Alex O'Connor SHUTS DOWN Dinesh D'Souza With ONE BRUTAL Question About Genesis

Added: 2026-05-07

[00:00:00]The scientific method has also revealed to us that the earth was formed about 4 and 1/2 billion years ago. That is much later than the sun. The gospel the Old Testament account the Hebrew Bible account tells us that it was the other way around. So, it got that bit wrong.

[00:00:16]All right. So, so so so we're Yes, the Bible is not >> So, sometimes it gets things right and sometimes it gets things wrong, you know? The the the Bible is not a science. It's not listing out a scientific >> hold on a second. You can't now move the goal post, especially if you're still going to especially if you're still going to miss.

[00:00:33]>> The issue Well, well, the No, the issue of the of the origin of the universe is extremely critical.

[00:00:38]>> told me that Genesis predicted or knew about or somehow knew about the scientific hypothesis of the origin of the universe. Then when I pointed out another scientific observation that doesn't accord with Genesis, you tell me that Genesis isn't a scientific text to begin with.

[00:00:50]What is going on, everyone? So glad you made it back to the channel for this one because I promise you this is not a conversation you want to miss.

[00:00:59]Tonight, we have Alex O'Connor, a 25-year-old academic philosopher going head-to-head with Dinesh D'Souza, one of the most experienced Christian debaters in the public sphere over one of the biggest questions you can possibly ask, is the Bible actually true? And I mean that in every sense of the word.

[00:01:20]Historical truth, scientific truth, moral truth, all of it is on the table tonight and things get very uncomfortable very fast. Stay with me all the way through because the moment near the end of this clip is genuinely one of those jaw-dropping exchanges that I had to rewind twice just to make sure I heard it correctly. Now, also really quickly, drop a comment and let me know what part of the world you're watching from right now. I genuinely love seeing where this community comes from and I read as many of those as I can. All right, let's get into it. Do you think that the universe had a beginning?

[00:01:56]I don't know. I would I would suspect yes. You suspect yes.

[00:02:00]>> Yeah, sure.

[00:02:01]How did the writers of the book of Genesis know that?

[00:02:04]I have no idea. It could I mean If I'm going to >> Did they guess?

[00:02:07]>> If I'm going to be cynical about this, if they did guess, it would be a 50/50 guess. And I also think that if we had scientific >> Would it be a 50/50 guess?

[00:02:13]>> Yeah, because and it might even be worse than that for you because if we had some kind of scientific popular hypothesis because of course the Big Bang might not have been the beginning of everything, who knows, right? But like whatever the popular scientific hypothesis is, if it were pointing to an infinite universe for example, as Einstein thought we lived in, then I'm sure that people would have opened Genesis. They would say that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and and say that the earth just means the earth itself, right? Like I I think it would be equally easily interpretable on either on either account. All right.

[00:02:43]So, one of my professors at Dartmouth was Robert Jastrow, uh head of the Mount Wilson Laboratory, one of the great astronomers of the 20th century.

[00:02:53]>> Sure.

[00:02:54]So, Jastrow writes in his book God and the Astronomers that for 250 years modern science has been attempting to discover whether the universe had a beginning. And you can think of these scientists as as ascending a very tall mountain in which there are many pathways and and and for many years with the steady-state hypothesis and so on, there were beliefs that the universe was eternal. It never had a beginning.

[00:03:23]In fact, that was the prevailing point of view.

[00:03:25]And then Jastrow argues it's almost as if we reached the top of the mountain and there was a bunch of Hebrew prophets or theologians sitting there when they've been there from the beginning.

[00:03:39]So, I'm describing now a skeptic a true skeptic and a true scientist describing the scientific shock that attends to a discovery that and I think it is out of the spirit of that discovery for you to go, "Oh, yeah, I mean, it could have been this way." It's like tossing a coin. It isn't like tossing a coin. This is a question that's been argued for two centuries and only resolved in the last several decades and resolved decisively in one side and the other. And the fact that you're not willing to just straight out say, "Yeah, it is actually an astounding fact that we now know." No, no, no. No.

[00:04:19]I mean, look, the The scientific method has also revealed to us that the earth was formed about 4 and 1/2 billion years ago. That is much later than the sun. The gospel the Old Testament account the Hebrew Bible account tells us that it was the other way around. So, it got that bit wrong.

[00:04:37]All right. So, so so so we're Yes, the Bible is not So, sometimes it gets things right and sometimes it gets things wrong, you know? This is where Dinesh D'Souza thinks he has Alex O'Connor cornered. And you have to understand what's actually happening in this moment because it looks like a slam dunk on the surface.

[00:04:57]He sets up this big dramatic question, did the universe have a beginning?

[00:05:04]And then pulls out the Robert Jastrow argument. For those who don't know, Robert Jastrow was a real scientist, head of the Mount Wilson Observatory, not a theologian, not a preacher, and Jastrow himself wrote that after centuries of science trying to figure out whether the universe had a beginning, it felt like scientists climbed to the top of the mountain and found Hebrew prophets already sitting there. That is Dinesh's big moment. That is his evidence. And look, I get why that sounds impressive. It genuinely does because the Big Bang Theory, the idea that the universe had a definite starting point, was not the scientific consensus for a long time.

[00:05:49]Einstein himself originally believed in a static eternal universe and had to be corrected by the evidence. So, Dinesh is right that it took science a long time to arrive at what Genesis apparently just stated up front.

[00:06:06]But here is what blows my mind.

[00:06:08]Alex doesn't panic. He doesn't get flustered.

[00:06:13]He simply points out that if you're guessing between two options, universe had a beginning or it didn't, then getting it right is not that impressive. As Alex put it, that's about a 50/50 guess.

[00:06:27]And he's right. It is not a prophecy. It is not divine knowledge. It is one of two possible answers to a binary question.

[00:06:38]And here's what people don't realize, this kind of argument gets used constantly in religious apologetics and it almost always follows the same pattern. You find a place where an ancient text says something that vaguely aligns with modern science. You present it as miraculous foreknowledge and you skip over all the parts where the same text gets things completely wrong.

[00:07:02]Dinesh is doing exactly this and the audience doesn't see it yet, but Alex does. The the The Bible is not a science. It's not listing out a scientific >> hold on a second. You can't now move the goal post, especially if you're still going to especially if you're still going to miss.

[00:07:17]>> The The issue Well, well, the No, the issue of the of the origin of the universe is extremely critical.

[00:07:22]>> me that Genesis predicted or knew about or somehow knew about the scientific hypothesis of the origin of the universe. Then when I pointed out another scientific observation that doesn't accord with Genesis, you tell me that Genesis isn't a scientific text to begin with. Well, if you if you read if you read Genesis, it is making a astounding claim which pertains to God.

[00:07:41]Obviously, God created the heavens and the earth.

[00:07:43]>> claim or not? Is it telling us how the universe scientifically formed or not?

[00:07:47]It's not telling us how the universe scientifically formed because if it did, they would be outlining the history of the Big Bang.

[00:07:52]>> the relevance of bringing this up in the first place?

[00:07:54]>> Because because it is stating a conclusion, not a process. It's not telling you how the universe was formed.

[00:07:59]It doesn't tell you that. It also doesn't tell us how the sun was formed, but it tells us that it was formed after the earth was.

[00:08:06]It it it tells us that that's the case.

[00:08:08]That's wrong. It's incorrect. Uh show me.

[00:08:12]I don't have a I don't have a Bible.

[00:08:13]>> Okay. Well, I've read that passage maybe a dozen times. I have never spotted this contradiction that you're describing, but I'll go back and look at it again.

[00:08:21]But But But again, >> On what day is it that that God makes the the the sun? And day Day four? Day three or day four? Something around there?

[00:08:28]>> You're right, but but but when the mainstream of the Christian tradition does When God makes >> it can't be day four because because the concept of day in in the in the original Hebrew doesn't mean day.

[00:08:40]>> Sure, but day four comes after day one, right? Well, it's it's it's describing it's describing obviously epochs or or or periods. Yes.

[00:08:48]>> so actually it's much worse because now the sun is created much much much later than the earth was.

[00:08:53]Well, not necessarily.

[00:08:56]Um well, show me. I don't I don't know I mean, we can we can be sure that we can find Genesis but I don't think that would be the best best use of our time.

[00:09:03]I mean, we could do it if you really want to, but what I'm trying to say is that like it's not astonishing to me that the Why not? It's not astonishing to me that the that like if you if you're making claims about the origin of the universe, especially in the case where if it was if if if it is making a specific claim in the knowledge that there's a sort of infinite hypothesis and a beginning hypothesis, to take a 50/50 stab is not amazing to me. It would be more amazing to me if if everything lined up and it and it gave us a an otherwise unknowable historical scientific account of the beginning of the universe, but as you say, that's not even what Genesis is trying to do. So, I I don't I don't I don't understand how the scientific Yeah, I'm not saying that Genesis is trying to unfurl a I'm saying that Genesis is making a statement about creation and the statement about creation has a very startling uh scientific implication because if there was a creation, then there obviously wasn't something and then there was something.

[00:09:53]>> I mean, it's not just science which can tell us that the universe had a beginning. I mean, like there are lots of philosophical arguments that people have made.

[00:10:00]Perhaps most famously Al-Ghazali, who argues against for the impossibility of a past infinite universe. I think that's quite convincingly with no reference to red-shifting and no reference to scientific hypotheses. So, it's it's perfectly possible for somebody to to take a pretty studious and educated guess at the fact that the universe had a beginning long before the scientific method told us that that was the case. I'm not saying that it's not possible to make philosophical arguments. And of course, as you know, there was a tradition in ancient Greece of making philosophical arguments all over the place.

[00:10:31]>> that's why the the universe had a beginning long before the scientific Let me let me let me pose a question.

[00:10:35]I'm trying to ask you a question. Maybe maybe if you ask me how would they know isn't this astounding? I would say, well, maybe they just had a had a philosophical tradition that that taught a beginning of the universe and that's where they got it from.

[00:10:44]Except that It's not inconceivable. It's not inconceivable, but it's it's it's not likely because when we think of the tradition of Western civilization, we speak of Athens and Jerusalem. We speak of the origins of philosophy starting about the 8th century BCE and then really developing first in Greece. And then we talk about the tradition of revelation developing in in ancient Jerusalem. So, is there was there a hidden philosophical tradition?

[00:11:12]Possible, but probably unlikely. Let's proceed to the Let's Let's proceed to the issue of the veracity of the of the his some of the historical events described in the Bible.

[00:11:26]This is the moment the whole Genesis argument falls apart completely. And it happens so fast that if you blink, you miss it.

[00:11:34]Alex lands one of the cleanest factual corrections I have seen in a debate like this.

[00:11:39]The scientific method has revealed that the Earth was formed roughly 4 and 1/2 billion years ago, well after the Sun already existed.

[00:11:48]But Genesis places the Earth's creation before the Sun. Day one, Earth. Day four, Sun.

[00:11:55]That is not a matter of interpretation.

[00:11:57]That is not allegory. The order is just scientifically wrong. And what does Dinesh do? He accuses Alex of moving the goal posts, which is genuinely one of the most ironic things I have ever heard in a debate.

[00:12:10]Because Dinesh spent the entire previous section arguing that Genesis made an astounding scientific prediction about the beginning of the universe.

[00:12:20]The moment Alex applies the same scientific standard back to Genesis and finds a contradiction, suddenly Genesis is not supposed to be read as a scientific text. You have to understand how significant that is.

[00:12:34]This is a debating move that has a name.

[00:12:38]It is called special pleading. It means you apply one standard when it helps your argument and a completely different standard the moment it hurts it.

[00:12:49]Dinesh uses science to prop up Genesis when science seems to agree.

[00:12:54]Then the second science contradicts Genesis, science is no longer the right tool. That is not a coherent position.

[00:13:02]That is a survival strategy.

[00:13:05]What makes this even more interesting historically is that this exact pattern played out during the Galileo affair in the 17th century.

[00:13:14]When Galileo presented evidence that the Earth moved around the Sun rather than the other way around, the initial response from religious authorities was not to engage the science. It was to say that scripture should not be read that way. The goal posts moved then, too. And they are moving again right here. Uh would you say that figures like Jeremiah, um David are these historical figures or mythological figures?

[00:13:42]>> I'd say I I don't know for certain, but I would say that the Bible is certainly attempting to paint them as historical figures.

[00:13:46]>> Well, it's irrelevant what it's attempting to do. You've been You've been trying to >> I don't know, but I'm I'm I'm I'm going to say yes. Okay. So, So, So, on a I don't know. I would say I would predict yes. I would I would say yes.

[00:13:59]>> You would you would say yes.

[00:13:59]>> That's what I would imagine, yeah. Okay.

[00:14:02]Uh do you think that Sodom and Gomorrah are historical cities? Uh probably, yeah. Probably, yes. Uh would you say that um Pontius Pilate was a real person? Yes.

[00:14:13]Yes.

[00:14:13]>> Sure. Okay.

[00:14:15]Uh would you say that um All right. Now, these statements that you're saying now um were in no way known to be true until recent decades.

[00:14:32]>> [snorts] >> Some of those I'm I'm not sure.

[00:14:34]All the ones I mentioned.

[00:14:35]>> talking about like archaeology like archaeology >> Yeah, I'm talking about biblical archaeology. Let me Let me Let me give you an example of what >> Archaeology can't prove the historical existence of a of a person very easily.

[00:14:44]Well, let me let me go into this a little bit here.

[00:14:48]And also I I don't I like it's you can I'd want to make sure we're using the time wisely here. You could give me a a sound archaeological bit of evidence that people existed that that is no way tells us about the the truth of the stories that are attributed to them. Uh no, it does. Well, let me put it this way.

[00:15:06]Um for many centuries, uh this is a whole tradition of biblical scholarship in the 19th century. In fact, really until until in some cases 10, 15, or 20 years ago, there was absolutely no evidence historically for the existence, for example, of a Hezekiah, Jeremiah, Yeah. David, let alone actual locations for David's palace. Sure. Um now, All right. Hezekiah Hezekiah's um His tunnels? Uh tunnels.

[00:15:37]Now, let me tell you something I discovered.

[00:15:41]I was getting a tour recently a few months ago in Israel from the guys at Hebrew University and they were talking about uh a an archaeologist named Eilat Mazar, who's what she she calls herself a biblical archaeologist. She's not a Christian uh or even a a believer, but she ho the way that she does archaeology is this.

[00:16:01]She has the Bible in one hand and the sort of the pickaxe in the other.

[00:16:05]And the approach to it is pretty simple.

[00:16:09]It is I want to find David's palace.

[00:16:13]Now, no one has ever heard of David's I mean, David's palace is in the Bible, but it there's no independent corroboration of it at all.

[00:16:21]Um there's a foundation in in Jerusalem called the City of David Foundation.

[00:16:25]They have a little office.

[00:16:27]Uh Dr. Eilat Mazar walks in their office and says to them, you have to move your office because the palace of David is in the ground underneath your office.

[00:16:39]And these guys are like, "How would you know that?"

[00:16:43]And Dr. Mazar says, "Because if you read the Bible, it will tell you that David, when he built his palace, brought in Phoenician builders who brought materials from Phoenicia and also brought Phoenician building expertise. The Phoenicians were apparently the builders of the day.

[00:17:03]And so Dr. Mazar says, "We have found Phoenician seals, Phoenician coins, Phoenician inscriptions here. [snorts] And so, I predict that the palace is right underneath here because the Bible tells me that that's how that palace was built."

[00:17:20]So, So, David's palace exists.

[00:17:24]David's palace is there for you to see today. Okay. And it is it's in the exact location of where it was said to be. And what I'm getting at is the the archaeological approach here is to use the Bible as an archaeological tool.

[00:17:38]Watch what Dinesh does here because it is a master class in debate pivoting.

[00:17:43]The Genesis scientific argument has just been dismantled. So, he immediately switches terrain entirely and moves to archaeology.

[00:17:54]Suddenly, we are talking about David's palace, Hezekiah's tunnels, Pontius Pilate.

[00:18:00]The message is clear.

[00:18:01]Look how historically accurate the Bible is. Look at all these things that have been verified.

[00:18:07]And Alex handles it perfectly. He says, and this is the key point, "You could give me solid archaeological evidence that every single person in the Bible existed.

[00:18:20]That does not tell us anything about whether the stories attributed to those people are true.

[00:18:25]Knowing that a man called David existed and even finding where he built his palace tells us nothing about whether he slew Goliath.

[00:18:34]Knowing that Pontius Pilate was a real Roman official tells us nothing about whether a resurrection happened.

[00:18:41]This is a distinction that gets lost constantly in these conversations.

[00:18:46]Historical existence of a person is not the same as historical verification of the miraculous events around them.

[00:18:54]Julius Caesar was a real person. That does not mean we should believe every story ever told about Julius Caesar. And what makes this section so important is what it reveals about Dinesh's overall strategy throughout this entire segment.

[00:19:09]Every time one type of evidence fails him, scientific, cosmological, textual, he moves to a different category.

[00:19:17]Genesis wasn't scientific when it was wrong. Archaeology becomes the new standard. It is a shifting framework designed to never be pinned down. Alex sees it, and now you do, too.

[00:19:30]So, what do you guys think of this?

[00:19:32]Leave your thoughts down in the comments. Please like and subscribe, and I will see you in the next video.