it all phenomenological, metaphorical, pmic, some kind of other nonliteral communicate? Is anything in Genesis 1:1 literal or is it all the truth is somewhere in the story? You just have to parse out the truth from the the the the the vehicle it's wrapped in the story it's wrapped in. Do you think anything in there is literal?
depends on what you mean by literal because we're talking about God's communication talking about the going back to the story because that's not that has nothing to do with the question. So are we still talking about the story or are we talking about something else?
>> Do you think that God made the the world in six days?
>> That has nothing to do with you proving your view.
>> You asked me what I meant by literal.
I'm trying to get you to to say something that that I can hold on to >> asking me about my [clears throat] view.
What is what does what I have to do?
What does what I believe have to do with you proving what you said? I can I I can believe that Barney made the world.
Brady has nothing to do with what you you have to provide evidence >> because I'm trying to get us on some common ground as to are we going to take anything in this text literal. If if nothing is literal, then I can't I can't possibly try to say, "Oh, well, then this is incorrect. If if God wants us to believe, then this and it's not true."
If it's all figurative, then there's really no argument here about what God's intention is. God's intention could be anything.
I'm trying to figure out is anything literal. Brady, just to be honest, you are a former apologist. So, you know that there's a difference between within Christian within Christian thought or the homminical approach to the text, but there's a difference between you looking at a text and God intending to communicate something and God accommodating with like you under you understand that logically. So, I don't understand why you're asking me these questions when you know that you made a claim about God's communicative intention and you said that God intended.
>> So, so listen, let me let me let me streamline this text for that.
>> Let me streamline this because we already got a couple red flags in the chat. I want to try to make this uh good red flag when I start cooking the red flag.
>> No, they they No, no, no, you're not cooking. But the red flags have been in there for a very long time and I sort of been ignoring them, but they they kind of, you know, let me let me try to streamline this real quick because they, like I said, they've been in here for for a minute.
Um, I'm not really doing a full internal critique.
I'm I'm really looking at this as what were the authors trying to do, not what a God was trying to do. I think the authors really did want their readers to think that the dome that we all believe exists, the wi there windows in the heavens for rain to come down. Like, do you think that that was literal that they that do you think that they really thought that there were windows in the sky that rain came out of? Or do you think that was figurative?
>> No, I they definitely believe that.
Yeah, we've already believed we've already established they believe that they were in a dome, dude. We already established >> No, we we didn't establish it. I think I told you that that's what they believe.
That was in the question I asked you.
>> No, I the most you said was let's say I grant that. But that's not that's not you saying you believe that.
>> In the question I asked you. I asked you three questions and in that question was did the authors believe that? And um did the authors believe it? Did they intend to teach it? And then God intend to teach sort of physical cosmology. So like that's that's in the question.
>> So the authors believe that there's windows in the in the dome and God has to open them for rain to come down. Um, God is if God is not interested in correcting that, but God wants glory for doing that. I find that to be from the author's standpoint, if the authors are like, "We don't really know what happened or we just believe this happened. We don't think God is actually saying this." I find it and this is an argument from incredul, but I think I'm reasoning towards the best explanation.
I think the authors want their audience to believe not just, hey, God's letting us God just just is is letting us get away with not knowing the truth, but at least ascribing it to him. I think the authors really do want their readers to believe that the the the dome that has to have the windows open for rain to come down is a creation of our God. Everything that we see, you, me, the animals, everything is is the work of the hand of our God. Yeah, I agree with that.
>> That's what the authors want their readers to believe. And if a god really is behind it, for whatever reason, the God is okay with the authors doing that.
And I'm saying then either God intended that too, or for whatever reason, God was okay with not correcting that, knowing that he's not just communicating to them. What did Paul say? or I don't know if it was Paul, but somebody said the things that were written in the past were not that wasn't just for them. That was written for your benefit as well. So God has the benefit to write something in the past knowing that future generations were going to read this and probably get more out of it than the people who got it at the time they received it. If God has the ability to speak in one time frame, knowing that 20 generations in the future, people are going to read this and I want them to get something out of it, yet God doesn't take any care to correct their their poor cosmology, then to me, that's not a God that I'm willing to trust. It's unbelievable that a God who knows all, who knows that you and me are going to be here with powerful telescopes and the Hubble and the James Web and all that and not do a thing to clue us into, hey, in I know in 2,000 years y'all gonna find out something different. Let me give y'all a couple nuggets, too. That's unbelievable that an all- wise, all powerful God could have done that. But no, I'm only going to communicate to this generation who thinks erroneously about cosmology, but I don't care. I just want their worship and I just want them to to to whatever they think happened, I just want them to think I did it.
>> I think that's unbelievable.
>> Yeah. So there's there's there's a few things there that because I think you're now actually putting some meat to your argument because now you're you're arguing that the human authors believe that they were in a solid dome and that um they intended for their readers to believe that God created that particular solid dome. I want to say that that's a different argument. It's a better argument because now you're arguing argument. Now you're creating a problem for divine inspiration which I think is the better argument. Now you're saying, "Well, >> all of it's the same argument, Kenny.
Like I've been >> No, it's not the same argument because >> I've beening this."
>> No, the the difference is that when we're talking about God's um communicative intention, that's completely different. You just admitted that I'm not trying to give a full internal critique. So if you're not trying to give a full internal critique anymore, you're making a different argument.
>> So now the respon the response the the response to that is a few things. Right?
Here's what I'm willing to grant you.
>> I'm willing to grant you offer >> for the sake of for the sake of those watching.
>> I'm going to let you like get a get a lot in on this one answer because I gota I got to wrap this up because I do have another caller and people are like red flagging me. So >> that's great. So, I'm willing to grant you that the human authors um likely conceived of the world through ancient cosmology, right? So, I I'll grant that all of their categories, the water, the bug, the rakia, all the windows. I I'll grant all of that.
Right. Here's the problem that you're not actually given answer to. Mhm.
>> Divine does divine accommodation require that God correct every mistaken sort of assumption within the humans off author's like world of how they see the world.
>> I'm not going to say divine accommodation does, but I think divine revelation does. Because here's here's my main question for you.
How do you separate like how do you separate accommodation from revelation?
How do you know what part of the passage is revelation and what part is accommodation? How would you make that delineation? And >> yeah, >> go ahead. Go ahead.
>> No, go finish your question.
>> Well, I was I was going to spoiler alert. The way most Christians, the way most apologists separate accommodation from revelation is whatever science has disproven so far, that was accommodation. Whatever science hasn't disproven, that's probably revelation. But then give it five or 10 years and science will discover something else and then the Christian will say, "Oh, you know what? That part was just accommodation too, not revelation." And I have examples of this in my book where the people that I was reading when I was in Bible college, they were adamant about this being Revelation. Genesis 1:1 is creation x nilo. Find them 15 years later and they do some comparative mythology. They look at uh uh genetics. They look at all these things and they say, "Oh, that can't be revelation anymore. That was just divine accommodation."
>> Yeah. So, let me um let me go ahead and respond to that real quickly. So, I'll give you a neutral analogy that I think we both can identify with, right? So, if suppose I I were to say to my 5-year-old son, right, I say the sun is going to bed, right? Um >> the the revelation, if you will, is the night is the night time is coming. The accommodation is the child's conceptual language. So by me saying the sun is going to bed, I'm communicating that the night is coming.
Now is it necessary? Is it necessary? So like for example in in in Genesis, right?
>> Mhm.
>> Um because you asked me, well, how do I know which um >> how do you delineate between divine revelation?
>> Here's my here's my principle. Here's my principle. So revelation right revelation God revealing something is speaking to um what God is is is affirming. The principle is accommodation is going to be the cultural is going to been is going to be the linguistic is going to be the conceptual vehicle that God is speaking through to get that message across. So the way I know the difference between the two is the same way we do with all literature. So like in the example I just gave you of me telling my 5-year-old son the son is going to bed.
You can obviously see that within that statement there there's a truth there, right?
You wouldn't argue that there's not a truth there. Even though I'm accommodating with my son's conceptual view of the world and I'm using trust me I get where you're going. Let me let me show you how it plays in my ears. Let's say your son turns 16 and you say, "Son, uh, you know this bed that I'm I've been sleeping on all this all this time." Guess what? My bed is the son's bed, and your son is 16 now.
Do you think your son would have >> Do you think your son would have any reason to say, "Dad, um I I I knew what you were saying when I was like four or five, but now that you're telling me that your bed is the son's bed, like I'm 16, number one, and number two, like, no, you got your bed from, you know, Costco when we were there at that time.
I remember like your your bed is not the son's bed." If you're still telling myths or stories about the son having a bed and then you're actually showing him something physical saying and this is it. Would your son have have any reason to call BS on that?
>> Yeah. But yeah, that that's different because the accommodation isn't falsehood. Like you're assuming so you're presupposing because there's an accommodation that it's false. with the where you need to be judging by.
>> That's not what I'm doing. That's not what I'm doing.
>> Hold on for a second. So, I would I would I would reply to my son.
>> I would reply to my son, right? I'm say, "Hey, that was that's false." Like, well, no, because I'm communicating to you in a way that you can understand.
>> That's not stick with my analogy. Stick with my analogy. If you start claiming that the bed you're sleeping in is the same bed that the son used to go to bed in, would that would that still be accommodation or would that be like >> No, I'm I'm asking you what is the tr like I don't understand what you're saying there. What's the >> I know I was setting up I was setting up something. Here's here's what I was set up in that statement.
>> Here's what I'm setting up in Genesis.
Let's just say everything in Genesis 1 and two for that matter is a God accommodating and let's let's go as far as Genesis 3 because that's that's the point I was trying to make. If God is accommodating in Genesis 1, 2, and 3, so that there really is no historical thing there. There's just truths that God is trying to get across using stories that they know, right?
But then let's say humanity grows up a couple thousand years and now you end up in the first century and Paul comes along and says, "Hey, remember that Adam and Eve story." Guess what? They're the reason that Jesus had to come and die and Jesus had to die because through one man sin came into the world and through one man sin spread to all uh because uh death spread to all because all sinned and d and we say now they didn't know this in the first century but we know this now. You say, "Wait a minute, Paul. That Adam and Eve story, that cannot have been historical or literal because now we know enough to know that that's not the case." Right?
From from all the evidence that we have from population genetics, the Adam and Eve story cannot have been literally true. It can be God accommodating himself to what they knew. But now you got Paul in the New Testament telling still telling stories about the same beginning and now basing his whole doctrine of salvation on something that we now know that cannot have happened.
That's not how history went. And so that's what I'm saying about you told your son something when he was four or five. Your son grows up and you're still telling stories about the son's bed, but it clearly that the son didn't have a bed. Why are you still talking about the son's bed? if it was just accommodation.
>> Yeah. Joe, this goes me back to to your there's a hidden assumption in what you're going there. You're assuming that if one element of Genesis employs accommodation, then the entire narrative becomes non-historical.
So why? Because that's a gigantic assumption that I'm not just going to grant you. Why is it?
>> Well, it's an assumption that it's accommodation in the first place. If you're able to make Wait, wait, wait.
Hold on. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
You're saying I'm making a huge assumption, but you're assuming that it's accommodation.
>> No, I'm not assuming that it's accommodation. What are you talking about?
>> Wait. You're assuming that Genesis 1 is accommodation. Correct. You said you're an accommodationalist.
>> That's the That's the hermeneutic. Yeah.
>> Okay. So, if you're assuming that that's what's going on, why can't like how come you can make that assumption and I can't make the assumptions I'm making?
>> No, no, no. I think you're not understanding what I'm saying. You're saying here's your assumption. Your assumption is that one element of Genesis that employs accommodation >> if it does >> in turn no then in turn because you went to Paul which is a completely different argument but I'll entertain it still then in turn um under undermines the entire or or the entire narrative becomes non-historical and I'm and and what I'm asking you is that under accommodation >> that's not what I'm doing >> I'm not assuming that I'm not assuming >> that's what you're doing because you just went to Paul. You just went to Paul and the whole argument that that I listed everything you just said. The entire argument was that um if accommodation is true if accommodation [snorts] is true um doesn't Paul use using Adam collapse the entire hermeneutic because Paul's using um Adam um Adam in something that I would deem as historically true.
meaning.
>> That's the problem. That's the problem.
But this is what I'm saying. I'm trying to >> No, no, wait, wait. Kenny, Kenny, look.
>> Yeah, >> Kenny, look.
>> If you thought that the Adam and Eve narrative was as historically Oh, wait.
Listen, listen listen to what I'm saying before you say no. Cuz you don't know what I'm going to say yet.
>> I do know what you're saying, but you're not making the point very well. To be honest with you, >> Kenny, >> it doesn't follow. It doesn't logically follow.
>> Kenny, let me let me make the point.
>> Okay, go ahead. What I'm saying is you you think that windows in heaven and a dome you think that that's not literally true. So you're willing to accept it as accommodation. What I'm saying is if >> that's not what I'm doing.
>> I think so you're you're ascribing things to me that's not true. So you're trying to pigeon hole me into into a view I don't have. You're saying whenever I look at the text and I think something is not true, I say God accommodated. That's what you're That's not even the principle. I I just explained to you what the principle >> Why are you an accommodationist?
>> I Hold on, Brady. I just explained to you what the principle was. I explained to you what my principle was and you just straw manned it and came up with a completely principle that I look at the text. Whenever the text doesn't correspond with science, that's that's that's you making some sort of like that's you being a um um an apologist for atheism, right? But it has nothing to do with the argument I'm putting forward. That's not what I'm saying. I have a principle that has to do that has to do with the the cultural the um lingu the the linguistic framework.
>> So Kenny, we got to wrap this up. We got to wrap this up because the red flags are still flying. I'm actually enjoying the conversation. I want to be able to like take to keep it going. That's why I kept it going so long. By the way, I do have been flying. We had we I don't know if you remember we was having a conversation um about Mason on on your Facebook. We was going back and forth.
>> Um >> sorry.
>> Um >> Oh, wait. I think I do. Yeah, I do remember that. Yeah, I don't remember the any conversation we ever had on this platform. I do remember that conversation.
>> That's what I was referring to. Yeah, hopefully we can we can we can do this again cuz I would like to take some real time to walk through some of this stuff, but the red flag I've been ignoring them this entire time.
>> We can do when your audience not being cryb babies, you know? It's not really >> They're not being cryb babies. They they they they're using the word cope a lot.
There's a lot of what you're saying.
It's just like you're you're it seems like you're making I don't even want to say it because it's going to get us back into a whole other conversation.
>> That might be true. I'm not going to argue with the audience. It might be true. Maybe I am cop.
>> All good.
>> It's all good. But no, I appreciate you, man. Hopefully, we'll get a chance to talk again soon.
All right. Hey, um, like I said, I let it go because I was sort of enjoying the conversation and and hoping that, you know, uh, we were going to make some headway and, um, who knows, you know, maybe I'll think about some things, maybe he'll think about some things, but um, uh, you all heard what you heard, saw what you saw. Myths boy, thank you for the $667 super chat. No one is reasoning their way out of something they didn't reason themselves into. Remind you of anything?
[laughter] Yeah. Um, what's interesting is I don't think many people reason themselves into Christianity, but they do reason themselves into remaining a Christian.
Um like and I think that's that's what apologetics is. It's the reasoning that you have to develop to continue to hold things that your your mind is just like ah the cognitive dissonance when it begins to grow. You've got to say something different about about these things. Um and that's no shade. But I just think I think that's what we do as humans when we're not ready to let something go or when something is is objectionable. Um we end up in in different forms of denial. Um and I want to I want to go back and listen and and you know maybe the the points that he was making about what I was saying was not necessarily proving the point that I was making. It was a different point. Uh but for me, like I said, it's all part of the the the same kitten kaboodleoodle. I'm not saying one thing and then oh well I got a different argument for that. Like it's all one huge here's why I don't buy that. Um and I think the point that I made about God being the biblical authors giving God the credit for writing things in the past knowing that a future generation was going to be reading it and it he wrote it for their benefit not for the people. Like if God can do that, Carl Carl Nova says, "Keep cope alive."
Like if God could do that, then God could have done he could have put all kind of Easter eggs in the Bible to let future generations know, hey, I was just accommodating to them. I I didn't really believe that. I wasn't trying to take credit for the Ricky. I wasn't trying to say I I only made one man and one woman, and that's how, you know, but that's not the way it it shapes out.
So anyway, uh I had a couple callers that I guess that that call ran so long that they hung up, if you're still there and you're you'd love to call and talk. I'm going to be here for a little bit while a longer.
Art called in who was on yesterday. Uh RJ called in. Uh somebody else called in. I didn't get the I didn't see the name, but the line is free. I'll put the link in the chat again just in case anybody's looking for it to come from Ikapod.
If you're on Facebook, uh, scroll up, it's the top comment there. Might be the only comment there. I don't know. If you're on Instagram, go to the, uh, bio where it says, "The Bible is unbelievable." And click the link there if you'd like to call in.
If there's a atheist, agnostic, skeptic who's like, "Hey, can I call in and just sound off on that last call?" Uh, if we don't have any theist calling and you want to call in and sound off, sure, call in. [laughter] Uh, or if you're a person who's like, I don't [clears throat] know where I am with all this. I just I got questions and you want to just call and ask a question, I will entertain that.
Where you at?
I keep seeing people in the chat that I'm like, is that is that so and so? But I don't want to say the wrong name, so I'm not going to guess. [laughter] But I think I'm seeing somebody in the chat that I haven't seen or talked to in a in a while.
Still here. I'm just frozen, but I'll unfreeze. There we go. Theist, where you at? Christians, where you at?
I write about the accommodationist view in uh Let There Be Gaslight and my response to it. And um my response really does come down to how do you differentiate between divine accommodation and divine revelation? And um once you begin to respond, oh well I take the cultural, I take the this, I take the that uh to that all of that to me is very shaky ground. Um like one of the questions I I would have is like what stops any other religion from using those same talking points to defend what you would find objectionable in their religion? Uh, but oh my god, TripleA is calling. Uh, let's get TripleA in here real quick. Theist, don't be afraid. Don't be, oh, I can't call because that guy's in there. If I get another caller, the caller, um, I will bring you in sooner than later.
So, in the meantime, my god, what's good?
>> Hey, what's going on, bro? Can you hear me?
I I don't know how the audio is working out here. Yeah, I I was calling. I Yeah, I saw there was no uh Christian callers.
I wanted to hop in. I I wanted to tell you uh we'll chop it up more when we do the the um go through the episode you did with Eric Hernandez. I was I was listening to it and [laughter] and I I thought it was one thing I thought his argument was interesting was that he he said like the I guess the brain is is untrustworthy because because it went through evolutionary process based on survivability.
Mhm.
up. You glitched and froze.
Ah, hope he comes back. I want to hear this. I do have another caller who just popped in. Christian caller, Triple, are you there?
>> Yeah. Can you hear me?
>> Uh, yeah. There's a little bit of a delay. I'm not sure what's going on.
>> Oh, okay. Man, >> I see your mouth moving then the words a couple seconds later.
>> Okay. How How about the audio? Is the audio is the audio bad?
>> What? The audio is fine, but it's just a little later than your mouth. So, but but go ahead.
>> Oh, okay. All right. Yeah, I'm with that. Well, what I was going to say was I think he shot himself in the foot there argument about how the the brain can't be trusted because you have in the story with Eve, she has her her truth tailored brain customized by God himself. and >> she failed her first test in critical thinking like according to Paul like she was the one who was deceived >> right so it if any brain can't be dece can't be trusted I mean it would be one that's designed by God and you can't even make the argument here that it was like her sin nature this is before the fall so she has a ring that was tapered for truth by God and then it immediately fails her >> so Real quick, real quick. Somebody in the chat said maybe turn off your turn off your camera and just have the audio.
Can you do that because the better if it's not sending so much information?
>> Okay.
>> How about now?
>> Uh, sounds good. Let's let's keep it rolling.
>> Okay. Yeah. Well, yeah. I was just my my main uh I get you Christian call but like I I just wanted to say that he he shot himself in the foot by arguing that the brain can't be trusted because like the god brain can't be trusted either as demonstrated in scripture >> like if if it was really yeah if we really could discover truth you wouldn't have had the in the first place but yeah man anyway >> yeah I just want to hop on real quick and and get that >> yeah point Yeah, I'll talk with you soon.
>> I know, man.
>> Peace.
All right, so Art Art was in the queue.
Art, you popped in and you you popped out. So, the line is [laughter] the line gets clogged up and then it gets open again. But the line is open right now.
If you want to call back, why is TripleA still there?
Oh, I gotta kick him.
There we go. All right. So, yeah, the line is open.
Uh, and if there's another theist or atheist who wants to to pop in and chime in real quick, you can. But if uh if a theist wants to hop in before then, do what you got to do.
All right. Uh, and let me just go check.
I'm gonna check Instagram real quick just in case.
All right. And let me check Facebook.
Um, [snorts] I don't see any. So, I guess we're we're good.
Uh, let me see.
So, Omega Joe says, "Yeah, it does say Dome." Talking about uh Genesis uh one, depending on your translation. Okay, I see Art just popped back in.
Omega Joe says, "Thank you for your contri contribution to the human experiment, holding the line with a positive attitude to only what is grounded truth." And there's more there.
Thank you so much, Omega Joe. Appreciate you. Art, we talked to Art yesterday.
Art is back. Art, as soon as you unmute, I will bring you in.
All right. Welcome back to Kapa. What's good, Art?
How you doing, sir?
>> Chilling, man. What's happening with you?
>> Not much, man. I enjoyed our conversation yesterday. I'm listening today. And um yeah, I heard I heard you commented early on something that I I said about the Holy Spirit. And if you don't mind, can we revisit that?
>> Uh, sure. I don't think I commented on something you said as much as I said I prayed that I would receive the Holy Spirit because maybe you know I I don't know I maybe I did say something I don't I don't remember but go ahead you got the floor.
>> I mean >> and for those who don't know are you are a you're a Christian Bible believing Christian right?
>> I am indeed.
>> Okay so go ahead.
Um, okay. You said you you you now now now you understand, like I said, you you've been down this road, you know what the scriptures say about how to approach God. And if you're asking God to fill you and you're honestly saying that you want to be filled, how could you do that if you are saying that you don't believe there is a God? How does how how do you reconcile those two thoughts?
>> Remember remember it's not that I want to be filled filled. Remember my prayer was God if you're there I don't I don't think you are but I if you're there I want to I want to know that you I want to believe if you're there and I said um art suggests that the way I can know that the Holy Spirit really is within me is if you fill me with your spirit and let me speak in tongues. So, I'm praying. It's almost like a help my unbelief.
I can't start off with I believe, help my unbelief, but I'm willing to believe if you give me something to go on. So, that's how I put that together.
>> Okay. Now, can can can we go back? Would this apply to you or not? Now, I'm I'm we're talking. I'm not arguing. I'm not trying to stress any point, but I'm just throwing this out as as a qualifier. Um, when the Bible says to bring fruits meet for repentance, do you think that you have to have a repented heart to receive the Holy Spirit? Do you think that humbling yourself before God and coming to the end of yourself, which is what Christians say they do, or what happens in scripture, hey, I don't know how to run my life. I don't know, you know, I don't know how to do this thing called light. You have the answers, God. Hey, I'm giving myself. I'm humbling myself now. I need you. Please fill me. Do you think that you came to that?
>> That's sort of the that's sort of the the gimmick of it all because basically what you're saying, Art, well, let let me let me make the point. Um, basically what you're saying is I have to believe so that I can believe.
And I'm saying >> Go ahead. Go ahead. You're saying God convince me and then I will believe. Is that what you're saying?
>> Yeah. And and Daryl Williams, I was thinking this when you were saying this a minute ago. It depends on what your view of regeneration is because I cannot make myself a believer depending on what passages of the Bible that you're, you know, you're coming from. Some parts of the Bible make it seem like God's got to do the work first. God's got to call.
God's got to draw. God's got to have elected. The Holy Spirit has to convict me of sin uh and of salvation of uh of judgment. God has to do all these things to initiate the process. I can't initiate the process. The most I could do is ask God like because I'm helpless.
I can't make myself believe. God, you've got to initiate the process. So even if somebody were to say because I was waiting for it, nobody said it. I was waiting for somebody to say the Holy Spirit is only for believers. Brady, you can't be filled with the Holy Spirit until you believe first. But apparently I can't even make myself believe God's got to do a work to make make that happen first. He's got to regenerate me.
>> Well, let's look at what the scriptures say, Brady. And I think you know this stuff. I think you're rehearsing things to people that don't know the Bible or don't know it well enough. But you know, the Bible says faith comes by hearing.
And the day that you hear his voice, don't harden your heart. So if you're going to >> Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. All right. All right. All right. Step one.
Don't go to the step two first. Step two is don't harden your heart. Let's go to step one. When have I heard his voice?
Because if I hear his voice, I don't think I would harden my heart. I'm waiting for the voice. [laughter] >> Okay. So, so, okay, we can go back to yesterday's argument when you said all the things that you did when you even confessed or said or or you you testified that people that you spoke to, they cried because they received your message or they were touched by what you said, >> then you're saying that wasn't the Holy Spirit. Now, >> is that true?
>> I don't think it was.
>> Okay. What was that? if it wasn't the Holy Spirit because see you you would have made the point yesterday I believe you would have said hey that was a work of the spirit but now you're >> I would have explained it according to the vocabulary provided to me by my community which was a Christian community >> yeah but no was that by you because we're not talking about your community and what they said we're sticking to what you would have thought >> no but once again I didn't invent the term holy spirit I didn't invent the term conviction my community and the Bible provided me with that vocabulary. And so when I when I was out there and I was I was giving the gospel intentionally guilting people, laying guilt trips on people.
Imagine you had a hold on wait. So you asked me what was happening when I was giving the gospel and people were were crying and all that. [snorts] If I come to you and I say, "Art, what if you had uh a a need, a deep need, and then somebody they um they sold everything they had, they moved, they became homeless because they said, "Art's got a need. Art's got a need." And they did a a go for me and they raised all this money and they they went through all kinds of terrible things to be able to raise the money for you. And then they came and they gave and let's just let's just say I told this whole story, right?
and they they got the money to you and then you you you got the money, but then you looked at the person and you spat in their face and you cursed them out and you pushed them down the the the stairs and and I said, "Art, almost like Nathan did to David. You are the man, right?"
Um I said, "Art, guess what? You say that that would be crazy if you did that, right?" You like, "Yeah, I would never do that." And I said, "Art, guess what? You've been doing that to God your entire life because God woke you up every morning. He gave you sunlight. He gave you talent. He gave you a hug, a wife, a and I and I guilt you with all this stuff and I make you feel like you've been ignoring your creator. And here he is. He came to earth. He died for you. He bled for you. And I walked through the crucifixion and how bloody it was. And Jesus did that willingly for you, enduring the shame, being naked on the cross. And I I guilted people into the tears. But I didn't tell myself I was guilting them. I told them, "Oh, look at the conviction of the Holy Spirit.
Right. So, you >> That's what I'm saying.
>> Okay. That That sounds kind of like you're saying two different things or you would have used that argument differently yesterday than what you're using it because it sounds like what you would have said yesterday was the because we talked about the gifts of the spirit and if tongues was different or more valuable than the other. And then you said, "Oh, so all those things I was doing when I was ministering, you're telling me that wasn't the Holy Spirit."
And I said, "Well, we're not going to go down that street. All I all I'm asking you to do is to go back and revisit what you didn't get and maybe, you know, reconcile that whole scenario that you and God never reconciled in the first place." So just in case you misunderstood what I was saying. I was not saying yesterday that I believe the Holy Spirit allowed me to minister and preach and convict.
>> I'm not That's not what I was saying.
>> No, you missed my point. No, no, no. You missed what I was saying. I'm saying that's how I would have All right. All right. Let me let me explain. Let me let me explain what I was saying yesterday is at the time I would have explained it as the Holy Spirit was doing these things and then I asked you if I was seeing all those things and that was the Holy Spirit in my mind at the time why would I why would I say oh I'm doing all these things by the spirit I've got the gift of evangelism I think I got the gift of of teacher I got all these spiritual gifts but I didn't speak in tongues so I guess I wasn't I had other signs that I thought at the time this was and then I asked you are those other things things that the Holy Spirit would allow somebody to do. So if you're willing to say nah Brady you probably did do those things by the Holy Spirit then you then you probably shouldn't be so but you didn't have tongues so none of it counted. If those other things it's sort of like I'm entering into your world.
>> Go ahead. You got it.
>> No I was just going to say and I didn't say that if you recall. I did not say that. All I did was challenge you to go back to where you were and kind of fell off, right? And didn't get the fullness of what you say you were searching [snorts] for.
>> That's all I that's thing that I asked you to do.
>> Even even as a Christian, I would not think that speaking in tongues >> would have meant fullness.
>> And that's why I I cut off the argument.
That's exactly why I cut off the argument and I gave you my testimony and I said, "You know what? We're not going to argue the, you know, the logistics and and how that whole thing works out, uh, tongues and the church versus, you know, your private uh, prayer time. Just go back and you get what you didn't get.
I That's the only thing I challenge you to do."
>> But I'm not in control of whether I get that. Would you agree? Listen, and this is this is the this is what we're talking now. You're saying that you never heard God's voice, right? You're you're going to recant all of that. You say you you you were ministering, you were doing all that.
>> Well, well, let me let me add something into that in case it affects what you're saying. There was one time where I did think Jesus appeared to me in a dream and I did hear his voice. But upon reflection, I have to say that was a dream and people have dreams. So, but >> can't take away or add to that. That's your experience. I can't speak to that.
All I can speak to you you're saying if the Bible's correct, you know, this this I think your your uh topic today, the the Bible's unbelievable, right?
>> But we gota we got to use the Bible to get to truth. If if we're going to use it as a basis of truth, you have to use it as this is what you have to do. If you heard his voice, if you never heard his voice, how can you ask for something if you don't believe it? If you don't believe it after you've heard it, how could you even get to the conclusion of where it's trying to take you if, hey, listen, I I pray. Well, the prayer wasn't sincere. You because guess why?
You're saying God proves something to me when I don't believe you in the first place. God is not He doesn't have to prove anything to you. You know that God doesn't You live in a world he created.
You can't deny you're on earth.
>> But what you're But if you understand what you're saying, what you're basically saying to me is Brady, if you believe, then you'll see all this stuff. But what what a lot of believers don't take into account is once you believe, you've already done the hard work. You've you've done the work for God. God doesn't have to prove anything to you because you believe already.
>> You're going to force real. Wait, wait, wait. If you believe already, like if I believe that God shows up and God speaks and God this and God that, then anything I see, I'm going to say, "Oh, that was God." And it doesn't have to be God. It can just be me taking my belief and trying to force it onto reality. like when I graduated seminary and I said to God, I said, "I can't see you in your word anymore. I need to see you in your world." And I spent the next several years, >> every time I saw a fortunate coincidence, I attributed it to God.
Why? Because I wanted to believe and I tried to make reality fit the things I was trying to to hold on to be true.
When I stopped doing that, >> all of a sudden, God vanished.
So, how do I know that it wasn't just my belief that entire time?
>> Because look, guess what? Even if you last last thing I'll say, then you got the floor. I promise.
>> Even if you stop believing in me right now, guess what happens? I'm still here.
>> Things that are real don't need don't need you to believe in them to be real.
>> Man, you are proving your own point.
You're saying the whole Listen, I I'm I'm thinking about I I thought about >> No, hold on. No, I'm not proving my I'm not waiting.
>> You're saying that how you're saying how can I ask God to fill me with his spirit, >> allow me to speak in tongues and all that if I don't believe. If that stuff is real, it should not matter whether I believe it or not. God should be able to arrest. No, God should be able to arrest me and fill me without me having to believe anything.
>> Listen, that's the whole point. Why would he ask you? Why would he say when you hear it, you've heard it. You've heard it more than most. You know more than most.
>> When have I heard God's voice in a way that I can't question it?
>> Oh, wow. See, that's the point, Brady.
Right there. Right there. You're saying that you've never heard God. You're discrediting everything you have heard.
So, nothing matters to you. You can't come to true because everything that >> it's called critical thinking. It's what if somebody came to you and said, "You have heard Allah. You just >> You're proving my point, bro. You're proving my point.
>> You're proving my point.
>> Talk to me >> because you're everything that I bring to you that is truth that is in the word of God that you say is not real, when I say simply do it, you run away from it.
You say it's not." You will find a way not to do it and not to prove it when it's right there. It's right. All you got >> the thing that you want me to do or the thing you want me to do is believe. I can't make myself believe.
>> Yes, you can. Why would God require you to do it or ask you to do it if you couldn't?
>> Because it's a because it's a scam.
Telling somebody to believe something is a telling somebody to believe something that you cannot demonstrate is a scam.
The fact that your god wants you to believe, it's a scam.
I can't make my Yes, you can.
>> You think you can make yourself believe something? Can you believe that you have a million dollars right now? Like really believe it? Can you make yourself believe that?
>> Okay, but if I don't have evidence that is there, then why would >> Bingo? Hold on. Hold on.
>> Hold on. All right.
>> If you don't have evidence that it's there, you can't make yourself believe it, right? Okay.
>> But if somebody showed me a system where I can make a a million dollars or a million dollars is po possible for me to have, then I can't believe that I can see there's different ways to get to the same conclusion. Bro, you can't conclude. You can't Everybody in the chat is like >> everybody in the chat hears what you're saying and you don't hear what you're saying. I asked you, can you make yourself believe you have a million dollars? Your immediate response was, "If you don't have evidence, you can't make yourself believe something you don't." Belief is is a response to evidence.
>> And the things that you're pitching to me as evidence, hold on. Wait, wait, wait. Last thing I'm going to say. Wait.
The things that you're pitching to me as evidence, wait, >> the things that you're pitching to me as evidence >> don't have to be God. evidence is it points to this conclusion and it's not strong evidence if it points to three or four possible con conclusions. The dream I had could have been Jesus and it could have just been a dream. So, it's not strong evidence. Strong evidence is it only points to one conclusion.
You can't give me a bunch of stuff that points to multiple possible conclusions and then tell me why don't you believe Brady? Just do the thing. You keep finding ways to not do the thing. The thing you want me to do is a response to evidence that you're not presenting me.
>> Okay. Wait, wait, wait, wait, [laughter] wait. Listen. Does the gospel work like this? Acts 238 or 237.
When when they heard this, when they heard it, they were pricricked in their heart. And they said to me Peter and the rest of the brethren, men and brethren, what shall we do? Peter gave them a response. He told them to do what?
Repent.
be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Right?
>> Right.
>> So they had to do something in response to what they heard and what they were told to do to get the result.
>> Question question about that. Do you think they believed before they repented or do you think they repented and then they believed?
I don't think Peter would have told them to repent if that wasn't something they needed to do. That's what they were asking.
>> Hold on. Hold on. Do you I'm just I'm asking you. Do you think that they believed before they repented or do you think they repented and then they believed?
>> What they heard they were convicted by it and they needed to know what they needed to.
>> If you're convicted by something, that means you've got something to go on and you can believe it, right? You're not convicted by things you don't believe.
Conviction is like you conviction is a sense of of of really believing something deep down.
>> Okay. So if you believe something deep down, aren't you going to move on it?
That was the whole premise. That was the whole purpose.
>> Exactly. Exactly. But if I don't believe, I can't move. Right.
>> But I'm That's what I just told you.
That's exactly what I just told.
>> Art Art, what do you think occasions believe? What do you think belief comes from?
>> Hearing. Hearing. Hearing. Hearing.
That's what the Bible >> I hope the people who are watching are hearing because Art I don't know if you're hearing what you're saying.
[laughter] >> Wow. Brady, you you you're you're twisting. Every time I come to a conclusion and show you, it's like you taking another road, dude. You taking a you taking a a side road. like, "Oh, here's a here's an escape route. I I got to take that." All right.
>> Part of the problem is you think that you can >> So, let's go back. Let's go Let's go back because you you got close. Somebody was like, "Yo, he's so close." All right. You said this a minute ago. I said, "Can you make yourself believe you have a million dollars?" Let's not go with the thing that you tried to go to.
You >> imaginary. No, this is imaginary.
All right. You said if somebody showed you a way to make a million dollars, that's not the point. Can you make yourself believe something that you don't have evidence for? Can you think you can do that?
>> Listen, this is is is making yourself making yourself believe and being presented something to believe. Is that would you say that's a difference?
>> Yes.
>> Okay. That's where we're at. That's where we're at.
>> Okay. So give me the presentation of something to believe.
>> You you've been presented the whole what what you have abandoned is your whole presentation >> of what to >> remember what I said about evidence right strong evidence does not point to three or four possible conclusions. If you go to if you go to court and you say I got evidence that he's the one that robbed the store. Hold on. Wait wait wait. If you go to court and you say, "I got evidence that he's the one that robbed the store." And your evidence points to three or four possible suspects, not like they were all, it was only one robber, not four. Your evidence can point to four different people because four different people's cell phones pinged at that time, four different people had the same kind of like if your evidence can point to four possible people, you don't have strong evidence. Would you agree?
>> I asked a question. I would like an answer.
We're talking about evidence. You said you cannot believe something if you don't have strong evidence for it.
Right.
>> Listen. Listen. No. I'm I'm telling you and I'm asking you because every time I go down a road, you find an escape hatch every time.
I just asked you.
>> Is is believing in something and being made to believe in something different?
>> That's not what you said. The question was, is making yourself believe in something and being presented with evidence to believe in something different things?
>> That's two different things. Am I right?
>> Right. Right.
>> Which do you want? Do you want me to do the first or the second?
>> Either or. It doesn't matter.
>> I can't do the first because you already told me we can't make ourselves believe in things we don't have evidence for.
>> No. And and believe me, people do believe in things and and you know, you can't you can't put that on every person on the earth cuz people believe things that they can't see all the time.
>> We get it.
>> That's not what I said. There's a difference between believing things you can't see and believing things that you don't have evidence for. I could I could not see a lot of things but have evidence for it.
>> Okay. That is that not the gospel? Is that not what we believe? Are you not hearing what I'm saying about evidence?
The things that you're presenting me as evidence for the gospel being true can point to several competing possibilities, which means it's not good evidence.
>> If the gospel is >> No, it's not. No, it's not. No, it's not. No, it cannot. You know why?
Because it's not giving you those scenarios. It's giving you one thing to believe. He He's not giving you >> Do you believe everything you read >> in what in the Bible? Period.
Do you believe everything you read?
>> Of course, I don't believe everything I read.
>> So, hold on. Why should I?
>> We're not talking about the Bible. I just made that distinction. See, that's what I'm saying.
>> Wait. Why? Why would I put the Bible in a different category than anything else I read? What reason do I have to do that if I don't believe yet?
>> This has to do with your eternal soul.
And if you don't believe you have one, that's a whole different scenario.
That's a whole different thing. If you don't believe, >> even if I believed I had one, why would I believe just anything? And to me, the Bible is anything until you demonstrate that it's special.
>> Why should I believe the Bible is evidence that only points to one possible conclusion that Jesus is Lord?
Why should I believe that? is only conclusion that that you can't get to any more conclusions. Now you can believe something else but you can't conclude anything else other than Jesus is Lord and you preach that >> that is not true. I can conclude many things about the Bible. I can conclude I can conclude that the biblical authors borrowed bits and pieces of a bunch of different religions and concocted the story that they told. I can believe that. Okay. Why shouldn't I? did a pretty good job. They're do they did a pretty good job doing it because it's it's accurate and I got the result of what they said in the Bible. So, I'm more prone like I told you yesterday, I'm more prone to believe God than man.
So, you can come up with these stories that people are telling you or you know the scientific evidence, but God still says, Brady, let every man be a liar and let God be true. So, if I got >> How do you know a lying man didn't write that? How do you know a lying man didn't write that?
>> Listen to what I'm saying. If I got the evidence of something that was written years ago, 2,000 more so years ago, and I got the evidence because I I I simply obeyed what it said. I did what it said to do. And and like I say, I didn't confer with man when I when I received.
I didn't ask for tongues. I didn't ask.
I just said, "Lord, show me just like kind of like what you are saying." Lord, I don't know if it's true or not, but I'm open to the fact and I'm going to humble myself to whether it's true or not. So, if if this is real, I'm going to put my pos myself in a position. I'm not going to hold my old thoughts like, "I never heard of that, so I don't believe it. I never was taught that, so, you know, my church didn't teach that, so it ain't real." And that's the position people take because you weren't taught it. You weren't shown it because you don't have the evidence for it. You will close out something that the Bible clearly speaks and says just to hold on to your point.
But that does not mean it's not true.
It's meaning that you're not humble enough and obedient enough to do what the Bible is saying for you to do.
That's the problem.
>> Hebrews 11:1 says, um, "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Then you go on a few verses later and it says, "Whoever comes to God must must first believe that God exists, >> right? He's a >> and that he's a rewarder of those who diligently seek him." So, hold on.
>> Yeah.
>> All right. All right. What you're basically saying is I have to do the work of God. Do God's work first. I've got to I've got to make him real. Hold on. I've got to wait.
You're saying I've got to make God real to myself first before he will do anything to confirm that. That's what you're saying, right?
>> Do you think that text is saying that?
Come on, Brady. Do you really think that text is saying >> if I have whoever comes to him must first believe that he exists? I got to believe it before he demonstrates it.
I've got to believe it first. I've got to get myself in the right mental space for him to perform his existence display.
>> I I hear what you're saying. I got I got what you're saying. I know. It makes it makes sense. It makes sense. Like, oh, why why do I have to prove to God that I believe him for him to show me who he is?
>> No, no, no, no, no, no. It's not Nope.
That's not what I'm saying. You're you're you're putting a little more spice on it than what I'm saying. It's not I got to prove to God that I believe first. It's I've got to do the work of making God real to myself first before God does anything.
>> Make God believe. Why would you have to make God real to yourself when he just says believe?
>> That's what it means.
>> That's what it means for me to believe that he is. I've got to make him real to myself.
>> I've got to convince myself of this reality.
>> Right. Let's let's let's do this. Let's let's let's be basic and simple. I'm not going to go down the whole road that that the former um guest went down or you know concoct this whole Genesis story. Let's just use basics.
Is there a heaven and an earth?
>> What do you mean by heaven?
>> Is there is there an earth sir? Earth?
Let's let's just cut out heaven. Let's let's let's just deal with >> No, I don't want to cut out heaven. I just want to know what you mean by it. I just want to know what you mean by it. I don't want to cut it out. I just want to know what you mean by it. I want to I want that in this conversation.
>> See, sky expanse. Uh yeah, sun, moon, stars. Can we agree on that?
>> No. Because you think the sun is in the sky.
>> I Brady, you're twisting my Come on, man. Let's stick the >> I said, what do you mean by heaven? You said you said expanse, sun, moon, stars.
>> Can Can we deal with just Earth? Can Can you believe that we're we're on planet Earth? Can Can we believe that?
>> Yes. Yes, >> we're on planet Earth, right? Do do you agree there are trees?
>> Yes.
>> Okay. Uh do you believe there are fruit on those trees?
>> Some of them. Sure.
>> Okay. Uh, what about the animals?
>> What about them?
>> Do you believe they exist?
>> Unless my eyes are lying to me, I've seen animals. So, yes, I'm willing to believe that there are animals.
>> Okay, we're going down a good path here.
So, basically, what God said and recorded that he made in the beginning, we see now today.
So, I have I do have something to go on.
I I do have a reference point that Oh, >> this is not how this is not how reasoning works. Art >> this is not how it works.
>> Well, then no, it's not how it works with you.
>> Hold on. Hold on. Art all art all.
You know how many stories about gods having created >> heavens and earths and animals there are?
>> Not talking about all the stories, sir.
I'm talking about >> You should be. You should be.
>> No, I'm not.
>> Hold on. You're saying You're saying because you can see animals and earth and all that and then the Bible says God made it. That's your evidence.
>> Listen, I have a reference point is what I'm saying. I have a strong reference point that these things exist. He says he made I don't know how else they got here. I didn't make I didn't put them here. I don't see man other than planting trees, but he didn't plant the original trees that were here. He He didn't make the sun and and the moon and stars. So, I do have a a strong reference points about this God who's who's claiming his existence and for us to believe in him. You can't you can't deny that. If you did not do you [clears throat] understand that had you grown up in a different society, a different culture, you would have had a different understanding as to how the trees and the animals and all that got there and you would have said the same thing about that. I see the trees. I see the animals. And so what my culture told me must be how this all got here.
Do you understand that? that you're a product of your culture and what sounds right and reasonable to you is really just familiarity. Do you understand that?
Did I lose art? Are you still there?
Can't hear you, Art. Don't know what happened to you.
I'll give you a couple seconds to kind of get it back together. I do have a few super chats.
Uh, it's Sage. Thank you, Sage, for the $2 super chat. Says, "You can't help."
Real quick, all let me just read these super chats real quick. Uh, Sage says, "You can't help what you're not convinced of." That's just it's just a matter of what your brain is doing with the evidence in front of you, as well as the other evidence that may not be in front of you right now, but things that you know or have learned about the world. your you you you can't help what your brain does with that evidence. All you can do is try to get more supporting evidence and see where you land. That's sort of what we do when we believe or we accept things. And then Mixturous Monica, thank you for the $5 super chat.
>> Mixtures Monica quoting Stevie Wonder.
When you believe in things you don't understand, then you suffer.
Superstition ain't the way.
>> And you know what? I agree >> from Stevie.
>> Oh, >> go ahead.
>> And and that all of the tell your callers I appreciate the the comments.
Thank you so much. And it's exactly what I would say to those that don't believe and don't see. You believe in things that you don't understand and so you see them your way and there's no way that anyone can convince you of what is being said because you see your way. And I think it's and and you would understand this more than your callers if they haven't been down this road of of being in Christianity. You know more than most.
>> No, no, no. Many of my co many of my my watchers are people who've decon converted just like me. Similar stories, different stories, but very similar experiences, >> right? Yeah. And and I think it's just a matter of what the Bible says, just being obedient to what it says, humbling yourselves under the mighty hand of God that he might exalt you, whether that's your thinking, your your lifestyle, what have you. I think it's more so your mind. He elevates your understanding because he's the God of re revelation. He's the one that reveals truth to you. But if you're unwilling to see what truth is, then you can never arrive at it because you don't believe it anyway. And I get that and and I'm not >> you believe so many untrue things it's not even funny. And then you're telling me >> you're telling me that I'm the one who's who's ignoring or denying truth. Like that's the irony here is so thick.
>> Like it's unbelievable.
>> Well, you know what? I I listen to your music, man, and and it's like this dude is preaching to himself. If he listen like like your song press. Oh my god.
That's you >> that you you're you're really talking your own testimony.
>> Yeah. That song that song is really speaking about where you are now.
>> It It really is. I I was going to text you or if I could [clears throat] and tell you to go back and listen to that song for yourself. Listen to >> I listen to that song several times a year. I listen to my old music several times a year. People have sent me that song like, "Yo, you should listen to this song from you. Preach to yourself."
And when I hear it, I weep for the me that wrote those lyrics. There's a verse in the song where I say, "If it sounds like I'm talking out both sides of the of both sides of my neck, I'm not. I'm talking out both sides of the text." But you know what I'm doing right there?
>> I'm I'm smoothing over the contradictions in the Bible when I say I'm talking out of both sides of the text. Because you got different authors saying different things about how salvation works. And then I'm trying to I'm trying to make these two antithetical ideas, trying to bring some kind of synthesis to them.
>> Well, that's maybe what you were doing.
But guess what? What I got out of it is that you're talking about both sides.
You're talking about truth over here and people who don't receive the truth over here. That's the way I took it. Like, hey, he's talking both sides. Hey, I have this walking.
>> It's not about the author. It's not about the author. the me as the author what that song is about is the song is about two different themes you see in scripture I I don't have it here >> maybe I do I don't know >> at the time I was reading a book called the race set before us and it was it was Christians trying to make sense of the Bible seemingly saying two different things that you can lose your salvation and that if you are saved you are secure >> and the author's point in the book is the warnings in the book of Hebrews about falling away and not being able to be restored are real warnings, but the warnings are how God gets the the elect to stay elect. They're real warnings and and it's how being warned makes the elect not fall away. So wait, how if they can't fall away, how are they real warning? And so they try to figure out they're talking out both sides of this contradictory Bible. And that's what that whole song was about.
>> Okay. And thank you for the clarity. I appreciate it. But when I approach scripture, when I look at it like that, I think and and and and I'm I'm I'm done arguing. I don't want to argue more. But I think this is what happens when people don't have a solid stance in the Bible.
When they don't stand on something, then like the like the old saying goes, you can fall for anything. And I think that's what's happened to not only culture as a whole, but Christian.
>> That is you. You fell for the Bible because you didn't know how to stand for critical thinking. You fell for the Bible.
>> Sir, sir. Sir, I was 17 years old. I I I know about >> I was 16. I fell for it too. 16.
>> I'm not falling for anything.
>> You do not know a thing about I'm not trying to insulting. You've not demonstrated one iota of critical thinking yesterday or today. I really I really hope that you go back and >> Go ahead. I'm sorry.
>> Yeah. But but what you're not gonna do is talk down to me like I'm the one who's on some batshit crazy like like the things that you're believing things that I preached to you is nuts and you can't demonstrate a lick of it without tricking yourself into it.
>> Okay. And I prayed with you yesterday that God would invade that God would I I don't I don't believe but God you could make me you could I even invite you I'm praying again now if you're there I even they say you're a gentleman and you don't you don't go against people's will. I even invite you to go against my will if you need do whatever you got to do to make me >> listen listen but I think you're doing something that he basic he's not he already told you what to do but it seems like you're not willing to do that >> I don't know that he said a single thing >> see and that's what I'm saying how can you arrive at truth and you're saying it's like you're contradicting your whole statement if you're willing to pray then you got to believe what you pray you said that yesterday. I got to believe what I what I'm praying else I won't receive it.
>> I said at the end of the call I said at the end of the call since James says the person who doubts should not think he's going to receive anything. I said I'm going to do my best. Hold on. I said I'm going to do my best to lend myself to this to try to believe. But I can't believe something I don't have evidence for.
>> So you never can this really what we're talking and and I pray it's not because I love you man. I really I really do. I really do. Um I'm praying that this conversation doesn't go to waste. I'm praying that something was said that you and I can think about and that you would understand. All you have to do like the Bible says and you know it is submit yourself to God. That's it. To just believe, humble yourself.
>> Why don't you submit yourself to Allah?
Why don't you submit yourself to Allah?
Because if you Islam hold on hold on Allah means submission. If you just submitted yourself to Allah, you might see the truth that the Muslims see. Why won't you submit yourself to that?
>> I will I will see. You're you you're exactly right. I will see what they see.
I will see and and I like I said I when even talking to you, I see what you're saying.
>> So then doesn't that mean it's all in your head? If you can submit yourself to Islam and then all of a sudden you think that's true, doesn't it mean it's all in your head?
just that's that's the same that's the thing of being empathetic and compassionate about you you empathize with how they feel doesn't mean you feel it or you want to be in that position hey I I see what you're saying I understand but I don't want to be in that position no I don't and and and same with you I see what you're saying bro I understand it I get the critical thinking and you're you're intelligent very sharp brother I I give it to you all day and >> I'm not as sharp as I'd like to I do this so that I can get sharper.
Actually, >> I I got I got you. I got you. And And man, I commend you on what you're doing.
But I I just think if you humbled yourself like the Bible says, if you took those steps to submit yourself to what the Bible's saying for you to do and did it, I think you would actually see. And I think if you did go back to where you left off, >> I agree with you. I I agree with you in this sense. If I did the work, I would have the results. If I just said, "I'm gonna act like a believer and I'm going to just whenever the doubts rise up."
Hold on. Wait, wait, wait. Let me let me let me finish.
>> If I just said, "I'm going to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, and I'm just going to round the clock, despite no evidence, I'm going to start calling the Bible evidence like I did back when I was a believer, and I'm just going to treat it like that." I believe that I would start enjoying Christian community again. But I also would have to tune out a lot of other things like true things we know about how the world works. I would have to tune that stuff out and then narrowly limit my mind to having Bible brain. I could do that, but I need a reason to do that and I don't have any reasons to do that.
>> I got you. I got you. and and and I won't argue with you know whe I'm not gonna give you stat and that's something I can't and I'm not >> and you're you're breaking up you sounded like Charlie Brown's teacher right now so I'm going to let you go but hey feel free to call back anytime if you feel like God might be uh moving you to to get at me again or whatever but I I appreciate the call. Thank you so much for for calling Art.
No problem.
>> Uh much love to you.
So, I normally don't look at the chat the entire time, but I just wanted to make sure that that y'all were hearing what I was hearing. And yo, this comment I this the entire call I just was like, "Wow, wow." I think the first call I think Kenny was much more uh I don't want to it's not like it was entertaining but just for my mind just to consider like oh Brady maybe maybe you're not saying it the way you want to be saying it maybe you're not d I I enjoyed the Kenny call but this call was painful um and not trying to dissart I just think it it became very evident that his standards for for truth truth, his standards for what's worth believing.
Like if I'm going to just submit myself, why submit myself to this? There's so many things I could submit myself to if it's just simply a matter of submit yourself to it. Repent and then you'll see anything you give your if I wanted to be an astrophysicist, I look at Dakota Tyler, right? He's one of the people I follow online. uh former football player decided one day he just wanted to study astrophysicist and wanted went on and got masters and PhDs.
I'm like, yo, it took him 10 years. I got all kinds of free time. I could probably do that in maybe five years. By the time I'm 55, I could be an astrophysicist. If I just submitted myself to it, I probably could be I could do a million things. Why should I submit myself to this? His answer was or because your if you have a eternal soul is at stake.
Okay, why this religion for my eternal soul? Why not some other? What makes this one stand out? And then we got to get into what the text actually says.
And then before you know it, it's like, oh, I'm not going to believe that. Like that's unbelievable.
Sure, I could submit myself to it. Why should I? If the God is just going to stay back and hide. One of my ear first songs [clears throat] on Heaven's Mentality, I have a line that says, "Beyond the miles and the clouds full of mystery, there was a savior who was just dying to get with me." Cuz I thought this I thought the God who was out there had pierced the sky and came down. But once that becomes unbelievable or at least questionable, it's like, well, wait, why am I saying that God did anything at this point? You gota you got to show me something. You got to do something something that can't that can't be explained by some other means.
And as long as the God stuff is is well it could have been. You never know. He works in mysterious ways. And I mean how else you going to explain that coincidence?
as long as that's all you got. And these ancient writers said D.
And yeah, they got this wrong or that wrong, but maybe they weren't trying to get it right. Maybe God just accommodated his truth to their level of understanding. And you could make that excuse for anything.
Why should I allow you? Why should I get myself to make that excuse for this?
This might be our last call of the day.
Who knows? But welcome back to Kapa, my guy.
Ka, what's going on?
>> Oh, I'm on my man. What's up?
>> I think I have a delay.
>> Uh, no, you sound straight to me with the fresh cut. I see what's going on with you.
>> Oh, yeah. Finally. Right. [laughter] >> I heard I heard uh was his name Kenny.
>> Yes.
Was that the guy that was saying that was that the guy that was saying you were taking it too serious? Um the scientific aspect?
>> Well, not too serious. Just that I was stressing that Genesis was trying that God if God is behind Genesis or the authors that God was communicating cosmology and not just some uh ethereal truth. Are you frozen, Kika? Your mic was messing up. Your whole thing might have been messed up now.
Let's try this. Try to call right back in if you can still hear.
>> How is it now? Hold me now. You sound good.
>> Okay.
>> Yes.
>> Okay. Perfect.
>> Yeah. So, I was just clear.
>> I think that's fair.
>> Yeah. I think that's a fair assessment.
Um, but you know, everybody has their faith differently, but like in the beginning of your book, uh, uh, the Genesis portion was kind of like the beginning of the dismantling, >> you know, which is fair to a degree, but like I think you got to give some grace to there being mythology in there or >> God talking down to people.
>> Yeah, >> I'm willing to do that, too. I'm willing to do that, too. But like I said, once you get to the New Testament and you start tying Jesus into that mythology, I don't know what to do with that because if if through this is I actually clipped this part because we talked about this before. If Paul says through one man sin came into the world and this is why we're in this mess and then Jesus is our way out of this mess, but then the whole uh Adam thing was a myth. I don't know what to do with Jesus if he's here to fix a myth.
Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of this Paul's because you know how they say Orthodox believe differently about atonement and then these people believe differently. You know, I don't know if we have to accept Paul like every idea that he has. You know what I mean?
My question to you, my my question to you though is how do you how do you decide which parts of Paul you're going to take as gospel truth and which parts you're going to discard?
>> Well, I think the idea is that Jesus is going to help you out of this mess. You know what I mean? You're going to have a friend in this life in the afterlife.
And it's a powerful message.
>> But why take that and not the other stuff?
I I think I think there's room to to I don't want to say pick and choose.
>> I mean, we're all doing that anyway.
There's room to pick and choose some of the other stuff, you know?
[snorts] >> I I hear you. I just don't know. I don't know how consistent you can be with your pick and choose. Like you I I need I need some kind of formula that tells me why you're picking and choosing this and then not that other than your feels.
Like if it's just vibes, like I like a friend in this life in the next. So I'm going to I'm going to rock with those parts. Like what if I vibe differently?
Then what do we do? Now we got denominations and now we got like what are we talking about?
>> Well, if you boil it down to what Jesus is recorded saying, love your neighbor as yourself and love the Lord with all your mind, heart, and spirit. You know what I mean? If you start there, then you're going to automatically change the world. You know, if we did that, right?
Well, why not just be a humanist? I can be a humanist and do the same thing. I was just about to say humanism because I I read your morality chapters uh of your book like I think two weeks ago, two or three weeks ago >> and I I wanted to go again before I talked to you in detail about it, but you did a very good job of breaking down >> I guess the mechanisms of morality.
>> Mhm. you know, >> and I I think uh >> yeah, even though you touched on it, you intentionally kind of stopped, which is kind of what you have to do >> uh at at objective morality because I guess uh >> yeah, >> I guess you don't at this point you don't uh quote unquote believe in it or you haven't formulated that part yet.
>> Yeah, I got it's jumping on the tip of my tongue. Say it, say it. But I'm like, I can't I'm willing to I'm going to I'm I'm going to try to workshop this with you, Kikila.
>> I think that I think morality >> might actually be talking about the method, not the end goal.
>> Uhhuh.
>> The end goal can be subjective, whereas morality is telling you whether or not you're actually getting to that end goal in the most efficient way.
That's what we mean by morality. And then we assume the goal we're trying to get to is human flourishing. That's subjective. I think >> though I think I can tie it to things that are a little more grounded. But I think what's not subjective is once you set that goal, is this going to get you there or is that going to get you there?
And morality is, oh, that's going to get you there better or quicker.
>> It's rough though, man. It's rough.
>> Yeah. Like like just like we have trouble defending like all the stuff in the Bible and like all the >> like atheists you can't really uh >> it's tough not having an objective moral should. But y'all are better I think at a lot of the intricacies of morality.
You know what I mean?
>> So you you don't necessarily get stuff like slavery, you know? M >> like I think it's good to have some tradition though does help the Christian tradition you know but um I think you just don't have the should it's just Adams bouncing on each other that's a problem you know >> you don't think so >> well well once again even even in my morality when I work it out there is never really a should. So, I'm not I'm not mad at the fact that we don't have a should. But I do think the conversation what makes us better if if atheists are better in this at all. I think what makes us better is I rephrase that should as a would um the hypothetical hypothetical imperative. Once you set this goal, if that's what you say you want to do, then here's what you would do if you really valued that.
>> And because we're because we approach it that way, it's like, oh, you you say you valued that, then why you doing that?
you you you shouldn't be doing that really means you wouldn't be doing that if you really value this like you said.
>> If you really value it.
>> Yeah. But you have to you have to choose the shared value.
>> Yes. Well well >> but there's no real >> it's not really you have to choose the shared value. I think we have to recognize or acknowledge or maybe come together and say hey what are you you value safety right? Or we're not choosing it. I think we're acknowledging we've got these common core values and then we're coming up with okay so how do we protect those values and that's what the morality is. Yeah, I I do think that is what humanist or I guess I don't know if you want to say atheistic nonspiritual morality is or non-religious morality, >> but it's kind of toothless. Like it's really like it's just Adams bouncing against each other and it's like just the opinion in your head and it's like it's so like you can never tell somebody don't do that, you know? It's like throwing a baby off of a state capital is the same as eating a cheeseburger.
>> No. So when you see somebody like sometimes you see people about the fight, right? He like, "Oh, I don't want your like you want to go to jail >> because you're assuming they don't want to go to jail." You're trying to appeal to what they want. And I think that's what morality like it's not toothless.
It's not toothless if we really have real desires that we can all understand.
I bet you want to go home. That's why even with cops, right? Cops shooting black men. And then one of the things that not that I'm like riding with police over black, I'm not. But one of the things I do understand is if cops say or people say they need to go home at the end of the night, too.
>> It's not like they should. It's it's understanding that's a we all would want to go home at the end of the night, too.
>> You got to find common ground.
>> What rules do we make to make sure that they get to go home at the end of the night? But hold on, Black Lives Matter.
What rules do we make to make sure that they get to go home at the end of the night? And there's never really a should. It's just trying to identify and acknowledge our common these are our goals. Here's what we want. Now, what would we do if if we really want that?
Like we say, that's the there's no should. It's not toothless because our desires are real.
>> I I do think that the methodologies that you get from like like ultimately if I can't prove God, then we have to go to that anyway. But like if I can get around all that, whoopde-doo. You know what I mean? Like >> that's what >> if it's better for me to just like >> you all you all might have several things over us but one thing you definitely have over us is it's a lot easier than having to go through all those what would we do if we really value what we say you come and say God says you boom you should do you ought to do this and case closed I wish it was that easy for us >> like just having a divine ought to do anything >> like literally if it's all just atoms bouncing into molecules bouncing into I kind of feel like atheists don't really believe >> false dichotomy kic it's not like it's either God or that it's either God or that or we don't know yet like it could be more than just Adams we don't know >> I think morality is the atheist god though like saying there is a should or even if you don't call it a should if you act as if there's a should you know what I mean like even out of self-preservation >> that's why ni is hanging here cuz it's not like oh You're not calling it a SH Brady, but you're kind. No, it's just reason in reason's name. I have these wants. I can identify the same once in you. What ought? Not ought really. What would we It's reasoning. It's not like like the We're not trying to smuggle a should in.
>> But you can get around reasoning.
There's so much more that can benefit you often if you break the rules and people do it all the time or if you just ignore it. You know what?
Look at human history. I'm going to take everything they have. You know what? Cuz why not? We want more apples and chickens. You know what I mean?
>> But here's here's what we say. We say, "Would you want that to happen to you?"
Like, I'm watching Vikings right now, right? I made it as far as >> Oh, I love that show.
>> Yeah. Now I'm about >> The first one with Ragnar.
>> The second one. The second one.
>> I haven't I haven't seen the second one.
>> Yeah. So, I'm going through and I'm watching. I'm like, "Yo, y'all gonna go raid their land?" But wait, what happens when you end up in the palace and then they come raid you? Like, do you really want to live in the world where that's how people treat people? But it's like, no. It's it's it's not as simple as if you can get away with it, why wouldn't you? Well, because if you thought long enough down the road, you realize that's not the kind of world I want to live in.
>> I mean, I think a lot a lot of people do, though. It's a it's it's more immediate in certain situations. is more >> mhm >> like like we needed humans needed the Christian ethic or other ethical frameworks to say there's something else higher than that even even to evolve into I think stronger forms of morality you know you get these people Martin Luther King >> I don't know that they needed it >> I'm going to let you finish I'm sorry cuz I cut you off several times no >> I don't know that I don't know that they needed it I just think >> I mean if evolution is true think of where we came from right like you weren't I don't know if our common ancestor was reasoning like this.
>> So like it's not like they they had reason as far as we know and was like dad you know what reason is not enough and so we invent gods. It's like no they they weren't really reasoning. They were smashing each other with rocks and like you weren't reasoning at first. We we're reasoning a lot more now.
>> So I wouldn't say they needed God because reason failed. I think they needed God because they just weren't reasoning.
I I think the reasoning comes because like you know the the Nazis, not to bring up the Nazis, Lord, but you know what I mean? They they had a certain level of reasoning and they chose their values. This is it. You know, >> it was kind of incoherent mix of oultism, maybe a dash of, you know, Christian authoritarism, you know, just whatever. But, you know, the white stuff is um and they just did what they wanted to do. And if they were strong enough, it would have benefited them. You know what I mean? And a lot of people like that world. You know, if I could have a world, it's that's what fascism is, right? If I got a world back there right now.
>> Exactly. And I can tell you God doesn't want that. You know, [laughter] >> I know intuitively.
>> How do you know? Because you read the Old Testament and it's like he kind of does want like so. And this is one of the issues I always have with Christians is the new covenant. The new covenant is not this thing that Christians made it out to be where it's kumbaya. The new covenant is everybody bowing down to Israel. That's what the That's what the new covenant was in the Hebrew Bible in the Old Testament.
>> God of Yeah. Yeah. I do >> when I say new covenant, I think about after Jesus, what he what he would want.
>> That's what Christians made it.
>> Okay.
>> But the Hebrew Bible, which we call the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible has a whole different picture of what the new covenant was going to be. Uhhuh.
>> So, >> and so that God would probably be down with something like Christian nationalism if it was for the Jews.
Like, [laughter] >> is that like in um Isaiah and all these like the the prophets after the uh the Torah?
>> Yeah. I mean, they spoke a lot about justice, too, like in Isaiah and whatever, you know? It's like a it's like it's a mixed bag. It's like >> it's like us trying to figure it out.
They were trying to figure it out, but they could sense >> the force. You know what I mean? they could sense God and he started communicating with him just like any type of science. I would say uh religion is mingled with reason you know and it's and it's not just maybe it starts as I would like to live in a better world but then something inside of you says you know what I think the force wants me to live in a make a better world or the force wants me to sacrifice you know what I mean for this child that child deserves to live you know I live my life let me pull it out the water you know M >> and like this just you know and like that's the ethic that Jesus embodied but he also had superpowers which help.
>> You know what's crazy to me?
>> What's crazy to me is we think we're so much more reasonable and moral than people in the days of the Bible. And we probably are.
>> But what's crazy to me is they probably thought that they were more reasonable and more moral than the generations that came before them. Like >> yeah, >> we evolved from some very like >> 99% of the species on this planet have died.
>> And a lot of that was not just bacteria, parasites or disease. Some of that was predation.
>> Yeah. Like we live in a planet full of >> death probably death and like so it's like whatever we're saying right now there's probably going to be if we don't blow up the earth uh there's probably going to be a generation years from now that will look that's why I like a foundation um series on Apple TV and based on >> people have been telling me to watch that and say I like it. Yes, they I think you would love it, Kika. I think you would love it for sure.
>> But they look back at religion >> as a time when people were not like it. It gets to the point where science becomes the new religion almost.
>> Oh, >> and they look back at people that were religious and I I don't want to spoil too much, but I think you would love it. But I think there's going to be a day where people are going to look back at our generation and they're going to look at our religion wars. They're going to look at our mosques, our temples, our churches, and they're going to be like, damn, how come they couldn't see where they are at? You know what I mean?
Like, how come we couldn't arrive to where they got to a thousand years from now?
>> I agree.
>> Archaic to them.
>> Yeah, I agree. That's part of the reason why the Bible is valuable because you can see the evolution of the spiritual quest. You know what I mean?
>> And then it's kind of like in the Christian tradition, it's embodied in what Jesus did, which was pretty revolutionary for 2,000 years ago, you know, within that time, within that time frame, >> the things he advocated, you know, and um but yeah, I hope they do look down on us to a degree, you know what I mean?
Because we do need to do to do better.
And also, some things we not we can't even see, you know? Maybe we all need to be vegans, you know? I don't know. I'm definitely not a vegan.
>> I I think I think I said this yesterday.
I think the invention of lab grown meat is one of the best things we've ever done.
>> And I hope it becomes a >> once this White House is this administration, you can't trust >> that's so crazy. Not that you could fully trust FDA before, but now you really can't trust them.
>> So to get back to to an FDA that that's at least trying to do the bare minimum and be able to clear some of this stuff so that we could I would love to stop harming animals.
>> I don't I mean me too. like like that's something that like I can see like I can't do that right now, right? And I'm not willing to do it right now. But like I get it, you know what I mean? Cuz I don't like anything to suffer.
>> At the same time, like uh you know, farming, you kill a lot of stuff, farming vegetables too at the level that we do it, >> you know, >> all the animals in the field and stuff like that. Then you killing all the bugs >> and um so yeah, that's one thing that a lot of atheists have been saying. What's his name? Alleconer. He's got a problem with the suffering of animals even like before humans got here because animals eat other animals. You know what I mean?
Like are you going to stop the animals from eating other animals? You know, >> like what are you do are are you one of the um like when Sorry, the edibles are kicking in. Um when I watch animal stuff, I don't care whether it's a dragonfly eating moth. I don't care.
Whenever I see like the atoms bouncing around that you just talked about have organized whatever the chemistry is that allow has organized themselves in such a way that fantastic things are happening on the earth and if I think that that thing can experience pain >> I don't want that to happen at all.
>> Yeah.
>> What do you do?
>> What do you do with animal suffering? Do you put it all on the fall or do you do you have some other because the the animal suffering predates humans? So like what do you do with that suffering?
>> I think suffering's got to be part of the equation some kind of way. Some kind of way God saw that >> like I don't know if it's more like looking at it like a simulation because remember I don't think I don't think everybody goes to hell forever and ever like a lot of Christians do. You know what I mean? But it's great. So what if this is just a short period of time, but after that it's fine. Maybe there's some refinement.
There's some refinement in the afterlife. You know what I mean? You get the life review. You might have to experience everything you've done to everybody else.
>> But, you know, I do think we're part of an evolutionary process, though.
>> And maybe eventually >> it's impossible to be completely quote unquote moral or or uh uh uh you know, completely non-toxic. You know, you got to kill you got to kill gnat. If you get a we had red ants in the house, fire ants, >> there's no way around it. You know what I mean?
>> I've had rats at my at my grandma's house. That's horrible.
>> You know what I mean?
>> You could be a Buddhist monk. They try to not step on a blade of grass unless they, you know, kill the the blade of grass.
>> Yeah. I don't I don't think it's I don't think we're designed to be optimally moral, I guess you could say. That's a weird way to put it, but we have a range that we can kind of be in. You know what I mean? And some people, you know, maybe some people have evolved to that. You know, Jesus probably a pre-existing divine being, right?
>> Um, I mean, that's what I believe.
>> Um, >> you know, he came here and he's trying to get us to that place. You know what I mean?
>> And, you know, within his context, sin was the main problem.
>> But you could use other words instead of sin if you if you wrote the thing today, right? You know, what would you say it would be? You probably say it's ignorance possibly. What would you say?
Uh >> non-reasoning.
>> Uh I talk about this in the chapter on morality. I don't say it, but like I'm about to say it now, but you you'll get it since you read the chapter.
>> I would define sin as selfishness.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
>> Which is which is what George Lucas does in Star Wars pretty much, >> you know.
>> Really?
>> Yep. He said the dark side is when you become selfish because you want to defend everything that you have, >> you know.
>> Yeah. Uh, >> and I delineate between self-interest and selfishness.
>> Yeah. Okay. I remember that. Yeah.
>> Sin is when self-interest gives way to selfishness.
>> Yeah. Dude, I think I think atheists in the next 10, 20, 30 years, you're going to find that there is a base spirituality quote unquote to reality, whether it's quantum, whether it's a simulation, or whether it's just us in the mind of God, which I believe, you know what I mean? Like that's >> there's nowhere else to be, >> you know? So God is imagining us. Is is God imagining us right now? Basically.
Okay.
>> Yeah. But it's so like so dope.
>> If God is imagining us, does God have a sick mind or do you like God's mind?
>> I mean that's I think that's something that we're supposed to like wrestle with though. And we're supposed to say like I'm going to make the world a better place anyway to the best of my ability.
I'm going to try to end as much suffering as I can after I take care of my family. And that that tension is kind of supposed to be there, you know what I mean?
>> And you can't you can't completely get rid of that tension, you know? But you have to work with it, you know? And we >> But do but you you do think heaven will be free of that tension, right?
>> There might be something up there. It'll probably be a little bit, but it'll be like way less than this. Not not the horrible stuff. Nothing horrible, but there might be some kind of like slight energy up there, you know? Maybe it'll be more like a video game or something, you know? Hm.
>> None of this awful stuff. You know, [laughter] >> we didn't get no red flags, Ka. I enjoyed talking to you, bro.
>> Oh, for real?
>> Is there little red flags? Like, what do they do when they >> uh Are you looking at the screen right now? I'll show you one of them from somebody else from last caller.
>> Okay.
>> Uh, so this is what they look like.
[laughter] [clears throat] >> Well, that's why you have the best audience in the world, you know.
>> [laughter] >> Yeah. Hey, I'm let you go, man.
Appreciate you. Uh, when you get when you if you go back through the chapter, immorality, >> I'm gonna actually do a show on morality coming up soon. I've been putting it off for probably about two years now.
>> Um, >> yeah.
>> But I I feel much more I'm just I'll say this for everybody's sake. some of the stuff that I've been studying privately in the last three or four months has made me much more ready to speak on on things like I'm going to be saying probably a lot more >> in the in the coming months because I'm getting my footing on okay I can at least say this about reality can't say that yet but I can at least say this and I can build on that >> I could see another book man with the uh the kind of philosophical journey that you're taking it's interesting just philosophically you The process is so hard, man. Like, it's it's a killer, >> dude. It's rough. I think I'm about to end my deconstruction period. This is the longest that it's been. It's going a little too long, and I need to move into some other energy, but it's been really interesting. You know what I mean? And um >> you know, >> I'm curious, Kika, when you have these, for those who don't remember, Kika has has periods where he deconstructs every couple of years, but then he's, you know, back solid again. Does your Christianity look different after each of these deconstruction periods or do you ever go back? Do you ever snap back into the same Christian shape that you were in before that period?
>> I think I can. Um, like most people, I think we all have a range of whatever we're doing, right? You know what I mean?
>> If you're like the wokest person in the world, you probably have a range where you're like really woke and don't want to listen to Dave Chappelle or rap music or freaking and hate everything Trump does. And then you might, you know, when you're at the family dinner, you might bounce back or whatever, right? That's just a weird example. Christians definitely all do that, right? Okay, I don't want to hear, let's say it's super duper Christian. I don't want to hear any secular music. I just want to hear religious music or whatever, you know?
So, we all have have something like that. With me, it's like I'm pretty pretty dog on liberal as far as just my overall outlook.
>> I would like politically to answer the question. Um, it does look a little bit different. You know what I mean? M >> but I can always kind of pull back to like a certain level of Christian conservatism too. That's never completely gone, you know.
>> My political beliefs are very liberal. I would say that except for like abortion probably, >> you know, which is >> probably moderate, you know what I mean?
>> Would be considered moderate. Like, you know, >> when you talk about >> trans issues, I'm just curious.
>> I'm pretty uh pro them experiencing and expressing their humanity. I mean, if you're born like that or whatever the case may be, >> I can't, you know, and I think it's kind of a fact that people's brains are are formed differently. And I was telling a conservative Christian, >> you're a Christian.
>> Oh, [laughter] thanks, bro. That'd be awesome, bro.
>> I was just watching a crossover documentary the other day. But, >> you know, but but I'm not completely all the way.
>> Um, like with sports, I think it's a problem. And that's that's kind of like where uh being progressive, you kind of >> step over yourself. But at the same time, but like I'm very aware we got to protect the humanity of uh of trans people.
>> You know what I mean? And I I hate >> I hate how far the conversation has gone, but I have some really woke people that'll like let me be like a little bit ignorant and a little bit conservative and I can like learn by talking to them.
You know what I mean? And you know, so yeah, but like abortion is the only thing on the left that I'm like, y'all are going a little bit too hard to say y'all are supposed to be the more >> and I and I totally get the sovereignty of women. I don't mean to be talking about it. It's like the hardest issue to talk about. I totally get the sovereignty of women's bodies. So I'm not like, you know, it's like a rough issue on both sides, man. You know, >> I feel like you just, you know, that's a whole different conversation. Did >> you see the call? Did you see the call yesterday? I had a caller who asked an atheist who's pro-life and we had a discussion about that yesterday.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
>> So the thing I saw a handmade sale like so that's the problem. I can't be completely >> completely like 100% pro-life >> cuz >> it's hard to define when like for me life probably begins like even before >> I know when I had my kid like his mother um she had this glow on her like right afterwards and I was like oh but you know it was weird >> right afterwards like you were like I got you pregnant just now.
Yeah, but she she had a weird look on her, you know what I mean?
>> And then she actually died 11 days after she was born. But um >> which was crazy.
>> Yeah. But um so like but you can't I can't impose that type of stuff on people, especially a woman's bodies.
Like that's wild. You know what I mean?
>> And um and like all the zygos that they have frozen in like um this is a weird conversation. This is the kind of conversation you don't do on video. I was about to wrap up [laughter] >> like all the zygot Yeah. that they have frozen. Like you can't like just protect all the Zyos forever and ever and keep them frozen forever, right? Like you can't.
>> And um >> have you ever seen The Handmmaid Tail?
Man, that show was that first season was rough.
>> First and I think maybe a little bit of the second season. And I don't know why I stopped, but I probably go back and revisit it. But yeah.
>> Yeah. Like the idea of forced burst is really bad, bro. It's like I think there are elements in this country that would take us that far though. Unfortunately, >> these dudes are trying to stop women from voting right now.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
>> You know what I mean? Like what are we doing? This is if we don't stand up and fight like this is this is insane.
>> Yeah. So I mean the fact that women's bodies are portals to life is crazy >> to have that much intelligence in your body and your mind and the level of intuition that has evolved to do that and then when you put it in a metaphysical sense you know >> so I get them want to completely protect that >> it's even it's even more like for you as a Christian you're like man that God Da da da da. For me, it's even more amazing.
>> Yeah.
>> That nature and chemistry would have figured itself out to be able to reproduce and to go through all not perfectly because there are things in our, you know, the way we're made. It's just like that's not that don't speak of intelligent design, but it's figuring out how to do whatever this is.
>> Yeah.
>> That's so amazing to me as an atheist.
It's like >> it's not like I believe in magic. I'm seeing something that's just >> incredible.
I can't believe it because I'm seeing it.
>> Yeah, you see it, man. You see it and then these little things grow up and become, you know, these people, some of them great, some of them not so great, but like it's incredible.
>> So, >> so I say that that's the only issue I'm kind of like more moderate on, I think.
>> And part of it has been like like I get them wanting to protect women so much that they just have to go to the extreme cuz what do you have now? Women dying in cars and stuff. I do not want to be on camera talking about this. But you do have that, right? Like that happened in Texas or something a couple times, you know?
>> Yeah. Yeah.
>> That's like not cool, man. Like, so, you know, >> and I have a relative that uh let me say I have a friend that used to work with babies that um were born with defects and she would put them on a helicopter.
Uh uh this particular person I know >> and um they were very Christian, right? But I think going through that they became more more moderate on abortion from being a very conservative Christian going through that level of suffering you know seeing that level of suffering in babies you know >> that's humanity I I appreciate the humanity of somebody who would just say like having seen it having >> and then putting yourself having the empathy to say if I was this perspective mother >> which is why men Men should have so little of no say in the issue.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
>> I mean, I think we should have some say just because we're part of humanity.
>> Yeah.
>> Like we should be able to speak on I think that's immoral or not. But to we should have so little of a say in the conversation because we don't have to go through it.
>> Yeah. It's we it's it's weird either way governing like the inside of somebody's body.
>> I know I sound really pro-choice right now, but like partial like partial birth and all that type of stuff. Not that we should talk about this on your thing, but like come on, man. Like it's like when I see some like Telerico, I really like Telerico, but when he's like >> glove off, I can't like >> at a certain level you have to acknowledge and this is the deepness of birth too.
At a certain level, you have to acknowledge I think you should acknowledge the personhood of the uh the baby. I I don't know when but at a certain level I think we have to but also the women should be protected like we should have universal health care like you know what I mean like people shouldn't have to risk their life.
>> You're familiar with Matt Dante right? I think you mentioned him before.
>> Oh yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. He's like the super atheist.
>> I like I like his stance though because it's not that we're not recognizing the personhood of the the developing fetus.
What we're actually saying is, but why does one person get to infringe on the life or body of another?
>> Yeah, it's it's tough, bro. It's tough.
It's tough. But like, what about at the point that the fetus feels pain? You know what I mean? I think that >> what about only a small portion like what are you going to do?
>> Yeah.
>> You gota you gota you gota side with if there happens to be something antithetical between mother and baby.
>> Yeah. Yeah, >> you got to side with one of them. And I can even understand the people who say I choose to side with the unborn. I can understand that >> I choose to side with the mother.
>> Yeah. Yeah. But I know a very small amount of abortions take place late or when it's if it's late, it's usually for like a very serious reason.
>> But but then you have those edge cases that I'm like, we can't do that. You know what I mean? as a moral society, those edge cases.
>> I don't want to get graphic and like ruin your show.
>> Yeah. Let's let's let's end this here because [laughter] I might get demonetized or de uh atheized in the community for even >> Yeah.
>> I do think more Christians will become because the last pope was even very compassionate. he had to say some like homophobic stuff for like uh you know they always do that like these these two liberal popes but >> but then when I saw him let all these trans people come to the church and he blessed them and they were so happy and they were like these Latin American uh uh trans people uh I guess women and men I don't know and he let them do whatever the Catholics do. I don't know if he'll uh taking communion or whatever, you know what I mean? And he prayed for him.
>> And like you can see that's what he really that's where he's really at.
>> But then but then you know when they ask him the question, you got to be like I don't you know no we don't do any of that.
>> But you can see he believes in the humanity of them and he understood that experience especially when you're in Latin America. You have to deal with these people, minister to these people who are coming from all kinds of places and situations. So yeah.
>> So yeah, >> I'm I'm pretty much a Christian humanitarian I think you know.
>> Okay. Yeah.
>> Uh, Christian humanist.
>> Christian humanist. Yeah. Too. But I think I think that's like the the final level. Not necessarily me, but like the final boss. [laughter] >> Yeah. Let me hop off here. I'm at three and I I got to be uh committed to my my time from now on. Um >> Oh, yeah. Heck yeah. All right, dude.
>> Hey, I appreciate you, man. Thanks for calling. Good kicking it with you as always.
>> Oh, good talking to you, too, bro.
>> Good with you. Peace.
>> Peace.
>> All right, folks. That's my time. Thanks for rocking with IPOD.
If you're not part of the squad, you can join the Patreon. Um I told them earlier uh August 15th and or 16th, we'll be doing uh Anthony Flu's There is a God book um in the Patreon first couple chapters of that. So grab it, start reading it. I'm not going to let anything knock us off course like I did with the last time. we all gonna start the the the book response or reaction um August 1st me and Derek Cologne will be doing a conversations with Christians and tomorrow night I'm sorry tomorrow night I will be on with Matt Dela Hunty on the line and there will be no Thursday exit strategy tonight but got some good life after faith is coming up in the near future love you guys hope you have a great great night or day if it's day appreciate that Danny Claw said had a blast glad to make a live. That's what's up. All right, catch y'all on the next one. Peace.
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