00:00:00
Am I going to hell? >> Yes. But here's the thing. Everybody is going to hell. And it's not because they
00:00:06
don't believe in God. And look, I'm a historian and a theologian. So, I study
00:00:10
ancient biblical manuscripts. And if you truly understand what this book is saying, I don't want you to experience
00:00:17
that. >> This is not a place I want to go. So, what do I do about that? >> It's not about trying to earn my way
00:00:22
into heaven. It's not about checking off. I read the Bible as many times. I didn't lie. I didn't steal. I didn't
00:00:27
cheat. Like, it's none of that. But here's the problem. Unfortunately, we
00:00:31
bought the lie that we are the sum of our actions, where we're chasing after
00:00:35
things that aren't going to give us what we actually need. Which is also why we
00:00:38
live in a world that is lacking in purpose and meaning. >> But the part that I've always struggled
00:00:42
with is that the answer being religion as an antidote to that feeling because I require a really high standard of
00:00:47
evidence because of the way that I am. >> Well, I think not only can it provide an
00:00:51
antidote, it can provide the antidote. And I'll explain why. like how can we
00:00:55
trust human accounts of these things and then how do you take people who agree that there's clearly something missing
00:00:59
to believing that what's written in the Bible is the thing that should guide my
00:01:02
life also do you have any doubt oh especially when there are times of struggle and pain and suffering like the
00:01:09
whole Epstein thing right now we are seeing examples of true evil so there are moments where I think how could
00:01:14
there be a good god however from my investigation I am convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that there's actual
00:01:20
evidence for the existence of God the historical reliability of the Bible and the philosophical explanations for
00:01:26
meaning and purpose. >> And what is that? >> First, we have >> that is some of the most persuasive
00:01:31
evidence one can receive. >> Guys, I've got a quick favor to ask you. We're approaching a significant
00:01:39
subscriber milestone on this show. And roughly 69% of you that listen and love this show haven't yet subscribed for
00:01:45
whatever reason. If there was ever a time for you to do us a favor, if we've
00:01:49
ever done anything for you, given you value in any way, it is simply hitting that subscribe button. And it means so
00:01:55
much to myself, but also to my team because when we hit these milestones, we go away as a team and celebrate. And
00:01:59
it's the thing, the simple, free, easy thing you can do to help make this show
00:02:02
a little bit better every single week. So, that's a favor I would ask you. And
00:02:06
um if you do hit the subscribe button, I won't let you down and we'll continue to
00:02:10
find small ways to make this whole production better. Thank you so much for being part of this journey. Means the
00:02:16
world. And uh yeah, let's do this. Wesley, I have this fascinating uh graph in front of me here and it shows several
00:02:28
things that I find to be really really interesting. One of them is that as of 2024,
00:02:33
the decline of religion has started to level off and actually increase a little bit. And now 63% of US adults identify
00:02:42
as Christian, which is roughly 160 million people. In 2025, Bible sales hit a 21-year high in the United States with
00:02:52
19 million units sold. Weekly Bible reading amongst US adults has increased to 42%, which is up 12% since 2024. And
00:03:02
in 2024, Christian and gospel music streams in the US increased by roughly 20% according to the Washington Times.
00:03:08
Wesley, what is going on in society? If we zoom out, >> I think we're in a unique bubble where
00:03:16
we found ourselves in a time frame where we're connected more than ever. We've
00:03:24
kind of come out of a period of time where the new atheism is very, very popular. You had Dawkins, Daniel, uh,
00:03:33
Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and they made a big impact in the early 2000s.
00:03:39
>> I think we should probably just give some color to what new atheism is.
00:03:42
>> Sure. Yeah. >> I've actually got a graph here, which I'll throw up on the screen, which shows
00:03:45
the rise and then the the fall of new atheism, but I was pulled in by new atheism.
00:03:51
>> And that meant that I, and again, I should probably preface my beliefs because people are going to want to know
00:03:55
what my bias is when I'm asking questions. I grew up in a very Christian household up until the age of 18. I then
00:03:59
became agnostic/ atheist when I started consuming a lot of this stuff from Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris and all
00:04:04
of these people. And then I find myself at a point now where I'm just open-minded and curious,
00:04:08
>> but I have lots of questions. Yeah, you had these individuals who are writing
00:04:12
these very influential works. But I sometimes wonder whether the new atheism movement worked a lot more effectively
00:04:18
in print than it did in actual real life. Like in terms of the practicality of the application of the things that
00:04:26
were being talked about, especially in regards to meaning, if you apply ideas like you being a product of time plus
00:04:34
matter plus chance, what does that actually give you in terms of the ultimate identity questions? And so I
00:04:41
think I think that's true in a lot of circumstances where you have these seeds
00:04:45
that are planted and they grow and they produce trees that produce fruit that are kind of hard to digest in their
00:04:54
actual application. And along with that, we have a world that's very complex.
00:04:59
We're more connected than we ever have been. I don't know if we're truly we
00:05:04
were ever truly meant to know as much information as we do, especially about things that are going on around the
00:05:11
world and things that are hard to to comprehend. And so what I think that all kind of adds up to is people asking
00:05:20
questions about, okay, I'm here. I'm right now trying to figure out what's
00:05:25
going on. How do I actually find out the answers to a lot of these questions that
00:05:32
just go beyond the here and the now that I'm experiencing? This is what um individuals like James K. Smith called
00:05:37
the dynamics of disenchantment where people are struggling with these transcendent questions, questions that
00:05:45
are metaphysical that go beyond just the here and the now in the world. Why is the three pounds of gray matter in my
00:05:53
brain able to comprehend the complexities of the universe? How do I how do I come up with a solution to that
00:05:59
problem? So, I think that's part of it. I think it's kind of moving on in a
00:06:04
world that just is probably more messy than it's ever been. A lot of countries,
00:06:09
the UK, Europe, Canada, America, all of these western countries, they they were founded on these
00:06:18
Judeo-Christian ethics of foundations that come from the Old and the New Testaments, what we call the Bible. And
00:06:28
a lot of people kind of attempted to divorce the religious aspect from the societies. And societies became less and
00:06:36
less overtly religious in those natures. And then a lot of people saw that their
00:06:42
parents were no longer going to church. Like the Bible wasn't part of kind of
00:06:46
the household any longer. And I talked to a lot of young people who look at that and they say in almost like a
00:06:54
rebellion against their parents, they're now interested in that. Their parents
00:06:58
rebelled by disassociating from religion. And now I wonder if there's part of a rebellion in kind of looking
00:07:07
back and trying to reclaim some of that religious stuff. I think in part as well
00:07:13
this younger generation, Gen Z's and I guess to some extent also millennials
00:07:17
have been told to live more individualistic lives and that's really been glamorized like be your own boss
00:07:23
and now we work remotely and stand on your own two feet and we're even seeing
00:07:28
people getting into sort of relationships later and later in their lives and having less children. So
00:07:32
they're more it appears people are more unanchored than they've ever been and
00:07:37
that was to some degree glamorized. Um but it also appears that when we are unanch anchored when we don't have
00:07:43
responsibilities or we're not part of something mental health issues um are quick quick to follow
00:07:50
>> and for this generation they're suffering the most with those types of
00:07:53
mental health issues and then one would assert that they would therefore be searching more for
00:07:57
>> answers to some of these existential questions >> expressive individualism I think it rose
00:08:02
that's the kind of the terminology in soc in the sociological literature that
00:08:06
they refer to it but I I think you touched on a good point in that like as we've removed God, part of the
00:08:12
intellectual light enlightenment was that we would move away from the shackles of religiosity and the concept
00:08:19
of a creator and that would lead us into a utopia. And I think the more and more
00:08:26
we've removed that from society that hasn't decreased our levels of anxiety
00:08:30
and depression and meaning. I I think it's increased it. >> Yeah. And especially celebrity worship,
00:08:37
social media, building a following of your own like sort of low-key narcissism. >> Yeah.
00:08:43
>> Has made us more and more and more and more important. And that seems to
00:08:46
correlate with worse and worse and worse mental health when you start to become more individualistic and think more and
00:08:52
more about yourself >> and self-importance >> versus others and a bigger picture.
00:08:58
>> Mhm. I think we were created for community. I think we are as human beings a creature that is created for
00:09:05
community ultimately like cards on the table as a Christian because I believe we are created in the image of a God who
00:09:12
exists in a set of living loving relationships like that's what the trinity is when we talk about that idea
00:09:19
within Christian theology. God exists in father son and holy spirit. And so being
00:09:25
created in the image of God, part of that is you are created for relationship. And so in a society that's
00:09:32
continually removing us, you know, you need to be an influencer. You're influencing everybody else.
00:09:38
>> When I think we're not created to be lone wolves or lone rangers. We're
00:09:44
created to live amongst community and have that be something that likewise gives us fulfillment. It's not that
00:09:52
people who are leaders are, you know, rise to the top are wrong by any stretch, but in a society where we're
00:09:58
alone together because we are sitting behind computer screens >> and we're talking to hundreds of
00:10:07
thousands if not millions of people in some cases, but but we're secluded. >> I think that that does something to our
00:10:14
souls because we were made to be in relationship with other people. I agree with everything you've said as it
00:10:24
relates to the sort of crisis of meaning in society and I also agree with many of
00:10:27
your reasons as to why that's occurred. >> The part that I've always struggled with
00:10:31
is then the answer being Christianity or any other religion. >> Sure. I agree with, you know, so many of
00:10:38
the things you've said, but then I my brain has, I think, especially after the
00:10:42
age of 18 when I started reading about all this new atheist stuff and these questions of evil and am I going to hell
00:10:48
and all these other things, I've not been able to get there. >> But I'm having this conversation with
00:10:53
you today because I am open-minded and although I've got like difficult questions to ask, I'm in pursuit of the
00:10:59
truth, not any particular ideology or answer. So, how do you take someone like me who agrees that there's clearly
00:11:07
something missing, who believes that there's something transcendent? Like, it'd be a crazy thing to assume that
00:11:11
this is it. I I think >> Yeah. >> How do you take them from this position
00:11:15
to >> believing that what's written in this book in front of me, the Bible,
00:11:19
>> Yeah. >> is the thing that should guide my life, >> right? >> Because I I like, again, I say I'm going
00:11:25
to say this again, that like >> I think I require a really high standard of evidence because of the way that I
00:11:30
am. >> Yeah. You know, I think there's a historical case for it which I'm very
00:11:34
much invested in because my training formerly is in historioggraphy. I study ancient biblical manuscripts and their
00:11:41
kind of reliability and fidelity over the last couple of millennia. So looking at some of those manuscripts that
00:11:50
actually can trace back to the actual time frame of Jesus and answering questions like is what we have now what
00:11:56
the original authors wrote back then? So, I think there's a historical question to it. And I in my own personal
00:12:02
investigation genuinely think that the evidence, the publicly available evidence gets us back to not only the
00:12:09
time frame of Jesus, but to early eyewitness testimony that proclaims that this first century Jewish itinerate
00:12:16
rabbi who was walking the dusty streets of first century made these claims and then there is sufficient evidence to say
00:12:23
that he predicted his own death and resurrection and did it. How do I know Jesus Christ was real? And then how do I
00:12:30
know what's written in that book is real versus just some guys thousands of years
00:12:35
ago made a book? >> Yeah. So that is a question of historical reliability. So there are a
00:12:42
couple different ways we could go about it. First, we have four biographical accounts of Jesus's life, which is very
00:12:47
unusual. So we call them the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Um those aren't actually our earliest source
00:12:53
material for the life of Jesus. that comes in the person of Paul. Paul is actually writing before the gospel
00:12:59
accounts and he is uh someone who was hostile originally to the Christian message and he's persecuting Christians.
00:13:09
He comes along and he has this radical conversion experience when he's traveling to Damascus where he says he's
00:13:16
he's literally thrown off a horse. He hears God's voice and it's Jesus and he
00:13:20
says, "Paul, why are you persecuting me?" And then he writes these things
00:13:24
about his experience and and then ultimately goes and connects with the individuals who are who we call the
00:13:32
disciples who are like this this close Jesus community and connects with them. So he's our earliest source but then you
00:13:38
have these gospel accounts these these biographies and the gospels are interesting because they fit within the
00:13:43
historical framework of ancient Greco Roman biography. So let me give you an example. The most well-known person in
00:13:52
Jesus's day was the emperor. His name is Tiberius. Tiberius has four biographical
00:13:58
accounts that are written about him. Valasculus, Casiodio, Sutonius, and Tacitus.
00:14:03
>> So, these are the four guys. Okay. >> And what's interesting in sort of a
00:14:08
comparative analysis of Jesus and those people is that they're all writing around the same time period. So the
00:14:15
biographies are coming from the first century for Jesus. They're coming in this time period where you have an early
00:14:22
eyewitness testimony for the emperor for the most well-known person in the ancient world. All of the sources except
00:14:30
for uh Valas Peterculus are coming from the second century. >> Val Petculus is coming from the first
00:14:37
century. He's very close to the source, but he's a paid propagandist. So even
00:14:40
though he's the earliest, he's the least reliable. And for the gospels that comes
00:14:47
around to the 4th century. So there's a comparison with the source material for
00:14:53
someone like Jesus even though we really shouldn't have anything about him because he's he's kind of a nobody from
00:15:01
nowhere >> in terms of the Roman Empire and the grand scheme of things. >> But we have a phenomenal amount of
00:15:07
source information for his life. I mean, this is one of the things I discovered when I went through that new atheist
00:15:12
phase was that really everybody kind of agrees that there was a guy called Jesus
00:15:18
from Nazareth and that he was a real historical person. >> I guess the part in dispute was whether
00:15:24
things like his resurrection actually happened or whether he was just a spiritual leader back then like we have
00:15:29
spiritual leaders today. And I think one of the one of the things that I got really stuck on when I was reading about
00:15:34
Jesus and the Bible was there appears to be quite a significant gap between his life, his death, and then the writings
00:15:41
that go into the Bible. And for me in my head, I was like, well, if you know, >> if something happened in my life 50
00:15:46
years ago, I mean, I'm only 33, but if something happened 50 years ago, I would
00:15:49
not be able to recount it. Frankly, I can't recount what happened last week accurately,
00:15:52
>> right? >> Let alone like decades ago. You've you must have heard this argument before.
00:15:56
>> Yes. >> What how do you how do you square the circle here? >> So, there are a few things going on.
00:16:00
First, we live in a hyperiterate culture. We are writing everything down. The ancient world was far less of a
00:16:06
literate culture. They were an oral culture. These stories would have been passed in large groups at at at time
00:16:12
frames, especially if we're talking about the biographical material of Jesus
00:16:16
is actually written in a closer time frame than the majority of anyone else. >> What was that gap?
00:16:22
>> It's it's about 40 to 60 years. >> So, I really want to I imagine there's
00:16:25
some people listening that have probably never read the Bible. And I really want
00:16:28
to explain to them like what this book is in the simplest terms. Can I I can open your Bible.
00:16:32
>> Yeah, of course. Yeah. >> So, is there is there like chapters in here?
00:16:36
>> Yeah. So, the Bible is though we now have it in one book is 66 books written
00:16:42
over a period of about 1600 years on three different continents by close to 40 different authors in three different
00:16:47
languages. >> So, I've just opened your Bible. Y >> and there's one section that says the
00:16:52
Old Testament. There's another section section that says the New Testament. M
00:16:56
what am I looking at? Like is this God's words? Is this a bunch of people's
00:17:00
stories that have been compiled together? What is the Old Testament? What's the New Testament? What's the
00:17:05
difference? >> Yeah. So the Old Testament is the Hebrew scriptures. So that's the scriptures of
00:17:09
the Jewish people. >> Okay. >> So that is uh you know it starts in what's referred to as the Torah, which
00:17:17
are the first five books or the five books of Moses. And then that goes in a time frame all the way up to the period
00:17:23
of the Persians. >> So that's a certain time frame. Yes. And they've gone and collected books from
00:17:28
that time frame or writings from that time frame. >> Yeah. So the ancient Jewish people had
00:17:33
and remember all of these books they would have circulated as independent writings.
00:17:37
>> Okay. >> So we start to see things like this happen in the 4th century. Prior to that
00:17:43
everything's in independent scrolls. So there's an understanding when even you
00:17:48
get them all sort of put in one unit that would have contained the scriptures, the word of God more so than
00:17:54
like this is the word of God. >> The reason why I am unapologetic and very open about my total naivity is
00:18:01
because often in these conversations >> you end up kind of preaching to the
00:18:05
choir. >> Sure. >> If you know what I mean. And there's a huge amount of people, especially
00:18:08
younger people that went through that new atheist movement, were maybe born in the 2000s that are now 26 years old,
00:18:13
>> that have never read the Bible, have never even opened one, have no idea what
00:18:15
it is. They just think it's this kind of like book of stories. Yeah. >> But these the first um you call these
00:18:21
books, I was thinking of them like chapters. >> The first one in the Old Testament is
00:18:25
Genesis. >> Who wrote Genesis? Was that a guy or was that God? So the idea is in Christianity
00:18:33
the terminology is what's called verbal plenary inspiration. So verbal it's
00:18:39
spoken plenary it's like written down and then inspired. So there are human authors to all these books.
00:18:44
>> Okay. So humans wrote these chapters but they were inspired by God. >> So yes. So the understanding so in the
00:18:50
Bible itself Peter says that men spoke as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. So there's a there's a
00:18:57
historical context to all of these like the history of this period of time of the nation of Israel as they were being
00:19:05
led by particular rulers. >> And where does Jesus show up? >> Jesus is the New Testament.
00:19:09
>> If someone's never read the Old Testament, what is that about? It's just
00:19:14
describing the time. >> It's a bunch of different things. So different things. It's there's a whole
00:19:18
bunch of genres of literature. So, some of it is history, some of it is poetry, some of it is what's called wisdom
00:19:26
literature. >> And who decided that these it looks like there's I don't know, it looks like
00:19:30
there's about 40 books in the Old Testament. >> Mhm. 39 books that are in the Old
00:19:33
Testament. >> Who decided that those were going to be part of the Old Testament because I'm
00:19:37
sure that there was lots of other writings at the time that could have been included.
00:19:41
>> Yeah. So, by the time that Jesus is around, there's approximately an
00:19:45
agreement of what is considered scripture >> by who? by the Jews themselves.
00:19:50
>> So the Jews decided which 38 books to put in. >> Yes. So you have conversations by
00:19:56
individuals like there's a guy named Josephus who is writing at the end of the first century. Part of what he
00:20:02
argues is that the Jewish people don't have kind of an innumerable number of
00:20:08
religious texts like the Greeks do. They have a specific number and he uses this
00:20:13
terminology that they were laid up in the temple. So the idea is that you know these are the books they're housed in
00:20:20
the temple and they're a set number and he gives the number of the same number
00:20:25
of letters in the Hebrew alphabet 22. So you usually see this 22 or 23 number, but they group them differently. And he
00:20:34
gives an argument that one of the reasons that there we can find a timeline for what the Jews consider
00:20:41
scripture is he says there's nothing written before Moses and there's not
00:20:45
nothing written after the time of Artis Xerxes, which is the Persian Empire. So the book of Esther in the Bible is is
00:20:51
that time period. So though there are writings after that there's this agreement that
00:20:58
the voice of God in say the prophets giving a thus sayaith the Lord statement like communicating messages to the
00:21:05
people of Israel has ceased but the Jewish cannon though there's like a closing of it there's a soft closing
00:21:15
there's an idea that there's going to be a new covenant God is make going to make
00:21:20
new pro promises with his people and so there are going to be more writings. >> Okay. So my understanding of that is
00:21:26
that he made the case that God is no longer communicating with people to write these books
00:21:32
>> at least that there was a stop point at Malachi. So it's sometimes referred to
00:21:37
as the 400 years of silence for that reason >> from the point of Jesus's death.
00:21:41
>> Mhm. >> What book from the New Testament is written last and how big is that gap?
00:21:47
>> That's a debate. >> Okay. What's the debate? So the debate
00:21:51
so the the there's it's a question if John's gospel >> is written before 70 AD or after 70 AD
00:21:57
and if it's written after 70 AD it's written in the '9s. So it's written
00:22:02
pretty far afterwards. >> How many years? >> So if Jesus dies in 33.
00:22:06
>> Okay. So about 60. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Fine. >> Yeah. So, so at minimum I I think like
00:22:14
99% of historians, biblical scholars, classicists would argue that the 27 books of the New Testament are written
00:22:22
in the first century. And so in that sense, they're in the lifetime of the eyewitnesses to a certain degree.
00:22:29
>> Mhm. >> And there's evidence even within some of the gospels where you have these names
00:22:33
thrown out kind of randomly. And part of the thinking of that is that this is like citing your sources. At one point
00:22:43
when Jesus is carrying the cross to Galatha, >> he kind of stumbles and they get another
00:22:50
person to carry his cross for a little bit. >> And that person is Joseph of Arythea.
00:22:55
Well, one of the gospels names one of Joseph of Arythea's son by name. And the
00:23:01
thinking is that this is probably someone who's well known within the early Jesus community. And the purpose
00:23:06
of naming that person randomly is to say he's actually well known. Go ask him.
00:23:13
>> I mean logically there's quite a risk of Chinese whispers to some degree.
00:23:17
>> As you were speaking I was trying to think about things that I experienced
00:23:19
when I was younger like with my like grandmother before she passed away and I was trying to like accurately recount
00:23:24
those memories. >> Yeah. >> I was thinking of like going to her house and then
00:23:28
>> I remember one day she gave me some money but I can't remember what she gave
00:23:31
it to me for and I can't remember how much she gave me. I know she put it in a
00:23:34
card and this was only like hm 20 years ago. >> Yeah. >> And so if I was to write about that
00:23:40
today, I would be filling in some some gaps, especially especially this is the other thing that I always struggled with
00:23:48
is like especially in a world where we didn't understand science. Now my grandmother like put it in a card and it
00:23:53
was like I opened it and the way she did it was often as a surprise. So in a world where I like didn't understand
00:23:58
physics or science, I might have concluded that my mother, my grandmother did something like magical,
00:24:04
>> you know, at a time when we didn't understand anything about like really
00:24:06
much about the nature of the universe and planets and the solar system and physics.
00:24:11
>> So is that a risk that some of the things that have been transmuted by God
00:24:16
into this book in front of me are prone to Chinese whispers and or just like a lack of understanding about the nature
00:24:21
of the world like the resurrection for example. >> Yeah. So this is uh this is in my field
00:24:26
referred to as mythological drift. So how do we factor in making sure that mythological drift doesn't happen? I
00:24:33
think there are a couple things related to what you said. First off, I think I would be careful in trying to ascribe
00:24:40
the ancient world as being pres-scientific and therefore largely say ignorant. I mean, even when the
00:24:46
angel comes to Mary in the gospel story and says, "You're going to be with
00:24:51
child." Mary's objection to the angel is a scientific one. I haven't met the
00:24:56
minimum requirements of how babies are made, therefore I can't be pregnant, right? So, she's not dumb, right? She's
00:25:02
not just at face value accepting that, you know, well, I believe in angels and so, you know, this kind of magic thing
00:25:09
can happen. she's still objecting scientifically even though she might not have the terminology to understand like
00:25:15
the complexities of child birth and embryology and all of that. So I would say you know this is what uh the writer
00:25:22
CS Lewis calls chronological snobbery that he says you know we need to be careful of not to ascribe the ancient
00:25:28
world as being more ignorant and stupid than than you know just because we are a
00:25:33
product of the enlightenment and we understand scientific things. Yeah. The second thing is I think the the Chinese
00:25:38
whispers or the telephone game or whatever you call it is a good is a good kind of case study. I think where it
00:25:45
falls short is that if you play the telephone game, if you play Chinese whispers, there are rules in order to
00:25:52
corrupt the message. So you have to whisper, you can only say it once. You have to do it one person to one person.
00:26:00
In an oral culture, you would have been hearing these stories constantly. So when some of these stories are told,
00:26:07
they're being told within a lifetime where there could have been individuals
00:26:11
who say the story of the feeding of the 5000, that's a lot of people. So there's
00:26:16
a lot of witnesses to this particular event. So if you're writing this down,
00:26:20
there's an aspect of there are people out there who could verify what is being
00:26:25
said, at least orally, not necessarily like literarily. Likewise, what we have in the gospel accounts,
00:26:32
particularly after Jesus's death, when the disciples proclaiming his resurrection, they go back to Jerusalem,
00:26:38
which is the scene of the crime. So, they go back to the exact place where Jesus was crucified and start telling
00:26:43
people he was risen from the dead. If there is some aspect of say disingenuousness and making up a story,
00:26:51
don't go back to the place where everybody could have seen that thing happen to that degree. Right? So in in
00:26:57
one sense, Chinese whispers is is a faulty analogy in that it's less like one person whispering into another's ear
00:27:06
and more like a 100 people in a room all saying communicating the thing verbally
00:27:11
and then getting the other people to repeat it back to them and then corroborating with the other individuals
00:27:18
of what's going on. Now I think there I think your point in in the story of your
00:27:23
your grandmother and you know the the the letter and is a good one. You know how do we remember things? Do you
00:27:30
remember 9/11? >> Yes, I do. Yes. And I was in the the UK at the time. >> Could you tell me a little bit more
00:27:38
vividly what what you were doing on 911 compared to your grandmother and the letter?
00:27:44
>> Yes, I could. Yeah. I remember coming home from school and like watching it on
00:27:47
the screen and my and my dad having it on the screen and usual just looking at the screen.
00:27:51
>> Yeah, me too. So whereas I couldn't tell you much of what else happened during an
00:27:56
average day in that year, I could tell you what happened on September 11th, 2001. And that's because of the nature
00:28:04
of what was going on. And I think when we're talking about the gospel stories
00:28:08
in particular, first you have what I genuinely believe are eyewitness accounts from at least the source
00:28:14
information coming from a group who would have heard Jesus be preaching these things multiple times in multiple
00:28:22
different settings. Like it's it's probably likely myself as an itinerate I
00:28:28
have given the same talk on a particular subject quite a few times. Yeah. And I joke with my wife that she could give my
00:28:33
talk on the historical reliability of the Bible herself. You know, if I'm sick, I'll just send my wife, right? Cuz
00:28:38
she's heard it so many times. I think that's the case that's going on with the
00:28:42
disciples. >> There's an aspect of they would have heard say the biatitudes.
00:28:47
>> Yeah. >> That Jesus most likely more than once is the case because that's just the nature
00:28:52
of not just itinerate speaking but even traveling rabbis in in the ancient world. And then you have this event that
00:29:00
is kind of earthshattering in terms of their narrative of who they are. They've
00:29:05
been traveling with this rabbi for 3 years straight. They've been hearing his
00:29:10
teaching. They've been seeing miracles at least that are recorded in the gospels.
00:29:15
Pretty phenomenal things. And then he gets taken and he's murdered publicly.
00:29:21
And they think it's over. They think, you know, there are other messianic movements in the ancient world. most of
00:29:28
which you and I aren't hearing on a regular basis because when those individuals die, their movement dies
00:29:34
with them. And so that's what they think is happening, right? So they think,
00:29:37
"Okay, we're done." So the story is they're hiding in this upper room and they're scared. In fact,
00:29:44
it's the women who take on the responsibility of like going and figuring things out, which in terms of
00:29:50
the time period is actually an embarrassing fact because of the kind of cultural dynamics of what's going on.
00:29:57
And so you have the disciples who think it's over. What is it that has 11 scared
00:30:04
disciples because one of them Judas goes and he kills himself. 11 scared disciples hiding in an upper room
00:30:09
thinking that's it. We're done. We might as well, you know, Peter, James, and
00:30:13
John might as well just go back to being fishermen cuz that's all she wrote. to
00:30:18
then having the boldness to go out and actually proclaim this message ultimately to
00:30:25
the level of persecution and hardship that they endure for the rest of their lives. Well, it's that their rabbi then
00:30:32
shows up alive again. And so, at minimum, I think what we can say is that this is a pretty drastic event that
00:30:41
takes place in their life. It's a comparative to a 9/11 event for them. And so in terms of like the memory
00:30:47
imprint that they are experiencing for the murder of their rabbi of their teacher and then something
00:30:58
happening where they then go for the rest of their lives. The martyrdom stories are a little bit
00:31:07
tricky in terms of their historical reliability. I think a few of them we can say did happen.
00:31:13
a lot of them is kind of up in the air but at minimum they suffered persecution.
00:31:18
>> So the story in the Bible is that he was killed on the cross, murdered on the
00:31:24
cross and then he was put into a tomb >> and then who saw him come out of the
00:31:30
tomb. >> So nobody physically sees him come out of the tomb. But the women go to the
00:31:36
tomb in the morning and on the third day and the tomb is empty. And so there are
00:31:44
four accounts, right? And I think it's interesting also that we have four accounts that kind of give different
00:31:49
angles on the stories. They're not it's not as if they got together and they
00:31:53
corroborated and all gave the same story. The fact is that we have four accounts that kind of capitalize on
00:31:58
different angles, which the differentiation in detail, I think, actually gives credibility to the the
00:32:07
reliability of it. Because if they were all telling the same thing, you could argue that they got together and they
00:32:12
colluded. They don't do that. In fact, they they touch on different aspects of
00:32:17
the story. >> Are these people saying that they saw him walk out? Are they saying that they
00:32:21
just saw it empty? What is the claims being made about his resurrection from these witnesses?
00:32:25
>> Yeah. So, the tomb is empty. >> The tomb is empty. >> And so, it's interesting in in one of
00:32:28
the accounts, um, Mary's at the tomb, and she actually talks to Jesus, but she
00:32:35
confuses him with a gardener. Now, I think it's it's interesting that she
00:32:39
doesn't confuse the gardener with Jesus. She confuses Jesus with the gardener.
00:32:44
Like, she thinks that that this person she's talking to isn't Jesus. She
00:32:47
doesn't recognize him at first. And she she asks him, you know, what happened?
00:32:51
Why is the tomb opened? Where did the body go? And then there's also an account of an angel appearing and
00:32:57
saying, why are you looking for the living among the dead? He's not here. He's risen. And then they go back to the
00:33:02
disciples who are, you know, hiding in this upper room. Mary says, you know, I I've I met the tomb's empty. I've met
00:33:09
Jesus. Jesus is not in the the tomb. He's risen. And some of them don't even
00:33:14
believe her. They think she's crazy. Now, we don't have like an eyewitness
00:33:19
account of the tomb being open. And this is actually an embarrassing fact in the
00:33:24
ancient world. So some of those other gospels that I mentioned earlier that are written later on, Gospel of Thomas,
00:33:31
Judas, Mary, Peter, there's one of them, the Gospel of Peter, which is actually
00:33:36
trying to remedy this fact that women are the first eyewitnesses to the empty tomb, which is a which is an
00:33:44
embarrassing fact in the ancient world. If that's not true, if they made it up,
00:33:49
it seems very unlikely that they would have done that because women are not considered good eyewitnesses in either
00:33:56
Greco Roman or unfortunately Jewish society in this time period. So the gospel of Peter tries to remedy the
00:34:03
situation by having all of the right people in the right place at the right time. It has the Jewish and the Roman
00:34:09
officials camping out in front of the tomb when it actually happens. And then has this recounted the story of the the
00:34:15
literally the stone moving, Jesus coming out, all these things. Now, we know it's
00:34:20
not historically reliable. We know that because of when it was written. We also know that on the eve of Passover, the
00:34:26
priests would not be camping out in front of a dead body. It's just historically um anacronistic.
00:34:32
But it is an account of a literary source later on that is embarrassed by what we find in here about the
00:34:42
biographical information of the empty tomb. >> So is it just two women that said they
00:34:48
met Jesus in some form after his death? Mary being one of them which was his mother.
00:34:54
>> No. >> Who's Mary? >> Mary. So there are a number of Marys in
00:34:57
in the New Testament. Um this was Mary Magdalene. >> Okay. >> Yeah. who who was like a close
00:35:02
associate. >> Okay. Like a friend. >> Yeah. >> Okay. So, a friend. And then was there
00:35:07
is it just her that says she saw him >> in there was a group of them. >> A group of them.
00:35:11
>> Yeah. Of the women. >> Okay. And they were separate when they saw him. They weren't they were on their
00:35:15
own. >> They were together. So, one of the gospel only mentions Mary. >> I believe it's the Gospel of John. But
00:35:21
like I said before, it implies that there are more because she says we don't
00:35:25
know where they put the body. >> Okay. So though that account only has her
00:35:33
recounting it, it implies that there are others and then the other gospels have more women that are going to the tomb.
00:35:40
>> As a percentage, what degree of certainty do you have that he was resurrected and that um he was who he
00:35:46
said he was? Cuz I agree with you that this character clearly existed like Jesus clearly existed. I personally
00:35:51
believe that he was he was killed >> probably on a cross. >> But then you get to this point of
00:35:56
resurrection which you have to then believe in something supernatural. >> Yeah.
00:36:00
>> So what's the probability you'd assign to it? >> I I >> if it was like likely, unlikely, very
00:36:04
likely. >> They're all likely because I think that what the gospel authors are doing is
00:36:11
communicating truth. And I don't ultimately see an overabundance of reason why they would write what they
00:36:19
wrote other than actually recounting a story of what took place. >> I grew up in a place called Plymouth in
00:36:27
the UK. I was born in Africa and in my local park there was this big poster on the wall about the white lady. I'll put
00:36:33
it up on the screen. It's like a big legend in our city. It's this park and
00:36:36
everybody says that they see this white lady in the park that was killed. And actually, there's a big board explaining
00:36:41
her life, but it's all just accounts of people that say they've seen her.
00:36:45
>> You have things like the Loch Ness monster in Scotland as well, where there's been 1,500 sightings of this big
00:36:49
monster in the river. And even up until recent times, 2025, there was a surge of
00:36:54
sightings of the Loch Ness monster called the Black Mass in in in the bay. >> Um, and that started in 565 AD. So, one
00:37:04
of the things that I've always sort of struggled with when I think about humans
00:37:08
saying they saw something is we still today have sightings of UFOs and Loch Ness monsters and white ladies in parks
00:37:15
that become legend. And actually with the Loch Ness monster, it's pretty interesting that even today there are
00:37:21
sightings all the time of this monster that lives in the river. Now, I think maybe me and you both agree that there's
00:37:26
no monster in the river, >> but there's something going on. There's
00:37:29
something in human nature where we do have like a proclivity to engage in supernatural sightings and then once
00:37:36
we've heard it once, we then reinforce that we've seen it too. And even as like
00:37:40
a young man, I mean, maybe you believe this, but like I believe that there was a woman that would stand on the landing
00:37:46
of my home and it would like wake me up and I would run and and tell my parents that the lady stood on the landing.
00:37:52
Again, there's people watching this that think that there was actually a lady.
00:37:54
Probably maybe there was. But I you know what I'm getting at is like how do how
00:37:57
can we trust human accounts of these things when clearly humans have an ability to make make things up that
00:38:02
aren't real in some situations. >> Sure. Part of the answer to the question
00:38:07
is one of the evidences for Jesus's resurrection is the fact that you and I are still talking about it almost 2,000
00:38:13
years later. >> My friend said this to me. I was telling you before about my Christian friend. He
00:38:16
was like why are we still talking about it? Well I we can't prove it. >> It wasn't it didn't happen. So we're
00:38:20
always going to talk about it. there's there's never going to be I mean unless
00:38:23
>> something happens >> right the difference is that there are these other messianic movements that
00:38:28
happened in the ancient world >> and so uh like uh Simon Barora the reason why we're not talking about Simon
00:38:35
Barora as a messianic figure is because he died and his movement died with him >> and his disciples didn't go out and then
00:38:42
proclaim his continued message until like to their own detriment so I would say a few things I would say liars make
00:38:51
poor martyrs in that you will die for something you believe is true, but the chances of you dying for something you
00:39:00
know is not true >> are less likely. So if we're talking about the disciples and especially if
00:39:09
what they're getting for this particular proclamation is they're being ostracized
00:39:15
from their own communities, pagan gentile communities and the Jewish communities because remember there was
00:39:20
persecution on both sides because it was at a certain point in time continuing to
00:39:26
say that Jesus was the Messiah and on top of that that he was God himself was not very popular Within the early
00:39:33
Jesus communities, there's a complexity to the fact that people usually lie. You look at cultic
00:39:40
figures, right? Right. Cult leaders usually do things for prominence or money or sex or influence. The
00:39:51
interesting thing about the early disciples is they get none of that. In fact, they almost get the complete
00:39:56
opposite of that in that Jesus says, "You're going to be persecuted. you're
00:40:01
going to be put in front of tri tribunals and you're going to be interrogated. And that's exactly what
00:40:07
happens. And they know that there is there's a danger to this because we have
00:40:12
in the book of Acts, which is the book after the gospels, we have a recounting of the first martyr of Steven.
00:40:19
>> I think of like someone like Martin Luther King or Gandhi as being, you
00:40:22
know, leaders from history that appeared to be from what I've understood very
00:40:26
selfless and actually realized that they were all going to die. I'll never forget
00:40:29
the speech actually where Martin Luther King says, "I've been to the mountain
00:40:32
top." He was a very religious man, very Christian man, and says, "I've been to
00:40:35
the mountain top. You guys get there, but I don't get there with you." >> Right?
00:40:38
>> And then from the information I had, he died very, very shortly thereafter. And
00:40:42
as he's saying, "I don't get there with you." He's he's emotional in his face.
00:40:46
You see him crying. The video is was very con persuasive of the Christianity, by the way.
00:40:51
>> Um, and then he's pulled off stage and then he's shot thereafter. feels like a
00:40:55
man that knew he wasn't going to live much longer but was willing to put his
00:41:00
cause ahead of um his own mortality and um I guess Jesus was doing the same >> in a certain regard in terms of the
00:41:07
disciples though I think like if they know this isn't true if they know that
00:41:11
there's this kind of this has been mythological drift if things have been exaggerated
00:41:17
why then especially experiencing that persecution seeing their friends die in that kind of setting do they continue to
00:41:25
go on and do it. >> I think they definitely believed it was true. >> Yes. I think at minimum whatever is
00:41:29
going on they like you you look at some of these uh secular historians and they look at the data and they say whatever's
00:41:37
going on the disciples believe something happened that they saw something >> and so the I just think that the
00:41:43
explanations of the alternatives of that actually happening are insufficient in so far as
00:41:50
how they actually explain the data. Do you have any doubt? >> Oh, of course.
00:41:55
>> Okay. So, you have at least even 1% doubt. >> Oh, definitely. And I think especially
00:41:59
when there are times of things that are far more existential than historical, when times of like struggle and pain and
00:42:06
suffering, and I look at the world and I look at how messy it is, the children who die young, people who are abused,
00:42:14
all of these things, I there are moments where I think, how how could there be a
00:42:20
good God? I mean, I'm not immune to doubt. Um, and and the interesting thing
00:42:24
that I find about the Bible is that the Bible is very open to the God of the Bible being open to us coming to him
00:42:32
with our doubts. >> Mhm. >> You know, onethird of the book of Psalms, which is like right in the
00:42:37
middle of the Bible, this kind of poetic literature, if you want to call it that,
00:42:41
are sometimes referred to as the lament or the complaint psalms. It's things
00:42:45
like Psalm 22, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from
00:42:50
me? I like I cry out by day and I hear no answer. And I think what's interesting that I find with the Bible
00:42:59
is its transparency in saying we're going to struggle. You know, there's
00:43:03
this really great story in the Gospel of John. Well, this is in a couple of the instances of the Gospels where John the
00:43:10
Baptist who's like Jesus's cousin and good friend, he's been in prison because
00:43:14
he's been speaking out against Herod. He's been being a little bit too verbal
00:43:18
politically. And so he gets taken and he's in prison. And though he's the one
00:43:22
that baptized Jesus and said, you know, behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. When he's in
00:43:28
prison, he doubts and he sends his disciples over to Jesus to ask, are you the Messiah? Are you the one we're
00:43:35
waiting for? Or should we we be waiting for another? Now, in that interaction, Jesus actually says, John the Baptist is
00:43:43
the greatest of all men born of women, which is basically everybody, right? And yet in that very same setting, John the
00:43:51
Baptist is doubting that Jesus is who he says he is because he's experiencing pain and suffering.
00:43:58
>> On that point of um you seeing you know horrific things happening in the world
00:44:02
and then having doubts. I think for me that was one of the persuasive arguments of the like new atheist movement that I
00:44:08
became a part of when I was like 18 years old which was I think Richard Dawkins had said about you know if God
00:44:14
is all loving >> then why would he let a 2-year-old kid in Africa have their eyeball eaten out
00:44:20
from the inside by a parasite. >> Yeah. >> Like if if if I could intervene with
00:44:25
that because you know the assertion is that God is omnipotent or powerful and omnisient or present.
00:44:30
>> Yeah. If I could intervene with that as a human, I would stop that. And so if
00:44:34
God is omnipower, omnipotent, sorry, all powerful and omnipresent, knows everything and is everywhere, then why
00:44:41
wouldn't he intervene with the baby having its eyeball eaten out from the inside?
00:44:44
>> Yeah, it's it's a good point. And I think if there is an objection that is
00:44:50
truly impactful on Christianity on in the atheist corner, it is the problem of evil and always has been because it's
00:44:59
far more of an emotional and existential question than it is an intellectual question. Now, part of the problem with
00:45:05
it is that if we're talking about evil with a capital E, we're implying that
00:45:08
there's a good with a capital G. And so I think we do run into an issue when
00:45:13
saying that evil exists or implying that good exists. And if we're implying that
00:45:18
good exists, we're implying that there's a moral law to adhere to to call the
00:45:23
good good and the evil evil. And if there's a moral law, then there has to be a moral lawgiver. And that's where we
00:45:28
come into issues with is this subjective or is this objective. I think the atheist movement would argue that that
00:45:37
moral good is virtue of what helps me to survive. So like watching a small child
00:45:45
suffer in such a way. >> If I didn't feel anything bad about that, >> yeah,
00:45:49
>> then I wouldn't have the wiring for survival because I wouldn't have the
00:45:54
proclivity to defend a suffering child. If I don't have that, then I probably
00:45:58
don't reproduce and I don't pass on my genes and then I'm selected out of
00:46:02
existence. So that pain I feel when I see a child suffering is a function of my evolutionary mechanics that make me
00:46:10
more likely to survive and anyone that didn't have that wouldn't have survived
00:46:13
and wouldn't be here now. >> Sure. >> So evolution therefore is the answer.
00:46:16
>> I think that might suffice in certain instances. However, it's still sort of
00:46:22
smuggling in moral categories into a biological explanation. So part of I mean you read Richard Dawkins, you read
00:46:30
you read River Out of Eden and he has that section where he talks about you know we shouldn't expect to see any
00:46:35
rhyme or reason good or bad you know DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is and
00:46:40
we dance to its music. And there's an aspect of Dawkins himself in that volume
00:46:44
at least at that time when he wrote it articulating that at the end of it all there is no such thing as actually you
00:46:51
can't call that parasite in that that boy's eye evil. You can say I don't like
00:46:57
it, but to to import this moral category of evil is actually to import an idea. And this is actually what Dawkins was
00:47:06
criticized by by individuals like John Gray, the philosopher who taught at the London School of Economics. And he says,
00:47:12
you know, you're a really great biologist, but then you want to impart actual
00:47:17
intrinsic value to people. And if you're looking at a simple selfish DNA perspective, you can't actually ascribe
00:47:26
that because your DNA, your selfish DNA exists to carry on its selfish DNA. And so in one sense, that
00:47:35
child has no bearing on you. Now, it might have like a a protective mechanism where you want to figure out why the
00:47:42
child got the parasite, and so you try to avoid that in order to not get the parasite yourself. But science
00:47:50
can't actually give you an explanation for what the moral implications are in
00:47:57
that instance. Let me give you an example. >> I think I understand the point there. Um
00:48:00
it's essentially asserting that like why does that child matter to me? Because my
00:48:04
DNA should just be trying to take care of itself. >> Um I guess in biology there's um I don't
00:48:10
always know who my child is. But also from an evolutionary perspective, if we were raised in communities and tribes,
00:48:16
we took care of all of our the children. >> Sure. >> In in the surroundings, I would take
00:48:20
care of my brother's children and he would take care of mine, therefore. >> Yep. Yeah.
00:48:24
>> And again, that goes back to the point of survival, which means that I'm more
00:48:27
likely to survive if I take care of like my community sort of. You you read something like uh the origin of species
00:48:35
though like like uh Darwin himself when he's articulating the survival of the fittest there is an aspect of
00:48:46
you shouldn't take care of those people because they're actually bringing the
00:48:52
genetic gene pool down. So we see even in like the eugenics movement pulling a lot from individuals like Darwin in
00:49:01
order to validate the fact that in order to carry on your selfish DNA, this idea
00:49:07
of taking care of the marginalized and those with on the fringes of society and those who are the the lesser than is is
00:49:14
not evolutionary advantageous because survival of the fittest implies that the fittest should survive and these are
00:49:21
obviously not the fittest. It's actually a Judeo-Christian ethic in the understanding of everybody having equal
00:49:28
value that we should be taking care of people because they have intrinsic value, not exttrinsic value. That allows
00:49:35
us to then even import an idea of taking care of those who are not necessarily specifically related to me and mine. And
00:49:44
it comes back to okay, where are we grounding this objectivity in? cuz there have been societies that have attempted
00:49:52
to do it in like a might is right aspect and and you ground the objectivity of what we say is right in a society that
00:50:02
says this is better for the most amount of individuals within a particular community. I think about um Yevel Noah
00:50:11
Harrari Harari in his book Sapiens where he says that the real defining trait of
00:50:15
>> our species versus other species was our ability to collaborate and basically
00:50:19
scratch each other's backs >> and that that meant that we had um evolutionary advantages because if we
00:50:25
could work together in a big group and we could believe in stories and we believe in money and prison and
00:50:30
governments etc. we could band together and take on the lion or band together and take on the elephant or whatever.
00:50:36
And it's actually that in part there you have like I need to take care of you,
00:50:40
you need to take care of me and we're going to reciprocate that altruism uh and increase our survival chances. So
00:50:47
again that might explain why I care about that kid um because the species that didn't
00:50:54
>> Uhhuh. >> they would never have been able to band together and take on the elephant.
00:50:58
>> Yes. I think it's largely our modern perspective living in a society where we
00:51:05
are uh starting on second base already with our moral perspectives, right? We have inherited all of these moral
00:51:13
categories because of our Judeo-Christian ethic. If you look at basically every society prior to this or
00:51:19
even societies in the east, that's not a given, right? That's not an assumption.
00:51:25
Especially in societies that have say uh understandings of karmic cycles whether
00:51:31
that's in like Buddhism or Hinduism the idea of altruism is actually can be categorized as an evil because in the
00:51:38
cycle of samsara of birth life death and rebirth you are actually the your lot in
00:51:44
this life is due to your wrongdoing in the last life. So in helping someone like that you are actually inhibiting
00:51:50
them from being reincarnated better on the other side. So an idea like altruism doesn't exist within that eastern
00:51:57
society. And if you look in the ancient world, let's pick on the Babylonians.
00:52:01
The Babylonians, if they were to read Dawkins' River out of Eden, would basically say, "Yeah, exactly." Right.
00:52:07
So they have this creation story. It's called the Inumalish, and it's this big
00:52:11
battle of the gods, and it's uh it's an origin story, an attempt to explain why
00:52:17
everything is here. But the conclusion of it is basically you are a product of a big battle and a mistake, right? The
00:52:26
one god loses and you, everything around you, the earth, the sky, it's just the
00:52:32
remains of the gods that lost. So meaning, value, purpose, not really ultimately. You're just the product of
00:52:41
time plus matter plus chance as well. It's just framed within a religious perspective. whereas Dawkins frames it
00:52:47
in a natural materialistic perspective. So where do we get the categories to even say that we should be taking
00:52:58
care of people in communities outside of our specific community because in some cultures they have the
00:53:07
ethic of love thy neighbor but in others it's eat thy neighbor and so the question is which society do you want to
00:53:12
pick? And you're saying that that came from Judeo-Christian values. >> Yes,
00:53:16
>> I would agree. Yeah, I would agree that. I think I'm trying to understand if it's
00:53:20
innate in us from a God what's good and evil or whether it's, you know, we we
00:53:26
all subscribe to a culture that was, you know, the foundation of that was these Christian values and um yeah, which one
00:53:33
is it? >> Yeah. Well, was I born with a good and evil or was 2,000 or 3,000 years ago
00:53:39
when Jesus came to be and we had these books? Did that just influence them? >> Yeah. Well, I think ultimately there's
00:53:45
an aspect of our conscience that's imprinted on us that we we understand ethics to some degree or another, but
00:53:52
the framework to actually find the objectivity of that ethic is found in the revelation of specific revelation in
00:54:02
scripture. >> Do you believe in evolution? >> I don't. >> You don't believe it's true?
00:54:07
>> No. I am open to the fact that I don't think that a belief in evolution
00:54:11
undermines Christianity in any way. However, I'm and prefacing this by saying I'm not a scientist. I'm an
00:54:17
advocate for intelligent design and I would basically punt the complex conversations of evolutionary biology to
00:54:28
individuals who are far more studied than me like Steven Meyer and Jonathan Mcclache and John Tours and
00:54:36
Douglas Axe and those individuals who have studied it. At the exact same time though it also depends on what you mean
00:54:42
by evolution, right? So like adaptation genetically is a thing >> I guess. So I'm saying do you believe
00:54:48
that we evolved from very simple organisms to become a human that you see today?
00:54:54
>> No. >> And the argument for that would be you know I share 98% of the same DNA as like
00:54:58
a chimpanzeee and we have these fossil records which seem to show a progression over time.
00:55:03
>> You don't believe that's true? >> No I don't. But at the exact same time,
00:55:06
I think, you know, there are individuals within the Christian faith, intelligent
00:55:11
people who do and have no problem with understanding of a theistic evolutionary model. However, I think in the effort of
00:55:20
survival of the fittest, I still think that you're starting a few miles down
00:55:25
the road in answering the question of the arrival of the fittest. How do minds come from mindless matter? How does
00:55:32
everything come from nothing? How do how do we answer those questions? And I think that's why you can use the
00:55:41
evolutionary model as an explanation of how God has actually created right the biology of the situation. But I think
00:55:51
the bigger question is the cosmological questions. How did this all get going? You know, the big bang, what was the big
00:56:00
banger? How did that first ball get rolling? And then why can you and I, Stephen, sit
00:56:08
here and like I said before, have the three lbs of gray matter in my head kind of uh ruminate over these very complex
00:56:18
questions. >> You know, I I think it was on the Galapicus Islands. I'm probably going to
00:56:22
butcher this, but I'll I'll do my very best. They, you know, the sailors went
00:56:26
to an island, they left a bird there, they came back 50 years later, the bird's beak had grown to be very, very
00:56:32
long >> because the prey on that island that it was eating were in in hole. So, they
00:56:38
needed longer beaks. So, it kind of shows us that if you leave an animal in an environment, it will adapt and it's,
00:56:45
you know, it will select out the the short beak birds for the long beak birds. And just in that short period of
00:56:51
time, you can see that it's like, you know, it's becoming a different type of
00:56:54
animal. And if you extrapolate that out over a long long period of time, almost an inconceivable amount of time, you
00:57:01
know, maybe hundreds of millions of years, >> one can understand why like me and a
00:57:05
chimpanzeee, there are similarities in how we look. Um, and there are 99% similar like 98%
00:57:12
similarities in my DNA and a chimp chimpanzeee's DNA. So, one would argue that we are we have a common ancestor.
00:57:18
Yeah, >> it's like very compelling evidence to me. >> Sure. I mean, it's the transitions going
00:57:22
from as the chimpanzeee type thing, right? Because we're obviously not arguing that that we were a chimpanzeee,
00:57:28
a chimpanzeee exist today, but that yeah, that homminid, whatever that homminid was,
00:57:33
>> what is the transitionary fossil explanation whatever that goes from the monkey to the human being? And
00:57:44
I don't really think we have an answer for that in terms of consciousness questions like why what makes our
00:57:52
ability to reason and think and contemplate different than all of the other species in the animal kingdom. And
00:58:02
how do we go if we're arguing that, you know, everything comes from single-sellled organisms?
00:58:09
I guess you could have a if you want to call it a time of the gaps explanation, you know, just just add lots of millions
00:58:17
of years and it solves this issue. I don't know if I am completely satisfied
00:58:22
with that answer if cuz obviously there's adaptation but you know if you're looking at whether there's the
00:58:28
dodo bird example or Darwin's finches right where the beaks are different um
00:58:32
you're still getting beaked birds and we've never seen one species turn into a
00:58:38
completely different species >> the thing that I filled the gap with is that it's just a matter of time so you
00:58:45
know with the birds example it's like 50 years or something or decades But when we think about Earth being like
00:58:52
5 billion years old, >> I think it's almost inconceivable what can happen over such a long period of
00:58:57
time like it's conceivable that if me and you went to different parts of planet Earth and lived in two completely
00:59:03
different environments and then we came back 5 billion years later and there was
00:59:07
no medicine and no factors helping us to survive that you know we would have branched gone in two different
00:59:13
directions completely and you you know your ancestors who were living in the jungle might
00:59:19
9 foot and actually what was useful for survival where I lived in some cave was being 2t tall,
00:59:26
>> right? >> And then we wouldn't be able to reproduce which kind of makes us
00:59:29
different species now. Like that's I mean that's sounds conceivable for me
00:59:33
over four like 4.5 billion years. Seems conceivable that like we both agree on adaptation.
00:59:40
>> Mhm. >> Like small adaptations. But then if you expand the time horizon, those small
00:59:45
adaptations become massive. >> Yeah. I mean ultimately no matter which way you want to swing it, I think the
00:59:50
adding millions of years as the explanation is a little bit too convenient. >> But I think at the end of the day,
00:59:56
you're still looking at the complexity in nature that points to a design of something that is is amazing.
01:00:04
And the the question of okay, how do we Dawkins is, you know, famous for saying that that it it has the illusion of
01:00:14
design to it, right? There's not not actually a design to it. It's just the
01:00:18
illusion of design. But I think, you know, if we actually look at when Darwin was writing, they thought the smaller
01:00:27
you got, the simpler it got. And now we know that the smaller you get, in fact, the more complex you get.
01:00:34
>> As in the more you zoom into the design, like the more you zoom into the brain or
01:00:37
>> Yeah. Our understanding of science has grown exponentially even from Darwin's
01:00:41
day. And there's an aspect of like Darwinian evolution that is is has moved on into what we would now call like
01:00:48
neodyarwinian evolutionary theory. And you look at um individuals like I mentioned Steven Meyer before and he
01:00:55
even uh has questioned some of these things about the explanations that are working as givens for evolutionary
01:01:06
theory. I still don't think it gets us back to, okay, then why do we have purpose?
01:01:13
>> I've had so many founders speak to me and say, why didn't this particular ad
01:01:16
that I ran on this platform work for me? Maybe the copy wasn't good, the creative
01:01:20
wasn't strong, but usually the problem is they're not having the right conversation because that ad never
01:01:25
reached the right person. And if you're in B2B marketing, that is much of the
01:01:29
game. And this is where LinkedIn ads solves that problem for you. Their targeting is ridiculously specific. You
01:01:35
can target by job title, seniority, company size, industry, and even someone's skill set. And their network
01:01:41
includes over a billion professionals. About 130 million of them are decision makers. So when you use LinkedIn ads,
01:01:48
you're putting your brand in front of the right people. And LinkedIn ads also
01:01:52
drive the highest B2B return on ad spend across all ad networks in my experience.
01:01:56
If you want to give them a try, head over to linkedin.com/diary. And when you spend $250 on your first
01:02:04
LinkedIn ads campaign, you'll get an extra $250 credit from me for the next one. That's linkedin.com/diary.
01:02:12
Terms and conditions apply. Every time I've tried to improve something in my life, like my
01:02:17
businesses, my health, my relationships, I've noticed that the biggest shifts
01:02:20
have come from being better informed. And when it comes to our health, most of us know very, very little. So when our
01:02:26
team was approached about partnering with Function Health, it felt very much aligned. Their team has developed a way
01:02:31
of giving you a full 360deree view of your health, many of the things that are going on in your body in the form of
01:02:37
different tests. You do one blood draw and it gives you access to over 160 lab results, hormones, heart health,
01:02:44
inflammation, stress, toxins, the whole picture. I use it and so have many of my
01:02:49
team members. >> You sign up and you schedule your test and once you're done, you get a little
01:02:52
report like the one I have here. I can see my inrange results, my out of range results, and there's a little AI
01:02:58
function, too. So, if I have any questions about my out of range results, I can just go in there and ask it any
01:03:03
question I want. And these tests are backed by doctors and thousands of hours of research.
01:03:07
>> It's $365 for a yearly membership. Go to functionhealth.com/doac and use the code DOAC25
01:03:15
for $25 off your membership. Where do you think we came from? Like, where do you think I came from or my
01:03:22
ancestors came from? Do you think they were put on Earth as humans? Do you believe in the Adam and Eve story? Do
01:03:26
you think there was some kind of evolution? And when did you think this when do you think this happened?
01:03:31
>> So I know that the world is at least 35 years old. >> Uh I don't think it's an answer that the
01:03:37
Bible is actually attempting to address in terms of the age of the earth. >> Billions of years old. I don't see any
01:03:44
reason not to because I don't think that the creation story in Genesis chapter 1
01:03:48
is necessarily an attempt to reveal the mechanisms of how God did that exactly >> cuz the sort of scientific consensus
01:03:57
says that it's roughly 4.5 billion years old the earth. >> Yeah. >> And microbes and single cellled
01:04:04
organisms are estimated to have appeared 3.5 to 4 billion years ago almost as soon as Earth. Cold enough to have
01:04:10
liquid water. >> Sure. Yeah. And and I'm I'm fine with that actually. I don't I don't think I
01:04:15
have to adhere to neo neodyarwinian evolution in order to actually believe that the world is old. I think I would
01:04:22
adhere to an intelligent design thesis. But >> what does that mean? >> So essentially that the the world around
01:04:30
us is intelligently designed. Not necessarily in that it it came through processes of evolution. Once again, I'm
01:04:38
not a scientist, right? I'm a historian. I I genuinely do believe that there was
01:04:42
a historical Adam and Eve and that those were the first people. >> Okay. >> Now, what did they look like? I don't
01:04:47
know. I think they they probably lived a long long time ago. And I don't know if
01:04:53
the breakdown of Genesis chapter 1 and the like seven days of creation are actually attempting to articulate seven
01:05:00
24-hour days. They could be. >> Yeah. >> I just don't think that's the point. But
01:05:04
you do believe that humans were put here as humans >> and you believe that the other animals
01:05:08
were put here in their in some kind of early form. >> Yes. >> And then you also believe in adaptation
01:05:14
of those species. Fine. Okay. Fine. >> And going back to like talking about
01:05:17
trying to explain these things scientifically. I always find like we can explore the answers scientifically,
01:05:24
but that's only going to get us so far, especially when we're discussing meaning
01:05:27
and purpose questions. So, let me give you uh a little bit of a story that a friend of mine, Glenn Scrier, uh likes
01:05:34
to articulate in uh this parable that he tells that he calls Betty the botist. So, you have Betty the botist and she's
01:05:40
been uh looking at a plant sample in her lab. She's been spending all weekend
01:05:47
looking at this plant sample. She's been uh you know, investigating it and doing
01:05:53
all of these tests on it all weekend. And Jerry, the lab assistant, comes in on Monday. And
01:06:02
Betty looks at Jerry and says, "Jerry, thank you for the botanic botanical specimen that you left me on the
01:06:08
weekend. Thank you for this botanical specimen. I've been doing all of these
01:06:11
tests. I've been looking at the components of it and the complexity of the biology and there are
01:06:17
pharmacological implications that I've extrapolated from its various biological
01:06:22
components and we can use these to cure diseases. There's so many things. Thank
01:06:26
you so much for the botanical specimen. And Jerry says, "Betty, it was February 14th on the weekend.
01:06:37
That was a long stem rose. >> Do you know what I left for you? Do you know what the implication of the
01:06:45
botanical specimen, as you're calling it, was for what I was trying to communicate to you?" Now, did Betty the
01:06:52
Botnist understand the long stem rose? In one way, she understood it more than most because she had done all of the
01:07:00
tests and run through all of the different ways that she could extrapolate what that thing was.
01:07:07
But what Jerry was trying to actually illustrate was something that went beyond that. It was a love gift. He was
01:07:13
trying to communicate something that went beyond the simple biology. and and Betty could very simply say, "Well, I
01:07:19
couldn't get that from the data. I I couldn't have extrapolated the implications of it being a love gift."
01:07:26
And in that so far as it being a parable, we can look at all of the scientific explanations, but there's
01:07:35
something that goes beyond the simple data in terms of meaning and purpose and desire,
01:07:42
identity questions that go far beyond that, right? Like we can look, I could tell you the different chemical
01:07:49
components that make up the page and the ink and like the size of the paper and it transparency and all of that. I could
01:07:57
say, you know, Stephen, what is this? And you could go into all of this explanation about how paper is made and
01:08:02
the pulp and how we extrapolated and eventually put it together and the binding and and I could say, okay, yeah,
01:08:08
but this is a Bible. This is meant to communicate something to you. you know, what is the explanation for this? One
01:08:16
explanation could be the chemical and and you know, scientific components that make up the Bible. Another explanation
01:08:23
could be this is a religious text that's actually trying to communicate something
01:08:26
to you. And so I think in the scientific data, all of that is obviously important,
01:08:34
right? Like there's this great quote by C. Lewis where he says that men were
01:08:40
scientific because they expected laws in nature and so they looked for the legislator
01:08:47
and you look you read individuals like Francis Bacon who came up with the the scientific method and they're inherently
01:08:51
religious right they almost articulate what they're doing in their scientific
01:08:55
endeavor as an act of worship because if the exploration of the creative world points to a creator then that can be an
01:09:03
act of understanding who and why we're here. In terms of the scientific questions, I'm very interested in them,
01:09:10
especially as a non-scientist. They fascinate me. But in terms of the meaning questions,
01:09:15
I think I would air on the side of caution of attempting to be Betty the botist and sometimes I read individuals
01:09:22
like Dawkins and I'm I'm hearing Betty the Botnist extrapolate and define the
01:09:29
botanical specimen. I think part of the reason why the new atheist movement that
01:09:34
I again was captured by was not sufficient is because as you say it didn't it didn't fill some kind of gap
01:09:44
>> and and much of the gap I think for a lot of people is okay so if if I believe
01:09:48
in the science and and that argument and the atheist argument or I believe in the
01:09:51
Bible I still need a an answer to like yeah but so what like what's the point
01:09:56
of this even in the example of evolution I yeah but why am I evolving Why? Why am I trying to survive?
01:10:02
>> Yeah. >> A means to what end? Okay, I'm trying to have more kids, but then why are my kids
01:10:06
trying to have more kids? What's the point? >> And you just keep hitting this wall of
01:10:09
like, okay, but what's the point? What's the point? Am I meant to do something?
01:10:12
Is it is there a mission for me? >> Right? >> And I think that question is one that I
01:10:16
think about uh sometimes, which is >> no matter what I believe, like what is
01:10:20
the point? And I think that's why the Bible is such an amazing explanation for
01:10:25
that. Because in a world that tells you ultimately that you're a product of time
01:10:33
plus matters chance, the Bible looks at you, Stephen, and says you're created
01:10:37
with meaning and purpose and intention. You bear the image of God. So there's something that is actually
01:10:44
screaming from your biology about who you are that goes beyond the fact that you're not just a physical
01:10:54
specimen sitting in front of me. Right? You have a mind and that mind is maybe your brain or we're not even sure about
01:11:02
that. Right? >> So what makes Steven Steven? You're not not your body. And that's why I mean
01:11:09
there's this inherent conversation within Christianity about the fact that our hope is not a spiritual one. The end
01:11:15
result is the resurrection, right? The reason why Jesus rose from the dead is scripture calls him the first fruit. So
01:11:21
we're all going to be resurrected. There's going to be a new heaven and a
01:11:24
new earth. And that's the promise of Christianity, is it? >> So, so that's the point.
01:11:29
>> Yes. >> The point of this life according to the Bible is that I get to go to this place
01:11:33
called heaven. >> No. So it's a both and. So when g when Jesus's disciples ask him how to pray,
01:11:40
he says, you know, he gives them the Lord's prayer. Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy
01:11:45
kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. So it's not just
01:11:49
about, you know, I'm going to die and my spirit's going to go to somewhere else.
01:11:52
And you know, that's the whole goal. It's to bring heaven here as well. What
01:11:57
we do matters because you're a human being. You're not a human doing. And so
01:12:03
what you do here and who you are here actually has an implication >> to to who and what
01:12:10
>> to everything. So we're put here to be stewards of creation of each other to be
01:12:19
examples of imagebearers of God. Like your life has intrinsic meaning. >> Internal meaning. Yeah.
01:12:27
>> Internal meaning more than just what you can contribute. Right. Right. So that
01:12:31
would be exttrinsic your ability to give back to society your ability to uh contribute to the advancement of
01:12:39
scientific technological you know fill in the gap you have value that goes beyond that right this is why we fight
01:12:45
for people everywhere and that's I think why injustice something like injustice bothers us so
01:12:54
much and why evil bothers us so much. >> You know the chimpanzeee that has like
01:12:58
98% the same DNA as me. Yeah. >> Do they have the same intrinsic meaning? You know, even my dog, I'm like, does my
01:13:04
dog have that same intrinsic meaning? And is my dog going to go to heaven? >> I think scripture tells us what we need
01:13:10
to know, not always what we want to know. There have been individuals throughout church history who have
01:13:14
articulated that. I mean, St. Francis of Aisi was big on animals going to heaven.
01:13:19
Uh C. Lewis was big on animals going to heaven. Um, in fact, when he wrote the last battle, you know, the last series
01:13:25
in his line, the witch in the wardrobe books, uh, there are animals in heaven. I mean, if there's a new Earth, I think
01:13:31
there are going to be animals. I don't know if they're going to be the same
01:13:35
animals that existed on this side, but I also I have no idea. But I think there's
01:13:40
something different because I think you have a soul. >> And you think my dog doesn't have a
01:13:45
soul? >> I don't know. But I don't think he has the same kind of spiritual component that you are endowed
01:13:52
with in the same way. >> How do we know? Like, how do we how do I know that? You know, these chimpanzees,
01:13:58
they're pretty smart. I was watching one touch a touchcreen the other day and
01:14:01
solving problems and I was thinking is it is there not like an element of I don't know human arrogance to think that
01:14:06
these other creatures like the big the whales they're so unbelievably smart they don't have a soul they work
01:14:11
together in packs they love they have kids they seem to pursue things yeah I mean I think that's a testimony to kind
01:14:18
of the general reflection of God's good creation at the same time we describe
01:14:23
when you're just repeating something we we use adjectives like aping We understand that there's an aspect of
01:14:30
like if you train the monkey to push the button, it's going to push the button.
01:14:36
If you give the elephant the paintbrush and kind of, you know, convince it to paint itself, it's going to paint
01:14:44
itself. But if you if you can train the elephant to paint the Mona Lisa, is it really going to understand what it's
01:14:51
painted in the same way that Michelangelo understands it? Sorry, Da Vinci, who painted the Mona Lisa. Now
01:14:56
I'm getting myself into trouble. Whoever painted the Mona Lisa, Da Vinci, there's
01:15:01
something about the value and what is being put in there that is different. >> So do you believe that me and you are
01:15:10
born with a particular mission and meaning on this planet or do you think we have to go and find that particular
01:15:17
meaning or mission? >> That's a great question. Uh I think the chief end of man is to know God
01:15:29
and glorify him in so far as Jesus is asked what is the greatest commandment in the law. And Jesus uses two examples.
01:15:36
He quotes from you know two different passages in the Old Testament and he says love the Lord your God with all of
01:15:41
your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. I mean ultimately I think we always want some
01:15:49
sort of a grandiose purpose and we want the calling of like Moses. We want to go out in the bush or
01:15:56
we want to go out in the desert and find a burning bush and have that calling on
01:16:00
our lives. I don't think that's wrong. But I think ultimately our purpose is to live a
01:16:09
faithful life to who we were created to be in being image bearsers of God and being faithful in loving God with
01:16:18
everything that we have. So that like the Jewish phraseiology of loving God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and
01:16:24
strength. It's kind of a standin for your entire being with everything you have. Love God with that by what you do,
01:16:32
by what you say, by how you live. Like do unto others as you would have them do unto you, right? That's the golden rule.
01:16:40
But if you look at other religions, it's almost always framed in the negative.
01:16:45
Don't do unto others what you don't want done to you. So there's a difference
01:16:49
between not punching someone in the face and building someone a hospital. So the
01:16:55
meaning of our lives is to love our creator at the most fundamental level >> at the basic level and to understand how
01:17:04
that expresses in everyday life. So Martin Luther, the German Protestant reformer, he said the the faithful
01:17:12
Christian um shoemaker doesn't glorify God by sewing little crosses into the shoes, but by making
01:17:20
really good quality shoes. And so there's an aspect of God has endowed us, right? We're created in God's image. We
01:17:30
create as an aspect of an outpouring of that which we are created to be. And we we do that well. You know, the proverb
01:17:39
says, "Whatever your hand um finds to do, do it with all its might." And the
01:17:43
idea is, you know, you have the capability to do incredible things. And the reason why you have that capability
01:17:51
is because you bear the image of a creator who like I said before lives in a set of living loving relationships.
01:17:59
And so that God actually didn't need to create you me anything. Right? So God is
01:18:06
not better off or worse off if we love him or worship him or believe in him. He he really isn't. He has existed in a in
01:18:14
love in relationship. And yet the story of the Bible is that God chooses to create out of an
01:18:21
outpouring of his love knowing even that we are going to rebel against him. We are going to sin right do wrong against
01:18:30
how he has actually created us to be and still desires to have that relationship.
01:18:35
>> And if we do sin >> Mhm. >> if I sin in my life do I go to hell? You
01:18:42
you don't I mean the answer to that is yes and no. But the >> am I going to hell?
01:18:49
>> Are you going to hell? Steven Bartlett. Is Steven Bartlett going to hell? This
01:18:52
is the clip that they're going to put online, right? Wes says Stephen Bartlett
01:18:55
is going to hell. I mean, here's the thing. Everybody is going to hell. Everybody. Here's how I've said it in
01:19:01
the past, right? The Bible is very clear. All good people go to heaven. But Jesus said, "No one is good but God
01:19:08
alone." So if all good people go to heaven and no one is good but God alone, only
01:19:14
God is in heaven. >> So do you believe that there is a a hell and a heaven as we sort of typically
01:19:20
understand it? A place that is great to go to after we die and a place that is very hot.
01:19:27
>> Place that is very hot. I mean there's a lot of imagery of um like fire and
01:19:31
weeping and nashing of teeth. I think a lot of that uh is kind of reflective and
01:19:36
allegorical more than it's like a a physical tangible thing that is you know
01:19:41
most of our perceptions of hell are largely shaped by depictions in the Middle Ages of Dante's Inferno and that
01:19:48
kind of thing right I think it's more so that you will experience the full weight of
01:19:57
the separation from God's goodness not necessarily a separation from God because I
01:20:02
God's punishment and his wrath are going to be felt there. But if we're talking
01:20:07
about like a good place, bad place in the very simplest of terms, yes, but heaven isn't full of good people. Heaven
01:20:17
is full of people who understand they are not good enough. And so I mentioned that like justice mercy thing. Justice
01:20:24
is fulfilled on Jesus. So because justice is fulfilled now, mercy, which is not getting what we do
01:20:31
deserve, is able to be given to those who put their trust in Jesus. >> So if I don't believe in Jesus and I
01:20:38
don't believe in the Bible, >> but I live a >> good life, I'm nice to people,
01:20:44
charitable, try and be kind wherever I can be. >> Yeah. >> And I don't believe in God, am I going
01:20:49
to hell or heaven as it relates to the scriptures? Well, I don't think if you're living your life rejecting God,
01:20:57
God is not going to force you into his presence. >> So, I'm not going to go into he I'm not
01:21:02
going to go to heaven then. >> No. >> Where am I going to go? >> Well, you would you would go hell.
01:21:07
>> So So if I don't believe in the Bible and Jesus and God, then I'm going to go
01:21:12
to hell. >> Yes. In so far as if heaven is a place for those who have submitted their lives to Jesus, who are
01:21:21
living the identity of what they're created to be and said, "Your will be
01:21:25
done, God." >> Yeah. >> Hell is a place where God says, "You
01:21:29
rejected me. Your will be done. I'm going to I'm going to give you what you
01:21:34
want in that I'm going to remove my grace and mercy from you and you are going to experience truly what you
01:21:41
desire in being separated from me and my goodness and my grace. >> And what is that place like according to
01:21:49
the scripture? Give me a give me a depiction in my mind of what hell might be like for me.
01:21:54
>> Yeah. I mean, it's not a good place. It's not a nice place. is a place that
01:21:58
no matter what's going on, if you are a believer, if you if you truly understand what this book is
01:22:05
saying, seriously, I think it should motivate you to want to desire. Steven Bartlett, I desire you to have a
01:22:15
personal relationship with your creator because I don't want you to experience
01:22:22
whatever hell is. I I I desire for you to be in perfect relationship with your God. Not
01:22:31
necessarily because I want you to get a get out of hell free card, but because I
01:22:35
actually think that in living how God created you to be in accepting living out the image that you bear, you're
01:22:45
going to find the meaning and purpose that you ultimately have expressed that you have this innate desire for. I think
01:22:54
it's about I think it's according to Gallup it's 18% of Americans don't
01:22:58
believe in a god >> now to get into heaven >> as it's described in the Bible do I just
01:23:07
need to say I believe in God or do I have to have some sort of active commitment and evidence in my life that
01:23:12
I am living my life in line with God's you know teachings >> I think ultimately salvation right
01:23:20
salvation implies you're being saved from something >> right the good news is good news because
01:23:24
the bad news is bad. >> And the bad news is very bad. I was looking at what the Bible says about
01:23:28
hell and in um Revelations it says it's a lake of fire. In Mark it says it's
01:23:32
unquenchable fire. >> In Matthew it says eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
01:23:38
>> Yeah. >> Uh in Matthew again it says outer darkness where there will be weeping and
01:23:43
nashing of teeth. >> Yes. >> They will be shut out from the presence
01:23:47
of the Lord. Weeping and nashing of teeth and torment. Eternal punishment. and the smoke of their torment rises
01:23:53
forever. This is not a place I want to go. >> No. No. And I think I think the urgency
01:23:58
of the Christian message is the bad news is really bad. And that's what makes the
01:24:03
good news so good. Jesus has taken on that hell on your behalf. And it goes beyond simply a believing,
01:24:14
right? It's not just about saying the right words. It's not just a an incantation.
01:24:22
You are not saved by what you do, right? You're saved by works. It's just
01:24:27
Jesus's. Jesus lived the life you couldn't and made the sacrifice you can't
01:24:34
on your behalf in order to establish that right relationship with God. So that's where grace comes into the
01:24:42
picture. Justice is getting what you do deserve. Mercy is not getting what you do deserve. Grace is getting what you
01:24:49
don't deserve. So in so far as Christ on the cross fulfills the justice of his holy law,
01:24:58
mercy is enacted and you don't get that punishment by putting your faith and
01:25:03
trust in Jesus as your lord and your savior as your creator. You don't get that punishment and now you get grace
01:25:12
which is not what you're owed but you are adopted as a child of the most high.
01:25:18
So of the 18% of people that say they don't believe in a god, they are almost
01:25:25
certainly going tell according to scripture. >> Well, so James, the book of James in the
01:25:30
Bible, who's actually the um the uh halfb brotherther of Jesus um he writes a book and he says, "You believe that
01:25:38
God is one." He says, "Great. So do the demons." So the point is like if anybody knows
01:25:46
and believes in God, it's the demons. It's Satan, right? So, so what's the
01:25:51
difference there? >> The difference is there is that there's a relational component of when we in in
01:25:58
sort of the Christianes Christian terminology when I say Jesus is your Lord and your Savior, what I mean is
01:26:04
that he has rescued you. He has saved you from the penalties of sin and death. But then the Lord component is that now
01:26:11
you have submitted your life to him in obedience and repentance. Now repentance is kind of another religious word that
01:26:19
maybe is not always fully understood. Repentance is the changing and understanding of the way you live. You
01:26:26
understand that the things that you used to do that are wrong are not the things that
01:26:35
are either what you should do or are going to give you fulfillment. And you stop doing those not because God
01:26:42
is a cosmic killjoy and he doesn't want you to feel the goodness of those things
01:26:48
but because those things are actually harmful to you. They are hurting you and they are creating a separation of the
01:26:56
relationship between you and God. >> There's going to be a very small number
01:26:59
of people that actually live in such a way that are fully repented and have accepted the Lord as their savior.
01:27:04
Right? there's only rough I think it was 30% of people actually go to church
01:27:09
somewhat frequently and uh >> the other sort of 56% seldom will never go that they're not really really active
01:27:15
in their belief. They probably haven't repented. So it would appear to me that
01:27:20
a very small percentage of people are actually qualifying for the kingdom of heaven as it's described in the Bible.
01:27:25
>> The miracle of this is that your salvation is received not achieved. And
01:27:31
so once again, it's it's not about like brownie points. It's not about checking
01:27:36
off, you know, I read the Bible as many times. I went to church as many times. I
01:27:39
you know, I didn't lie. I didn't steal. I didn't cheat. I didn't um because we
01:27:44
still exist in this beautiful yet broken world. And because we live in a world that is marred by the brokenness of the
01:27:51
fall of our first parents, Adam and Eve, making that decision to rebel against God. And because of that, now the the
01:27:59
creation itself has been affected. It's not about trying to earn my way into heaven. So is it a very small
01:28:08
percentage of people who are actually repenting? Maybe. But what of those what of that percentage is attempt who fully
01:28:18
understands? It's interesting the word that we translate as repentance is the
01:28:22
Greek word metaninoia. It means change your mind. And so there's an aspect of
01:28:26
it's not just about the doing. It's an understanding. It's a component
01:28:31
of I don't want to do these things. Even when I do them, I I don't I don't want
01:28:38
to lie anymore. Like I see the harm that that causes and the brokenness that it creates. And so even if I'm still
01:28:46
breaking the law of God, right? So, in the book of James that I mentioned, uh there's this part where James says if
01:28:52
you break one rule in the law, you it's as if you've broken them all. And I've sometimes used
01:28:58
this illustration of it's like you're hanging off a cliff uh on a linked
01:29:02
chain, right? If you cut any of those links, you're going to fall, right? It's
01:29:08
no longer holding you. That's kind of the the thinking that I think James is
01:29:12
getting at when he writes that. So you reference the original sin which is Adam and Eve taking the apple
01:29:18
>> or fruit >> or the fruit whatever it might be. God made Adam and Eve. He's omnipotent
01:29:22
omniscient. When he made them he knew they were going to take the apple. >> Mhm.
01:29:25
>> But he made them anyway. >> Mhm. >> So that sounds like a setup.
01:29:29
>> I you could read it as a setup. I think more so what's going on I think what
01:29:33
what's what's the what strikes me as more amazing is that God did it anyways
01:29:37
and he didn't hit the restart button >> and then he knew that when he made them
01:29:42
that it would result in this thousands and thousands of year years of people worshiping him
01:29:47
>> Mhm. I think you'd think I was a bad person like if I made something knowing
01:29:51
that it was going to make a mistake and that mistake would result in people worshiping me for the next forever.
01:29:56
>> Sure. >> You you would say I did this to get you to worship me. Sure.
01:30:00
>> And to basically make you live in guilt >> that I appropate like logically that's
01:30:06
like hold no. Like what's wrong with that logically? >> Well, I think I think you could read it
01:30:11
like that. Uh I think ultimately and this might sound like a copout to some, but maybe God knows something we don't.
01:30:17
>> Yeah, maybe. Yeah. >> And uh that he has reasons for allowing evil that maybe we don't understand and
01:30:23
can't comprehend because he is God. There's an interesting thing in both the
01:30:27
book of revelation and in one of the letters of Peter where it basically says from uh before the foundation of the
01:30:33
world was laid the lamb was slain. So Jesus was crucified that the cross that whole
01:30:42
bringing back people in unity and relationship with God via this act of the only innocent person who ever lived
01:30:50
being murdered on a cross. Right? great act of evil accomplishing a lot of good.
01:30:54
Once again, not the way I would do it if I was God, right? There's all sorts of
01:30:58
things that we think, you know, if I was God, I'd do it like this. Um, thank
01:31:03
goodness I'm not God. Uh, I would get a whole lot of things wrong. You wouldn't
01:31:06
want to live in that world. But I think what's interesting is that the cross was
01:31:10
not a contingency plan. The cross was the plan all the way along. And so God is glorified in that act. And I think
01:31:19
part of it is what I was saying before. If God is love, if love is the greatest ethic, and the greatest ethic is
01:31:26
expressed in the greatest example, which is self-sacrifice, then God is actually
01:31:33
communicating the greatest ethic in the greatest possible way in what we see in the gospel message of how he
01:31:41
accomplishes the unification with his people for the goodness and glory of who he is. And do
01:31:49
I understand all the complexities and mysteries that go in conjunction with that? No. But I'm convinced beyond a
01:31:57
reasonable doubt that the historical and the philosophical case for the existence
01:32:04
of God and then that God specifically being the God that is articulated in the Bible is true. And on that basis,
01:32:12
I am willing to submit my life because of both the evidence and because I've
01:32:19
actually seen my own life change radically. So you're you're a friend, right? You say like you've seen an
01:32:26
actual experiential change in that person's life. >> Oh, yeah. No, my so my friend um I
01:32:32
talked about him anonymously on here, but he then clipped it, posted on his Instagram and said Stephen's talking
01:32:38
about me. Okay. >> And he's he's like doing some interviews and stuff now. So I feel more
01:32:42
comfortable talking about him more publicly. But yeah, my friend who was going through a little bit of a crisis
01:32:46
of meaning in his life was living in Dubai in this penthouse apartment, single, kind of alone, remote working,
01:32:52
>> all those kinds of, you know, very individualistic lifestyle, successful in
01:32:56
a material sense, >> all of a sudden turned to Christianity, flew to America, got baptized, and is
01:33:01
now >> Christian. >> Yeah. >> And would I say he is happier than
01:33:06
before? 100%. Would I say I am very glad he became Christian? 100%. Would I say that I believe his future's going to be
01:33:15
better because he's now a Christian? 100%. That's a lot of 100%. >> No, but it's true. It's objectively
01:33:19
true. Like I even spoke to we've been friends for decades and all of us feel
01:33:23
the same way. We don't even have to agree with what he believes to think actually he's it's helped him. Well, and
01:33:28
in that I don't think that I think there's an objectivity to the actual evidence that I evaluate in terms of the
01:33:35
historical reliability of the Bible and the philosophical explanations for meaning and purpose and morality, how we
01:33:42
ground those, the scientific data of a universe that looks like it's fine-tuned
01:33:48
and has intelligence designed into it. But the subjectivity of how I understand my life and have seen it change
01:33:57
radically and what what you see in your friend is not inconsequential. >> No, it's not.
01:34:03
>> And it it it testifies to something. It testifies to a hope that even in
01:34:10
scripture in 1 Peter 3, Peter writing to the dispersed church in the ancient world has this in the
01:34:18
context of persecution says, "But in your hearts rever Christ as Lord. Always
01:34:22
be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give a reason for the hope that you have. But do so
01:34:26
with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior
01:34:31
in Christ will be ashamed of their slander." And there's this implication
01:34:35
that always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you for an argument for the existence of God. No,
01:34:41
that's not what he says. He says to give the reason for the hope that you have.
01:34:45
Your friend is communicating a hope that you took notice of. And I think that is
01:34:53
literally the word to give an answer that we translate as to give an answer, defense, or reason in many English Bible
01:34:58
translations is the Greek word apologia. to give an apologetic to give a defense
01:35:04
and scripturally scripture does call us to love the Lord our God with all of our mind and I think
01:35:11
there's an aspect of God if I my friend Tim Barnett works for actually stand to
01:35:15
reason which is Greg Kokal's organization you had Greg Greg in in in your uh panel discussion recently my
01:35:21
friend Tim says if you want to know the mind of God you better start by using your own and so in that way I think we
01:35:27
can worship God through that you know there's a component of God has endowed
01:35:32
us with intelligence and we can use that to speak to the things that he has actually
01:35:38
created and the evidence for that. But at the exact same time the hope of the life changed of to use you know Jesus's
01:35:50
own language in John 3 being born again I think also communicates something that
01:35:56
is genuinely profound. I agree and I I would assert that maybe if he had converted to pretty much any of the
01:36:06
major religions, he would have experienced the same transformative upside. >> And when you look at people that do
01:36:11
convert to other religions outside of Christianity, they do experience a greater sense of meaning and community
01:36:17
and all the things that come with it that gives them that sense of belonging and maybe calms their anxieties and
01:36:22
their worries and their nihilism to a point where they can live a bit more of a content life. So is it is that
01:36:27
evidence of Christianity or is that just evidence that we're all in search of
01:36:30
meaning in a world that's increasingly nihilistic and individualistic and says
01:36:33
that there's nothing other than as you say like time space matter etc. >> No that's a great point. I don't think
01:36:39
it's arbitrary. I think you know there's an aspect of religiosity that is always
01:36:44
going to be a net positive for society no matter what that religion is because I think it's going to give an aspect of
01:36:50
purpose and identity to people. At the exact same time, I don't think it's just
01:36:55
the subjective point of view. Right? This is why I think it's very dangerous
01:37:00
when I go out. So, I used to work for a a minister organization that worked on university campuses and we would go and
01:37:08
we would talk with students and uh I too many times to count would hear a student
01:37:13
ask another student, why do you believe in Christianity? And they would then proceed in articulating how they became
01:37:20
a Christian. Mhm. >> Well, that's not the answer, right? That's not the actually the question
01:37:24
they asked. They asked, "Why do you believe it's true and you answered with
01:37:29
how you kind of got into this group if they had ran into a Buddhist, they said, why do you believe Buddhism is true?"
01:37:37
and you say, you know, well, I just met these really great people on campus and they invited me over for, you know,
01:37:41
karma discussions and pizza and and it's radically changed my life and I, you
01:37:45
know, follow the noble truths and the the the path of the Buddha and it it's
01:37:50
changed my life. When you give them that story, now I don't I don't want people to hear me
01:37:56
saying that giving your testimony is not a good thing to do. I just think there's
01:38:01
a time and a place where it could have been any situation. It sounds convenient. You could have run into a
01:38:08
Muslim or a Mormon or a Buddhist or a Hindu and just stumbled into those conversations. And that's where I think
01:38:17
answering why I believe it's true is more than just that. It's no less than that, but it's more than that
01:38:28
because I believe that the multivalent argument for the truthfulness with the capital T of Christianity has a
01:38:35
historical backing and a philosophical backing and scientific backing and psychological backing and all of those
01:38:40
things. And I bet your friend would say it too. >> Oh yeah, >> I bet he would.
01:38:43
>> Yeah. >> And in one sense, my goal is to adhere to truth with a capital T even above my
01:38:50
allegiance to Jesus. Now, I believe Jesus is the truth with a capital T. So, I I don't think that there's a conflict
01:38:56
of interest there. But I I want to follow what's true because even if it's
01:39:04
a convenient lie, it's still a lie and I don't want to live my life for a lie.
01:39:09
New year always has a strange energy to it because people start talking about their goals, fresh starts, and new
01:39:13
habits. But the reality is that most people carry the same ideas they had last year into the new year. I'm guilty
01:39:19
of that, too. and they still don't end up doing anything with them. And I get
01:39:22
why starting something new, especially if it's a business or a project, is overwhelming. Before you start, you're
01:39:27
looking for the perfect moment and to be the perfect version of yourself. When really, what matters most is taking that
01:39:32
first step. If you've had an idea for a while, a product, a store, something
01:39:36
you've been sitting on, our sponsor, Shopify, makes it easy to get started because you can build your store, sell
01:39:42
on socials, take payments, use AI tools, and manage everything all in one place.
01:39:47
So, if 2026 is the year you finally back yourself, go to shopify.co.uk/bartlet and start selling. And you can sign up
01:39:56
for a $1 per month trial right now, too. Just go to shopify.co.uk/bartlet. I promise you, you don't need to have it
01:40:06
all figured out. You just need to start. This is something that I've made for
01:40:12
you. I've realized that the direio audience are strivvers. Whether it's in
01:40:15
business or health, we all have big goals that we want to accomplish. And one of the things I've learned is that
01:40:21
when you aim at the big big goal, it can feel incredibly psychologically uncomfortable because it's kind of like
01:40:28
being stood at the foot of Mount Everest and looking upwards. The way to accomplish your goals is by breaking
01:40:33
them down into tiny small steps. And we call this in our team the 1%. And actually this philosophy is highly
01:40:40
responsible for much of our success here. So what we've done so that you at home can accomplish any big goal that
01:40:46
you have is we've made these 1% diaries and we released these last year and they
01:40:51
all sold out. So I asked my team over and over again to bring the diaries back but also to introduce some new colors
01:40:56
and to make some minor tweaks to the diary. So now we have a better range for you. So, if you have a big goal in mind
01:41:04
and you need a framework and a process and some motivation, then I highly recommend you get one of these diaries
01:41:10
before they all sell out once again. And you can get yours at the diary.com. And if you want the link, the link is in
01:41:16
the description below. >> And on that point, one of the things that really convinced me when I was a uh
01:41:22
when I was going through my little atheism phase was this this geography argument, which I'm sure you've heard a
01:41:26
million times. If I'd been born in Saudi Arabia, I'd probably be a Muslim. If I'd
01:41:30
been born in is India, I'd probably be Hindu. So it seems like the religion you
01:41:34
believe entirely depends on where you were born, >> not on necessarily what is true. And
01:41:39
therefore, if we go back to this point about hell, I remember thinking at like 19 years old, oh my god, like actually
01:41:45
where you're born is determining whether you go to this fiery eternal suffering
01:41:49
or not. And that's not fair. So this must all be not true. >> Yeah. I mean, I was born in Pakistan. So
01:41:55
I was born in a majority Muslim country and I'm not a Muslim. Now, you could
01:41:59
argue my parents weren't Muslims, but I know tons of people who were. My colleague Steve, who is our Alberta
01:42:05
director at Apologetics Canada. He was born in Korea and went to a school setting that was Buddhist.
01:42:12
>> But, but I mean, the numbers are the numbers like you're like 95% I don't
01:42:15
know what the numbers are, but I know it's over 90% likely to be the religion
01:42:19
of that territory if you take a on a religion at all >> just by where you were born. And that
01:42:23
doesn't fit. I remember thinking very clearly at 19 years old, this doesn't
01:42:25
feel fair. >> Sure. as a way to determine who gets into hell or heaven, which is like my
01:42:29
parents and where they they conceived me or whatever. >> Sure. I mean, in one sense, you don't
01:42:33
want fair because fair is you going to hell. Um, and the gospel message is not fair, right? So, so the actual gospel
01:42:40
message is not about fairness because fairness is I get the just penalty for what I do.
01:42:49
Right? And that's where the whole concept of mercy and grace are so they're so central to the Christian
01:42:56
message is Buddhism and Hinduism are based on fairness solely based on fairness right the cycle
01:43:04
of samsara of life death birth and rebirth the karmic cycles that's fair uh in one sense what god does when he
01:43:13
intervenes in humanity when he incarnates becomes flesh steps into humanity and actually experiences pain
01:43:21
and hurt and suffering and death in a way that makes the God of the Bible unique and actually experiential to what
01:43:27
you and I go through when we have those struggles and doubts. He then takes on the punishment that we deserve.
01:43:37
And the fairness is not actually what is then given because the fairness is Wes Huff
01:43:48
getting what he actually deserves for the weight and the penalty of his cosmic rebellion
01:43:55
in choosing a life that is is against and away from God. I'm unclear. >> Okay.
01:44:01
>> So, if I was if I had Moroccan parents, my probability of being Muslim is like
01:44:05
99%. >> Sure. >> Um, and if I was born in Morocco, that would that would kind of set me up to go
01:44:10
to hell theoretically. >> Yes. In so far as you're either you're taking on your sin.
01:44:17
>> Yeah. >> And that's the punishment. Or Christ is taking on your sin and then you are then
01:44:26
covered in his intercession. >> Okay. But it's not about believing or not believing.
01:44:32
>> Yeah. Which you explained earlier. Yeah. Which was which was useful for me
01:44:35
because that that that gave me a new understanding that I didn't have previously.
01:44:39
>> Um the other thing I think a lot about or I thought a lot about was prayer. So
01:44:42
this was really compelling to me when I was younger, which was, you know, I would I would hear these stories of
01:44:47
horrific things that had happened in the world. If you think about what happened
01:44:49
in Nazi Germany and I'd hear that the people there were, you know, very religious and praying and it didn't seem
01:44:54
to change the odds of their fate. And when you look at hospital stats of Christians versus non-Christians,
01:44:59
generally praying doesn't seem to be impacting outcome. >> So therefore, I concluded as like a
01:45:05
19-year-old that maybe prayer doesn't work and why are people doing it when it
01:45:10
doesn't seem to historically have worked? What is the what is your perspective? Does praying work? If if my
01:45:16
child is sick and I start praying, is is that going to help? >> I mean, it also kind of begs the
01:45:22
question of what we think prayer is. Is prayer incantations to plate God? >> What does that mean?
01:45:31
>> Like is God a genie? Right. So I say the right prayers and uh he gives me what
01:45:36
what I want. >> Yeah. >> Um now there are some religious systems that that is kind of what prayer is is
01:45:42
is you know that's all the agricultural deities of the ancient near east. like
01:45:46
you you say the right things and you give the right sacrifices and the the the hope is that you know the gods would
01:45:53
accept that and then they then you know in the reciprocal nature of that they give you good crops. I think prayer in
01:46:01
Christianity is a give and take in that it's a relational thing. It's God
01:46:05
desiring to have communication with you. If you read the psalms, a lot of which are
01:46:12
prayers, uh even, you know, I mentioned the lament psalms, like it's David or
01:46:16
whoever the psalmist coming to God and saying, "I don't get it. I'm hurting.
01:46:21
I'm broken. I'm alone. I don't feel you." There's an aspect of the
01:46:26
relational component of prayer. Now, prayer is not just that, right? prayer is, you know, asking is is supplications
01:46:34
is is committing your desires to God because you believe that God can actually work
01:46:41
in the universe and do things. >> And that's kind of what the Bible the
01:46:43
Bible says. It says, "Pour out your hearts to him. Call him and and call to
01:46:47
me and I will answer you in in Jeremiah." >> Mhm. >> And it also says, "Ask and it will be
01:46:52
given to you in Matthew." >> Yeah. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened unto you. I
01:46:57
mean, part of those is that the the there's a little bit of a trickiness in quote mining because the context could
01:47:03
mean prayer. The context could mean, you know, the the salvific act of God, you know, uh knock and the door shall be
01:47:10
opened unto you. Like if if you're actually seeking God and you're doing
01:47:14
that with an open heart and an open mind, God is going to say, you know, yes, I'm I'm entering into your life.
01:47:20
I'm doing I'm revealing myself to you. Now, God can answer yes. God can answer
01:47:25
no. And God can answer weight. Those are all answers to prayer. >> Do you think God answers prayers?
01:47:31
>> Yes. >> And is there a certain type of prayer he might answer? You know, cuz if I lose my
01:47:36
keys, oh, please, you know, help me find my keys. >> I assume he might not answer that one.
01:47:40
But is there a certain type of prayer you think God answers? >> I don't think it's I don't think it's a
01:47:45
magical formula. >> Okay. I I think you know the thing that we see within Christianity is that is
01:47:52
that prayer is the a relational aspect like there are so when when the disciples I mentioned
01:47:59
earlier they asked Jesus how should we pray and he gives the Lord's prayer in
01:48:03
some ways that's less of a prescription you know say these words in the right
01:48:08
way because even Jesus says you know don't babble like the pagans do >> um but there's an aspect of our father
01:48:16
who art in heaven like a recognition of who God is. Holy be your name, right? Your kingdom come. Your will be done on
01:48:24
earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Right? There's a,
01:48:28
you know, give us the provision that we need. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our our trespasses, our
01:48:36
sins as we forgive those who sin against us. That's an interesting one because
01:48:41
we're asking God to forgive us like we forgive others, which can be dangerous
01:48:44
sometimes, right? Maybe I don't want to pray that all the time. For yours is the
01:48:48
kingdom, the power, and the glory forever and ever. Amen. So, in some ways, is that God telling us is that
01:48:55
Jesus telling us how to pray exactly? I don't think that's not a part of it. But
01:48:59
I also think that, you know, there's an aspect of it. Recognize who God is. Recognize who you are. Uh, you know, do
01:49:06
ask for provision. Do ask for things that you need and you even that you want. And you know recognize that we
01:49:15
want this reality as earth on earth as it is in heaven. You know, there's components of what Jesus is saying in
01:49:22
that go beyond simply like a wrote prayer in some kind of incantation or you know list of you say the the right
01:49:32
things in the right way and you know then God is going to you know that that's what ancient Greco Roman paganism
01:49:37
was like and prayer even if you aren't religious has a basis in neuroscience
01:49:44
that says it's really good for our well-being. Neuroscience research shows that prayer activates brain networks for
01:49:48
attention, emotional regulation, and social connection while reducing stress. And when they do brain ECG scans, they
01:49:53
find people are more calm and focused when they're in states of prayer, and they have greater resilience over time,
01:50:00
which is, I mean, reason enough to have some form of active prayer. >> Regardless of that, I I'm really
01:50:07
interested in how you think about everything that's going on with technology at the moment.
01:50:11
>> We're living in a very interesting time. It's kind of like we're trying to summon
01:50:13
the gods ourself. We're we're creating this form of intelligence that, you
01:50:19
know, people are developing a relationship with and are speaking to every day and we've made it on silicon
01:50:24
chips and using these things called GPUs and it's called artificial intelligence.
01:50:29
Are you concerned >> by the direction of travel in this direction >> that we're now seeking guidance and
01:50:35
comfort and all of these things from AI instead of this book in front of us? Hm.
01:50:42
I think there's aspects where I have concerns. I mean, my my colleagues um Andy Stiger and Steve Kim uh are are
01:50:52
more invested in these questions, I think, than I am. My my uh colleague Andy, he did his PhD at Aberdine in the
01:51:00
question of philosophical anthropology. What does it mean to be human? And he he
01:51:05
investigated a lot into the questions of things like AI. and my colleague Steve is kind of looking into things that
01:51:12
relate to transhumanism. So, I mean, these are these are relevant questions to who we are. I'm not convinced that
01:51:19
the intelligence part of AI outweighs the artificial. I don't see AI thinking.
01:51:27
I see there being an aspect of the coding that AI will regurgitate, but I don't I'm not convinced that AI will
01:51:37
ever say become conscious. I think it will fake the touring test in that it will kind of attempt to convince us that
01:51:45
it is cogn cognizant of its own existence, but I I don't I don't know if
01:51:50
that's actually possible. And I think there's something about the innateness
01:51:54
of of consciousness that we don't really know, right? We don't really know what consciousness is.
01:52:04
There's all sorts of weird explanations of why like is your brain your who you
01:52:13
are? Not really, right? It's not not we don't really have I think entirely
01:52:18
sufficient answers to these questions. But at the exact same time, I think it makes sense that if we are created in
01:52:24
God's image, there's an aspect of we want to create in our image. >> And there's going to be that outpouring
01:52:29
of the creation of something new and amazing and advancing in our understanding and knowledge. This is
01:52:39
kind of sets people up for this whole simulation theory argument where they say that if you imagine any rate of
01:52:45
improvement on our current reality, >> people are already making virtual reality worlds. If you can go on so many
01:52:51
different programs now and type in, I want to go to the top of Mount Everest and there's a village there. And then
01:52:58
you can experience that in three dimensions. You can put on a headset and go to the top of Mount Everest and
01:53:02
there's this rendered village there. M >> if you imagine any rate of improvement
01:53:06
even 1% a year in this technology >> eventually whether it's in 500 years or
01:53:13
10,000 years you get to a point where it's almost indistinguishable from this
01:53:17
experience that mean you are having today in the real world and so the simulation theory posits
01:53:22
>> that again you just think about how long technology's been here it's like 50
01:53:25
years ago we didn't have computers like this we didn't even have like the iPhone
01:53:28
or phones that's just 50 years >> imagine billions of years and a rate of
01:53:32
improvement you get to something indistinguishable from this. And it's conceivable that me and you with
01:53:36
computers will run simulations. We'll make things like The Sims and video games and GTA 6, although that's taking
01:53:43
forever. And with an improvement of technology, at any rate, those worlds will feel real theoretically to the
01:53:49
characters within them. >> So, simulation theory posits that actually this is what our lives are.
01:53:55
There was an a civilization at some point in the cosmic universe that got to that point of technological
01:54:00
sophistication. They ran a bunch of different simulations on a computer or whatever their technology was. And this
01:54:06
is one such world we're living in right now. >> And that is actually our god. It could
01:54:11
be some four-year-old alien that had a laptop, >> right? >> 10 gazillion years ago. And the big bang
01:54:17
was the day that he started the simulation. >> Yeah. Almost like it was intelligently
01:54:22
designed, right? >> Yeah. Like actually this is like this is I I think there probably is some kind of
01:54:29
god. I just don't know what what it is. >> Sure. >> So, I don't know whether it's the one in
01:54:33
in the book that you have in front of me here, whether it's the one that they
01:54:36
believe in the Muslim religion or whether it's like a 4-year-old kid on his laptop that was messing around in a
01:54:42
technologically sophisticated universe 10 billion years ago, >> right? >> But I think there's something bigger
01:54:48
than I am, >> right? And I think, you know, the the simulation theory I don't think really
01:54:53
solves the issue because it just kind of punts the can down the road in that it still avoids the question of what what
01:55:03
is that? How did we get here? And what is the ultimate explanation for everything? So probabilistically is in
01:55:12
the world around us in what we see with like our relational characteristics and everything is it possible that we live
01:55:18
in a simulation? I think it yes it is. I think probabilistically though with how
01:55:25
the description of creation and the human condition and what we see within history. I think personally the God of
01:55:33
the Bible is the most reasonable explanation especially when we're comparing it to other religious
01:55:38
worldviews. I think the simulation theory is an interesting one or you know the string theory multiple universes. I
01:55:44
just think that those are almost like we're walking around the question. we're
01:55:48
circling around the question and it's not actually answering. We still need a
01:55:53
god. >> Yeah. And then, you know, even in the example I gave with a four-year-old
01:55:56
messing around in his laptop 10 billion years ago in a technologically advanced civilization. I then my brain a few
01:56:02
seconds later asked, well, what was the point of his life? >> Yeah. And who created him?
01:56:08
>> And I could say the same about God, I guess, like the God of the Christian
01:56:10
Bible. Like who why is this God? Like who created this God? Did someone create this God or is this just has he always
01:56:16
been there? >> Right? I mean, philosophically, it's a category error because all things that
01:56:21
are have a beginning have a creator. And philosophically, the God of the Bible is
01:56:27
an entity that ontologically didn't have a beginning. So, if we're talking about
01:56:33
an unmoved mover, right, in the kind of arisatilian categories of of philosophy, God didn't
01:56:42
have a creator because God is the author of creation. >> Okay? It's kind of like asking what does
01:56:47
blue smell like? >> And God I should think of as like a you know in the Bible in these well not in
01:56:53
the Bible but in depictions of God it's like a guy with a beard. >> Yeah. No.
01:56:58
>> Or it's like some like mystical force that's kind of like a a white light,
01:57:02
>> right? No. I I think I mean those are attempts probably inadequately to
01:57:08
express aspects of how we would visually communicate who God is. I think that probably misses the mark more than it
01:57:19
actually gets at what you know what and who God is. I don't know if there's a
01:57:24
there's a proper way that could give a physical attribution description of God
01:57:30
other than Jesus who is God incarnate, right? Could you think of a a more powerful a more amazing example of of a
01:57:40
God than one who actually enters into his creation? I don't know. My fiance says that God is
01:57:46
love. >> Yeah, >> she says that a lot. My fiance tends to be right as well.
01:57:49
>> Nice. >> So, I I tend to in the first time she says something that I don't believe, I
01:57:53
tend to assume it's not true for a while, but then it tends to be proven to be true within a year. So, when she said
01:57:58
to me that God is love, I really thought deeply about it. I thought maybe she's
01:58:01
right. Maybe love is God. >> I mean, that's from the Bible. God is love. The thing grammatically that's
01:58:07
interesting about that when John writes that in his epistle is grammatically in the Greek it's phrased in a way that God
01:58:13
is love but love is not God right so you can't deify the what love is when I you know when you love your
01:58:25
fiance that isn't God that's like an inefficient description of what we know God to be so
01:58:33
God is love but love is not God. And in that sense, going back to what I was saying said a few times now, you know
01:58:41
what what the Bible is saying when it says God is love is that that is the ultimate character of who God is in that
01:58:48
love is this highest value. It is that which we you know hold as the example ethic of what we want. We want to be
01:59:00
loved, right? To be loved and not known is very insufficient. And to be known but not loved is what we
01:59:14
all fear. But I think what we find in the Bible is a God who both loves and knows us. And I think that's where the
01:59:23
God who is love, who creates us and calls us to love him with all of our soul, all of our mind, all of our
01:59:30
strength, that properly kind of fulfills what I think we mean when we say God is
01:59:36
love. >> There is a a deep crisis of meaning in the world, especially in you know the
01:59:41
western world. Three in five American adults between 18 and 25 years old said that their life lacked meaning and
01:59:48
purpose with 50% of the same group saying their poor mental health was linked to not knowing what to do with my
01:59:55
life. >> And a lack of purpose is significantly associated with many of the mental
02:00:00
health illnesses like depression and anxiety. And as of April 2025, the overall prevalence of depression in US
02:00:06
teenagers and adults has increased by 60% over the last decade according to the C CDC. And tragically, globally,
02:00:13
more than almost a million people die due to suicide every year. And it's the
02:00:17
third leading cause of death among 15 to 29 year olds according to the World Health Organization.
02:00:24
What are we getting wrong? I think we're looking for our purpose and our meaning and things that are
02:00:29
ultimately not going to give the value that those things actually require. So it's not a matter of if we worship
02:00:39
it's a matter of what we worship and worship if worship is, you know, giving
02:00:45
our all to something. I think there's a lot of things within society that are going to tell us that
02:00:54
our identity is going to be fulfilled in money or it's going to be fulfilled in
02:01:01
relationships or accolades or all of these aspects are ultimately going to fall short in giving us actual purpose
02:01:09
and meaning and if they're not grounded in actually giving us value. Right? Your
02:01:15
friend is a as far as I understand is a good example of that. Right? You know, we can achieve all of these things. You
02:01:20
hear athletes and actors and famous people talk about all the wealth, all the like celebrity status they could
02:01:28
possibly desire and being completely empty, being completely fulfilled. And I think that's because
02:01:40
we're we're chasing after things that aren't going to give us what we actually need, right? They're
02:01:49
faximiles and cheap reproductions of what actually can give give us meaning and purpose. And that's because we are
02:01:57
created to be in relationship with our God. And that is where we will find our true identity. That's what's going to
02:02:02
give us the motivation to actually get up in the morning like your friend you saying you know you couldn't get up in
02:02:07
the morning he finds not just a motivational value in the Christian faith he finds actually
02:02:16
meaning and purpose in the Christian faith that getting up in the morning has a purpose that goes beyond the here and
02:02:23
the now and that can affect all of the people around him and now he can pursue his entrepreneurial activities or his
02:02:32
relationships or even his finances for the glory of God. And then that gives it an ontological meaning that goes beyond
02:02:40
the simple basics of kind of what secular materialism has to offer. >> Young men in particular are struggling
02:02:48
in their own unique ways. >> And is is that in part in your view because they are worshiping the wrong
02:02:54
role models in life? >> I think it could be. I think men often find we find our identity in the things
02:03:00
that we do right well we we hear about this in that unfortunately we've bought
02:03:07
the lie that we are the sum of our actions this is why when people lose their jobs when they get let go of their
02:03:13
careers they have identity crisises because if we believe that we are the sum of our actions we can put a lot of
02:03:20
stock in something that is ultimately going to lead us like empty um same thing with relationships Right? You
02:03:27
watch any romcom, what is it almost always about? Lonely guy, lonely girl. They meet each other. They fall in love.
02:03:36
At the end, everything works out. And now, now their identity is fulfilled. Well, I mean, all you have to do is to
02:03:42
get married to know that that's not going to fulfill every desire and need you have, right? I love my wife. I love
02:03:48
my marriage. It's one of the best things that I've ever done. But if I put all of
02:03:53
my eggs in that basket, it it's it could very well and almost certainly will lead me astray,
02:04:01
especially if that falls apart, especially when there are times of hardship and struggle. So, I think you
02:04:09
are more than the sum of your actions because you have value that goes beyond that. And it's actually living out that
02:04:15
value that can give you the meaning and the purpose you're finding. But men in
02:04:18
particular, we find value in what we do. I think women although I don't want to
02:04:23
speak you know too broadly I think speaking in generalities women find a lot of identity in
02:04:30
relational values in the relationships that they have with their friends or their significant
02:04:37
others. Men often find value in like what they're able to contribute to physically.
02:04:45
And so especially in a world where you know economic crisis is a thing or work complications with with things like
02:04:58
technology removing a lot of occupations. I I think that can be a gen genuine hardship.
02:05:04
>> Yeah. I was just looking at the some research on PubMed and it says exactly
02:05:08
that. says, "In a recent qualitative analysis in the United States of suicide
02:05:12
notes, majority male sample, the authors identified themes that differed by gender, yeah, such as men more often
02:05:19
referring to financial hardship, etc., >> which can imply feelings of failure and
02:05:23
worthlessness tied to traditional roles. In contrast, women's notes were more
02:05:27
about lowered selfworth and interpersonal relationships." >> Mhm. So if that does hold and and we're
02:05:33
implying there that sometimes it's to do with a feeling of worthlessness for men,
02:05:39
>> are you saying that Christianity can provide something that is an antidote to
02:05:44
that feeling? >> I think not only can it provide an antidote, it can provide the antidote.
02:05:49
>> What would you say to anyone that's listening right now that feels a little
02:05:52
bit lost in their life? I would say that you have purpose and you have meaning more than what society tells you
02:06:03
is going to give you that meaning and purpose and that there's a God who loves
02:06:08
you and he loves you so much that he stepped out of eternity and into humanity and he lived the perfect life
02:06:15
that you couldn't in order to establish and create the union of the relationship. ship with God that you're
02:06:24
actually seeking. >> And what would you tell them step one would be to go in that direction?
02:06:29
>> Well, I would say, you know, push into something like read the Bible. I would
02:06:36
say open the Gospel of Matthew, open the Gospel of John and and start reading and
02:06:44
find out who this Jesus guy is. You know, investigate that question, why that is significant, why that matters.
02:06:52
Because the person and character of Jesus goes beyond simply an historical character. I think Jesus
02:07:00
was a genuine historical character. He's no less than that. But he's also so much
02:07:02
more than that. And in discovering who he is in relation to who you are, that's
02:07:07
going to change your life. >> Are you noticing that people are asking you certain questions about Christianity or
02:07:15
religion or any of the adjacent subjects more now than they were 10 years ago? like are there certain themes or topics
02:07:21
that are more front of mind for people these days? >> Yeah, I think we've we've gone through a
02:07:26
shift where when I kind of started in this endeavor of what I'm doing now, this kind of crescendoed in the last uh
02:07:33
year and a bit. Um when I started out, I think people are asking a lot more is God real and is this true? And I think
02:07:42
now people are asking is God good? And I think it's because it's part and parcel
02:07:47
to this meaning crisis thing. I also think that there have been some major moral issues. I mean the whole Epstein
02:07:52
thing right now I think is a testament to that. We are seeing examples of true evil and I think that bothers people and
02:07:58
in a world where we can rationalize subjectivizing evil we understand that is heinous and if that is evil with a
02:08:08
capital E where's the G the good with a capital G? you know, C. Lewis, who I've quoted a
02:08:14
few times, he said uh in his um the problem of pain and suffering in that book that he wrote that uh one of his
02:08:21
objections to God was that there was there was so much evil and chaos in this world. He said, "But what was I
02:08:28
comparing that to? A man does not call a line crooked unless he knows what a straight line looks like." Right? The
02:08:34
reason you understand that there's rot is because you understand what something
02:08:38
that's healthy is. And so there's an objective standard that needs to be weighed by
02:08:47
these things. And I think more than ever, we're seeing things that really speak to
02:08:56
the justice questions in terms of the meaning questions. And that has really interested me as someone who
02:09:05
is I'm a historian, right? So I'm interested in the questions about I do
02:09:08
things like read Greek and Coptic most of the time, right? But I've been challenged to think more about the
02:09:16
philosophical questions because I think we live in an age where I'm really encouraged by people looking at
02:09:22
injustice. There's a lump in our throat and I think there's a lump in our throat
02:09:25
because Jesus put it there. >> I think um AI is going to have a big impact on your work.
02:09:30
>> Yeah. >> And in ways that might not be super obvious. I think one of the ways is that
02:09:34
if all these CEOs are true when they say that AI is going to cause massive job displacement and even the CEOs that are
02:09:41
building the technology have sat here and told me that there's going to be massive job displacement there's going
02:09:45
to be a crisis of meaning people get huge amount of work from the things that they do in their lives and they're not
02:09:49
going to be able to do those things in the same way necessarily and about 60% of Americans say they're they're worried
02:09:56
that AI will take away the thing that gives them their meaning. Well, I think we're just at the footsteps of the mean
02:10:02
crisis of meaning in this regard. >> Yeah. And that's going to mean that a
02:10:06
lot of people, you know, are going to struggle a lot. And that concerns me. >> I mean, I think that's what I'm more
02:10:12
worried about with AI. I'm not worried about AI taking over the world. I I'm
02:10:16
not worried about, you know, um AI replacing us or something like that. Uh if I'm worried about AI, it's that it's
02:10:24
the the pain and suffering that it can cause for people who have bought into the lie that the sum of their identity
02:10:32
is in what they can contribute and do and how the Christian worldview speaks into that. How can I think Christianly
02:10:39
about a society where there could very well be mass identity crises because of unemployment or because you know the
02:10:50
years ago we were telling truck drivers learn to code. >> Well now coders are being replaced by AI
02:10:56
systems right AI can code better than the coders. So >> Spotify said yesterday they none of
02:11:01
their engineers have written a line of code since December. And I thought, "Wow, hell." Like that's Yeah.
02:11:05
>> And my car drives itself here in uh in America. I sat here with the other day
02:11:10
with the CEO of Uber and he said to me, "They have 9 million drivers careers and
02:11:15
within x number of years they will have none." >> He said the unique thing is the the
02:11:22
speed of the the change is going to cause the problems because we had the industrial revolution. We had time to
02:11:27
you know transfer to other lines of employment etc. But the speed in which there's going to be a displacement is um
02:11:33
is going to cause the issues. And I wonder what's going to happen. I mean, a
02:11:37
lot of people are, you know, they're going to be in search of meaning. And I
02:11:39
guess that'll that will push some people towards Christianity and other religions, but not everybody. Cuz you
02:11:45
said, you know, as you say, when our identities are pulled away from us in such a way, some people turn to the
02:11:51
bottle, >> right? >> Or um you know, causes mental health situations.
02:11:56
I mean, humanity has a very unique knack to pivot >> and figure things out. Now, is there
02:12:05
going to be uh you know a a l period in between when that job crisis happens? Maybe. But, uh I think I think humanity
02:12:18
will figure things out. But I just I just don't know if that will be before all of you know it hits the fan.
02:12:26
>> What was the first domino that fell for you that made you go on this this
02:12:30
journey of becoming an is it the term Christian apologist? >> Yeah. >> Becoming a what does that even mean?
02:12:37
Christian apologist. >> So I mentioned 1 Peter 3:15 right? But in your heart Christ is Lord always be
02:12:43
prepared to give an answer. So that is that apologia. So we take the Greek word apologia and we stick an English suffix
02:12:49
on the end and we have this field to study this discipline apologetics. >> What does that mean? You're you're
02:12:54
explaining the Bible, >> giving reasons. Yeah. Giving answers. So apologetics is as complicated as uh
02:13:00
arguments philosophically and scientifically for the existence of God and the historical reliability of the
02:13:05
Bible. And as simple as if someone asked me why Jesus, that's an apologetic question in so far as it's giving an
02:13:12
answer. >> I was looking at some of these photos of you as a young man. I wondered how much
02:13:18
the situation in these photos had an impact on who you came to be and what you came to believe. I'll put these
02:13:25
photos on the screen for anybody. >> Yeah. >> But um this is a a young boy in a
02:13:30
wheelchair. >> Yep. >> And in a hospital bed that looks to be paralyzed.
02:13:34
>> Yep. >> Yeah. When I was 11 years old, I was diagnosed with a rare neurological
02:13:40
condition that left me paralyzed from the waist down. >> So you at 10, you were fine. You were
02:13:44
normal. >> Yeah. And at 11, suddenly you were paralyzed from the waist down.
02:13:47
>> Yes. So I had the flu and my body's immune system instead of attacking the
02:13:51
flu attacked the nerve endings at the base of my spinal cord. So the myelin sheath and caused inflammation cutting
02:13:56
off the communication from my brain to my legs. >> And a lot of people that get that
02:14:00
disease never walk again. >> It's complicated. Uh so the so is it called acute transverse myelitis?
02:14:08
Although I've been told recently that there's a change in the name of the the
02:14:11
diagnosis, but essentially transverse myitis is not all that rare. But acute that acute in in terms of the like
02:14:20
quickness of it, I had fallen asleep a nap for probably no more than 30 minutes and when I woke up I was paralyzed. So
02:14:28
it was the the quickness of the actual damage that was done to my spinal cord that was the catalyst for in the
02:14:37
diagnosis saying that the chances of me walking again were were very low >> but within a month you were walking
02:14:44
again. >> Yeah. 1 month to the day. So in fact the anniversary 23 year anniversary was
02:14:50
recently cuz it was in February 8th. Um I woke up on a Saturday morning got out of bed and walked over to my wheelchair.
02:14:56
Did this change your perspective on God, Christianity, religion? >> It did in some ways. I mean, I don't I
02:15:02
don't know how it couldn't. Uh, it definitely to have medical professionals
02:15:06
tell me you're probably going to be a paraplegic for the rest of your life. Like, this is
02:15:12
what you need to kind of accept and and get used to to the exact same medical professionals, you know, the um
02:15:18
pediatric neurologists saying we don't know why you're walking. that had to have an impact on me in that
02:15:28
I think I I truly believe I was healed in that it was the doctors who used the word miracle because they said that they
02:15:36
they couldn't medically explain why there was no more damage on my spinal cord, why I was walking with like not
02:15:45
even any like atrophy or anything. However, I still needed to figure some of the more intellectual questions out
02:15:52
of my head when I was a teenager. So, it wasn't just that this happened and explained a lot because I was open to
02:15:59
the possibility of this being a fluke of there being a completely randomness to this.
02:16:06
>> Mhm. And so when I was a teenager, I investigated a lot, you know, to the
02:16:11
best of my ability as a 17-year-old in trying to answer some of the more meaning questions about I know what my
02:16:18
parents raised me to believe, but if I believe it simply because they told me to, it's not the worst
02:16:25
reason, but it's also not the best reason. So that's is the first time that
02:16:28
I uh read the Quran cover to cover. I was looking into things like the Book of Mormon and the Bakabita. I was just
02:16:34
curious. That's when you know reading Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, not in any type of crisis,
02:16:42
faith crisis way, but I was I was investigating. >> So you believe in the supernatural?
02:16:46
>> Mhm. >> Do you believe that we can speak to the dead? >> No.
02:16:50
>> You don't believe that? >> No. >> So when people >> Well, I should I should preface that. It
02:16:54
depends what you mean by speaking to the dead. I think it's I think it's
02:16:57
possible. We have examples of it in the Bible. Um, Saul gets a medium to call up the spirit
02:17:07
of Samuel. >> So, do you believe mediums are telling the truth when they say that they're
02:17:11
contacting people in the afterlife? I think that there's a possibility of engaging the supernatural world, which
02:17:16
is dangerous. And I think there's a very fuzzy line between mediums who are con
02:17:23
artists and people who are act engaged in something that is dabbling in the supernatural.
02:17:31
>> I say this in part because I I've heard people say that, you know, their
02:17:34
partner's passed away and then they've seen signs, their partner has left them
02:17:39
signs. Hm. >> Do do you believe in this kind of thing? >> I don't think so. Not in those ways. I I
02:17:45
think when people are dead, they're dead. Um, but I think there are aspects of the supernatural world and a world
02:17:53
that's going on behind the scenes that's articulated within scripture that have
02:17:58
an impact on this world in a way that if people can be distracted and misled to think that they are contacting dead
02:18:08
relatives, then that is otherwise going to uh prevent them from pursuing what they should be as image bearsers of God.
02:18:16
So you think it's demonic in some some capacity? >> I think it can be. I don't think it's
02:18:20
always. I think in emotionally vulnerable states, we are willing to adhere to all sorts of things.
02:18:28
>> Mhm. >> And there's a um there's a sensitivity that I want to communicate around that.
02:18:35
>> Mh. Because I think people especially in the in the periods of the deaths of
02:18:40
loved ones often want to look for validation in their passed away loved ones leaving something or communicating
02:18:51
or >> and also that we all want to believe when we lose people we love that they
02:18:55
are somewhere better that they are in a good place and this is one of the the things that I struggled with earlier
02:19:00
when we were talking about hell which is if such a small percentage of people are
02:19:04
making it to hell by whatever measure of acceptance one believes, then that would
02:19:09
mean that like my grandmother who wasn't necessarily a devout religious person or
02:19:15
a Christian or she hadn't repented is currently in hell. And that's a hard
02:19:20
thought to take that she is in such a awful place now. >> Yeah. And this will this this would
02:19:26
obviously make people not want to experience that dissonance and therefore reject religion and say, "Well, no, my
02:19:32
if I accept the Bible, then I have to accept my grandmother's currently burning in hell,
02:19:36
>> right? >> And so I'm going to reject the Bible. It's much easier than accepting that my
02:19:41
grandmother's suffering right now, >> right? I mean, ultimately that's a um I
02:19:47
I wouldn't do it that way. Therefore, it's not true." >> Sorry. What you mean? Well, I don't
02:19:53
think that God should send my grandmother to hell. >> Yeah. >> Therefore, I'm going to conclude that
02:19:59
it's not true based on that type of Now, at the end of the day, does God communicate with people in ways
02:20:07
that go beyond my understanding? I've talked to enough Muslims in the Muslim
02:20:12
world who've had dreams about Jesus to know that something goes on. like I don't understand sometimes what what
02:20:20
happens on the deathbed between an individual and their maker. So it's not my place to say that they are burning in
02:20:27
hell or whatever you know descriptive language you want to use >> cuz I it's that's between them and God
02:20:33
at the exact same time apart from the saving work of Christ I'm going to hell.
02:20:38
So, and I I genuinely believe that is that apart from the inbreaking of God into my life in part and parcel by
02:20:45
things like this, but also by like showing me and allowing me to investigate these things and wrestle
02:20:52
through questions and putting people in places in my life that have formed me and shaped me and allowed me to look at
02:20:59
the evidence and have conversations and be honest and transparent. And those are
02:21:04
the things that have led me down a road to say, you know, I'm convinced. I'm
02:21:08
convinced that this is true experientially, that it is intellectually robust, and that it is experientially
02:21:17
profound for me and for so many other people, your friend included. >> What's the most important thing that we
02:21:26
haven't talked about that we should have talked about, Wesley? For the people
02:21:29
that are listening, you know, I would assume they're very curious people. Some
02:21:32
of them are religious, some of them aren't. What is the most important thing
02:21:34
that we should close on in your view? >> Part of my academic study is that I do
02:21:39
what's called paparology and paleography. So I make faximiles of manuscripts, ancient manuscripts, um
02:21:46
particularly biblical manuscripts. So this is a biblical manuscript, right? P46.
02:21:51
It's a late second or third century page from a collection of Paul's epistles. So
02:21:59
>> Paul from the Bible. >> Paul from the Bible. He wrote this. >> Well, so he wrote that and then a scribe
02:22:04
in the second century copied it down. So this is I made this. So this is genuine
02:22:09
papyrus. I'm only wrote on one side so you could see kind of how the papyrus is
02:22:13
put together. And then I got you a I got you a nice Bible. >> Oh, >> but I have put a bookmark in the page
02:22:20
where that passage is. >> Why why did you pick that particular passage? >> Well, why don't you open it up and read
02:22:26
it? So it's it's on the little inscription note that I have there. uh Romans 12. So you can see on the bottom
02:22:34
there that there's the title. >> Oh yeah. 12 112. >> So it says, "Rejoice in hope. Be patient
02:22:41
in tribulation. Be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. Bless
02:22:50
those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice. Weep with those who weep. Live
02:22:57
in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay
02:23:07
no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends
02:23:15
on you, live peacefully with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God. For it is
02:23:25
written, "Vengeance is mine. I will repay, says the Lord. To the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he
02:23:34
is thirsty, give him something to drink. For by so doing, you will heat burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by
02:23:42
evil, but overcome evil with good. >> So hopefully that's a good passage to
02:23:49
>> beautiful >> remember, think about, and then that's the box for it.
02:23:53
>> Thank you so much. This is so beautiful. Wesley, we have a closing tradition on
02:23:57
this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next not knowing who
02:23:59
they're leaving it for. And the question left for you is, "What is one risk that
02:24:03
you should be taking in your life but aren't currently?" where I am in my
02:24:09
life, I feel like so many things have happened so quickly that there's like an
02:24:15
aspect of unpredictability and I I'm just a little bit My wife and I were talking last night and it was like we
02:24:22
need to embrace what's happening right now, but from a year from now if it's
02:24:26
all gone that's totally okay. >> Mhm. and and and we're fine with that
02:24:31
whether that's you know financially or with social media or or opportunity or
02:24:36
and maybe the risk is pushing into that and and and saying like you know maybe there's an aspect of that yes I think
02:24:44
it's wise to keep that in calibration and understand that if this goes away tomorrow I'm content because this is
02:24:53
beyond what I have I'm in a room sitting with Steven Bartlett >> I'm in a room sat with So there's an
02:24:59
there's an aspect of that which is is completely mind-blowing to me, especially Wes Huff from a year ago.
02:25:07
But maybe not selling myself short and thinking that, you know, these opportunities are opportunities to
02:25:17
invest in others in ways that people have invested in me over this last year. >> What do you mean by that? You mean
02:25:23
>> with some of the things that I've I've been very uh graciously able to
02:25:28
experience and in giving other people opportunity to maybe push into trying to make an impact in their space.
02:25:39
>> Oh, okay. >> And encouraging them, >> pulling people up the ladder
02:25:42
>> that you've been able to climb. >> Yeah. >> Paying it forward to or paying it
02:25:45
downward, I guess. >> Yeah. >> This is so so cool. Well, I'm I'm very
02:25:50
thankful for you willing to have me on. So, thank you for >> No, thank you. You're such a great
02:25:55
communicator and um you're so finely balanced in in your ability to deeply understand everything you're talking
02:26:03
about from a historical perspective to be in the pursuit of truth as you kind of said irrespective of where that one
02:26:09
might lead somebody but then you have the gift of yeah the gift of communication incredibly engaging person
02:26:16
good intentions good man so I was very very you know very very glad we had this conversation and very much looking
02:26:21
forward to it for a very long time so I'm glad you said yes I was asking my team for maybe I don't know maybe nine
02:26:26
months to to get in contact with you. >> Well, I apologize cuz I hit no a few
02:26:29
times. >> No, it's okay. It's okay. But um I'm really really appreciative of it,
02:26:32
Wesley, and I hope to have this conversation again sometime soon. >> Yeah, that'd be great.
02:26:35
>> Thank you. YouTube have this new crazy algorithm where they know exactly what
02:26:39
video you would like to watch next based on AI and all of your viewing behavior.
02:26:44
And the algorithm says that this video is the perfect video for you. It's different for everybody looking right
02:26:50
now. Check this video out and I bet you you might love it.