The video delivers a logically devastating pincer movement that forces Islamic theology into an inescapable paradox regarding scriptural authority. It is a masterclass in using a faith's own internal logic to dismantle its claims of divine consistency.
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Christianity is battle tested and we're still here and we're still the world's largest religion. Islam is now for the first time being battle tested and it's collapsing. I used his own tactics against him. He got mad and he blocked me and said I was engaging in bad faith.
Oh really? You don't say.
>> Welcome everyone to the Council of Trent. My guest today is Michael Jones from Inspiring Philosophy. Michael, welcome to the Council of Trent.
>> Yeah, thanks for having me.
>> Absolutely. I have been following your work for a while. Uh really impressed by it. But for some of our listeners who might not be as familiar, can you just run us through sort of your apologetic background and what you've been doing on YouTube the past few years?
>> Yeah. So, so I got on YouTube in 2011, so a long time ago. And I just been making various videos defending Christianity over the years. Uh was very shy at first. People don't realize I didn't show my face or name for 5 years.
>> Oh wow.
>> Yeah. I was really trying hard not to.
>> Why didn't you want to do that?
>> I w I was I'm introverted. Um didn't really want the public recognition, the public name, the public being in the public sphere, but then God just kept pushing me in that direction.
And >> I find the best apologists actually tend to be introverted. Like I'll go and meet people, they'll always be surprised.
They'll see people who will go out and do public talks or someone like you, they'll see you do a public debate with a Muslim and it can get really spirited and they might think that you're just someone who's just like, "Oh, I'll just go out there and talk to everybody." And then they actually meet you and you're like, you know, that's that's not who I am all the time.
>> Yeah. Yeah. I agree. Extroverts suck. I totally agree.
>> They they uh they get a bad rap, but there there's some good ones out there.
My wife would my wife would be a shining example of that. That's how we >> that's why I have friends. Contrary to people on the internet, by the way, I love when people take me out of context.
There is I said in a a previous debate that one of the reasons that like I make friends, like when you're so introverted, you pour yourself into your work, like I'm grateful I have a spouse that like sets up, oh, we're going to go out with this couple. Oh yeah, I should have remembered to do something like that >> then go and meet people. Some people online twisted that into I'm only allowed to have the friends my wife chooses. But I I'm sure I'm sure no one's ever taken things you've said on the internet and grotesqually twisted them out of proportion.
>> No, never. No one ever does that on the internet. No.
>> Who would who would you say kind of in your So you've been doing this since 2011 and that's long before I remember I posted a video way back on my I mean on my YouTube channel it says started like 2006 back when I just got one because YouTube was new.
>> I published a video. I responded to a guy who said, um, it was something. It was a viral video from like 2012, like Jesus, not religion. It was like some rap. I made my own rap in response.
>> Oh god.
>> Oh yeah. No, it's it's it's cringe.
>> I now I have to go find this rap.
>> I I wonder I don't think it's on there.
I think I'm going to have to resurrect it and bring it back cuz that would have been almost 15 years ago. But then I went dark and didn't put anything really on there until like 2020. But it seems like you've been so have you been consistently on YouTube for like 15 years.
>> Yeah.
>> What have you seen as kind of like a change in the the presentation about Christianity, Christian apologetics? You talk about like early 2010s, now we're in the mid2020s. What are things you've seen has kind of like changed in the last 15 years?
>> Yeah, it's become more of a confident, I guess, approach to apologetics. It's like if you go back to 2011, 2012, we were just making videos like, "Hey, here's why I think God exists, >> right?
>> We were very much on the defense, very much like being attacked by new atheists, secularists, that kind of movement, right?
>> And I feel like within the past 5 years, we've really turned the tide and you're getting more uh Christians that are more confident. They're making apologetics fun." F fun. People like God Logic, for example, are really good at that. So, it I feel like we're more on the offensive now. we're now trying to win back the culture and making a lot of progress.
So, I think it it's in some ways it's gotten better, in some ways it's gotten worse.
>> I would agree with you that I think it is better if we're not always on defense and timid. This idea like, hey, I'm sorry I'm putting my Christian beliefs out there, but here's my four reasons why they're true. Uh but even this idea of going on the offense without being offensive like I mean I was raised during my my conversion experience was really based on like William Lane Craig JP Morland that sort of Biola apologetic where you do formal debates here's my arguments and proofs >> very trying to make academics uh suitable for lay people to understand it and maintain that sort of academic tone and I think that's still really important but at the same time it seemed like like the new atheists or like the liberals at Buzzfeed or things like that. They had like the monopoly on snark, right? And just like trying to ridicule us. And I think there do you think there is some benefit in us turning around and ridiculing non-Christian beliefs, secular beliefs, even beliefs of other religions, but ridiculing it in a way with without just throwing Christian charity out the window. Oh, >> absolutely. I I mean, if we just take advice from the church fathers, I don't think Jerome, St. Jerome, for example, was always nice. He was very snarky at times.
>> No. Yeah. When you read Oh, what is it?
He he wrote um his reply defending the perpetual virginity of Mary. That's what I was thinking of Jo I think it was Jovianis uh Jovenius. Uh and he just calls him like a like a block and he's like, "How could you believe something so asinine like this?"
>> And just kind of um goes through in that way.
>> But you know, it's kind of interesting though. I think we see that rise in that sort of rhetoric among the fathers after Christianity becomes uh the established religion of the Roman Empire. Yeah.
Whereas the the the tone is different like if you look for example at Ignatius of Antioch, Justin Martyr, if you look at the early Nysine fathers, >> well especially you look at for example Justin Martyr, his his apology to the Roman Emperor saying like we're actually pretty good for society. I know people are saying we're cannibals, we're not.
And let me go through all of this. Do you think there might be a parallel here that you know in the 2010s Christianity is still like belittled as a you know uh something like oh once we get r pure rationality we're going to have flying cars and the world's going to be perfect and we just got to get rid of this Christian stuff but then now 15 years later people realize oh when you take it away you get craziness maybe the Christians were right all along.
>> Oh that's exactly what happened. I mean you go back that we the new atheists were just they they were such a minority. I mean they still are a minority but they were dominating the culture. Everything was about that like Hollywood, the media, academia was all promoting this secularist nonsense. And then it seems like within the past 10 years a lot of them kind of woke up and were like some of them not all but some of them kind like maybe we went too far.
Maybe we do want a Christian culture.
>> Well you look at Richard Dawkins he's saying like well I consider myself a a cultural Christian. Like what are you talking about? You wrote a book called The God Delusion.
>> Yeah. It's wild. But I mean, there's a video I saw of him. I can't remember. It was a while back, but he's walking around Britain and he's just dumbfounded as to why there's so many metaphysics, like psychic shops around Britain. He's like, this is not what he was expecting, >> right?
>> But I mean, I think this kind of is what happens when you remove Christianity from the West. People kind of reverted to modern paganism. like they're into horoscopes, they're into metaphysics shops, and they're going to psychics because people are going to crave spirituality. They're not going to get it from Christianity. They're going to revert back to their pagan ways. And that's what a lot of this new age stuff is doing.
>> Yeah.
>> And it's just But it's going to be bad because we're also seeing declining birth rates. So like they cannot even the secularist culture cannot even produce another generation to replace them. Like they just are going to die out.
>> So it's like you guys can't even build a culture. the for one generation what you doing >> well you can't maintain that idea of ritual generational continuity uh people all throughout history time place and culture have had things that mark uh you know coming of age different important elements milestones of life Christianity has that built into it because God created the fabric of reality itself >> but I think that is interesting when you talk about how we have this kind of modern paganism it reminds you of how you'll have like Hollywood actors and actresses uh people in Hollywood will make fun of Christianity like oh Christianity is so stupid and you know all these myths and then those same people will join Scientology that is the one that or like I think it was it was Isaac Hayes like on South Park like he would rip into Christianity all the time and then as soon as they made fun of Scientology he quit he's like you shouldn't be making fun of religion I'm like you make fun of what I believe you think that uh the reason you're stressed out is because a bunch bunch of dead aliens are thrown in a volcano 45 million years ago from that traveled here on a big spaceship or something like do you do you are you always just boggled that people will reject Christianity and then they'll go for the the wildest stuff.
>> Well, yeah, it's I try to avoid that in myself first of all. I don't want to be like, "Haha, Islam is silly. You guys go kiss a stone. That's silly." I try I'm not perfect, but I try to avoid that because that's not an argument as to why it's wrong. That's not an argument as to why Scientology is wrong. They believe weird things. The question is what is the evidence? Something you believe could sound very strange. Yeah. Things I believe as a Catholic sound strange to people.
>> But I think what people do is they tend to forget that when you're like a Scientologist like Isaac, you're going to be like, "Well, this is what I know to be true >> or what I think to be true." And when you hear something you other than that like Christianity, your psychology starts to reject it. And you the disgust receptors can start to light up and you start to make fun of it and mock it and we got to work on that. But I think that's what a lot of those Hollywood people are doing.
>> But I think what's important and what you do like with your channel, what I try to do with my channel is okay, we all believe things that are are odd.
Even at the most basic fundamental level, saying while we are human organisms, we're human animals. Nearly everybody agrees we're not like any other animal or organism on Earth. We have different moral status, different uh sense of intrinsic dignity. So we all believe things that are odd. How do we explain those odd things? What I like to do is it's like try to explain quantum mechanics to somebody in the 1800s. They would look at you like a new age woowoo nut job. Uh yeah, particles can be on the other side of the universe and instantly transfer and there's no particle there before you look at it.
It's just a wave function. You they would have locked you up for, you know, being a crazy person. I So I mean like sometimes reality is weird. We just reject it. But we got to go on the evidence and just it seems like a lot of people in general don't do that. It's just easier to mock things that you don't believe in because it's easier for your brain psychology.
>> Let's talk a bit about you were saying about Muslims not caric caricaturing beliefs. I think something else you'd probably notice especially even Richard Dawkins and atheism in Europe is he'll go around and he'll see you know oh there's all these you know psychic shops things like that but also you would see this robust rise of Islam especially in Europe not not as much here in the US but that doesn't mean it's not coming but especially seeing it in Europe I I think that someone like Richard Dawkins would much prefer a Christian country to a Muslim country and now ruse the idea that just like if you if you create a vacuum, something will fill the void.
It's and it's often something you wouldn't prefer. And you actually just you actually just came here straight from straight from Dearborn. You were doing what we what we when I hear Dearborn, I'm like, "Oh, that's that's an exciting place for young Christian apologists to be."
>> Yeah, I just flew woke up this morning in Dearborn, flew here. So, I landed like an hour or so ago. So, yeah, just came straight from Dearborn. Myself, God Logic, David Wood, uh we were all up there with a bunch of friends of ours as well. uh like you know Reasons Answered Apologetics, L and Eric. Uh we were doing outreach. We were talking to Muslims on the streets. So we'd set up on a corner and we'd film it and we record stuff and we would invite Muslims to have conversations with us. And it went really well. I mean, we had a lot of really good conversations with Muslims there. Some people called the cops on us. Uh but the cops came and they're like, "Are you guys harassing anyone?" We're like, "No, all right.
You're fine. Just do what you're doing."
So >> nice. It was not what it was like 15 years ago when David Wood went there and they locked him up.
>> Oh wow.
>> Yeah. So that happened to him. This was a lot more chill. People were just ready to have conversations. The cops were super cool. Everyone was really nice. U Yeah. It wasn't It's good. Good. It was good for me in the sense that most of the Muslims I deal with online are nut job fringe people that >> That's true of I think that's true of most belief systems.
>> Oh yeah. Yeah. Like you like when I think about the people who are giving me the most grief right now, like there's people who represent Eastern Orthodoxy that are terminally online. They're totally insane. But if I walked in an Eastern Orthodox parish, they would just probably be the most cool, laid-back people. And I never even heard of this stuff on the internet.
>> Oh, absolutely. Yeah. So, I mean, >> and you're probably similar with Muslims you talk to.
>> Oh, yeah. Everyone there was super cool.
There was a young Muslim yesterday that came up to us and was like starruck. He took photos with us and he just he just sat and asked us questions for like an hour.
>> So, he's familiar with the online work, but he's not so sucked in that he's just going to be a totally abrasive jerk.
Like, he's he's he's genuinely interested.
>> Oh, yeah. Yeah. Now, there were some people, you know, shouting at their out their cars at us. There was a car that pulled up at one point and was like looking at us and then a cop came and like started yelling something and we were like, "Oh, is he yelling at us?"
But no, he got rid of the car for us that was just sort of like watching us strangely. So, I mean, like there were some aggressive ones, but the majority of the ones we talked to, super chill, super nice, just ready to have a conversation about Islam and Christianity. Uh, we were outside an Islamic school at one point. We didn't realize that's where we were, but a bunch of kids came out. He came over and started talking to us. They were interested in what we had to say. One took us a photo of something I showed him on my phone like, "Yeah, there's two different versions of the Quran here."
He's like, "All right, I want to go ask my uh mom about that." So, I mean, >> very good stuff. What were your conversations with these Muslims? What did it tend to when you talk with them either here or in other conversations?
What does it tend to gravitate around when you're talking to them and you want to engage the question of Islam and Christianity?
>> The Quran, we always try to take it back there. Okay. And my experiences and I would read a lot of reports of missionaries in the Muslim world from 100 years ago or so saying they're not having a lot of not lot of success. And so I was looking what are they doing, >> right?
>> And well, they're just preaching the gospel. Great. Yeah. But you got to break down the wall of Islam first because they were so caught up in the idea the Quran is from God. It's perfect. So you got to attack that. You got to show all the contradictions in it. You got to run the Islamic dilemma.
>> Be like, you know, the Quran is confirming my scriptures. Okay. Well, my scriptures contradict the Quran. So if my scriptures are true, like the Quran claims, I got to reject Islam. But if they're corrupted, why is the Quran confirming corrupted scriptures? So we ran that a lot. And Muslims didn't have good answers for us. They to start telling us things the Quran doesn't say.
But it starts to break down that wall that maybe this isn't from God and now I gotta really defend this and why do I have to spend so much time defending it when the Quran claims to be clear and perfect and >> yeah, >> you know, so I mean like you start breaking that down then you can present the gospel to them and then they get far more interested. That's we've had a lot of success online with that approach.
That makes sense to me because when I engage people, I mean, I try to model for people a Socratic approach to apologetics. It's something I've done for a while. I really got my start doing that approach when I would engage in pro-life apologetics. This would be in the I started doing this in university campuses around 2008 2009 really got started actually in 2006. They visited my school at Arizona State University.
We set up pro-life exhibits. We dialogue with students. First, we talk about abortion, but then it would quickly spread to other topics. And my goal in asking the questions, and I still do this when I teach this method to to Christians, is that in order for people to appreciate the good news of the gospel, they have to see bad news first.
Like good news doesn't make sense without bad news.
>> Yeah, it's a good point.
>> And bad news has to be in the form of that the current thing you believe.
Like, so if Christianity is the true, the good, and the beautiful, then whatever you believe that's not Christian, in some respect, it's going to be bad, ugly, and or false. Usually all three. Yeah. And so it sounds like you see that missionaries to Islam make more progress. Yeah, you can preach that Christianity is true, good, true, good, and beautiful. But they also believe that about Islam. So we you got to put the cracks in there first. And do you think there's a difference? We have a little bit of an advantage here because I know in Baloa Park, I used to live in San Diego. There are Muslims there who would do >> uh street evangelization.
>> They want I was just there like a month ago or so.
>> They talk to you or No, >> no, they don't want to talk to talk to us.
>> I put an outreach. One of them is Shake Uman. And I I wanted to engage him in a debate and I haven't heard back.
>> Yeah. He's too busy working on his track and field. He's a great great runner. He man, he he's like Usain Bolt, man. We call him Uman Bolt sometimes. I mean, >> he he sees you and he's he's running.
>> He man, he's fast. I don't get it, man.
He takes off. I don't I don't know what the problem is.
>> Well, I engaged him a while ago when I was doing some Muslim apologetics and I want to get into it more cuz part of me I feel bad. I feel like, well, if I've already shown there's no good reason to believe in the Quran, I feel like I'm almost exhausted it. Like, what could I say? But there is so much more to say.
The Islamic dilemma, I want to get into that more. But I remember mostly the arguments tend to be, well, Islam is true because the Quran is the word of God and it's impossible for a human being to have created this, which is like one of the weakest arguments.
>> You know how easy that is to debunk? Uh I believe it's either sahi Muslim or sahi albakari but the number is like 402.
>> Yeah.
>> Uh right in there it says that Umar said this was one of the companions of the prophet said Allah agree with me in three things and then he said something and then Allah sent down a verse just like what Umar said.
>> Right.
>> So the Quran claims of you know this is not from God produce something like it.
Well >> Umar did.
>> Yeah.
>> It's in their own hadith. Yeah.
>> Umar produced verses and then Allah sent down something to match it. the exact same thing that Umar said, >> right?
>> So you throw that at them and then they have nothing because their own hadith shows them that Umar met the challenge.
>> Okay. So just to recap this story. So the hadith is a collection of oral traditions about Muhammad and then his successors >> what they said they're saying.
>> Yeah. So but these are tend to be written 200 300 years later.
>> Yeah.
>> Not terribly reliable. So in one of them, one of the companions of Muhammad does write something as beautiful as the Quran. So God basically has to play catch-up and say, "Oh yeah, yeah, I can do that, too."
>> Yeah. So I mean, when they say, you know, this is from God, how could you?
No one can produce something like it.
You don't I mean, you could just be like, well, chat GBT chat GBT can do it.
Like obviously, but guess what? Umar did it.
>> Your own source shows that someone did it, therefore this argument is trash.
>> And that stops them down in their tracks because they can debate about you having, you know, like an AI do something for you. They can't debate that because that's a hadith they have to accept. Shake Uman is funny though because that was like the main miracle that I had seen or like presented that the Quran itself is a miracle. Muhammad didn't do any miracles. U I mean there's some recorded in the the hadith but they're way too late to have any historical addestation to them.
>> But one that that I was surprised that Shikman would put on his videos was the claim that Muhammad split the moon.
Yeah.
>> And just like I wanted to like debate him on that so bad because the evidence for it is just so legendary and different than what we have for like the resurrection, but I've never heard back.
>> The funny thing is like they'll say the gospels were written too late. They're 40 years after Jesus. And then they're like, "But these hadith collections written hundred >> hundreds >> hundreds of years later. They're they're they're good to go guys. You can trust them."
But they the funny thing is that also contradicts the Quran >> because the Quran in numerous places like Surah 29 is I believe it's like 50 to 51.
>> Yeah.
>> Uh the pagans are coming to Muhammad and goes why won't his lord give him a sign?
And Allah replies signs are only with Allah. Uh Muhammad's only sent as a warner or as a messenger.
>> Yes.
>> Okay. If he's only a messenger, he is not a miracle worker. And that's Allah's response to why he's not doing any miracles. So it seems as though when they started to spread around and they encountered Christians, they started to make up hadith that Muhammad did miracles >> to catch up. Yeah.
>> Yeah. Hundreds of years later. But the earliest source, the Quran, doesn't report Muhammad doing miracles. In fact, it it strongly suggests, and I mean very strongly, that he's not doing any >> right. He's not. Yeah. He he doesn't do that. He specifically when challenged on that doesn't do it. And here in lies we have the problem that Muhammad then just becomes a prophet. Someone who points to God either to Allah or to previous prophets. But one of them he points back to is Jesus. And that gets us to the Islamic dilemma. So we're supposed to read the Quran. We're supposed to believe it.
>> Muhammad doesn't do any miracles.
>> Okay. But then what about the prophet before him, the actual prophet, Jesus, that he does miracles and then he rises from the dead. the the Quran says to believe in Jesus, but then we know from history, we know from what the New Testament says that Jesus claimed to be God, rose from the dead, which contradicts what the Quran claims, even the claim by the Quran that Jesus was never crucified.
Hence the dilemma. So is there more that needs to be unpacked? So that's the essentially the Islamic dilemma. It would go like this that if the Quran is true, then Christianity is true, the New Testament is true and so the Quran is false. Or if the Quran is false, then Islam is false.
>> Yeah, it it's very clear. The Quran says things like in Surah 568 that, "Oh people of the book, you have nothing to stand on unless you observe the Torah, the Gospel, and what has been revealed to you from your Lord."
>> Right?
>> Surah 241 that you believe in Muhammad because we're confirming your scriptures. Same with uh Surah 447. I mean, this is all over the place. We went through and counted, we found about 123 verses of the Quran that speak positively of the Jewish and Christian scriptures. like right pointing people to them.
>> In fact, like Surah 29 tells Muslims they're to believe in our scriptures says uh say to the people of the book, we believe in what has been revealed to us and what has been revealed to you, our God and your God is one.
>> Yeah.
>> So that's a huge problem because we just go to the Bible and it's like this contradicts everything the Quran is saying, right?
>> But your Quran is pointing us to it.
Therefore, we need to reject the Quran if this is from God as the Quran claims.
It creates a paradox, >> right? And so I mean you bring that up to them and then they have to start making excuses for the Quran. They're like well it meant this didn't mean that it's confirming your scriptures. It meant it was like partially confirming.
So then I go what about surah 11? It says these are the verses of the Quran.
These verses are well perfected and then fully explained. And that would be the problem because I think a Muslim apologist might say, "Well, of course, yes, the Quran, which is, they'll say, has been perfectly preserved, points back to the Bible, which is imperfectly preserved, and all the parts in it that contradict the Quran happen to be Christian interpolations or legends.
It's not the true original parts of the Bible. Is that one way they try to get around the dilemma?"
>> Oh, yeah. But I mean, just think about it. If the Quran is well perfected and perfectly explained and it's clear as sewer 121 says, they can't get around that because the Quran should say that >> when it says it's confirming our scriptures over and over. I mean like so many verses, right?
>> Okay. It should explain that because the Quran claims that it's going to do that.
>> Yeah.
>> So therefore, when they come up, they come they come along and they say, "Well, the Quran meant something different." Too bad. You You've just accidentally admitted the Quran is not clear. Verses are not perfected and fully explained. So, congratulations.
You just debunked Islam again.
>> Okay. So, you don't even have to go the route of saying, "Well, no, this stuff is historically reliable." You're saying in taking this route, you're going to have to deny what the Quran actually says. You've radically reinterpreted it to try to save the argument.
>> Absolutely. Yeah. And do you think part of this comes from the fact that that the Quran its early formulation was probably partially due to Muhammad or his companions just having like an incomplete knowledge of Christianity in the first place?
>> Oh yeah. Yeah. He was clearly some illiterate guy. I think he thought he was a prophet.
>> And so he cuz he thought he was a prophet. He just assumed that well whatever I say is going to be in line with those scriptures because Allah is not going to let me down, right?
>> Uh you know that thing that tacked him in the cave. So he just started preaching stuff. He'd hear stories from the Jews and Christians. He liked some, he didn't like others. He included what he liked that kind of stuff. And so he made a he made a huge error that we can now use to debunk Islam >> because he he recited this over a period of of many years. So it was not like trying to say, oh, that he just got this all in one sitting from an angel allegedly in a cave and then just gave it. This was given over a long period of time which would be easy for someone to fabricate meld together and yeah just incorporate things that he had heard from Christian missionaries or misheard like thinking for example that um you know God's son is his literal son or that you know God is wed to Mary or some of the other things that that are in there that clearly seem to speak of someone who's only familiar with um misapprehensions of Christianity.
>> Oh yeah. And he probably heard stuff from like Gnostic Christians. That's why we know he >> the Quran talks about denying the crucifixion according to mainstream Sunni Islam, >> right?
>> So I mean like he's probably hearing like we know he's getting stuff from the infancy Gospel of Thomas. Yeah. The second Tarum of Esther, he's hearing stories and so sometimes he'll just like and so there's places in the Quran where it talks about the people of the book distorting the scriptures with their tongues.
>> So that's interesting. So it seems as though Muhammad heard stories he liked and he included it. If he didn't like it, well, it's because you're distorting that with your tongue. That's not what it says. And that's pretty clear in one place like surah 757 where he says like they know I'm in their scriptures. The script the Torah in the gospel mention me, the unlettered prophet, but they won't tell you because they're hiding it from you.
>> It's interesting the way the approach you take, especially in the street evangelization. It's sort of like the mirror image of when I see Shik Uman and other Muslim apologists when I watch their videos like when they go to Baboa Park they'll find an unsuspecting Christian >> and you know they'll just say hey uh the the Bible has all these contradictions in it look and the Christian can't explain the contradictions and then they try to pivot and say therefore and hey look God is one we've got a simple belief system you should go with Islam.
That's always my favorite approach because they just get someone in a moment of confusion and then leap over having to give evidence for their claim and just say, you know, we believe that God is one, Muhammad is prophet. Isn't that way better than your trinity and Bible contradictions? And so it's interesting they take a similar approach. Do you see a lot of the the more effective rhetorical Muslims kind of do that? They'll just attack Christianity, create doubt, leapfrog over into Islam.
>> Absolutely. And as soon as they do that, this the simple way is go, why are you pointing out all these contradictions in the Bible? You just debunked Islam, >> right?
>> Because the Quran confirms this. So why would Allah confirm a book that's filled with so many contradictions? What are you doing? So you immediately turn it on them. They've got no idea what to do.
>> Okay, so you can get So the Islamic dilemma works not only as an offensive measure against Islam. It's a defensive measure against attacks from Muslims on things like the reliability of scripture.
>> Exactly.
>> I like it. I like it. is when I debate Muslims on this and they want to debate is Islam versus Christianity true, I always say like listen, we can have that debate. There's no way you can win this.
>> Yeah.
>> You either are going to come away saying both religions are false or that one of the religions is false and it's going to be Christianity because if you attack the Bible, Yeah. which you have to do that shows Islam is false because your Quran your Quran confirms my Bible.
Sorry.
>> I thought about that. I I was approached for uh one of these big debate festivals. uh they wanted me to come and do a debate with a Muslim and he wanted to do do the debate on Islam versus Christianity and uh I was a bit hesitant in doing it that way. So I proposed a counter offer to him saying let's do two debates. Is Islam true? Is Christianity true?
>> Did the first one >> and and throw the dilemma in there.
>> Well I I mean I'm familiar with the dilemma but I'm not as seasoned in deploying it. So, I think I might want to spend some time with that before I pit both of them together because part of me for me I the reason I wanted to separate them was I don't want to do an Islam versus Christianity debate and get on my back foot going up against here's a million contradictions and the trinity doesn't make sense when I guess I could sidestep all of that by just throwing the Islamic dilemma in there.
>> Oh yeah, absolutely. Here's another cool dilemma for them that we came up with.
>> Okay, >> so if the Bible predicts a future gentile prophet, Islam is false. If it doesn't predict a future gentile prophet, Islam is false.
>> So think about it. Think about it. The Quran says we can find Muhammad in the Torah in the gospel.
>> Right?
>> It's surah 616 says that Jesus spoke of someone named a Akmed coming after him.
>> Okay, here's the problem with that.
Okay, so if Muhammad is or if there's a if there's no future prophet in our Bible, Islam is false because it claims that he's in there, >> right? But if the Bible does predict a future gentile prophet, Islam is still false because prophecies in the Bible, as you know, are theologically indexed, >> right?
>> You can't divorce them from their theology. So any prophet the Bible predicts has to be in line with what the Bible teaches, >> right?
>> So, and if anyone comes along and contradicts the Bible, they have to be a false prophet, >> by definition, what the Bible teaches.
So, >> if there's a future gentile prophet, which I don't think the Bible speaks of, but let's just say the Muslims are right and there is. Okay, Islam is still false because that means either he hasn't come yet or it was Muhammad but the early Muslims corrupted his message so much that right he was originally a trinitarian Christian and they changed everything. Yeah.
>> So I mean like either way Islam is false still. Yeah.
>> So it's one of those things the Quran demands they find Muhammad in our scriptures >> but by doing that they're going to show Islam is false because of this biblical prophet dilemma.
>> Right. Exactly. Some of the other things I've seen you debate though, you've debated, you you engage things like the Quran, about the truth of Islam. Uh you've also done debates about whether Islam is good for is good for society and in particular I've se you're one of the only ones I've seen that have debated the issue of child marriage. Oh yeah.
>> Like that's how did you want to get into that hornets nest?
>> I didn't. So I I saw so the whole backstory I was at a debate con event and Dave David Wood got up there to debate some guy named Kenny who's a Muslim on Age of Aisha and I was sitting next to an atheist. Holy crap.
>> And let's and let's stop I want to hear about that because I've interacted with him before. Was it Thomas, right?
Thomas. Yeah. Yeah. Um for those who don't know Aisha was the the underage wife of the prophet Muhammad. They were wed was she like six? when she was six and they consummated the marriage when she was nine.
>> Right. So wed at six, consummated at nine. Just back so people who are listening know who Aisha is. So you're at the conference sitting next to Holy Kool-Aid. They're doing this debate on Aisha.
>> Yeah. And him and I are just like bonding over this I guess would be the best word to use. Like we're just like we cannot believe what we're here.
>> Oh and for our listeners who don't know once again I love when Apollo just talk shop because we're all like oh it's Kolie Kool-Aid. And people like what?
Where's Kool-Aid? The Kool-Aid man was there. He just burst through the brick wall and he was there. Holy Kool-Aid.
Thomas Westbrook is an kind of a new part of the brand of the new atheist YouTuber. He's been around for a while.
One of the first videos I did on my channel was him and Bible contradictions. So, you're there. You're bonding with this this atheist critical YouTuber over look at what Islam is doing.
>> Yeah. And like Kenny's up there going like, "Hey, hey, she may not have been nine. She could have been 12." And we're like, >> "Oh my gosh." So, I made a >> after that I made a couple Twitter posts about how horrible Islam was and like I hinted that maybe I'll attack it more, but then I forgot.
>> Yeah. Yeah. But then about 6 months later, some Muslim apologist named Daniel Aikachu posted on his YouTube, "I challenge you to debate me on if child marriage should happen today."
>> Oh boy.
>> Now, at the time, my daughter was like, >> "Yeah."
>> Okay. You want you want to debate that?
>> At the time, my daughter was like, >> "Because it's because it's not just it's not just the Quran. It's rampid in the Muslim world because of Muhammad's example."
>> Yeah. So, I read that post and my daughter was like six or seven at the time and like a primal like instinct like awoke in me and I'm like it is it's it's it's game time. And I read so much on child marriage. I read like the history of it all, studies on all the harm it causes. I went down the debate and he just I got him to admit in the debate that in Islam it'd be permissible to sleep with an 11-month-old if she's married off by her parents. Yeah. and he like it it just exposed how horrible this >> religion >> because his uh idea of when is someone at the the age of marriage. So his idea of the age of marriage is just strictly biological development. And you brought forward a great counter reply to that being precocious puberty because he'll just say well look like if your body is capable of of bearing children and having children why wouldn't God have made you ready for marriage? And that happens for 11 12 year old people. But there are cases I think the world's youngest uh pregnant the youngest pregnancy I think the girl was like five.
>> Wow.
>> It was in Peru.
>> You can look there's there's she gave birth to this child and then I think as she was raised uh they b she basically told that you know it was like treated like a brother sister relationship until the child was a lot older find out. But there have been 5-year-olds that have that have given birth.
>> Yeah. And so it's like so for him it's like is that is that morally acceptable under under Islam? And he had to he had to say yeah.
>> It's worse than that because he agreed >> that you could sleep with a girl >> before she got her first period. If she's just showing signs of puberty, >> it's okay.
>> And so he had to admit that. And that's why he admitted that if a girl who has precocious puberty at 11 months, it' be okay.
>> And that's what that that's Islam.
That's why we fight so hard against it.
>> Yeah. And that's what people need to see. And it it makes me mad, too. And I think this is something where we can get kind of more of the not aggressive, but more of the the a this might be a place. It's kind of a weird way to bring in the atheist YouTubers and the atheist critics. Cuz among them, among the atheists, you can kind of separate them into the ones who are just kind of more centrists or libertarian-minded and those who are just hardcore like liberals. Because a hardcore liberal atheist won't want to say anything negative about Islam because of the because of their their I say it's because of their racist anti-racism.
>> Yeah.
>> Because they basically put it this way in the history of the world. It's the white people that make things bad and the brown people are perpetual victims.
They say, "Oh, and Islam is a bunch of brown people. Therefore, Muslims couldn't be bad." Which is of course racist because most Muslims do not live in the Middle East.
>> Mhm. And this this idea that like you're going to equate this entire religion, it's a religion, not an ethnicity, which is already they're they're off on a racist foot here. It was kind of like when I saw Oh, I guess the difference there would be like back in like 2014 there was a debate between on real time with Bill Maher with Sam Harris and Ben Affleck and like Sam Harris would be an example of an atheist we could even ally with who sees like yeah, Islam is worse than Christianity and it's is really dangerous. We need to do something. And um Harris was saying this on the show and Ben Affleck was saying you're an Islamophobe. Yeah.
>> Like how can you just say anything bad about Islam when it's the well more well- read atheists who can say no there's a difference. Christianity and Islam are not the same thing and Christianity certainly is not worse than Islam. You'd much rather and that's where Dawkins the others are seeing this now. They would rather live in a Christian society than a Muslim society >> because and I think I'm sure it get some of your thoughts on this. I think part of it and this deals also with doing like apologetics with Islam like Christianity. We had to fight tooth and nail the last 300 years against the enlightenment >> against you know Hume against uh you know German higher form criticism.
Christianity has had to be battle tested now. Uh you know we can't just be like well the Bible says it so it's true.
We've had to do form criticism, historical criticism, in-depth philosophy. But in a lot of other I feel like in a lot of other places around the world, Islam is really unchanged in like 500 years. Oh yeah. And and it's incapable >> when it's met with these challenges. It just wants to like use, you know, either legal or physical violence to just meet the challenges. So no, we're not going to deal with that.
>> I mean, that's kind of good news, though. Christianity is battle tested and we're still here and we're still the world's largest religion. Islam is now for the first time being battle tested and it's collapsing like >> Yeah. Because it was shel it was sheltered. It's basically like this sheltered kid who never had to fight for himself.
>> Yeah.
>> It always had like you know bigger governments and cultures fighting for it and now it's like oh now you hear in the western world the marketplace of ideas and YouTube.
>> Yeah.
>> And you've you've got nothing.
>> Well I mean look look what the numbers come the poll numbers coming out of places like Tunisia, Iran, Turkey.
>> Yeah.
>> Young people are leaving Islam. Some polls have shown 24 to 26% of youth are leaving Islam.
>> Yeah.
>> So, and the internet is is killing it.
It's not it's not battle tested and they have a lot of catching up to do and they can't because there's so many problems in Islam. It's going to it's not going to be a good future. It's not going to be this giant religion they think it is.
There's it's so there there's a lot of like >> smoke and mirrors being put up right now to try to pretend everything's okay. And but the the shakes and imams are sounding the alarms at their conferences talking about 24% of Muslim youth leaving Islam for example. So I mean >> you even noticed when you went to Dearborn it's different now than when you were there 15 years ago.
>> Yeah.
>> And you think do you think that might be a part of it?
>> I think so. Yeah. I mean I saw a lot of people walking around without hijabs. I mean I saw a lot of Muslims and hijabs for sure. But I saw a lot of secular people. We met a lot of ex-Muslim Christians there. Uh some friends of mine went to a a church. there was a lot of ex-Muslims there.
>> So I mean like >> sometimes I I hope you know sometimes I hope what's happening is what God is doing is he brought a bunch of Muslims into the world because he knows within a few generations they'll assimilate and deconvert and that's going to help right >> attack the religion because you have like Muslim apologists like Zakir Nike like sounding the alarm saying hey Muslims we should be moving to Muslim dominant countries and preserve our culture like why are you saying that >> they're in retreat.
>> Yeah. Like what why are you saying come home? What what are you worried about all of a sudden? So, it's kind of weird that they they think they're going to take over, but now they're saying, "Guys, guys, we should be in majority Muslim countries. Come on. What are you doing over there?"
>> Because then you you see when the questions are asked, they can't be answered.
>> I want to circle back on the the child marriage issue because I could see a Muslim apologist will I think one of the classic moves they'll do to get around it, they'll say, "Well, you as a Christian, you believe like the Virgin Mary was a minor." Maybe you debate the age. Uh how how is that any different?
So how do you respond to that question?
>> Yeah. So the Catholic encyclopedia says that the sources on Mary's age are unreliable. Like it so that's to be the protoeangelium of James and it says that she was married to Joseph when she was 12. But it wasn't like a normal marriage. He was given to this 90-year-old man in the story >> to protect her virginity and then she doesn't even get pregnant until the age of 16.
>> Right?
>> So they ignore that. But if you actually look at research in the time of Palestine at that time, so Amraham Troper, Michael Satlo have pointed out that girls on average, Jewish girls on average in that time period were marrying between their late teens to early 20s. Earliest is like mid- teens.
>> Yeah.
>> Compare that with the Jews in Babylon, they were marrying young teens.
>> Yeah.
>> But I mean like, okay, then Mary was probably late teens to early 20s based on that research.
>> The wider Roman Empire was doing similar practices. It's almost like people knew that you had to wait for the hips to fully widen before you should expect a girl to bear children. It's like they kind of figured that out on their own.
And so what were people doing throughout history? They weren't marrying 9year-olds or 12-year-olds. That was not normal.
>> Yeah.
>> The normal thing we see in research coming from people like Keith Hopkins, Brent Shaw, Kim Phillips, and the other authors I cited, >> people prior to the modern age, girls were marrying late teens to early 20s on average.
>> So okay. So, it's interesting that if you just look, you could say, "Look, you're trying to say that your cultural view that it's okay to marry even 9 and 10 year olds. That was not the norm in the Christian world or even in the Jewish world." And it's funny, even if they try to go to the oldest sources to say that Mary was young, 11 or 12 years old, those same sources say that she was a pledged virgin. And this would be what now we as Catholics call a Josephite marriage. It's one to protect >> her perpetual virginity. So if you take the Catholic approach, there's no intercourse happening there. If you take more of a Protestant approach, you could you could say, "Oh, well, this is just she could be late teens or early 20s and so there's no problem there.
>> That's what the data shows." So I mean like Yeah. Yeah. Either approach is fine. It's not comparable to the horrible thing that Muhammad did to Aisha.
>> Yeah. That to be to be wed at six and then to consummate 9 or 10 years old.
This is now rampant in the Muslim world.
And it's and it's not just that though.
The other thing that really shocked me that I wasn't aware of until a few months ago was looking at the rates of cousin marriage in the Muslim world, I don't know how much you've looked into that, but showing that that is actually really unique. And even in countries, you know, is it's not just a regional issue cuz you'll go to the region, you'll see that Christians engage in it far less than Muslims engage in marrying first cousins because because they want to create these kind of tribal clan arrangements even though that's highly dysfunctional.
>> Oh, thank God for the Catholic Church outlawing cousin marriage all those centuries ago.
>> Dude, rag on here. Well, I remember actually looking at the the canonical impediments for cousin marriage. they used to be a lot stricter. So it used to be a lot stricter that you couldn't even marry like your second or third cousin.
>> Uh so like I remember looking at a at a graph created around I think it was around uh the Lateran Council in 1215 showing what was appropriate and it gets really like far out there. I think where we're at now is basically the line is drawn at first cousin and it could only be allowed if you got like a dispensation from a bishop but otherwise it's drawn there. what what in pedigree and genealogical terms you would call uh the fourth degree.
>> Yeah.
>> When it come when it comes to separation but yeah and that's really interesting when you look at I would if you did a comparison between medieval Catholicism medieval Islam medieval Catholicism is very strict about no we would like to keep sexual unions outside of immediate of close-knit families >> and Islam it's very very different in creating these these dynamics leading to that dysfunction. You know why that is?
Why is that?
>> Muhammad married one of his first cousins married two Muhammad cousins.
>> If Muhammad did it, why can't I? I guess that's the problem.
>> Yeah, that's the problem.
>> If your prophet, you know, the the person who's, you know, your your creed as a Muslim, there there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his prophet, that is your your central thing you believe is this guy. Mhm.
>> Then you have to because it's not even like with Mormons and Joseph Smith uh that there although they they have the loophole of like continuing revelation once polygamy was outlawed. It turns out God doesn't want us to do it anymore.
>> Well, a lot of ancient cultures preferred cousin marriage because you kept wealth in the family, >> right?
>> So that just happened. Muhammad comes along. He's supposed to be the excellent moral example for humanity. Shocker. The Quran gets that wrong obviously. Uh but so they see Muhammad doing it. He married some of his daughters off to first cousins. So, okay, it's good.
Let's just keep doing it. Christianity comes on the scene and says, "No, this is not good. We need to stop this."
Yeah, thank God for that. And what happens? It cousin marriage long-term cousin marriage like generations is associated with lowering IQ. Studies have shown this.
>> So, over time, the Muslim community is collectively lowering their IQ. The Christian community is collectively raising the IQ. Gee, I wonder who's going to be leading human civilization in the coming generations. Yeah. Well, it's no surprise the institution of the university arises in medieval Europe.
>> Uh things like advancing in medical knowledge, for example.
>> Uh it's I mean it's not like >> on that point on that point something really interesting the Catholic Church did that's kind of cool.
>> So I always like to hear that.
>> Yeah. In in the um this comes from Toby Huff. He was talk he's he wrote a book called the rise of early modern science.
He's trying to figure out why it science didn't arise in the Islamic world when they had the golden age and came out of Europe, >> right?
>> He says it came from a lot of Christian doctrines and ideas. So, one of them was uh getting rid of taboos. So, pagans, Jews, Muslims stayed away from pig and dead bodies a lot.
>> Yeah.
>> Christians venerated the sites of tombs of saints. They were fine going near dead bodies and pig.
>> And we have we have we keep relics.
We'll keep the parts of deceased saints in churches even. So that removed the taboo to go near pig and dead body and early Europeans started dissecting pigs and they moved to dead bodies. So the Muslim world couldn't advance because they had these taboos, these restrictions on pig going near dead bodies >> that was removed from Christianity. It allowed to make incredible medical advances in science that the Islamic world couldn't bypass. They got stuck because of their Islamic tradition. They made some, but they couldn't really progress. Christianity gave the medical community the playing field they needed to really make advances.
>> And we allowed film franchises like Airbud to happen because we're not freaked out by dogs. We get to we get to have our little K9 friends. But that but that's the thing, right? Like even in like Michigan, there's there's still a taboo about dogs being unclean and like people will bully you if you have a dog in a Muslim neighborhood, right?
>> Yeah. Yeah. It's wild. I mean dogs are man's best friend. What's the problem?
Muhammad didn't like dogs. Amen.
>> And it it goes right back to that. The surgery thing is interesting because I think it was actually during the the black plague. It was a lot of it was the Pope's personal physician, Guy De Shellak. I don't know. He has a wonderful French name. It starts with Guy. But he was like one of the pioneers in surgery because he was involved in do in doing work on um early >> cadaavvers.
>> So yeah, I think that's interesting there when you bring that up because it's not just Christianity either. I wanted to look into this because people will often do the whole thing like Christians cause the dark ages. Like I want to do a >> Yeah. Historians don't even use that term anymore.
>> Yeah. Because it the dark ages it comes from a an early renaissance term trying to disparage the time of Christendom.
When they would say, "No, that's silly.
We have Carolian minuscule." So we have better handwriting to preserve knowledge. You have medieval technology that's created. Uh but what's interesting is that it's not just the Muslim world. we see it stagnates in its development. You think about also even like in China or Japan >> that it's it's some it is something really unique to the Christian worldview of wanting to investigate the world and be able to create these these kind of advances.
>> I did a video called how Christianity created science. I went through like a dozen features within Christianity that gave rise to modern science and I didn't make them up. I just quoted several historians saying look listen I I got this from the experts here. Yeah, >> but it's like removing taboos. Uh the belief in being the image of God >> helped to advance science because if God is reasonable and he made a reasonable world, then we can use our reason.
>> But also, Christianity has a something called the fall of humanity.
>> So yeah, we have reason. It's good, but it's marred from the fall. Therefore, we have to do repeated experimentations to verify results. Lo and behold, Christianity was crucial for giving rise to the scientific method because of that.
>> Okay? So we can't just take things at face value. We have to do experiments.
We have to prove them in order to satisfy the fact that our our intellect is darkened a little bit by sin. So we have to do a bit more to establish these truths about the world.
>> Yeah. And so the ancient Greek philosophers that did like natural philosophy like what we would call like protoscience. Yeah.
>> They they looked at like working with your hands is like demeaning work. Yeah.
>> So they're not going to build machines.
They're not going to do experiments. But Jesus was a carpenter. Yeah, >> Paul was a tent maker. So the Christian natural philosophers, scientists that came later were fine working with their hands. It took a while for that to really set in, but they they started to realize, hey, Jesus and Paul were doing this. We can work with our hands, too.
We can build things. We can go out and test things in the dirt. Yeah.
>> So it it again removed the the uh taboo, I guess, around that whole kind of work kind of thing and made it um meaningful work. So again, another way Christianity helped advance science.
>> Yeah. Are there any other what other projects like you're working on now? Are there any other like fields or areas of study that you want to get into more?
Because you you've covered a lot in your own channel. You've done a lot of biblical apologetics, a lot of responses to uh critical scholars, um people like um how can the name escape me? Our our f our favorite Mormon friend >> Dan Mlen.
>> Dan Mlelen. Yeah. I So, and I've had a response to Mlen, too.
>> Yeah. He has me blocked on all platforms.
>> Really?
>> Yep. The the guy whose motto is all right, let's hear it, doesn't want to hear it.
>> I used his own tactics against him. He got mad and he blocked me and said I was engaging in bad faith. Oh, really? You don't say. Gee, gee, I wonder why that is. You You think that? Okay.
>> Yeah. I think it's always a paramount rule on the internet that um you shouldn't only dish it out if you can take it.
>> Exactly. If you don't like people, it's one thing to be just a a scholar who's just trying to get out there and you're not an abrasive person. You don't want to deal with abrasive people, but if you're going to be abrasive and snarky, you got to and that kind of circles back into that I know Mlen has that tone that is reminiscent of kind of how the new atheist would talk, but he can at least but he can actually cite scholarship, so it sounds more impressive.
>> He's very smart.
>> Yeah. But the idea is that but now we're not willing to just sit around and just take the punishment anymore.
>> Mhm.
>> And I think one of the the things that's difficult I wanted to bring up I should have brought up a little bit more in my reply to Mlelen is that you'll have these uh I hate this divide between the scholars and the apologists. Mhm.
>> The idea that it's like there's scholars of the Bible, but it's usually just farleft or humanistic atheists or agnostics, hyperritical, often times have an axe to grind against Christianity or or religion. And but they're the scholars. They're the the dispassionate impartial scholars. And you and I are the used car salesman apologists. And we'll we and and we're we're country bumpkins that don't know what's in these big old fancy books.
Yeah. Published by Oxford University Press or you know >> that's great. That's exactly how the Sadducees and Pharisees look to Jesus.
>> Uh yeah, that's right. And that's what they said about uh about John and Peter.
How can these ungrammatoy these unlettered men? What could they what could they know? Or they were surprised by learning because they were unlettered. Yeah. They hadn't gone to fancy Jewish school. Listen, a lot of them have a very ivory tower mentality.
>> Yeah.
>> And I I don't care. But I think also there's a lot of really good conservative scholars that just people don't know about.
>> Yeah.
>> Like when I did a series debunking the documentary hypothesis for those who don't know, it's the idea that the the five books of Moses were originally four sources or three depending on who you ask. J, E, P, and D. Yeah.
>> And then people stitch them together. So I did this big long series debunking that. And there's so many good books I found that just proponents of the documentary hypothesis didn't even know existed for all I know or never address.
>> Yeah, there's a good one on that. Before Abraham Was by Kawada and Quinn and that's an older one actually that's that has really good elements challenging saying but wait a minute you say that it's divided up into the the Yahwist Elois priestly and Deuteronomic sources and it's just four or five different authors but you can identify overarching narratives all throughout the sources that you wouldn't expect if it was multiple authors doing it.
>> Oh absolutely. So, I mean, I just I put that out there and like, so when I put out the first video, I I announced on Twitter I'm posting the first video and I saw a bunch of the the atheists that are always citing the scholars, you know, lose their minds and they're they're tagging their favorite critical scholar. I I expect a full response to this. Yeah.
>> And I was like, "Okay, okay. Let's see what happens." So, I uploaded it.
>> Then I checked Twitter dead silence for like two weeks. And I finally got a call from one of them going, >> "Yeah, it was actually a really good video. We don't really know what we're going to do about it. I mean, you made some good points." I'm like, "Thank you.
That was very honest."
>> Because the problem is a lot of these atheist apologists, and that's what they are, they are apologists.
>> They are they're no better than Well, you have, for example, you'll have Christian um traditionalists, fundamentalists, whatever you want to call them, that will only mine the farthest to the right scholarship they can find to defend things like young earth creationism, for example. So they'll just mine from this very narrow strand of scholarship and say, "Oh, this is what scholars are saying." It's like, well, no, it's not. But these atheist apologists at the other end of the spectrum, they do the same thing.
They'll, you know, it's like, well, look what the scholars are saying. Like scholars, you're you're quoting Robert Price. You're quoting Richard Carrier.
Like you're the left of the left, the fringe of the fringe. When there's a whole element of scholars in the middle who will say, "Yeah, this this is a workable hypothesis. This this can account for the data that this Christian is saying."
>> Mhm. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You got to do that.
But I mean sometimes apologists got to do stuff like kind of but you know sometimes we got I I heard from a scholar he he really liked what we did cuz we were replying to this guy called Dennis McDonald.
>> Dennis McDonald.
>> The homeriic parallels between the gospels.
>> Yeah. He thinks the gospels are myth based off of Homer.
>> Well Odysius was on a boat and Jesus was on a boat.
>> If you think >> he's basically plagiarizing Homer.
>> If anyone's watching you think we are exaggerating. No read kind of what he does.
>> Go read it. So, my friend, a friend of mine, I'm sure you know him. Um, Steven Boyce.
>> Yes. Well, yes. Stephen has the channel Facts. Uh, he um he was previously um Baptist in his theology, then became Anglican. We had a debate on justification by faith alone and now just recently he's entered the Catholic Church and he came he was here in my conference here in Dallas. But prior to entering the Catholic faith and he's still intent on doing this, lots of great work on antiquity and Christian apologetics. So, what did you have with Stephen?
>> Yeah. know. So, I brought him on the channel to pretend to be somebody not not Dennis McDonald, but um I believe it was Donald McDennis and he played a he a southern scholar who was going to explain to you the Civil War was a myth based off of Homer really, >> right?
>> And we demonstrated very clearly that Abraham Lincoln was just Agamenon.
George Mlen was Achilles.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. Stonewall Jackson. Oh, no.
Stonewall Jackson was Achilles. George M. Oh, no. Getting confused now. Yeah.
Stonewall Jackson was Hector.
>> Yeah.
>> Achilles was George Mlelen. And we just went through and we showed all these parallels. We had entire charts like 16 points of just parallels.
>> Yeah.
>> But the point was like, listen, if we can do this, that's what Dennis McDonald is doing. You guys see this is not a coherent argument. There's a lot of problems here. You just can't find parallels and think you did something.
>> Yeah. So back in the 1960s there was an article by Samuel Sandmemell dealing with parallels and and it called this phenomena paralleloania.
>> Yep.
>> And that's the problem. This goes back to the people in like the early 20th century. You had a lot of scholars of religion saying oh well we can easily explain Christianity as being wholly derived from mystery religion cults.
Greo Roman mystery religions. Oh, the cool thing we got Odysius to be Ulisses because it's the same name. It's the same name.
>> It's just it's just spelled in different ways.
>> It worked so perfectly because he even sailed ships down the Mississippi just like >> Yeah. And so what they'll try to do is say, "Oh, Mithra and you look at these other Addis of Fia and it's all derived from it's derived from that." And so that's where you had the very first mythsists uh in the early 20th. I mean, you had some French guys maybe 100 years earlier, >> but you had um that's where you get people like Remsburg, John Remmsburg, who has that famous list of here's a hundred authors that never mention Jesus.
>> Yeah.
>> And I'm like, that's dumb. They also don't mention Christians in the first century, but we know they were Christians.
>> Yeah.
>> So, it's it's an absolutely dumb argument. And this is trying to make its way in the early 20th century, but by the latter half of the 20th century is just dead because New Testament scholarship sees no, the New Testament story is rooted in Judaism. It is not rooted in mystery religions. They cannot explain all the data that we have here.
But they were just so obsessed with trying to find these parallels that are just surface level.
>> Oh yeah. Yeah. And I I debated somebody on that a while back on capturing Christianity. I >> forget his name. He was a mythicist. But I mean, yeah, I brought up a lot of that stuff. I mean like you know this is you're just finding parallels and running wild with it. This is much better explained as coming out of second temple Judaism.
>> Yeah. Uh it reminds I think the most um the most bonkers one that even goes beyond the Jesus mythosis is Joseph Atwell's Caesar's Messiah.
>> Yeah.
>> I don't know. Have you ever have you ever done any work on that? It's it's the wildest of the wild I think.
>> I mean like it's it's so silly but I mean again >> but people get taken in by this. His YouTube videos got like a million, two million views. I'm like, what's going on?
>> It's so silly. Not because it's weird.
It's silly because it's just like the it doesn't meet the facts. The Romans invented Christianity. Why? Like >> they invented Christianity so that it would be easier for them to subjugate Jews by creating a messiah who is a pacifist. Except they also created a religion that uh inoculates sorry that inculcates civil disobedience and rejection of the Roman gods.
>> Yeah. Like it doesn't make any >> So yes, you're right. It doesn't make any sense at all.
>> And in in the Gospels, the Romans kill the Messiah. So like how's that, you know, like the Jews are now going to adopt this rel like there's so many problems. But I mean even mysticists are like I'm not that crazy. I mean come on.
>> That's one thing I love you. Like I was reading Robert Price's review of Caesar's Messiah. And then even Richard Carrier, who I he and I debated, oh gosh, I think it was 12 years ago.
>> Yeah, I just debated him a couple months ago.
>> Oh, how is how is that? How's Richard doing?
>> Well, we debated on does God exist?
>> Oh, what's what's what was his favorite tack this time to put forward atheism?
>> Well, I read a bunch of his articles and know that he actually argues the universe comes from nothing.
>> Not a Lawrence Krauss nothing.
>> Like actual nothing.
>> An actual nothing. He says because there's no laws when there's nothing.
So, anything can happen. Yeah, I know.
So, I I grilled him >> in case he didn't get the reaction shot.
>> Then we'll edit it later if we need it.
>> So, I grilled him through like the open dialogue on this hole and he's like, "So, yeah, the universe came from nothing." And it it just, you know, but it's more like just a dot. It's a dot with one property. No, it's it's more like a bubble with two properties. So, it's not nothing. It's something, but it's also nothing. But it also can create everything on its own, but it's not God. It can't be a mind, but it can do anything it wants. And so, >> that was fun. Uh he just he just couldn't >> I I love this idea that oh well something could come from nothing because in a state of absolute nothing there's no law preventing something coming from nothing as if that is how laws of nature work. Laws of nature are not these invisible police officers telling matter what to do. uh traditional timistic well traditional Christian understanding even would be that and this coheres with modern scientific descriptions of laws that laws are ways of approximating how things in the universe behave but even like that modern science would say well there's no law that tells the rocket h you know the phone it has to drop >> it's just like that's just what they tend to do and we observe this regularity and then we make this wonderful non-scientific assumption of that regularity in all times and places Uh but not the idea like oh well there's you know there's a law mandating it goes and there's another law saying something can't come from nothing. No if there were absolute nothing then you couldn't predicate anything. There's no subject.
>> There's absolutely nothing. There's no laws.
>> There's no laws at all.
>> So what are you talking about? Like there there's nothing that can happen because there's nothing.
>> There can't be any causal descriptions of any kind.
>> Yeah. So I just grilled him on that for a good 10 15 minutes and the audience just left confused going yeah I think God exists. I mean like because it's either >> is this the alternative we're going to go with? Like really?
>> Yeah. You believe that, you know, a a mind created everything or magic nothing created everything? What's more likely?
I mean, at the end of the day, so you know, this is what I mean. I think the new atheist movement is kind of dying if that's what they're, you know, >> Yeah. At least at least the snarky kind of new atheism. I think though, maybe you can give me some some thoughts on this. I worry though that we're still really trudging through a sort of nihilistic post-Christian ironic Gen Z landscape.
>> Yeah, it's still there.
>> And so I think that we have a lot of work to do in that. Do you think we have a lot of work to do in that area?
>> Absolutely. We got to This is why, you know, I I was on the streets in Dearbornne just talking to people.
>> Yeah.
>> You know, you it's not just about winning the people on top. Sometimes winning the people on the bottom is better because they might be the next, you know, you know, president, you know, next.
>> Do you mean do you mean by people on the top or bottom? Are you talking about just average lay people versus the experts?
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. So, just getting the regular guy on the street.
>> Yeah. I mean, I was watching Muslim apologists and they're like, "We really just got to we got to go after like the people at top. We got to win over the celebrities. We got to win over the politicians." And I'm like, >> that's not what Jesus did.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
>> Jesus went to the the he went to Peter and he's like, "Peter, I got great stuff you're going to do." And he changed the world through Jesus. So, I mean, like sometimes we, you know, it's good to talk to just the average person on the streets and be like, "Hey, >> you ever thought about this?" And then if they convert, they could do amazing things. It's God loves to use the weak to humble the strong. And so, we have to remember that. And so, I think when we're dealing with Gen Z, >> we got to go out and witness to them. We cannot let them fall behind. They they are our primary ministry field right now, it seems. Yeah. And I worry also this idea, oh we'll just go after the the influencers, the people who are at the top, whether it's in academics or Hollywood or sports or fame. I worry then if Christianity and I am seeing this in some areas that like these influential people become Christian, there's kind of a lot of them become Catholic now.
>> Mhm.
>> As if like that's the hip thing. I really worry like Christianity was never meant to be a fad. Like there was even an article I think in it was like the New York Post or I think it might have been the New Yorker uh saying like the hottest club in town right now is the Catholic Church and I'm like oh it just it sends my my uh cringe level up to you know 9,000. I'm just like oh no that's not that if you see it as like oh this is the cool thing like smells and bells people are Catholic or they're Orthodox.
It's just like no, Christianity is this enduring thing even when it is hated and despised. And there are many cultures around the world and still today where it's hated and despised, >> but that's where you should be because that's where the truth is. So, I guess I worry that like yeah, if you go it's fine if like if someone influential converts, praise be to God, >> but I think you're on to something. You say no, we we have to re, you know, build from the ground up.
>> Yeah. Well, I think the best thing to do is just to ignore that. Honestly, just ignore it. I mean, we are the cool place.
>> I mean, that that's just the truth. And I'm not going to >> But if you're cool, you don't have to say you're cool, >> right? I mean, so just ignore it. I mean, I don't think we should say like I mean, it is it is kind of cringey, but let's just Okay, whatever. You guys do your thing. You think we're cool now, but you're not going to think we're cool and in a couple years. We're going to keep doing we're going to still be here >> and we're still going to know we're the cool place when you move on to the next fad. And I think if we we capitalize on this moment like that, it'll bring more people into the church. Yeah. We need to just realize we shouldn't give into either extreme like, "Yeah, we're the cool place. Come, we're going to have pizza all the time and we're just going to really cater to you." No, we're going to keep catering to Christ as we have been doing what he wants. And um but we also shouldn't go in the opposite direction like, "Oh, we're No, no, no.
We don't want to be this cool thing out there." No, we we just know we are.
>> We know we are.
>> All right, my last question for you. Are you going to let people know what denomination you are?
>> You have to guess. Um, hold on.
I'm I'm getting real strong Amish vibes.
>> That's That's How did you know?
>> Amish men tonight. You You got You got to let it grow a little bit more, but you'll you'll be there. Have you found um It is interesting. I've seen some apologists now leaning more into defending their explicit theological tradition, but that's never been your focus or and it's not and it's not going to be your focus anytime soon. No, I think I mean like we need to focus on unity. If we just united as Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, I think we could do so much good things if we could just be a united front and stop squabbling over these little things for now. I mean like if denominational disputes could be talk over a beer, not fighting on Twitter. I I mean like could you imagine the work we could get done? I mean like but it just I don't know.
I So I'm just going to That's why I keep my denomination private. What church I attend? I've only said I attend a high church.
>> Okay. So that's one clue.
>> That's the only clue I've given. It's a high church. Whatever that means. Uh so people tell me they know what that means.
>> Okay. Um Nordic Catholic Church that preaches in Norwegian.
>> I'm so close. Yes.
>> Almost.
>> Yes. So it is a very high European church speaking some kind of Eastern European language for its vernacular.
Yeah. U I I agree with you. I I think well I think that um as a Catholic apologist I do believe Catholicism is the fullness of what God has revealed and I'm going to share that with people.
But at the same time my heart I've said this often I think I hope it kind of becomes a new motto for me. My goal is to reach the most number of people who are the furthest away from Christ.
>> That's good. Yeah.
>> That is what I really want to do. So like when I got started doing this, the first book I ever wrote was answering atheism and the second book was persuasive pro-life. And so it's like especially when it comes to moral issues, I've gotten in that a lot.
secularism.
I would love to get into Islam a lot more and engage that.
>> Yeah. Well, I mean, think about it. I mean, like, >> if we if some of these people that are interdenominating into interdenomination fights took that energy and just focused it on Muslims, >> you you'd see so much you'd see so many seeds planted and we'd see a huge harvest in a few years, >> but like >> like are you really going to like I I get that these are important issues between Christians, but >> but it shouldn't be all we're doing. It should it should be a portion and that's what I've always wanted to do here on the channel that a portion of what I do yeah are these denominational claims Catholicism and that is important >> but yeah I want to reach people with Jesus I want to get into Islam I get a little nervous I mean I never want to get out ahead of my skis where I talk about something I don't know >> um so like I I've I looked into like Arabic a little bit um how important do you think that is in doing Muslim apologetics or is it kind of overrated if you need to know >> it's overrated They they use that as a smok and mirror to say, >> "Well, you don't understand it because you can't speak Arabic."
>> Yeah. It's a big smoking mirror. And then the reply is, "Oh, well, I guess Allah was deficient because he couldn't make a book that could be translated."
Well, is that what you're saying?
>> Yeah. Because we don't do that for I mean, we talk about when people get in the nitty-gritty of the New Testament.
Well, you do need to talk about the Greek here or there, but it's not our go-to if you don't like it to say, "Well, >> and there's Quran lexicons online now.
So, when I'm doing live streams, live calling shows with Muslims, I got a Quran lexicon right there." Yeah.
>> Right. as one of the tabs ready to go.
If they want to be start bringing up Arabic, I can just let me check, you know, and oh, your scholars say you're wrong. Okay.
>> Yeah, there you go.
>> So, yeah, I definitely want to get involved in that and I definitely want to encourage more of my listeners, especially like my Catholic listeners, Catholic influencers who who who work in my field a lot more, especially because we we may not notice Islam as much in in America unless you live in a place where a lot of Muslims have congregated like Dearbornne, Michigan.
>> Yeah.
>> Or something like that. But globally, especially I mean, my goodness, the the greatest threat to Christian existence globally is uh is violent uh manifestations of Islam. Hands hands down.
>> And the studies show it. I mean, so there's a a paper by Davis Brown. He also wrote a book called War and Religion in a secular age. He just shows the data shows Islam is linked to violence, whereas Christianity negatively linked to violence.
>> Okay? Okay. So, where you have higher concentrations of Christians, violence goes down.
>> Yeah. And violence goes up. And there's another book called The Price of Freedom Denied. Same thing with authoritarianism and persecution. Islam it goes up.
Christianity goes down.
>> The easy thing there is just compare the first 300 years of Islam and the first 300 years of Christianity.
>> Exactly. So, we're not just saying Islam is violent. The data shows Islam is >> I was reading an article on CNN, I remember many years ago, and it said like it showed like a map of terrorist attacks around the world. And like the title was like the year religion became violent or like how religion targets people around the world. And then I go through the list of and it was like 20 20 of them and it was 20 out of 20 it was Islam.
>> Mhm.
>> 20 out of 20. And yet it's religion is the problem when everyone involved is is is was a member of some kind of Muslim sect.
>> Oh yeah. Absolutely. Islam is linked to violence. The Quran is very much on the offensive and if you read it, always attacking the pagans, attacking the Jews. It teaches Muslims to be on the offense. Whereas Christianity often teaches us to be on the defense.
>> Turn the other cheek.
>> Yeah. So >> put away your sword.
>> Exactly. So they're very much already primed for that. And then because Islam is also very political, that spills over into their politics and then it spills over into their war efforts.
>> Whereas we say give to Caesar what is Caesars's, give to God what is God.
>> Yeah. is that Islam lacks the separation of church and state which Christianity developed which also helped to give rise to science.
>> Oh okay. H how do you how do you put that together?
>> So the uh historian Edward Grant pointed out that when Christianity came up with the separation of church and state it developed the idea we have different institutions. You have some people work in politics, you have some people work in religion but they don't have to be doing the same thing.
>> Yeah.
>> So therefore it allowed science to become its own institution and flourish.
Whereas in Islam, everything is under the religious scholars and their their leadership. So science is only as useful as as much as it helps Islam as Toby Huff points out.
>> Yeah.
>> Therefore, it couldn't go further.
Christianity because it had the separation of church and state gave it the grounds it needed to develop and do its own thing.
>> Yeah. I'd also uh direct our listeners there's a great historian of science that does work on this. His name's Ronald Numbers.
>> Read him read him a ton. Yeah. He's got great books. Ronald Numbers uh like the myth of uh the war on myth of religion war on so just look up Ronald Numbers history of science >> a good book he has is called Galileo goes to jail and other myths >> and other myths that's something Galileo goes to jail and other myths so definitely look him up because it's interesting I think a lot of the caricatures this is what I love secular liberals will create caricatures of Christianity and attack it to which I'll say what you're describing is not Christianity it's Islam >> and yet you won't attack the real thing that exists that does the bad things.
Like even um The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, this oh this dystopian regime that's going to imprison women and treat women like cattle. This is Islam. It's not Christianity. You're you're literally you're literally describing like oh they have to wear these yellow these red coats and bonnets around their heads over there. Go.
That's Islam. It's just the nikab and the hijab. But you won't criticize. But you'll somehow think that Christians are the one behind this this sort of fever dream. It's it's a a delusion that Satan throws on people. I swear >> he does.
>> Well, let me um to pull it all together.
Where would you recommend if some of our listeners they would like to learn more about how to respond to Islam, whether it's your channel or other resources um where what are some things you would recommend for kind of getting started?
>> Uh check out Nibil Kesh's book uh seeking Allah, finding Jesus. It's a really good book. Uh >> the sadly, he passed away a few years ago. He was very young. He had this dramatic conversion from Islam to Christianity. He was very young, too.
Mhm.
>> I'm very blessed. He at least wrote that book before he passed away.
>> A lot of the good stuff to combat Islam is going to be going to be online. So my channel, Inspiring Philosophy, >> you also have David Wood's channel, Apologetics Road Show. You have um God Logic. He is incredible in debating Muslims. If you want to learn how to debate Muslims, just watch him do it.
>> Yeah.
>> Uh some smaller channels as well like The Warden and I, he's a great channel.
Uh Jai and Doo. So J Ai and D. Okay.
That's that channel. Um, you have Eric, your brother in Christ, L as well, his his wife. Uh, so I mean, there's lots of really good stuff out there now just online ready for ready ready to be taken. Uh, Apostate Prophet, another great guy as well. So, >> so we we've been we're putting out a lot of new stuff like um my my like myself and my uh co-orker Than developing new arguments to attack Islam. Yeah.
>> We're working on one like the logical problem of the Quran using the logical problem of the Trinity.
>> Yeah. Yeah, but the logical problem of the Quran, similar things. I like it.
>> We've got, you know, new dilemmas we're throwing at Muslims, problems in the Quran. So, I mean, like, yeah, we're putting out a lot of new cutting edge stuff to attack this religion and get Muslims out of there before it's too late.
>> I want to jump in on this. I'm excited.
It reminds me of how 15 years ago I was seeing it was Protestants who were spearheading uh anti-theism arguments and dealing with the new atheists.
Catholics were kind of late to that. I feel like exactly and now I want to encourage my other Catholic influencers to do so um to do so in a way that is is scholarly and while engaging Muslims who can be thorny and prickly people does not I I know there's some people there are some Catholics and Orthodox who engage with Islam but they be they fall to the same aggressive tactics of Muslims and that's what I don't want to see us turn into >> and take this stuff that's already out there like just >> don't reinvent the wheels get Yeah.
Don't be like, "Well, you know, IP already did that kind of video. I got to do something unique." No, just do the stuff we did because the more we talk about it, the more we'll see it. So, if you want to do a video on like the biblical prophet dilemma or the Islamic dilemma, do it. Like, we're not going to be like that.
>> I get emails all the time people saying, "Can I reshare your video? Can I can I take this from your book and put it in a video? Is that okay?" I'm like, "Is that okay, man? Get go get going.
>> Go." Yeah. Yeah. Translate. Yeah. I get all that stuff, too. Yeah. Just do it.
>> Just go. We need more out there. All righty. So, Inspiring Philosophy, we'll link to your channel in the description below. And uh definitely keep up all your good work.
>> Thanks.
>> All right. And thank you guys for watching and I hope you all have Oh, well, actually, if you'd like us to keep having great conversations like this, please go and support us at trenhornpodcast.com.
Low $5 a month. That allows us to have these great guests on to engage in these conversations. trendpodcast.com.
Thank you guys so much and I hope you have a very blessed day.
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