DEBATE Does the Biblical God Exist? |@CosmicSkeptic & @PhilHalper1Vs @givemeananswer Cliffe & Stuart
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Hey everybody, today we're debating whether or not the biblical God exists and we are starting right now with Stuart's opening statement. Thanks for being with us. Stuart, the floor is all yours. Thanks James, Phil, and Alex. Great to be here with you guys.

The biblical God, the reason why we believe strongly that the biblical God exists and has always existed is one, because of moral obligation. I don't believe in just moral feelings. I don't believe in just moral forms of worship.

Potential kinds of, oh, yes, objective feelings. My truth is my truth. Your truth is your truth that are politically correct. Culture espouses, at least here in the US, we hear it all the time. And so whether it's feelings, whether it's inclination, whether it's the idea of I set my own truth, you set your own or the culture sets it or the powerful said it like Hitler. I don't believe that's enough.

I believe that Solzhenitsyn, Martin Luther King Jr. were on to something strongly. Letters from a Birmingham jail. Dietrich Bonhoeffer picked up on it as well. Dostoevsky picked up on it. Even Nietzsche picked up on it as an atheist. That without God, if God is dead, then we are dead as well in a way. Because anybody can do any old thing they want morally. So when we talk about oughts, shoulds, moral obligations, values,

We get down to the point of saying, no, there really is a truth out there. And I still have not heard a good response to that argument. Second point would be, I think there was a great beginning. And I think that there is a linear process.

perspective that we all espouse, whether we want to believe it or not, shown through all books, many movies, the literature, even many of the narratives that we get in the media, as skewed as they often are, which is a linear approach, which the Bible espouses, the biblical God espouses, where there was a great beginning. All other worldviews at the time were cyclical for the most part, and there was no linear progression. But in the beginning,

The Bible starts off right in Genesis with that important, important form of language that there was a great beginning. We understand starting in the 1920s, we obviously in the 19, about 1915, you had Einstein with the fudge factor trying to say, no, the universe is infinite.

But again, the biblical God, unlike Zeus, unlike any of the other gods at the time and post after the biblical God as well, it was a cyclical type of deterministic, almost Hindu form of God.

And you need God, you must have God. And ultimately, I land on the beauty of God. That's why a big part of the reason why I believe in him. I think we all want grace, we all want forgiveness, we all want to push for things like human rights. Look at the social movements in this day and age, we all want a form of justice for all. When I'm counseling those who've gone through

spousal abuse, who've gone through the deaths of a loved one from ODing because of a bad drug dealer who laced the drugs. I get to see it. He gets to see it all the time. Our experience tells us that this is an unjust world and everything pulls us to the scales of justice. And we needed a judgment day in order for justice to truly win. And we want eternity. Eternity is set in the hearts of man and woman.

And I believe strongly, again, from my experience that our hearts are restless until they rest alone in you, O Lord, like Augustine talked about. All of that fits my experience. And so this is not just an intellectual game that we're playing in our minds, whether it be philosophical or theological. It gets right down to your very experience of things like free will, consciousness, things like beauty.

Things like a judgment day. Will there be one? And protagonist, antagonist of just about every story talks about there being real evil, there being sacrifice, and ultimately good will triumph. So that's a big part of the reason why I believe in God based off the intellectual evidence as well as my own experience. Thank you very much. We'll kick it over to Cliff for the remainder of their opening statement.

The reason that I believe in the biblical God is, first of all, I believe that non-existence cannot produce existence. That's absurd. Secondly, I don't think it's possible for chaos to produce order. That's ridiculous. Thirdly, I don't believe that it's possible for the rational to be created by the non-rational. The rational points me to a rational creator. Next point is, I don't think that meaning comes from matter or that love comes from matter.

or that free will comes from matter. Matter is simply matter. And when I observe people, when I experience life, I'm convinced that there is more to reality, there's more to you, there's more to me than simply complex chemical reactions and simply matter. Then when I look at Jesus Christ, I begin to understand that indeed he is reliable.

No, I cannot prove God. I cannot prove Christ. That's not the question. I can prove almost nothing in life. Rather, the question is, in light of the evidence, what is most reasonable? What is most plausible to believe? And when you look at the historical evidence of the way Jesus lived, taught, died and rose from the dead, I think the evidence is rather clear. He is trustworthy in a way that none of the options are.

Whenever I struggle with doubt, and I regularly struggle with doubt, I go over some of the points that I just made, but I also go over the alternatives to Christ, be it materialism, atheism, evolution, agnosticism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam. And although there are points that can be made on behalf of all of those options,

Those points are nothing when it comes to credibility, when it comes to reasonableness, when it comes to reliability that support Jesus Christ. He lived a sinless life. In my best moments, I wish that I could live like Jesus, but I failed miserably. He taught amazing teachings. Robert Coles, professor emeritus at Harvard, pointed out that all the teachings on ethics over the past 2,000 years are simply footnotes to the Sermon on the Mount. He not only lived an amazing life, not only taught an amazing life, but he died an incredible death.

At the moment of his most excruciating pain, instead of cursing his enemies the way I would have, he prayed, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. But fourthly and most importantly, not only did he teach amazing teachings, not only did he live an amazing life, not only did he die an amazing death forgiving his enemies who nailed him to the cross, but fourthly and most importantly, the historical evidence is three days after he died, he rose from the dead.

So due to that evidence, I am convinced that Jesus Christ is reliable in a way that none of the options are. Now, there are two good reasons that I know of to reject the biblical God. The first one is my pride. My pride dictates that nobody is going to tell me how to live my life. And I have a deep resentment towards anybody or anyone who wants to tell me how to live my life.

But I've got to get over that pride and I've got to be willing to face reality. And if reality is that God really exists, it would be wise for me to listen to God and not to have such a knee-jerk reaction that in my arrogance and pride, I cannot obey him. I must be king. I must be God of my life.

And it's that pride that I understand because I struggle with it, that I'm afraid is the primary reason that people are atheists or agnostic. And it's the primary reason that I, as a follower of Christ, struggle with doubt. I struggle with obedience to Christ because I think I have a better way. And then, of course, there's a problem of evil. And so my atheist friends say, yeah, that's really why I can't accept the biblical God, because the problem of evil.

Friends, if there is no God, there is no problem of evil. There's no problem of good. There just is. Everything just is. And it's all relative. It's all subjective. And to talk about an axiomatic morality is not acceptable for me because it's essentially moral relativism. It depends who you trust to define what's axiomatic in morality and what's not.

So it's either moral relativism or there is some type of objective morality because there's a mind that creates and defines that morality long before this human mind ever existed. When I look at Jesus Christ examining the human dilemma, we're all created in the image of God. We all have a whiff of glory, a scent of glory in us. We also all have a real fascination with evil that comes from our pride. It comes from our feeling it's necessary to be number one.

And when you begin to grapple with, we all have a whiff of wretchedness in us, but we all have a whiff of glory in us. We're created in the image of God. The image of God is crucial. It's one of the most important ideas that the Bible communicates. That we all have intrinsic innate value and dignity because we all are created to reflect the character, the goodness, the justice, the integrity, the compassion, the forgiveness, the love of the God who's been eternally existent. And it was very real and very personal today.

So that is why I follow Jesus Christ, not because I can prove him, but because he is the most reasonable, the most plausible option that we have before us as thinking human beings.

Thank you very much for that opening. Folks, if it's your first time here at Modern Day to Date, I'm your host, Dr. James Coons. I want to let you know our vision is to provide a neutral platform so that everybody has their chance to make their case on a level playing field. We hope you feel welcome no matter what walk of life you're from. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button for many upcoming debates. And with that, Alex and Phil, thrilled to have you here as well.

We will have Phil going first. The floor is all yours, Phil. So I'd like to thank Stuart, Cliff, James and Alex for this event. And I'll start with an argument I published in the International Journal for Philosophy of Religion called The Expanded Problem of Animal Suffering.

Now, we all know the standard problem of suffering. If God is all-powerful, he could prevent suffering. If he's all good, he should want to. So why is there suffering? Now, one traditional answer from Christians is that suffering came into the world because of human sin. And indeed, that's what Cliff frequently appeals to. However, science has discovered that animals have been suffering for hundreds of millions of years before humans ever existed, which strongly undermines this key Christian argument.

Science has also revealed that the very engine of our creation involves mass extinctions and the brutality of evolution. Why would God choose these violent processes to get to us? And why does he command and commit cruelty to animals? In Deuteronomy, God orders those of a town who advocate worshipping a different God to be put to the sword, but not just the people, but also their animals.

The same for the Amalekites. God orders their destruction, including their animals. God drowned almost all the animals in the world, including puppies and kittens, because of human sin. In the 10 plagues, as well as killing all the firstborn Egyptian domestic animals,

He turns the Nile into blood and all the fish drown. Jesus exercises demons into a herd of 2,000 pigs who then run off a cliff and drown. It seems the biblical God loves drowning innocent animals. Now right now there is a mass extinction event. At the hands of humans, it's primarily because we eat meat. Now, God could foresee this tragedy and tweak our diets to avoid it. But he didn't. Why not?

Now these issues are easily resolved if the biblical God is false. Then it's no surprise that both the Bible and nature are so cruel to animals. Now, theists sometimes reply to this by running the moral argument, but this depends on trusting our moral intuitions. And if we can do that, then we should reject the cruel biblical God. And if we can't, then the moral argument fails. Either way, God fails.

Now the cosmology of the Bible is another clue to God's fictitious nature. It describes the sky as having a solid dome called the firmament. And we have good reasons to think the authors believed this. The Hebrew word rakeh used implies it, surrounding cultures believed it, and the Bible describes it as holding up the waters above and being firm as a mirror of cast metal. Talmudic rabbis debated how thick it was, and Christian thinkers from Augustine to Martin Luther all agreed it was solid.

But if we know there is no firmament. Genesis also describes primordial waters, plants and grasses existing before stars were created. Yet science tells us the stars came first. And of course, humans are described as being made through special creation rather than evolution. If the biblical God is a human invention, then all these mistakes are unsurprising. But if he's real,

Why get so many things wrong and make the same mistakes as surrounding cultures? If Genesis were right, maybe Christian distrust of science wouldn't be so high today.

And this has consequences. Atheist acceptance of climate science is double that of Christians and triple that of evangelical Christians. This could be Christianity's most horrific legacy, turning many people away from science and thus contributing to a climate catastrophe. God could have easily avoided this by guiding the text to have less errors.

But he didn't. Yet again, a fact well explained if he doesn't exist. Now, Stu argued, you know, for the beginning of the universe. And that was evidence for God. But we don't have compelling evidence that the universe began to exist. As I describe in my upcoming book, The Battle of the Big Bang for the University of Chicago Press, the Big Bang was thought to be the beginning of time. But this is no longer so. So Stu's just out of doubt.

on science here. So I can unpack this in a dialogue or you can read the book when it comes out in the spring. But in a new survey that we're about to publish, physicists overwhelmingly rejected the notion that the Big Bang was the beginning of the universe. But, you know, even if the universe had a beginning, I don't see any reason to think it must have a cause, as Cliff has argued. After all,

Christians say that God doesn't need a cause, often because they allege he existed timelessly and then entered into time. So he has no beginning and thus requires no cause.

But why can't the universe do the same? For example, the Hartle-Hawking model or holographic cosmology imply an initial timeless state. And we have good reasons to take these ideas seriously, unlike Genesis, which we know is wrong. Now, another argument Stewart has used is the fine-tuning of the concept of nature. He said that the chances of life-emitting values are incomprehensible. Well, that's right.

And that's why fine-tuning fails. These are probabilities that we don't know. To run the argument, you need to assume the constants could be different from what they are. But there's no evidence for that. We have to assume that without God, the constants would be selected randomly and only once. We've got no evidence for that either. We have to assume God would select life-remitting constants. But since he can make life in any conceivable universe, then our universe looks even less likely with God than without.

Stewart also said that the multiverse which undermines fine-tuning does not have a shred of evidence for it. I disagree. Inflationary cosmology seems to predict it. Weinberg predicted dark energy using it. Arguably, a Darwinian model did the same. So in surveys, both philosophers and physicists overwhelmingly reject the fine-tuning argument.

To sum up, arguments for God like fine-tuning, the moral argument, the cosmological argument, they don't work. But arguments against God, like the expanded problem of animal suffering, like the clear errors of the Bible, do work. So we should reject the biblical God. Thank you very much. We'll shuffle it over to Alex for this remaining seven minutes.

Oh, I think it's on mute. Let me just... I've got it. There you go. Does the biblical God exist? My knee-jerk response is, I hope so. It does, of course, promise eternal life and concrete moral purpose. Unfortunately, my investigations thus far have run decidedly cold. Why is that? Well, tonight we are discussing the existence of the biblical God.

I'm tempted to dismiss the motion out of hand on the grounds of a principle from formal logic known as ex falso quodlibet, from the false anything, a principle which states that from a contradiction, anything follows.

The Bible is contradictory on a number of grounds. Not only does it present two characters, Jesus and Yahweh, as far apart in temperament as possible to imagine, only for Christians to expect us to believe that they are in fact one character, God, perfectly united in essence and desire. But it also does so in a series of books which contain too many textual contradictions to even scratch the surface of in our allotted experience.

time. The Gospels are a mine of contradictions, recording decades after the events in Greek the behaviours and sayings of the Aramaic-speaking Jesus who is said to fulfil Hebrew prophecies, prophecies which sometimes, such as in the case of Matthew chapter 2 verse 23, he shall be called a Nazarene, do not even exist in the Old Testament.

So I have some questions for Cliff and Stuart this evening, and it's good to see you both again. I so much enjoyed our conversation. I'm glad to do this in the context of now a debate. Here are my questions. What day did Jesus die? The synoptic gospels say that he died on the Passover. John's gospel said he died the day before. What time was Jesus crucified? Mark's gospel has it at nine in the morning. In John, Jesus is still stood before Pilate at noon. Did Jesus carry his cross the whole way or did Simon of Cyrene help him out? Depends which gospel you read.

Cliff mentioned that when Jesus was crucified, there were two thieves either side of him, one of whom condemns Jesus and the other of whom jumps to his defense, a very moving story. Of course, that's what happens in the Gospel of Luke. But in the Gospels of Mark and the Gospel of Matthew, both of the thieves next to Jesus mock him on the cross. So which is it? John doesn't mention it at all.

But do both of the thieves mock him or does one come to his defence? Again, it depends which gospel you read. Did the temple curtain rip before Jesus died, as in Luke, or after, as in Mark and Matthew? What does Jesus say when he dies? In Mark and Matthew he says, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani" - "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Again, by the way, distancing himself from God and appearing to present himself as a separate being. In Luke he quotes a different psalm saying, "Into your hands I commend my spirit."

In John, he simply says it is finished. Reconcilable, perhaps, but is it a coincidence that the earlier the gospel, the more Jesus separates himself from God? Those are actual questions, by the way. And every single one of the contradictions that I've just mentioned is just about the death of Jesus. We still have the resurrection accounts and the birth narratives, for example, not to mention the general increasing divinity of Jesus in later and later gospels, telling me that the historical Jesus didn't even claim to be God himself.

in the first place. Not only this, but Phil's already mentioned the problem of animal suffering, it's worth reflecting that the problem of evil has a number of well thought out responses called theodicies. Evil exists because of higher order goods that can only be attainable if there's some kind of suffering in the world. Free will means that we need to be able to commit free evil acts. Evil helps our souls to develop and grow closer to God, this kind of stuff. Please keep in mind that none of these

none of them are effective in explaining the existence of non-human animal suffering. Animals do not make free moral decisions. They do not have moral souls that can develop through strife. It's controversial even to suggest that they'll simply be compensated in some kind of fluffy afterlife. I want to hear today a direct answer. How can the suffering of a deer

on its own in a forest with its leg broken and trapped under a tree already starving in confused agony before being predated upon by having a mountain lion clasp the deer's windpipe in its jaw for an excruciating minutes-long death be explained if supervised by an omnipotent invigilator who if for some reason could not prevent this particular event seemingly could have at least designed the machinery of the natural world to be less prone to this kind of thing another question

Why is a person's geographical place of birth a statistically reliable indicator of how likely they are to be safe?

This is Steven Mateson's argument. The populace of Connecticut is around 70% Christian, let alone theistic, whereas the populace of Thailand is 95% Buddhist, and therefore at best 5% theistic. I'm told by St. Paul in Romans that, quote, what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities, his eternal power, his divine nature, and divine nature have been clearly seen being understood from what has been made so that people are without excuse.

Why then should I expect this God to provide more compelling evidence to those in New England than to those in Southeast Asia? Or are the Thai just orders of magnitude more naturally incredulous? And if so, why? How lucky Cliff and Stuart must feel to reside in a stronghold of the one true religion, given just how much variance there is out in the world. Again, why is a person's geographical place of birth a reliable statistical indicator of how likely they are?

to be saved. On our hypothesis of atheism, religion is a product not of divine revelation, but of evolved local mythologies and customs married to political influence and military conquest. Religious beliefs varying by region and culture in a statistically and historically predictable manner, whilst a trouble for the propositions theology is not only consistent with our worldview, but expected on it. The same is true of animal suffering. What would we expect to see if the world was being supervised by benevolence itself?

And what do we find? Natural selection is the mechanism of animal development, which does not just involve, but relies upon death and destruction to the extent that 99.9% of the species, let alone the individual creatures that have ever existed on this planet have been brutally wiped from existence in some of the most painful ways imaginable. Survival of the fittest is the same thing as death and anguish and suffering of the unfit. I think this is at least unexpected.

If we assume naturalism, however, the world is just an amoral arena of accidentally existing organisms fighting in a blind struggle for survival in a world of limited resources, again, we do not just explain the reality of the world, we also come to expect it. So,

an unreliable source pointing to a fragmented God who, despite being the essence of benevolence, designs and consistently oversees systems of untold suffering and sometimes commands its infliction directly himself. The very moral intuition that Cliff and Stuart are relying upon to make a case for God's existence, where you know that certain things are right or wrong, you know that's not just a matter of opinion, are the very moral intuitions that we're invited to discard when faced with basically anything that the God of the Old Testament does.

Does the biblical God exist? I don't even know what biblical God we're talking about. Which one? Thank you very much for that opening as well. We are going to jump into the open dialogue. I want to give you a couple of heads up. Folks, we are going to have not only open dialogue, but the Q&A following that. If you happen to have a question, feel free to submit it in the old live chat here at Modern Day Debate, tagging me with @ModernDayDebate. And if you want, you can also put in a Super Chat question, which will push your question to the top of the list.

Last but not least, Alex will have to depart possibly mid Q&A, depending on how many questions we have. So I do want to let you know that that's a possibility just for his travel, but we're going to jump into the open dialogue. Should be okay. Should be okay. You got it. Let me know whenever you have to and we'll make it work. But gentlemen, the floor is all yours for open dialogue. All right, I'll start.

First of all, Phil, I don't know where he's getting his philosophy of religion and his statistics, but just to keep him honest for a second, check out Nature Magazine, a highly secular, atheistic journal magazine, I would call it, over here. And over 40% of Harvard med school professors and Harvard philosophers at large, teachers, say that there is a personal biblical God.

Over 40% are then agnostic and say that they are not sure. So the highest level of thinking, at least here in the U.S., you know, Oxford and Cambridge could be higher, but I'm dubious.

And they outright say, the majority say that there is a biblical God that exists. A very small percentage are atheists. They're atheists. Maybe that's largely because they're scared because so many people think that they're snobbish and they're arrogant. Atheists, that is. But I believe it's based off of evidence that all these Harvard professors at Harvard Med and undergrad have come to. So that's Nature magazine. That's not Christianity Today. That's no Christian magazine or type of literature. That's your literature, my friend.

So that's where I would start. And secondly, why then is almost 70% of atheists white male? Why are all the largest conferences held around the world always white male? Usually only one country presented, and that's your country. Bring somebody along who is white. All the others...

excuse me, all the others are white as well. Usually one of different ethnicity is represented. So talk about a construct. David Hume had an incredible influence here when it came to the miraculous and denying the miraculous. I think he's an idiot. But

Talk about a construct. Talk about those who, you know, if Alex is going to make the point of the genetic fallacy point, if he's just going to say whether it's in Myanmar or the U.S., just because someone has greater exposure to the biblical God doesn't mean they have somehow a better chance at accepting him. I have a 75 percent chance of rejecting the biblical God because this guy is, by the way, my dad.

75% of pastor's kids reject God and never come back to believing him, believing in him. Okay. So, so Alex's stats and his thinking are a little, a little dicey at, at, at the very least. So just because you have been given evidence through your culture,

In no means, by no means, does that mean you are more likely to accept this God and have eternal life. Secondly, the teleological argument, Phil, is way off as well. I didn't even bring up the teleological argument. Maybe you did. But he's wrong on that as well. I think you got to get to know your partner a little bit better there, Alex. I saw him talking to Richard Dawkins not too long ago briefly. I caught a couple snippets. And oddly enough, it was on the teleological argument and free will.

And Dawkins now calls himself a cultural Christian. And he says, I have no idea what to do with the teleological argument because it is so convincing that potentially there is a God. And he said that about free will as well, by the way. So to say that outright, the teleological argument is laughable now. To say outright that somehow the universe having a beginning is laughable now, I just don't know who you're talking to. I'm talking to different people, I guess. So we'll have to have another sit down on that one and bring our stats and research.

So those are big, big pieces of evidence. Alex has also said to me before, I just need a revelation and then I'll believe in God. That's all I need. Just a revelation. That sounds exactly like Richard Dawkins. And what does Richard Dawkins say? Well, my revelation changes about every year. So one, it was, his first one was, well, if the stars align and say, Richard, believe in me, I am God. Then I will believe in God. Pardon my interruptions. I just want to be sure. Maybe this is the last point and then we'll kick it back into that. You bet. So,

So I want to know what kind of revelation Alex wants and what kind of revelation does he want the boy in Myanmar or wherever else to have in order to believe in God for this God to be fair and morally good. Because Richard Dawkins switched and he said, you know what? Actually, I need more than that because I could be hallucinating in terms of those stars aligning. And I hear that from all the top atheists. Now, maybe Alex is talking about a different form of revelation. I want to be fair to him. But I see the consistency, the moving of the goalposts all the time.

So can I reply to that first about the Harvard Med people who had, what was it, did you say 40%? Over 40%, yeah. Out of Nature magazine. Right, okay. But did you also read the article in Nature about leading scientists still reject God? What year? I can dig it up for you, but what they did was they surveyed scientists and they also compared it to leading scientists. So these were members of the National Academy of Science.

So for example, what we see in the United States is about 70 I think it's 74 percent last survey I saw of the general population believed in God when you went to scientists it went down to about 50 percent Similar to your 40 percent, but when you went to senior scientists members of the National Academy It went down to 7 percent that is an enormous discrepancy between the overall population of the US an enormous discrepancy so

Now, quite frankly, though, it doesn't really matter how many scientists believe in God. This is just an argument. One is a cherry picking fallacy because you happen to pick, you know, people in the medical profession, which isn't really a profession. It really isn't a profession that's really relevant to issues regarding God. These would be topics like cosmology, evolutionary biology, things like that, moral philosophy. But if you survey philosophers where and of course, whether God exists is a philosophical question.

They disagree on almost everything. But one thing they actually do agree upon is that God doesn't exist. Something like 70% of professional philosophers do not believe in God, right? So you're basically sort of cherry-picking, Stu. Now, the other topic was the teleological argument. You quoted Dawkins. I think you're misquoting Dawkins, but yet again, it doesn't really matter what Dawkins said. So what Dawkins said was that if an argument was going to convince him, it would be the fine-tuning argument. That doesn't mean he thinks...

that he does convince him and he actually criticizes the fine tuning on that very pro in fact justin bryerly the host who i know alex and i know we've both been on the show he even joked he said ah you gave an inch and they took a mile referring to people like he used you who are misquoting him right he's not saying

that it is a convincing argument, only that if an argument were to convince him, it would be that one. Now, I agree it's the best argument. I think the fine-tuning argument is the best argument for God. That doesn't mean it's a good argument, does it? That just doesn't follow. You can rank bad arguments. Some of them will be less bad than others. But you didn't really answer any of the points that I made about the beginning of the universe. You said that there was evidence for the beginning of the universe. I'd love to know what that evidence is because

because the Big Bang was thought to be the beginning of the universe, but that was based off of Penrose-Hawking theorems. And the Penrose-Hawking theorems have assumptions which are basically widely discounted in the community because they, well, it seems all kinds of things, the community don't accept them. Penrose and Hawking themselves don't think that these theorems apply. And in fact, one of the assumptions is that gravity is always attractive. Well, in 1998, we found that it wasn't. So basically,

So physicists have abandoned the idea of the Big Bang as the beginning of the universe. And actually, we have a survey coming out very shortly where that was one thing. We asked controversial topics in physics to physicists. And the thing that they agreed upon the most is that the Big Bang should not be considered the beginning of the universe. So tell me what evidence you have to back up that claim that you made that the Big Bang was the beginning of the or there's evidence for a beginning of the universe. I don't see it.

Do you want me to go or am I talking? We're talking too much. Why don't we switch to you guys? Because I could give 10 arguments right now on that. Yeah, maybe I can respond to Stuart. You did something which I like to call the genetic fallacy fallacy. Of course, it is fallacious to suggest that because you came to a belief through an unreliable method, that belief must be false. That's not quite what I'm saying, because, of course, in the case of God and belief in God,

We're told that there is a God who proactively wants people to come to know him and is in charge of the systems by which people engage with each other and learn about the world.

And so if it is the case that you are, and of course you said that 75% of people, you know, reject the religions of their parents. That means that there are 25% who don't, and you're just one of those. You may be an exception, but it's an exception that proves the rule, right? And the rule is that you can reliably predict what somebody will believe about God. And therefore on your worldview, how correct or incorrect they are in their assessment of the nature of the divine based on where they grow up. And my question is,

I can't now, of course, that doesn't mean that it's false because they came to it through those methods. But I would say that it's unexpected that God would allow people to go so wrong, so inculpably wrong as well.

if in fact he wants to reveal himself equally to everybody. The question I have is what is more likely? What better explains the geographical, reliable geographical spread of religious belief? Is it that there is a God who wants to come to know all equally? But for some reason, nations of people and cultures throughout history

unanimously decide on different theologies, and many of them get it wrong, and some of them happen to get it right. That's one explanation. Another explanation is that religion is a byproduct of local mythologies and political and military influence. I think it's at least better explained on that hypothesis. So I wanted to ask specifically on the geographic spread of religious belief. It doesn't prove that religion is false, but do you at least think in isolation that this is better explained on the hypothesis of religion as a

sociological project than the hypothesis that there is really a God who exists. You have to include secularism and atheism then too, if you're going to do that.

You don't get a free. You don't get it. Absolutely. So so you pointed out that most atheists are white men in Western European countries. OK, but remember that on atheism, on the belief that atheism is the case that is expected because we believe that religious beliefs are a product of your environment. That would include atheism. That would include secularism. It may be that the reason I'm an atheist is because of the country I was born in. But that does nothing to undermine atheism.

It makes me kind of lucky to get the truth if it is in fact true, but it doesn't undermine the truth of atheism to say that I may be an atheist in part because of where I was born. In the same way as it does undermine Christianity to say that you're a Christian because of where you're born and I'm not a Christian because of where I'm born. You see what I mean? Can you see why I think that's different?

Yeah, I mean, I know that I can see how that follows. But I still I would ask you, what then is true revelation from God? And what exactly is saving faith then, in your interpretation, because it feels like you're sort of putting that in a box? How do you know it could not be different for different people? How do you know that God is

knows or doesn't know whether someone will actually accept him before he puts them in a certain locale throughout the world. Why is the Christian faith the most malleable worldview, according to Black Press professor

Whose religion is it? He wrote Laman Sana, one of the most respected philosophers at Yale who passed away not too long ago. He said that the Christian faith, the average Christian is white female and the Christian faith is not bound, it seems, by a social construct. And the genetic fallacy breaks down, he would say, largely because you see in Africa, Zimbabweans,

Zero to 40 percent. You see the hub of Christianity move from places like Palestine over to places like Europe, then the U.S., now China, Africa, South Korea. Atheism doesn't do that. So which is a social construct more likely? And I would say atheism.

I think all of it is socially constructed or socially dependent, all of it, including atheism, but that's not a problem. Like for me to say, you've just said that Christianity is the most malleable world religion. Might that not do something to explain its success? The fact that it is just so malleable, maybe that's why it's so easily spread because Christianity can adapt and change into the societies that it enters oftentimes through military conquest. If that's the case, if that's, if, if that is indeed the case, then,

like what is being undermined about my position here? I believe that religion is a sociological phenomenon that naturally evolves and the ones which evolve better to the societies that they land in are more likely to survive. That's essentially what you're telling me and that is completely in accordance with everything that an atheist believes. But as a Christian you need to believe that this is being guided ultimately by God, by the Holy Spirit, by whatever. This is being guided and supervised. And then you have to explain why it is that the Thai are orders of magnitude less likely to accept Christ

than New Englanders. I mean, why do you think that's the case? How do you know that? Because of the statistics. I don't want to be a universalist here. Sure. What to you is acceptance, revelation, and the correct theology? Sure, I'm buying into all that you're talking about. Yeah, that makes sense potentially, but I still want to hear from you. It sounds like you have a very tight, nice definition of what saving faith really is, what that looks like.

Well, I don't because I'm not a Christian, of course. If universalism is true, then this problem goes away. If it's the case that to be saved isn't to be a nominally Christian, it's to just say do the will of the Father. You might find that more people in Thailand are doing the will of the Father than people in New England are. That would also get rid of the problem. But if you believe that there is any doctrinal necessity

in Christianity, if there are particular things you need to believe in, like you need to believe in the resurrection of Jesus, it's not just that he resurrected, but that you believe he resurrected and choose to throw yourself on that. If there's any doctrinal element whatsoever, then we know that societies worldwide vary in their ascension, in their assenting to these propositions.

statistically reliably based on where they come from. And that to me is a mystery, but I totally agree with you that if a universalist is listening to this, this is completely uninteresting because what does it matter? Everyone's going to get saved anyway. I don't know if you're a universalist, perhaps you are, but the hypothetical nature of your question makes me suspect that you are in fact not. Well, if you roll out Hebrews chapter 11,

Romans 1, Romans 2, then you're spot on. But you have to read those passages. I mean, the patriarchs are going to be saved. They didn't know anything about the resurrection. Nothing. I don't even think they expected that. There was some type of messianic figure, perhaps, that they expected. You have out of, obviously, Isaiah 53 and 61. But then in Romans 1 and 2, this boy in Myanmar who's never going to have the same type of exposure to the gospel as me. How do you know that

He's not more like the patriarchs and his faith is not greater than mine, like you had said. So no, I wouldn't land on, hey, I have to have all the evidence correctly given to me from the Bible and from the passion narratives if I'm going to be saved. That's still, it's tightening the noose too much for me. Do you think the people who've heard of Christ...

and know a thing or two about him, but proactively deny that he was crucified. Just say, I know who Christ is. I know that there's all this evidence. I don't think he was crucified. I don't think he was God. Do you think those people are saved?

All right, Cliff's about to jump out of his skin hair over here, so I better let him roll. It's an honor talking with you two gentlemen. I'm a little shocked that I heard that Genesis teaches that there's a steel dome over the universe, over the earth. That is embarrassing. I have read the Bible many, many times over the past 60 years. I can promise you there is no science anywhere in the Bible. Science is the discussion of process.

house, and organism works. There is absolutely no biology, no chemistry, no physics, no geology, no astronomy anywhere in the Bible. And if someone insists that there is, I think that they have an incredibly wooden interpretation of a book, and that's scary. Secondly, there are problems in the New Testament. There are problems in the Old Testament.

Old Testament textually, but I can promise you it is totally plausible for two thieves nailed to crosses on either side of Christ to heap insults on him, and then for one of them to have a change of heart, a change of mind. There is absolutely no contradiction. There are different perspectives, yes.

There's a difference, especially when it comes to the dating of exactly when the Passover occurred. And that's because there's a difference between the interpretation of dating in Galilee versus that in Judea. And it's a well-known fact that they disagree. They had different interpretations. So to be all psyched out about different interpretations of exactly when the Passover occurred

I'm afraid it's a type of hyperscepticism that if you apply that to all of reality would lead you to be a very lonely, very isolated person. So I'm very unimpressed. I'm also very unimpressed because

Although it's very easy to sit back and take potshots at different people, a different philosophy, a different religion. But tonight you put your head on your pillow and I put my head on my pillow. And like it or not, you're going to have a worldview. I'm going to have a worldview. And Jesus Christ, I have said, is by far the most reasonable, credible, plausible,

explanation of who God is, of how we are to live our life, the whole dilemma of evil in this world combined with tremendous goodness. And to listen to some people, I won't name names, but to listen to some people use the moral argument to object to animals being hurt in this life and to prey upon people's emotional

appreciation of animal life and then to try and use a moral argument that therefore there is no God

That is absolutely ludicrous because if there is no God, morality is relative. So what's wrong with animals dying? And obviously the Bible never says that animals suffer because of human sin. Never once does the Bible say that. Instead, we read that there was a rebellion against God that the angel Lucifer led. There was also a rebellion against God in Adam and Eve. So to come down once again so precisely on these points and act like the Bible says this and the Bible teaches that, I

I begin to think, good gracious, what Bible have you been reading? What are your means of interpreting a text? And if you're going to be overly wooden, it's just as ridiculous to say, well, when Jesus says, I am the vine, he's claiming to be a plant. You've got to allow an author and a speaker to use metaphors, simile, allegory. And these arguments are really hyper-skepticism that's straining at a net and missing the whole point. And I think that's- What is it that we- I'm afraid- What is it-

We quoted the before and after analogy. I just listed them. Okay, I just want to interrupt here because the idea of the firmament as a solid dome is well established. I mean, even St. Augustine, let me quote you. So what? He said, hang on, let me finish, Cliff. Let me just read the quote. He's not the Bible. St. Augustine is not. No, I know, I know, I know. Martin Luther is Martin Luther. Well, I'm making arguments. Sorry, can I? I'm listening to arguments and then responding.

Please do the check. Just, we'll listen the same. We'll give about maybe two minutes to fill. I promise we'll come right back. Okay. So there's good reasons to think that the ancient people believed that the sky was solid.

All right. The quote from Augustine, I'll read it anyway. I know you don't care, but he said, bear in mind, the term that does not compel us to imagine a stationary heaven. We may understand this name is given to indicate not that it is motionless, but that it is solid and it constitutes an impassable boundary between the waters above and the waters below. Now, this is found in Sumerian culture as well. They had a solid dome, solid

separating waters. The Bible in other places says that it separates the water, so it's doing something. I do accept that there can be poetry in the Bible. I'm not saying there can't be. But in this particular case, they actually explain what the firmament does.

Right. The rabbis, the Talmudic rabbis debated how thick it was. Right. So this is a very commonly held belief. So I don't think you can just be so dismissive that these people really believed it. Right. So similarly, even the word raki, I mean, it's from the root, which is to beat out a bowl.

People have interviewed other people in nomadic cultures and they describe they think the sky is a solid dome. So this is very, very common in all the surrounding cultures, in nomadic people today. It's there in the word itself, the rakia. People translated it as famine because they thought it was firm. The rabbis thought this.

It's there in the text. In Job, he describes it as being hard as a solid piece of metal. So there's very good reasons to believe that they believed it. Now we can ask the question, what is more likely, that they have this completely false description in the Bible, one, because they didn't know any better, it's written by humans, it's an invention of humans, or two,

that is coming from the God who knows the complete description of the universe. Now you said, when it comes to your other point, that science just describes process. That's just wrong, right? Science also gives us an account of origins of things. It gives, it describes the nature of the universe. Cosmology is the science that studies the origins, the content, and the fate of the universe. Now,

astronomy also describes what the heavenly bodies are. So the fact that it says there's a firmament is a scientific statement. The fact that it says that there was a global flood is a geological statement. And if you speak to geologists, they'll tell you there was no global flood. So you can't say this Bible doesn't have any science in it. It describes the nature of the universe.

the history of humanity, the history of the earth, and it just gets it wrong. So the question is, why does it get it wrong? What's the best explanation for that? The best, most simplest explanation is that the God of the Bible is fictitious. I think that is scarily intellectually dishonest. There's absolutely no description of the process that God used to create. And just because

Galileo contradicted the accepted Roman Catholic understanding that the Earth was the center of the solar system. Tells you nothing about what the Bible says.

It was a contradiction of how the Catholic Church interpreted the Bible and how Galileo did good science. And Galileo did a tremendous job in science and in interpreting the Bible. Galileo said, the Bible does not tell us how the heavens go. The Bible does tell us how to go to heaven. And you are mixing areas of knowledge. Science is not in the Bible.

And just because Sumerian and Babylonian cultures believed in a steel dome, and just because a lot of the Jewish rabbis believed in a steel dome, does not mean that the Bible is teaching that there is a steel dome over the earth. That is so dishonest, it's scary. It's not steel. It's not iron.

The point is that it says so. I agree. No, it doesn't say that. It does. Then show me where it says that. It is not saying that. That is your interpretation, and it's a false interpretation. It's adding where the text is silent, and that's intellectually dishonest. If I read...

the Quran and I add to the Quran, that's intellectually dishonest. I need to study the Quran and quote the Quran. But if I'm going to add to the Quran and then take a pot shot at Islam because of my addition to the Quran, that is so intellectually dishonest, it's scary. Can I ask a question? Firstly, I think even if Phil is wrong here, I would...

not hasten to charge him with dishonesty. I think that he believes what he's saying to a T. You were just talking about adding something to the Quran.

I have, I guess, two questions that I want to ask you, Cliff. The first is this. Do you agree with the scholarly consensus, a biblical scholarship, that is, that both the long ending of the Gospel of Mark and also the story of the adulterous woman in John's Gospel were added later than the earliest manuscripts, were later interpolations of the text?

Due to the precise nature of the manuscript evidence from Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, there is serious question whether the end of Mark chapter 16 was an addition or whether it was part of the original writing. The same is true for John chapter 7, the end of 7, and the first 11 verses of John 8. There is serious question due to the fact those passages are not found in the earliest Greek manuscripts that we have, whether those...

additions or not. Now, Alex, please answer the question. What is more reasonable than the God of the New Testament? Who or what do you put your faith in that is based on more evidence of reliability? We're getting to this point of reliability because I don't want to just change the subject here. You didn't answer my question. Alex, you've asked a lot of questions. Now, could you please- Yeah, but you didn't answer my question. Do you believe that they were later additions or not?

I don't know, but there's solid evidence that those were possibly additions. I don't know. In which case, because we have to follow the thread of the argument here, otherwise it's a useless endeavor. If we have good evidence to suggest that people were adding stories into the gospel manuscripts, even after they were first published...

Do we not have good reason to therefore think that people could also add stories to these manuscripts before they were written? In other words, that there are all kinds of things that end up in the gospel manuscripts that did not actually happen and weren't in the earliest traditions. Historically, that would make zero sense because the earliest church and how close the events themselves were reported through oral eyewitness testimony, not oral tradition. It was spread throughout the entire universal church and was being preached not just by

pastors who were looking for nickels and noses. It was preached by the common people. And so to say that there were early additions is such a leap of faith. It's scary just because potentially there was later additions. I don't think that follows. Maybe Jesus was just a cosmic hoax. It's possible. The question is not what is

ultimately possible. The question is, what does the evidence point to as most reasonable, most reliable in light of the evidence that we do have? That's right. Do you think that outside of the people that Jesus and the apostles and the prophets of the Old Testament rose from the dead themselves, do you think that Jesus is the only person who's ever risen from the dead?

No, Jesus raised people from the dead. Outside of the people that Jesus rose from the dead and the apostles and the Old Testament prophets rose from the dead. It's totally possible that there is some type of near-death experience or some type of... No, no, I mean like bodily resurrection. I am not intelligent enough to follow all of the claims, but the resurrection of Christ, I think, is historically validated in a very intellectually satisfying manner. So here's a question. In Matthew chapter 27...

We're told that there's an earthquake, the second earthquake of Matthew, neither of which we have any other reports of, but there's an earthquake and the graves open and the holy ones of Jerusalem exit their graves and walk around the city of Jerusalem appearing to many. Do you think that happened?

Yes, I do think that happened. Now, Alex, it's time for you to answer my question. What is the alternative to the biblical God, Jesus Christ, that you accept as more reliable? And secondly, what's the evidence that that alternative to Christ is really reliable?

I'm an agnostic. I don't submit to know what the ultimate answers to human existence are, but I don't think that the evidence for Christianity being the correct one is plausible. So give me the more plausible one. That was my question, Alex. What's the more plausible one?

that you have chosen to follow? Because obviously you're dressed a certain way. Obviously you have your hair on your face, manicured very nicely. So obviously you have motives, you have ambitions. So you're looking for something or someone. What is it? And what's the evidence that what you are living for is reliable?

I'm afraid I kind of just reject the grammar of the question. I don't have a systematized theology because I don't even believe in the existence of God. I'm an agnostic. Like I say, I don't know the answer to these questions. I don't know what my ultimate motivations are. I don't even have access to my own sort of deepest psychology. So I couldn't tell you why it is that I shaved my mustache and re-grew a beard. I don't know. But I know that it's not because of a man who I don't even believe claims to be God in the first place.

allegedly dying on a cross and leaving some scanty evidence behind him. I don't think that's fair. You are far too articulate. You are far too deep a thinker to convince me that there's not something that's powerfully motivating you. You're living for something, for someone, for some worldview, some philosophies, religion, whatever. Come on, sir. You are not just an accident. You didn't just arrive at where you are now by chance.

You know that as well as I do. I don't know that. I mean, that's to beg the question. That's precisely the kind of thing that we're trying to discuss here. I don't know how many times I can tell you I'm an agnostic. I don't know how we got here. I don't know how the universe began. I don't know if there's a God. What I do know is that the textual evidence for things like the resurrection in the New Testament is simply not enough to convince me. For example... But it is enough to convince you that whatever you're living for is true.

I don't know. But for example, the reason I brought up the raising of the dead in Matthew, Matthew chapter 27, is because this is an argument from silence, but some arguments from silence work. And if you'll allow me to finish this point, you agree that

The most extraordinary event in human history was recorded in the gospel of Matthew. That is that numerous people rose from the dead, walked around the city of Jerusalem and were seen by many witnesses. That's what we're told. Interestingly, the text is a little unclear because it says that at the time of Jesus's death,

the graves opened and then they appeared to people after the resurrection, implying that there's this three-day period where they're either laying around in empty graves or hidden somehow. It seems like a bit of a confused text. Now again, one hypothesis is that this actually happened

And for some reason they were, I guess, like maybe still dead in their graves for three days and then they got up or something. And that this is, although, like I say, the most extraordinary event that's ever happened in the history of our species and seen by many people recorded in the Gospel of Matthew in one passing sentence, but is not mentioned in Mark or Luke or John, is not mentioned in Josephus, is not mentioned in Acts, is not mentioned in any other historical source. People will say this is an argument from silence. Somebody said to me recently, well, we don't have any written sources of the destruction of Pompeii either. That doesn't mean it didn't happen.

Sure, but imagine that we had numerous sources writing about the city of Pompeii at the time that it was destroyed by a volcanic eruption that didn't mention the volcano.

They were writing about Pompeii at the time it's supposed to have happened and they don't mention the eruption. That would be incredibly strange and suspect and make me think that we couldn't trust our source. So one hypothesis is that this actually happened and for some inexplicable reason it is just complete radio silence on all of our historical sources.

Or it didn't happen and was an invention of Matthew in order to do something like fulfill the prophecy of the apocalyptic Jesus that soon there would be a general resurrection of the dead. Why is it that when Jesus dies, the graves open, but it's not until after the resurrection that they start appearing to people? Is it because Jesus is supposed to be the firstborn of the dead? Is he supposed to be the first one that's resurrected? I don't know. But like you, Cliff, I'm asking what is the most plausible historical explanation here? And I just don't think.

that this event happened in the way that you think it did. And if it did, it's a complete and utter mystery why these other sources do not even get a whisper of it.

Just on the question of God, there is absolutely no problem with resurrection. If there's no supernatural God, then obviously resurrection doesn't happen. But Alex, I cannot accept the way you weaseled out of my question about what are you living for and what's the evidence of what you are living for is true. Agnosticism is an option when it comes to do I prefer spaghetti or pasta?

Do I prefer beans or broccoli? I'm agnostic, okay? But when it comes to the ethical decisions that you have to make every day

When it comes to, is human life valuable? And if so, why? When it comes to, is there a meaning and purpose to life or is there not? And when it comes to, is there life after death or not? You have to go to funerals, Alex and Phil. So do I. People die. You're going to die. I'm going to die. And you have to ask the question, is there a life after death or not? You can't just say, I'm agnostic. I don't know. You've got to figure out, is despair a logical conclusion or is there some reason for hope?

You cannot be agnostic when it comes to is human life valuable? Is there a meaning to life? What's the ethical system I'm going to embrace? And when I sit at a funeral, is there any hope of seeing this person again one day or is there not?

You are forced to deal with those questions. And to sit back and say, I'm agnostic about whether I pay my taxes or not, I'm agnostic whether I'm going to support equal housing opportunity or not, is a cop-out. You can't live your life that way. It's impossible. That is the impossibility of agnosticism. And that's why, Alex, I don't think you've honestly answered my question. So can I just interrupt for a second? I can try my best to. I do want to give you a chance to respond, Alex. And I also know that I want to keep track and mention that Phil...

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I know you were wanting to make a point, so I do want to give Alex a quick chance to give a pithy reply, and then we'll go over to you, Phil, before we go back over to Cliff and Stuart. I'll take a moment, because I think we can try to wrap this business up. I don't know why Cliff seems to be under the impression that agnosticism is literally impossible, not just irrational, but impossible. But when it comes to ethical decision, for example, it's well known that amongst my followers that I'm an ethical emotivist. I'm not...

attached to that position particularly strongly, but it seems to make sense of the way that I interact with the world and the way that I see people doing ethics. I think that ethical propositions are expressions of emotion. And that's kind of the end of it. Now, I could be wrong about that. You might think that that has disastrous societal consequences, but to imply that it's impossible to adopt that position, to imply that it's impossible to say, I don't know if there is a God or not,

I just think is unintelligible because I do it. Lots of people do it. It's not just that you're claiming that it's irrational, but that it's impossible. You say I'm forced to make, I'm forced to, of course I have motivations for my actions. You know, when I do X or Y, especially when it's a so-called moral decision, of course I have a motivation, but as an ethical emotivist, I believe that I'm just expressing an emotional state. And that is perhaps a pessimistic conclusion, but that's not to say a false one. I do want to give you a chance to,

Phil, and then maybe at the end of your response, Phil, if you were able to redirect us back to does the biblical God exist per se? Exactly. This is the topic for our debate. The topic for our debate is not what is the best way to live your life. It could well be the biblical God doesn't exist, but some other God exists.

Who knows? It could be deism is true. Maybe Jains have got it right. That is not the topic for our debate. The topic for our debate is does the biblical God exist? And I think we provided very good reasons to say that he does not. And I don't think you've addressed, for example, the cruelty to animals in the Bible, in nature. You haven't really given a good... Let's just take a specific example, right? In Deuteronomy, we are told that if...

A town goes around and says, worship another god. You are to kill all of them, including their animals. Now, what justifies that? That's question number one. Now, I want to make a point. Number two, question first to you. You asked me for the reference about nature, and I found it. Here it is. Leading scientists still reject God. It's 1998. And the paper says, the question of religious belief amongst US scientists

has been debated since early in the century. Our latest survey finds that amongst the top natural scientists, disbelief is greater than ever, almost total. Now, if the evidence that you had that the medics at Harvard...

had a 40% belief in God. If that was a reason, you actually gave that as one of your reasons in your opening statement to believe in God. Wouldn't this be a reason not to, right? Bro, are you kidding me? You keep misquoting me throughout this debate. I did not give that in my opening. That was a response. The second response would have been that your idea of atheists coming up with science, check out modern science.

Alex himself will tell you who started modern science behind the Galileo's Kepler. No, no, no. It was the Greeks. All of your fellatious. Like you, you kept telling me that I was going by certain arguments. You've been quoting me literally all day. Now, maybe you were quoting cliff and just got us mixed up, but,

But now that you're going here as well. Did you or did you not quote the Harvard medics? Yes or no? In a response to you. Okay, okay, okay. Whether it's a response or an opening, it doesn't matter. That's great. You did quote them, right? You went and found your little statistic that you researched it during a debate. I'll go research it and I'll send it, my article as well, to you on email. Okay, okay, okay. It doesn't prove a point.

Okay. No, I agree. That's the only reason why I'm a little ticked off. I don't think it's a misquote. You keep misquoting me and you keep talking about points that I did not make.

You did make the point about the Harvard medics. That was secondary! It was secondary, that was not in my opening. Okay, I accept it wasn't in the opening, but I don't think that's relevant. You made the point, okay? So let's go back to Deuteronomy then, okay? How is it justified to kill the animals of people that say we shouldn't worship God? Tell me what the justification for that is. Yeah, sure.

Alex said the Bible doesn't talk about animals in heaven. Well, clearly it states that the lion will lay down with the lamb in heaven. So who's to say when ultimately animals are swept up, for example, in a bomb in Iraq, I'm sure some squirrels have been swept up in a bomb. Who's to say that that's not justifiable in any sort of way. When we live in a tremendously broken world, you talked about it yourself earlier, over 90% of the suffering we go through is done by humans.

So, no, I'm not going to give you a – I don't want to say that I don't have a problem with it. Sure, there's some moral feelings that I have where it's, man, God, why do you allow this to happen? But you need to come to the conclusion that the most reluctant atheist across the pond where you guys live named C.S. Lewis –

He had the opposite response as you do right now. He talks about animal as well as human suffering and his moral outrage towards it shows that there is a moral law, that there is justice ultimately that's objective and that would be from God. Then secondly, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, the great Pulitzer Prize winning author over here, Annie Diller. Read it yourself. She

She came to believe in God and then a Christian as well as this huge atheist because of her moral outrage over what she saw, mainly with insects in the swamp behind her house that she studied for over a year. When she saw different forms of insects landing on the backs of frogs and slowly sucking their brains out.

She didn't have this response that you and Alex did, which is, oh, there could be no God who would allow something like that to happen. No, she had the opposite response. And she said, my moral outrage leads me to believing that there is moral objectivity out there. I have a real issue with it. If there wasn't, I wouldn't have a big issue with it. It's just, this is how nature operates. And I got to be okay with that. So these animals, some of the biggest have come and I follow what they're saying. That makes sense to me. It checks out. These animals are not swept up.

like you described with those squirrels, these animals are killed on the command of God. And as you know, we discussed this at some length in our last conversation in 1 Samuel 15, the best of the livestock are kept alive by Saul. And when he approaches Samuel,

Samuel informs him that God has said he regretted he made Saul king. Why did God regret that he made Saul king? Because he kept alive the animals that he was supposed to kill. This is not like there is some kind of natural order which requires a balanced ecosystem which will involve predation and this kind of thing. This is God saying, go into this town, kill the men, kill the women, kill the children and the infants, and kill the animals. And when Saul does not kill the animals and leaves some of them alive,

God regrets that he made Saul king. Phil's question, I think, is to explain how this kind of command can be justified. Not animals getting swept up as a foreseen but unintended consequence of the natural order or war, but no, go and kill them. And if you don't kill them all, you're going to be punished for it. Why? Because you have an omnipotent God who controls the entire universe, who we have to allow to

to judge when he so chooses. Judge the animals? In our 21st century mindset, especially you being very white male and me being very white male, in a very secular, very prominent intellectual area of the world, we're going to have revulsion to it. Now go over, I'm going to go to your earlier argument, Alex. Go over to these different areas. Do you think it's a white male thing to object to the killing of animals? They're going to say, "Who are you, Alex?"

to say in your white Western culture that there's such a big issue with this. The majority of people in those areas of the world would say, of course a God who's big enough, who created you is allowed to judge in a nasty, brutish, ancient Near Eastern culture. What's the big deal? And so this gets back to the malleability of the Bible, how it lifts up some cultures,

And then at the same time, challenges and convicts other cultures rather than this just consensus, universalistic, fluffy type of text. Let me hang on. I just want to ask you a question. Very simple question. Right. If torturing animals is not something to make you think maybe the character in the Bible is not the perfect God that you think exists. Right. Because it could be there is a perfect God, but it's not the God of the Bible. Right. That's possible. Would you concede that?

Anything's possible if I'm an agnostic. All right. So right now, if this if torturing animals is not going to convince you that this God is not perfectly good, if commanding genocide is not going to convince you that this God isn't perfectly good, what would tell me what would convince you? Actually, the character in this book isn't perfectly good. What would convince you of that? If he was perfectly good, that he would convince you that he isn't.

Oh, that he isn't? Yes. I would start with the resurrection. I wouldn't go to talking snakes. I wouldn't go to a dome. I would go right to the resurrection, see if Christ really rose from the dead, and then see what he said about the Old Testament and the claims of God. So, no, I don't know exactly. I would go, I would, I would, I would, I would like Alex on this one and say, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

I think if God destroyed the entire human race and kept the human race dead and there were no human beings out there, well, then we wouldn't know, obviously, if he was so good or bad. But the issue yet again is... He did that. Again, you are being dishonest because you just said that God tortures animals. No, God stopped the torturing of human beings. Look at Moab, for example, and what was going on with child sacrifice. So he would be...

considered way better, way more good than what you are stating right here. So there's no torturing of animals. What happened in the flood? What happened in the flood? Did they drown over 40 days and nights? Yes or no? We don't know exactly. You don't believe the Bible?

I have no idea what that torturing supposedly looked like or if it was a swift death. Hold on. Why are you allowed to say you don't know? I don't know exactly what that looked like, that type of justice. But to say that somehow people were holding little puppies in their hands and slowly killing them

I think that's a pretty weak argument. Who said that? Nobody said that. He still just said torturing. He used the word torturing. That doesn't... No, no, hang on, hang on. The flood is happening over 40 days and nights. Now, in law, waterboarding, where you simulate drowning, is considered a torture. Now this is actual drowning.

Done over 40 days and nights. Let's think about this. The weak would die first. The little kittens would die before the adult cats. Right. This would be a slow death. It's over 40 days and nights, Stu. Now also consider, consider this. Right. In Joshua, what does God command of the Hebrew armies? He tells them to hoff their horses. Do you know what hoffing a horse is?

That's a good question. We are horse people, but you may know more about horses than me. Okay. To hoff a horse, I had to look this up when I read it, is to sever the Achilles tendon of a horse so that it can no longer run, can no longer walk. It's going to die a horrible death. And that is what God commands the Hebrew armies to do. And it's obviously why, we know why, because it's for victory in battle. Now, God could have easily said,

taught them how to use tranquilizers. He could have teleported the horses elsewhere. He could have just put them to sleep for a few hours during the battle. But no, he commanded this torture, right? Now, if that doesn't convince you that this god is not perfectly good, what would? Well, I just continue to rely on my favorite...

over there where you guys are. And C.S. Lewis would answer, yes, there's a problem emotionally for me when it comes to this issue. But there's a greater problem for the atheist and agnostic in explaining this type of moral outrage they have over this issue. So we both have problems. I'm not going to say, oh, this is an easy one. I'm not going to say this is a, let's just turn it into a page turner.

No, there's true issues here, but I defer to C.S. Lewis, and I think Alex should as well when saying that you still have a bigger issue than me in answering this question when it comes down to where is this ultimate...

moral outrage coming from. It's just your own subjective opinion. I would like to know why try and convince me of this with your great moral outrage. I'm not trying to convince you as a point of morality. I'm trying to convince you of the point of the truth of the Christian doctrine. I'm making a criticism similar to what Lincoln said of slavery. If this is not wrong, then nothing is wrong. I'm not saying that it's wrong. I'm not saying that it's immoral. I haven't used moralized terms. What I'm saying is that it's unexpected.

on the command of a loving God. C.S. Lewis, of course, has a chapter in The Problem of Pain where he discusses the suffering of animals. You know how he solves the problem? He says that they don't really experience pain. He says that they're in pain, but they don't realize it. This to me is literally an nonsensical statement. I think that actually doesn't make sense. If you want to take that line, if you want to say, well, let's defer to C.S. Lewis, look at what he says

on the suffering of animals and ask yourself if you'd be okay torturing a dog because ultimately although they look like they're in pain they're not really experiencing it in the way that a human is also be careful with your quotes i mean earlier stewart you quoted dostoevsky you actually quoted one of the characters of dostoevsky as saying that if god has said everything is permitted of course the first place that this phrase everything is permitted actually occurs is in crime and punishment uh but in this place it's it

It's applied to the extraordinary men, in particular Napoleon, who are willing to sort of step over the moral feeling that most people have because they've given themselves a position of authority that absolves them of the general morality to commit all kinds of criminality, even though it kind of runs against people's intuitions. People like Napoleon, these great figures, are able to step over that, as Dostoevsky or Raskolnikov says.

And for those people, everything is permitted. That sounds a lot more like the kind of thing that the Israelites were doing than anything that any atheist has done. Also, Dostoevsky wrote in a letter to one of his friends, and I quote, if anyone could prove to me that Christ is outside the truth, and the truth really did exclude Christ, I should prefer to stay with Christ and not with the truth.

So I agree with you that there are a great many literary greats who have assented to Christianity, but some of them do so on such ludicrous notions as diminishing the idea that animals can feel pain in the way that other human beings can, and others do so explicitly saying that they would do so even if the facts were all against them. I also want to know why it is that when I'm asked to

about the most fundamental basic question of reality, whether there's a God and what the ultimate meaning of life is. That when I say, I don't know, you say that that's an impossible question that I'm not allowed to have that option available to me. But when we ask you a very direct, simple textual question, do you think this actually happened and why? You're allowed to say you don't know on that much more simple question.

Oh, I don't know. Much of the Old Testament, we went over this. Much of the Old Testament you have to leave room for. Is it historical narrative, like William Lane Craig says, picking up in chapter 11 of Genesis?

Is that more metaphorical? Is that more literal? Is there poetry in Psalms, for example? You have Deborah talking about the stars are coming to fight for the Israelites. Obviously, that's a song because the next chapter afterwards, chapter four and five, you have clearly that they actually fought themselves. So there was metaphor. So, no, I'm not going to take any passage in the Old Testament and especially in the New Testament, even out of Matthew, one single passage. I think it's greater evidence.

for reliability in one sense if many were silent on it. I'm not going to build a whole theological position off of one verse or one passage. I'm going to take many together. The Old Testament God left room for 400 years for certain people groups to turn, to change, to show love and humanitarian rights.

He welcomed slave girls, prostitutes. He welcomed Canaanites into the kingdom. I mean, look at Rahab, for example, another Gentile prostitute. The type of grace and love. I went over this with you last time we talked about Genesis chapter 12, right out of the gate. He's the one who walks through the dead pieces of animals rather than saying, Abraham, you have to do it because judgment is

talking already about in Genesis 11 is going to land on God. That is the best form of sacrifice and love I could ever imagine. The other side is not contradicting himself, but it's showing his holiness. Can I ask you a question?

We've spoken about God inflicting suffering on animals. It gets a bit complicated because, like you say, the genre of the text is important. There could be room for things like hyperbole, whatever. But the example that I gave in my opening, I said it was a direct question and it hasn't been answered. And that's due to the sake of time, of course, but I want to give you the opportunity now.

That deer leg trapped under a branch on its own. No moral free choice, no moral soul development, no people looking at this with a chance to save them, giving them an ability to achieve some higher order good. Just starvation for, say, I don't know, a week before finally being stumbled upon by a mountain lion who will kill it by sticking its jaws in its throat and it will die excruciatingly over the course of

of a few minutes. This kind of thing happens routinely throughout the animal kingdom. I said that if I gave you the opportunity right now, if I said that you were about to become a random wild animal somewhere in the world right now, when I press this button, I think you would kill yourself before I had the opportunity because you know that you're about to enter a life of untold misery. The question is why? Why is this allowed? And bear in mind that I don't know is not an answer.

Oh, yes, it is an answer. I don't know is called honesty, Alex. Well, there we have it then. I agree with you. I don't know is called honesty. Agnosticism on this question is called honesty. We don't know. You don't know. I don't know. Unfair, messed up world. That deer is not born into the Garden of Eden.

And because we are born into an unfair, messed up world, I've got a bigger concern than the deer. I've got the concern of my niece who died at the age of seven in a horrible car wreck. I have a bigger concern, Alex. I have the concern of my nephew who was born with spina bifida. I have a bigger concern, Alex, and that's my younger sister who was born with brain damage and had to go through special ed.

We are all born, the deer, the human being, all of us are born into a cursed, unfair world. Not because God created it that way, but because we human beings told God to take a hike and Lucifer told God to take a hike. And when God's hand is back, chaos erupts. Now, the real question is, is there a solution?

And the amazing message of the gospel of Jesus Christ is God loves us so much that he provides the ultimate solution, forgiveness and eternal life into heaven where there will be no more suffering, no more death. Now, what's your solution to the very real problem of animal suffering, of human suffering? And you guys, if you're going to be honest, you know you have no solution other than despair.

Because poor suckers get born at the wrong time in the wrong place. It's just fate, destiny and chance. And why don't you try and be honest about how you have to work through the despair and the meaninglessness of life in light of the fact that there is no God. I just want to point out something. I think you've misunderstood the problem. The problem is one of internal inconsistency, right?

Either you have to bite the bullet and say the suffering of innocence is okay, or you agree it's not okay, and then you have to explain how this suffering is allowed. Now, to the question that

Cliff pointed out and he said, well, humans told God to take a hike. Animals have been suffering for hundreds of millions of years before humans existed. The other point that you need to take account of is that evolution, mass catastrophes like the KT event that wiped out the dinosaurs, these are the engines of how we got here.

So if you're going to blame it on Lucifer, if you're going to blame it on him, that makes him the author of our creation. Because had these events not happened, had evolution not worked the way it did, we wouldn't be here. So these are the engines of our creation. This is why so many theists, they say we accept evolution. That's how God used the means that God used to get to us. But these are incredibly violent means.

So either you say Lucifer is responsible, but that means he is the author of our creation. Or you have to say, well, no, it was Adam and Eve in the garden. But that doesn't answer the question of hundreds of millions of years of animal suffering before. I never said it was Lucifer's fault. I never said it was Adam and Eve's fault. I said.

I said there are consequences to created beings flipping God off and telling God to get lost. It's not the devil's fault. It's not Adam and Eve's fault. It is a consequence of created beings choosing to live their life separate from God. So I don't blame devil. So which created beings are we talking about? Which ones are we talking about? Which ones are we talking about?

Which ones are we talking about cliff? Sorry, which created beings if it's not Lucifer. It's not Adam and Eve Who are we talking about? Obviously, they're also demons who rebelled against God the demonic says therefore that would like who's Phil's question is specifically that the suffering of non-human animals before homo sapiens arrived on the scene to say, you know 450,000 years ago an animal suffering why?

Who is it that rebelled that bring this about? I do not know. What I do know is the consequence of free autonomous individuals rebelling against God is chaos, unfairness, injustice fills the gap. That comes later because that's when humans come on the scene. But we're talking about whether we would expect to find before humans even arrive on the scene, let alone afterwards.

billions of years of suffering and death and destruction with no human beings, no Adam and Eve, no even like moral agents to do this kind of stuff. Like the only options available are that somehow these animals are responsible for rebelling against God in some way, or there's some kind of pre-human existing demons or Lucifer, in which case you would be blaming it on them. Or the answer is you simply don't know, in which case sounds again like a bit of an appeal to agnosticism.

That's baloney. That's not an appeal to agnosticism. It's instead a simple, humble statement that I really don't know. And for anybody to argue that they've got all the answers to all the difficult questions is ridiculous.

is the height of human arrogance. You have still not faced the impossibility of agnosticism when it comes to meaning and purpose in life, the value of a human life, ethics in life after death. And you intentionally evaded, and I don't blame you, Alex, I'd do the same thing if I was sitting in your chair, but you still are going to have to put your head on your pillow tonight, and you're going to have to acknowledge

I'm a pretty highly motivated guy. I wouldn't have gotten the education at Oxford that I have. I wouldn't work as hard as I do at being rational and logical. You are living for something. You have confidence in someone, Alex. Now, come on, just be honest with me and tell me where your confidence, your faith is.

But that does not answer the question. Hang on, Alex. That doesn't answer the question, right? We asked you who was responsible. Then you said demons. And the problem that I faced, the problem that I brought up is going to be exactly the same. That makes then demons the authors of our creation. Because as I said, we

We wouldn't be here if it wasn't for the evolutionary process, unless you want to deny evolution. I mean, feel free to do that if you wish. But then you're going to have more mountains of scientific evidence against you. Right. So as long as you accept the scientific evidence, then these processes are how we got here. So whether you say it's Adam and Eve, whether you say it's the devil, whether you say it's demons, you're going to be faced with exactly the same problem, Cliff.

False. You have not listened carefully to me. What I have said is God created free, autonomous individuals to live in harmony and love with him. When we rebel against him, there are consequences that we never imagined. Adam and Eve never imagined. Lucifer never imagined. I never imagined. But before that, I rebelled against God.

There are amazing consequences that happen and God created a good world. And when created beings rebelled against him, the consequences were horrific. Do you know what redundancy is in design? Do you know what that phrase means? No, I don't.

Okay, so redundancy means you plan for bad things happening. So one of my hobbies is skydiving. And if our main parachute doesn't work, guess what? We have a reserve parachute. I have a backup for my altimeter, an audible altimeter, in case that doesn't work.

You build in redundancy into a system. My friend is a pilot. They have multiple backups in case things go wrong. Isn't it bad design for God to design in a world that is so fragile that if a few creatures rebel, hundreds of millions, billions, probably trillions of animals are suffering? Isn't that bad design? Isn't that a lack of redundancy? No engineer would do that.

Also, in order to love, we have to have a free will. If we have no free will, love is impossible. And when God creates us with a free will to love, he is obviously taking a limited risk. And the limited risk is that we will choose not to love. We will choose to hate and be apathetic. And there are horrible consequences to that. But the cross of Jesus Christ is a clear statement that God has provided the solution.

God has provided the solution, forgiveness, reconciliation with him, with each other and eternal life. And you guys are looking a gift horse in the face when you reject Christ. He's the solution that there is to this horrible problem of animal suffering, human suffering, death of all of us. You're right. It's a real painful issue.

Christ, death and resurrection is the most amazing solution to this problem. There's no better one. And I love that you guys are taking animals so seriously. It's almost like you're appealing to this type of outrage again, but your desire to look at animals like they have souls.

I mean, what is a soul? What is a self? Human beings have this. The reason why we were created in God's image and that type of worldview spread throughout the entire world. And now all of a sudden, slaves, kids, women, people of other ethnicities all of a sudden had worse. That came from the biblical God. No other God. Definitely not atheism or anything of the sort. So I love that you guys are talking about animals and valuing them so much. I need to jump in here. I need to jump in here. Listen, we...

We are running out of time.

Where is this word coming from? If they're just chemicals, if they're just a form of different fur and bones, why do I care so much? You shouldn't care. Very quickly, very quickly. The idea that animals have moral worth goes back to Christianity. I'm sorry, have you not heard of Jainism? They have as a simple, one of the most basic principles, no violence to living beings. Have you heard of Motsi?

- See, have you heard him not say? - Either of them. Just like Augustine you brought up earlier. - It doesn't matter that you don't, you're not understanding the point. Hold on, I have to speak here. I have to speak, otherwise, you know.

I don't want to just be a potted plant, as has been said. Sorry about that. Okay, one moment. As I want to quickly mention, I was muted on Zoom. So Phil was not ignoring me. He just couldn't hear me. But I said just 60 seconds ago, without realizing I'm muted still, is I want to give Alex a chance to respond and then Sky Phil...

And then Phil, and then we'll go into Q&A. So got about two minutes or so. Alex, the floor is all yours. But man, this is getting kind of ludicrous. I mean, Phil just said a second ago, you said that the care about animals comes from Christianity. Phil said, have you heard of Jainism? You said, well, I don't believe in Jainism. Of course you don't believe in Jainism. What Phil is saying is not that Jainism is true,

Phil is saying that Jainism already cared about animals outside of and before Christianity. That's what he's saying. Undermining your claim that care for animals can only come from Christianity. Of course, you don't buy into Jainism, but it undermines the point that the care about animals can only come from Christianity because we have evidence of a world religion that believes in the care of animals without and outside of Christianity. Second point, you might not know what redundancy is in planning, but it seems like you know what redundancy is in argumentation. Every single time that Phil has brought up

the point of non-human animal suffering before the fall of man. I'm going to underline that. I'm going to quote it again. I'm going to put it in bold. Before the fall of man.

The answer has been there are consequences to human creatures who rebel against God, fine, but before that occurred, before any human being had even set foot on the planet, there were billions of years of animals suffering. This cannot be explained with reference to some mysterious consequence for some rebellious mythical human beings who apparently existed in some garden or perhaps are a mythological representation of the first

proper homo sapiens who ever walked the planet billions of years before they even set foot on the planet there was already suffering you cannot say that that suffering is a result of a consequence of human sin that is what has been said every single time we put this question up but we still have not had an answer to why animals again underline bold before the original sin of human beings was suffering and dying in their brutal manners thirdly earlier and this this was a while ago this is a while ago

Cliff said to me that I was being intellectually dishonest. He said that I was acting intellectually dishonestly or that he sort of didn't believe what I was saying or something like that. I may be wrong. I may be incorrect. What I'm saying may be entirely stupid, but I cannot have it said that I'm not arguing honestly here. I'm telling you what I believe and I'm telling you what I don't know. You said, and I will quote you as best I can. I will quote you as best I can.

You said that claiming to have the answer to the biggest questions of the universe is the height of intellectual arrogance. You then told me that me saying I don't know the answer to the most fundamental, foundational question of human existence is an impossible option. And that when you did.

didn't know an answer to a question. That was called basic humility. Well, I agree with you. I agree with you. You don't know. I don't know. There are many things that we do not know. It is not me who claims to have the ultimate answer to these questions. It is you and your worldview. I cannot have it said that agnosticism is not a response or that I'm somehow evading the questions. Tell me that I'm wrong. Fine. Tell me that I'm stupid. Fine. Tell me that I'm not understanding your question. Maybe I'm answering the wrong question because I've misheard you. But to say that I'm intentionally evading your question

because of some kind of fault in my worldview, is an attack on my character that I just can't let stand, because I strive and pride myself on my ability to honestly engage with the questions that people are answering and honestly tell them that I don't know when I don't know. But I really, really want to hear an answer to this question of why non-human animals were suffering, one more time I'll underline it, before any human being performed any kind of rebellious action that could have consequences on the planet.

I said so clearly I don't do this I wanted a chance to respond Cliff but that was my hope was that rather than going into another question we go into the Q&A

I can give you a really quick chance to respond, Cliff, since the question was nonetheless asked. I do want to see, Phil, if you had any last points you wanted to make. I think that you earlier wanted to say something. I'm not sure you got to. Yeah, I just wanted to quickly say, you know, Motsi was a Chinese philosopher who lived around 400 BC, and he defended a concept of universal love. So this idea that, you know, the moral concern we have for others comes from Christianity, it is just false. It is wrong.

All right, so Stuart and I got to take a course in communication because we have miscommunicated. I'm sorry for that. Alex, my whole point has been there were created beings before Adam and Eve who rebelled against God. In the first couple of verses of Genesis, you realize there was chaos and the spirit of God was hovering over the waters. Something was wrong before the creation of Adam and Eve.

All right. So it's not an issue of it all came apart because of Adam and Eve. I think it all came apart long before Adam and Eve because created beings like Lucifer, like the demons, rebelled against God. Second point, Alex, I am not making a statement about your character.

I am making a statement instead that it is impossible to be agnostic about the question of human value, human meaning, morality, and life after death because you have to live life. Because you have to live life, you have no choice. But to answer the question, the person I'm talking to, do they have value or not? Do I have value or not? You can't evade that. You have to answer that.

Because how you treat that person is based on whether you view them as being valuable or not valuable. You have no choice but to figure out what's the meaning of my life. Because you have to set an agenda, a schedule for today, tomorrow, next week.

And those decisions that you make about your schedule show your priorities, show your ambition in life. Thirdly, you have no choice, Alex. This is not a question of me attacking your character. It's a simple statement, Alex. You have to live life. And the way you live your life ethically shows what you believe. I'm sorry. Your actions are based on thought.

They're based on a worldview. That's all I'm saying, Alex. And I'm sorry, Alex, it's not an attack on your character. You have to go to funerals and you have to decide, is there life after death or not? You cannot just say I'm agnostic because the dead body is there. The question is, are you going to see that person or not? So that's all I meant, Alex. This is no attack on your character. Alex, I love you. I like you. You're a great guy. I love talking with you. But agnosticism is impossible now.

when it comes to those fundamental four issues I pointed out to you, because you have to live life. That's all I meant. I like you too, for what it's worth. And the only quarrel I had in terms of a character attack was saying that I was intentionally evading the question. I don't believe that that's what I was doing. Maybe I was unintentionally evading the question. Maybe I didn't understand what you were asking me. But to say that I was intentionally evading a question runs counter to the very essence of my, for want of a better word, ministry online. I apologize for that, Alex.

The reason I was so put off by you is because we've had a lot of thoughtful conversation. And when you so glibly dismissed my question of you, I'm beginning to wonder what on earth is he doing here? Because you're a very thoughtful guy. You're a brilliant guy. No question about it in my mind. But when I asked you that hard question and you just glibly answered it in a few sentences and then moved on, I'm thinking, good gracious, what's going on here?

And you said earlier that you didn't know yourself psychologically. And I'm not saying that in a cheeky kind of way, but I think a lot of the psychological leanings connected to the experience, like Cliff keeps talking about, is really important here. This looks like a great opportunity. I'm happy to. I think we've got Q&A, don't we now? You betcha. We have many, many questions, folks. So I'm going to try to move as fast as possible. We're looking for sincere questions. I doubt we're going to be able to fit many more in. Just to be really quick.

Everybody, you okay on time? How much time do you have left as I try to move through as fast as possible? I think I was the only one that seemed to have a constraint, but I think I could go for as long as everyone else can probably. How long do we usually go? I mean, we can't go too, too long, but we could definitely do it. 45 minutes is what we agreed on for the format, but... That's fine by me. That's good.

Okay, we're gonna move fast. Base Autist, thanks very much, says, Alex, I'm a longtime fan. I became a Christian, but I still love your work and your honesty. I'm curious, though, why it seems you've left Islam alone. Is this for personal reasons or safety? Much love and God bless. Yeah, well, of course, it is a much less safe thing to do. That's one of the benefits of Christianity, by the way. But I do think that I simply know less about it. Of course, I don't believe Islam is true, and I believe it has all kinds of problems.

and moral objections that I'm sure that if I made my moral objections to Islam plain, Clifford Stewart would not want to object to my meta-ethics, but instead just be happy that I was doing it. But I just know less about it. I feel like I'm pretty well versed in at least the New Testament at this point. And it's mostly a consequence of that. But of course, you do have to be much more careful as well, because I've never had to fear for my safety when debating a Christian like today.

You got it. And folks, I want to remind you, we're going to try to keep it to questions that are serious. And if you have a fun super chat, we appreciate it. But we're going to try to be very picky. TrueDuck says, what translation of the Bible do you recommend? Cliff and Stuart, I currently use the NIV translation as it's my favorite. Nearly infallible version. Yeah, I would stay away from

The TNIV, the third wave feminist interpretations. And I would go with the ESV or NIV. The NIV reads kind of like the New York Times and the ESV. My wife and I always debate over which one we're going to read at night because she's a big ESV. I'm a big NIV. So New York Times, it's kind of swifter. It's more our language. But then the ESV really sticks closely to the Greek. That's what I studied in seminary. And so the ESV is pretty impressive.

I hear the NASB is also quite good for a scholarly sort of as close to the text as possible. The NRSV, I think, is probably maybe my favorite as a balance between telling the story and accurate to the source material.

Thank you very much. So Lotto23 says, What people don't understand is that God can kill anybody in the physical world. And guess what? He is not breaking his own law. God can only break his law by killing a spiritual being. Yes, people die in the physical, but their soul does not. For example, Satan. Any thoughts on this?

So the thing that we have to point out is the argument that we're making is an abductive argument. What is the best explanation for all this violence in the Bible? So you can say, if you like, that God can kill people and he's not breaking any law. But the question is, what should we expect to find in the Bible if it was written by people of a more brutal time? I think you would expect to find the brutality that you do, in fact, find. So the nature of the argument is abductive.

You got it. Thank you very much. This one from The People's Queeness says, If God can do anything except that which is logically impossible, i.e., create a Ronald Square, why does the Trinity not fall into that category of logical impossibility? Because God is a spirit. He's not a physical, corporal body. Secondly, because God is an eternal spirit who is outside of space and time, he is not constrained to our physical limitations. God is one.

Jesus repeated the Shema of Israel, hear O Israel, the Lord our God is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And then he talked about the Father as being God. He talked about himself as being God. And he talked about the Spirit as being God. So it's one God revealed in three dimensions, three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

You got it. Thank you very much. Thanks for that feedback on the mic. All right, we're on track. Crookseal says, if God does not interfere due to free will, how do we reconcile the biblical God? Is it not coercive to destroy mankind and put the literal fear of God into those who will repopulate the earth? Yeah, so Pharaoh, he hardened his own heart nine times, and then God hardened his heart.

So you do have a combination of free will and a form of God's sovereignty, but there's no stripping away of free will per se because you have in Romans 1 as well where God eventually gave them up to their own desires. So it's the hardening of the own heart. You look at this in criminal law, for example. Somebody can easily get to the point of searing their own conscience.

So it's not God playing a puppet game, just like out of Acts 26 or Hezekiah in the book of Isaiah. You know, 15 more years to his life, but then he has to do his own bandages. And so you could say that's determined. Well, yes, God gave him 15 more years, but he said, you have a free will too, buddy. You better bandage those wounds of yours. So it's a combination of the two. Thank you very much. Alejandro Vallejo says, if morality depends on God, then morality doesn't.

is subjective to God. If it's objective, then it's independent of God, and God being the standard only changes the question. It doesn't solve the dichotomy.

In order to have morality, you have to have a mind. Inanimate matter has no ability to make a distinction between justice and injustice, good versus evil. There has to be a mind. God is an eternal being, an eternal mind, whose character has defined justice, goodness, integrity, honesty, love, compassion, and grace throughout eternity.

If there is no God, then it is either the powerful elite who define right and wrong, or it is the majority who define right and wrong, or it is the individual who defines right and wrong. In all three of those situations, morality is obviously relative. But if there is an eternal mind whose character defines right and wrong throughout eternity, then it is possible for there to be objective morals.

You got it. Thank you very much. This next one coming in from, oh, I hadn't mentioned. Folks, do want to remind you,

or for the first time maybe you're hearing, DebateCon 5 is going to be this February 15th. It's a possibility. There are talks. A certain Alex O'Connor might be there. The negotiations are ongoing with this potential opponent. But I've got to tell you, it is going to be huge. You don't want to miss it. Newark, New Jersey, February 15th and 16th. And keep an eye out for the tickets link as that will be coming out soon. So you can watch it in person. If you're far from Newark,

All the debates will be free and live for the public from the Modern Day Debate YouTube page on the day they occur. Native Wildman says, Phil, can Christianity be considered a mythology?

Yes, of course it can. I mean, it has many mythological elements. What we see, particularly in Genesis, is that they take mythologies from other cultures. So if you consider the Enuma Elish, the Enuma Elish has a very similar creation story. Obviously, they've repackaged it into a monotheistic form. But certainly, you know, we see also the Great Flood in Sumerian stories, their mythology.

So yes, it's a different version of other mythologies that surround them. I mean, the Enuma Elish, for example, has six tablets describing the different processes of creation. Is it a coincidence that the Bible has six days of creation? Is it a coincidence that the solid dome of the sky is in the Enuma Elish? That's basically the body of Tiamat.

These are not coincidences. These are copying other mythologies and repackaging them in a monotheistic form. Thank you. And Logan Nichols says, As a Christian, how do I get over the death of someone I was in love with? My doubt for God has become overwhelming, and I hope she is up there waiting for me, and I have had thoughts of joining her. I'm afraid, I hope, if you mean that you've had thoughts of joining her, you mean like suicide.

let me connect you to a mental health specialist in case that is the case. I'm at modern day debate at g at gmail.com. Just want to help you out. And if that's what you mean, but I do also want to give a chance to Cliff and Stuart. I think that they were asking this question toward you. Let me know if you'd like me to reread it. Sure. Go ahead.

It's a great question. I've had loved ones pass as well. It's one of those painful things in the world. That's why the Christian worldview makes more sense to me than any other when it comes to death. Read 1 Corinthians 15. It's read at endless amounts of funerals when I'm at the bedside of a loved one passing or somebody just as a pastor passing.

You give them the Bible and the tears start to flow and yet the hope starts to come at the same time. If I'm an atheist standing there, I don't know what to do. I just tell them that they are about to fall in through a trap door to non-existence. And I'm sorry, but you're going to have to suck it up and get on with life. That's about to end. But for your personal case, sister or brother,

I just encourage you to lean into God. You have David in the Psalms. I would read the Psalms. Why are you downcast on my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God for you. Praise him, my Savior and my Lord. He says that three times in chapter 42 and 43 while his own son is trying to kill him.

So he's in the throes of it. That's the hope one. But then turn to Psalm 39 or 88, which talks about death is my only friend. My uncle who lost a child, he couldn't do anything in the Bible other than just David and Psalm 88. My death is my only friend. This is the most realistic and rational. And then first Kings 19, I would cling to that scripture as well.

where Elijah has defeated the prophets of Baal, and he's up there and yet wants to kill himself. He wants God to take his life because he feels like all of a sudden he's the only one. So he goes kind of on this manic high to this manic low, and then God comes as an angel, and basically encourages him and says at the same time, it's not your life to take because you were created in my image. You're not just a bag of chemicals. And what does the angel do, though? He doesn't just say, hey, you're suicidal. Why don't you go pray it out?

No, he gives cognitive behavioral therapy first and says, you're not the only one alive. Only work on your mind. Then he says, here's some bread and drink, drink and eat in order to refurbish yourself. Then it's the encounter with him. So mental health sister, I would just cling to the text as much as possible. Cry out to God in an honest way. God understands how we speak when we are desperate and just keep speaking to him though. Burst down and we just knocked down his door.

So that's why the Bible, the biblical God, makes the most sense when it comes to suffering and real hope and comfort. And also, Uchi said, Hey, Christian God, if you are real, I dare you to stop the war in Gaza that's currently happening. And I would like it to be instant. If you don't, we can interpret that as you not existing or being deaf, I guess, according to Matthew 7, verses 7 through 8. I'm feeling cliff and short. You want to respond to that?

We have to be very careful the way we approach God in prayer. Prayer is not a way to twist God's arm to get what I want. Prayer is not an exercise in getting. Rather, prayer is an experiment in intimacy. And when Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane, he prayed, Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me. Yet not my will, but your will be done. So that is the appropriate posture in prayer. And remember, Jesus did not get his prayer answered in the Garden of Gethsemane the way he wanted it to be answered.

So the idea that God answers prayer always by giving us what we ask is a little bit on the naive side. Prayer is not a way to twist a reluctant God's arm to get what I want. Rather, prayer is a way to get more of God, not to get more of what I want. You got it. Did I ask this? Forgive me if I did. Native Wildman, the question about whether or not Christianity can be considered a mythology.

Okay, thank you. And this one from Aiming Upwards. They say, for all of the speakers, according to the Bible, would a person be saved if he were to humble himself, turn from his sin, and actively put his trust in Jesus based solely, in all caps again, on the evidence that he is a sinner and in need of a cure, even if the likelihood that Jesus rose from the dead appears minuscule, such as

like a mustard seed. My reading of the New Testament is that it's

Jesus' death and resurrection, according to the canonical tradition that saves people, not belief in the resurrection of Jesus. I think that what it seems to evolve earlier sources in the New Testament, I think, have Jesus talking about separating those who do good deeds from those who do bad deeds, which is kind of interesting given that you're supposed to be saved through the resurrection. But I think that the position that eventually we sort of land upon in the early church, at least by the time of the Gospel of John, is that you're

saved through Jesus dying for your sins, not because you believe that that happened as a fact. Jesus is often talking about doing the will of the Father, repenting of your sins. That seems to be the kind of focal point, not some kind of propositional belief through which you're saved.

I'll just add that there's no consensus on this, right? Different Christians have different views. And that's a problem because if this is so important, shouldn't it all be clear? Like there's a problem if the teacher is teaching something to the students and the students all disagree on what the teacher is saying, that's a problem for the teacher.

Yeah, I mean, it is interesting to see that like in, I couldn't remember the passage, I just looked it up, it's in the Gospel of Matthew chapter 13, verses 47 onwards. Once again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish. When it was full, the fishermen pulled it up onto the shore. They sat down and collected the good fish in baskets, but threw the bad away. This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into a blazing furnace where they will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

have you understood all of these things? Jesus asked. Yes, they replied, implying that it is something about doing good or bad deeds that will determine your fate, possibly in the realm of the gnashing of teeth. But of course, as somebody who doesn't believe in a consistent Jesus existing throughout these gospels, I think that's what that passage in Matthew is saying. But there are other gospels, particularly as they develop later, that sort of do away with the good person, bad person dichotomy and instead say that all fall short and

Jesus' resurrection will save you. Are we supposed to answer this question or are the atheists? They had asked all of you.

Do you want me to punch up for a second? Yeah. All right, I'm going to punch it. First of all, the inconsistency piece, it's not inconsistent at all. You're going to have to say then, fine, Paul and James are inconsistent. When we get this faith that works is dead. No, it builds upon itself beautifully, and it's picked up after even Jesus's life. It's not like a new Christianity comes about. So you have to read it. Matthew 7, Matthew 25. Yes, Jesus will say to many, I never knew you. Depart from me.

But then John 3, 16, whoever believes in me, believe. But then Acts chapter 8, you're right, Alex. I like how you kind of define belief there in some ways. You get the word pistis in reliance really upon the resurrection, where it's more of a trusting relationship with God. It's not just this type of mental assent where, oh, yeah, the evidence of the resurrection, that really makes sense. I'm going to believe in Christ. So no, there's no inconsistency. There's no contradiction. I

I don't think it could line up any better if I'm being honest when it comes to, no, Jesus is saying you better be consistent and not be a hypocrite. I mean, that's how we look at every relationship. I'm not going to stay in a relationship if somebody rips me off and gossips about me endlessly behind my back. No, I'm going to build a trusting relationship based off the evidence of that person's character. So that's what Jesus is doing. He's building upon it in a beautiful way.

I wouldn't say it's a strict inconsistency, by the way. I sort of naturally read it as a theological development. Of course, you're not going to see it that way. But just to be clear, I'm not saying it's strictly inconsistent. The reason I don't think it's a theological development is because Jesus, Paul and James are horribly consistent. Faith in Christ is crucial. Then sincere faith will be shown by works. Insincere faith will be shown by no good works.

So faith is crucial for Jesus, Paul, and James. But then the question is, is it a hypocritical faith, an insincere faith, which is shown by no works, or is it a sincere, genuine faith displayed by works?

You got it. Thank you very much for that. This one from Deathtillus Part says, Someone made a documentary that appears to empirically prove that the biblical God exists. They show the supernatural event and interview witnesses. I think it's the best proof for God's existence. For the film, Google Michael casting Pearl's truth.

It would be awesome if that was what did it. If after all this searching, the guy in the live chat pointed me to a documentary online and I was like, okay, fair enough. So maybe I'll give that a try. You got it. This one from Liam Moore. Is it more likely that the complexity of the Bible is explained by a coincidence or a supernatural God? Sorry, who was that for?

I would say this is for Cliff and Stuart. They say, is it more likely that the complexity of the Bible is explained by a coincidence or, actually this I think is for you now, or a supernatural God? I'm thinking it's an atheist question. Yeah, I think, can I say something about complexity? Because there's different definitions of complexity. So one definition of complexity is that there's many...

elements to something so if you ask why are there many elements to the bible um well if there were multiple authors that would explain why it's complex so i don't think it's a coincidence nor do i think it's from a god

so but of course we have to define different ways of thinking about complexity so the kind of complexity that's that's troublesome here is things like uh things that shouldn't happen by coincidence there's this argument from so-called undesigned coincidences for example in the bible where it seems like the different gospels align in ways that weren't by design so i think that um

I'm trying to think of an example like when Jesus, I can't remember who it is that he sends out to go and get some bread, which disciple it is. But earlier in a different gospel at a different point we're told that that disciple is from the place that they're in so he would be the person that would know where to go and get the bread, and that seems like a

not not like a designed coincidence but rather just evidence that we're reading accurate account I think that kind of stuff is explained by the fact that I think that a lot of the the gospels are probably reporting things that actually happened you know I believe that Jesus was crucified I believe that he was walking around preaching a ministry I believe that people thought that he was healing people of their of their ailments um and so I would imagine that things like

knowledge of the surrounding areas, knowledge of the different places visited in Acts, this kind of stuff might just be explained by the fact that those journeys did really happen. But I think that on the stuff that matters, like the resurrection,

And, you know, the mythological origins of Jesus, you know, the virgin birth, which sort of establishes his divine origins. These kinds of things are not riddled with complex, undesigned coincidence, but instead riddled with troublesome contradictions. So I think it can be explained by the fact that a lot of it probably did actually happen.

You got it. This one from Faith Walker says,

Phil will probably differ from me here because I'm an emotivist, which is a form of moral non-cognitivism. I don't believe that moral statements make truth value claims, and so I don't think you can make claims of the kind that human beings have inherent value in the way that a moral objectivist would. I can say those words, but for the emotivist, that's translated as an expression of emotion, which is horribly pessimistic and nihilistic for some, but it is unfortunately, I think, the best analysis of

of people's moral terms. So I'm probably the wrong person to answer that question because I would just sort of agree with the implicit objection. But Phil probably has something else to say.

Yeah, well, I think you have to ground your morals in something, right? Whether you're an objectivist or a subjectivist, you've got to ground it in something. Now, my own personal opinion is that these categories of objectivity and subjectivity don't really fit the complexity of morality. In fact, one philosopher said something like morality is like mathematics, but harder. So the reason I say that is because some property of objectivity is mind independence.

So if morality is based on God, it literally can't be objective because God is a mind, right? But there's other properties. So one property you might think of in morality is it's the sort of thing that rational people would agree to if they were given full information. So one theory of morality you might entertain was brought in by the philosopher John Rawls, and his idea was, well, if you had something like a veil of ignorance, you don't know what position you're going to be in the world.

whether you're going to be black or white, rich or poor, human or dog. You know, what rules of morality would you agree to? That is potentially a way of deriving objective morality. There are lots and lots of different schemes that you can look up, things like Cornell realism, constructivism, moral Platonism. There's all kinds of different schemes. But we should point out that, you know, most philosophers are actually atheists and they are actually moral realists.

But we don't agree as to which one of these schemes is actually correct. So we can't really give a definitive answer to that. And in my own personal opinion, morality is more complicated than fitting into objective or subjective things. But what we do do is we ground it in, I think, the sentience

of other living things. So think of it this way, right? Imagine you have, Alex is really keen on the trolley problem, right? Which is this idea that there's a trolley coming, you could pull the lever, the trolley goes and kills, you know, someone's on the track, someone, it's either going to kill one person or maybe five people. What do you do? Most people would say, okay, I'm going to pull the lever so that it kills one person. Now, imagine you were asked to

You can kill a kitten or you can kill a tree. OK, which would you pick? I think most people would would pick killing the tree rather than the kitten. Why? Because kittens are sentient. They have feelings. They have emotions. They can feel pain. This is what you ground morality in. Whether you are a subjectivist or objectivist, I don't think it actually matters. You ground it in something like that.

And that will actually give you, I think, concern for animals, concern for humans. That is a much better way of grounding morality than what God thinks. Because, you know, then you're left with the euthyphroge dilemma. And the modern version of the euthyphroge dilemma is something like this. Either God has reasons for what he commands or he doesn't. If he has reasons, it's the reasons that are grounding the morality and not God. If he doesn't have reasons...

then the morality that comes from God is arbitrary. Either way, you don't get objective morals from God. It's good that you are pro-life, Phil. I like that. This one from Kenny Lorino says, For the agnostic or atheist speaker, you say you have nothing you are living for at this time or do not know. When looking at the death, resurrection, and the amazing way that Jesus Christ lived, what is it that turns you away?

I don't find the accounts compelling. I think that the best evidence for the resurrection in particular are things like the post-resurrection appearances. Mark's gospel, the version that doesn't have the long-ended that was added on later, doesn't contain any post-resurrection appearances at all. In Matthew's gospel, we do have some post-resurrection appearances. Jesus meets the disciples in Galilee, as was predicted.

In Luke, the location has changed to Jerusalem, where Jesus appears to his disciples, and they're then told not to leave Jerusalem, which they don't until after the Pentecost.

And so there seems to be a sort of strange contradiction there, but more to the point, Luke also includes a new story of the road to Emmaus, and it's in John's gospel, the latest of the gospels, where we have even more stories, such as Jesus apparently walking through walls, as well as appearing to Thomas in the famous story of doubting Thomas. So it seems as though, as the stories go on, the more resurrection appearances that there are,

and the more fantastical they become. This is not inconsistent with them actually happening, but again I ask what's more likely? Is it that it just so happens that the earlier the source, the less resurrection appearances there are? There's zero in Mark, two in Matthew, two in Luke, and four in John in terms of total number of appearances.

as well as this a lot of the arguments that are relied upon i don't think are as strong as robert put forward for example when people ask why couldn't the disciples have made it up or why couldn't the disciples have stolen the body or something one of the key arguments is the martyrdom of the apostles as the apostles were willing to be put to the death and were put to the death for what they believed and you don't die for something you need you know to be false the

The problem is, of course, that the Gospels and the New Testament, I should say, only record the death of two of the apostles. One is Judas, who dies either by suicide, by suicide, either by hanging in Matthew's Gospel or by falling over headlong and having his guts spill out in the book of Acts. That's one. The other is James, the brother of John, who's killed by Herod. And we're not told precisely why. The rest of every single account of the apostles being martyred for their faith relies solely and fully and entirely on

on church tradition, which, hey, may give us some reason to think that it was the case, but isn't the most evidential of bases. Also, even according to church tradition, the only apostle who didn't die for his faith and instead died of old age, do you know who it is? It was John, the son of Zebedee, who apparently is the one that writes the gospel containing the most fantastical claims about Jesus. So there are many reasons I have to sort of doubt the efficacy of these historical arguments in establishing the

the resurrection, not to mention that all this business about the graves rising, people rising from the dead in Matthew walking around and that seeming like a weird embellishment. My opinion, along with a lot of scholars, for example, Dale Allison falls on this line, that this is something that obviously didn't happen. It can't have happened historically. And there are lots of reasons to think that's the case. I'd recommend Dale Allison's treatise on the resurrection, by the way, to anybody. It is absolutely phenomenal. And he points out

what I think is key to that particular passage, which is that if you believe, listening at home that is, that that story didn't happen, that the graves did not open, there weren't multiple people walking around Jerusalem, appearing to many, as was said. First thing to say is that we have the same kind of evidence for Paul's 500 witnesses. We have one mention

from somebody who wasn't there that 500 people saw Jesus. By the way, the Greek there, the Greek word for appeared to 500 could also mean appeared over or above. I think we're talking about some kind of vision in the sky, especially if you just think about how 500 people could at one time, as Paul says, all see the physically resurrected Jesus. Even if it was a physical thing, the people at the back would be kind of squinting and I wouldn't trust their testimony. Also in Matthew's gospel, sorry to be banging on here, in Matthew's gospel when Jesus does appear to the 11 disciples, that's 12 minus Judas, of course,

It's Matthew says probably unavoidably some doubted. He said he tells us that of the 11 disciples that saw the physically resurrected Jesus in front of them, some of them doubted. So when I'm asked, how could these disciples believe in the resurrection if they didn't actually see it? I can ask in return. Well, how could they have seen it and still not believed in it? I don't think the evidence is as strong as it's often made out to be. It's the same reason, though, why Cliff keeps hammering away at you as being an agnostic.

And a hyper skeptic. I don't know. I mean, look, I think you're very genuine. So does he, Alex. But some doubted and left the faith.

That's more evidence for me that it actually happened. Because how many of us think that if we just have a revelation and somehow we're connected to God and, oh my gosh, that's going to lead me to saving faith. It's a complete misunderstanding of what true faith and building trust is. So that's one of my favorite passages for actually the resurrection of Christ. Interesting how it's one of your leading ones to doubt.

So that's a psychological thing. See, it shows the psychology. You talk about your psychology. It shows the psychology of those who doubted at the time. You know, just because you see this apparition or see even the physical being doesn't mean you're going to say, oh, I give my life to you. No, that's going to take a different type of trust and a different type of belief.

But can I just add that there were people that committed themselves to Christ but didn't believe in the resurrection? So, for example, there were the Abionites. These were an early sect of Christianity, and they did not believe in the physical resurrection. They didn't believe that Jesus was born a God. He was born of a he was human, normal person, but he becomes the son of God.

as the adopted son of God. God adopts him because of his wondrous ways, his perfect moral teachings, things like this. So they did not believe in a physical resurrection. Of course, there were also the Gnostics. The Gnostics, they

They had very different beliefs about Jesus. They thought he was a completely different being to the Old Testament God. So there were people and they think the Old Testament God was an evil demiurge. That makes a lot more sense of some of the passages that we've been talking about. Yet they were committed to Christ, obviously in a very different form. So there were lots of different people with different views about what Christ was.

Christ was, what the nature of his ministry was. And I think they were probably as committed as the conventional Christian was. I do want to jump to the next one. This one coming in from Dismal Eclipse says, Cliff, the various qualities of man, like valuation, like morality, are innate. In thought, we have merely described them. Cliff, you have inserted them in a story you like. The agnostic has not.

I experience conscience. I experience an ability to distinguish between right and wrong, good and evil. I experience love. I experience an innate drive for meaning in life. And I observe that all of my friends, all of my acquaintances have the same exact same drives that I have.

Now, the question becomes, what is the most plausible worldview that explains all of these drives, all of these experiences, all of these observations? And it is clearly the worldview that Jesus Christ presented.

that life is not a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing. No, life is a precious gift from God given us for a purpose to love and worship God and to love and serve each other. We have the senate ability. We all do. Every atheist, every agnostic, every theist, every Christian, Buddhist, Jew, Hindu, Muslim. The senate ability to love.

Love is not just a chemical reaction. It's a free decision to work for the well-being, the good of another. We all have a desire for some type of life after death. What is the best explanation for that desire? Where does that desire come from? It comes from a God who created us to live for eternity, according to Jesus Christ, and it's his resurrection from the dead that gives the best foundation for a hope in life after death. So I observe life. I experience

I experience life. And then I look for the best explanation, the most reasonable, the most plausible explanation for reality as I experience it. And Jesus Christ gives it like nobody else.

This one from DJ says, if God can see the future, why does he make the souls that he knows will eventually end up in hell? It's been established free will exists regardless of his omniscience. So why not only make the souls that will go to heaven? I do not know ultimately why God chose to create us. That is not an agnosticism that is unacceptable.

Because obviously the only way I know anything about God is because God chooses to reveal it. And if God is silent, I can't make it up. But I have to seriously consider what God has revealed. I have to live my life. And that is why agnosticism is an intellectual impossibility when it comes to the basic fundamental issues of life. But I can promise you, I don't need to know why God created us

in terms of what was his motive in order to live my life. But I do have to answer the question, are people I interact with valuable? If so, why? I do have to answer the question, what is the meaning and purpose of life? Why should I have ambition and motives? And what is the purpose of them? What is the basis of right and wrong? And is there life after death? Because that is my life. That is your life. So we have to have some type of answer, some type of way of thinking through these issues.

This one coming in from, do appreciate it. Steven Lander says, thanks, Alex, for all your efforts in challenging conversations. I'm a super fan and really appreciate your work. Got a fan out there. And this one from People Are Beautiful says, I'm going to tell that one about.

I missed you. That was four. That sounds like an atheist question. Yes. Yes, it was.

want me to yeah i mean i well i think i i call the gist of it like like can you it was something like explaining the difference in good and bad but not in terms of moral terms as if why even if there's no morality why would there be i think use terms like purity or depraved or perverted or something which i think are sort of essentially moralized terms so i think at the moment that you grant that there exists you know pure and perverted ways of living you've already injected a moral ontology so i don't think you can just sort of

set that aside. Otherwise you're just describing two kinds of behaviours. You're talking about behaviours which, I don't know, happen to cause suffering and behaviours which do not. And those are just factual differences and there's no moral element at all. In which case I don't think they require sort of explaining. They just exist. I'm not sure if this is supposed to be some kind of criticism of moral non-realism. I'm afraid I kind of just don't understand the question.

Yeah, I think I'm a little confused as well. I mean, he's asking or the person is asking about good and evil. Of course, these are these are really terms that we reduce back to moral questions. So what grounds morality? And that brings us back to what we talked about before. Philosophers don't agree about this. Atheists, philosophers mostly are moral realists.

And as we said before, lots of different schemes, the way you could ground morality. And one idea that we haven't discussed is a game theoretic approach to morality, where basically you can think of it as something like morals are

are akin to strategies for games. And we can learn different strategies, better strategies for how to, if you like, play the game of life. And there's been a lot of research on this on the prisoner's dilemma where the original version of the prisoner's dilemma seems to show that people will act nastily and they should do. There's mathematical reasons to think so. But when you do what's called the iterative prisoner's dilemma,

Where you basically have it played out over many, many periods and you can run simulations. What you find is actually being nice is the best strategy. And so people can sort of learn that different strategies for life and maybe what we call good are the things that we think are the bad strategies that will lead to particularly bad outcomes.

So but of course, there's lots of different ways to define good and evil, lots of different ways to ground morality. And what we shouldn't do is assume that, you know, it's impossible to ground morality under atheism. That just seems to ignore thousands of years of the history of moral philosophy.

You got it. This one coming in from Sebastian Jacobson says, to either side of the debate, is a more complex system of English language necessary for philosophical and theological unity? Maybe, maybe. I think that one of the big problems in philosophy is

Oftentimes the only dispute that people actually have is one of definition of terms Wittgenstein is of course the go-to philosopher here He opened his his tractors by saying I think that this book will not be of use to anybody who doesn't already agree with its contents I think that's kind of true I think that a lot of time what philosophical treaties do is not so much convince you of something but put into words something that you already kind of think but hadn't quite figured out yet I do think that

A lot is about definition terms, but also there is a poverty of the English language, like the word love. We love our wives, we love our pets, we love pizza, and we love that song that we heard on the radio. Clearly, we're talking about not just different kinds of love, but like totally different concepts.

But the English language is impoverished for not having a better disambiguation. In fact, in the translation of even just like New Testament Greek, there are words which are the same word in Greek, which in some places we translate one way, some places we translate another. But because of things like this, whereas today we use the word love for all of those words.

you know, a thousand years in the future, there might be much more specific words. And when someone hears us say the word love, they've got to work out, well, did they mean love in this sense? Or did they mean love in that sense? And they'll have to pick which word to translate with. This causes all kinds of theological disputes. A lot of theological disputes are essentially matters of translation as well. And so I do think that as the language evolves,

philosophy will evolve too, but it may be the other way around, that new words tend to get invented because we need them. We don't invent new philosophical ways of thinking because we happen upon a new language. You got it. The Real Espada says, in the Old Testament, why does God ask Israelites to kill women, children, and animals of other tribes? If God wanted, he could have intervened with a natural calamity instead of making humans kill the children. I think that might be a question for our Christians. Definitely.

God used a natural way to judge people. He used war. He used the Israelites to judge the Canaanites, the Ammonites, the Hittites. It was not genocide. Many of those people still lived afterwards. It was not genocide. It was judgment of evil. Why do you say that, Cliff? Because a couple of hundred years later, God used first

the Assyrians, and then the Babylonians to judge the Jews for the precise sins that the Hittites, the Canaanites, the Philistines were judged for, which was temple prostitution, child sacrifice, sacrificing your babies on altars to God. The Jews embraced that.

type of behavior, and God judged the Jews. So for anybody to say that the Jews were God's pets and God just used the Jews to whoop up on some people is false. God judged people using the Jews as the medium of judgment. And then God used the Assyrians and the Babylonians after them to judge the Jews for their wrongdoing. So God is fair. God judges across the board fairly.

And see, the moral theory that you kind of fit into, you have to be careful with because Phil put a nice one out there. But every moral theory that I've heard, emotivism or any other from an atheist or agnostic always ends up being selfish because Phil talked about how it's good to be kind. OK, that's that's great. Not only the definition of goodness, but ultimately it was for you. It was ultimately for you. And so that's why Alan Dershowitz of Harvard, who is O.J. Simpson's lawyer, but still brilliant.

Talked about how, you know, if you're helping a lady across the street who drops her bags and she could potentially get hit by a car, you know, are you going to do it for selfish reasons? That would be other moral theories, he said, or other cultures and their moral systems. Or are you going to do it just to help the old lady and not get anything out of it? And he said, if it's that one, then you are entirely Christian and you just don't realize it. And he's borrowing from Friedrich Nietzsche when he says that.

If I may, just on this genocide business, I don't think the questioner used the word genocide. I'm not sure if they would use the word genocide. I think it's relatively uninteresting whether or not to call it a genocide. Fine. It's essentially a point of language. But in terms of what happened here, the killing of

Men, women, children, infants, donkeys, camels, sheep. One argument that I do often hear is this point that they showed up later. And I think that's worth contending with. So in 1 Samuel, we have the destruction of the Amalekites. The word is herem. It means something like utter destruction or complete destruction. But it does seem weird if they kill everybody and only keep alive the king, and then the king is finally killed. How do they show up later? Well, where do they show up later? For one thing, they show up as...

the sort of main antagonist in the book of Esther, the descendant of Agag the king, implies that he had a line that survived. Also in 1 Chronicles, the Amalekites are mentioned, but in 1 Chronicles chapter 4,

The quote is, this is chapter 4, verse 43. They killed the remaining Amalekites who had escaped and they have lived there to this day, implying that some Amalekites were still kicking around, but it's because they'd escaped. In other words, the reason they were still alive was not because they were shown mercy at the hands of the Israelite soldiers, but because they managed to get away from the command, which was harem, utter destruction. And I'm also not sure, I genuinely don't know, but the only case that I can

find of specific numbers being used, as we talked about in our previous conversation, is in the destruction of Ai in the book of Joshua, where we're told that 12,000 men and women fell that day, all the people of Ai. So we know that women were definitely killed, and we know that it was 12,000, unless that's some kind of exaggeration. 12 is, you know, a theologically significant number, I suppose. That could also be some kind of textual thing. But

Given that that's the only place where we're actually told about the numbers, I couldn't find any evidence of the nation of Ai showing up later in the text. But maybe they do. And I haven't found it. I haven't had a lot of time to look into it. But I would suspect that where they do show up later, it's because they escaped. And in cases where we're told specifically how many people died, they may not show up later at all.

Can I just add one tiny thing? Sure. This notion of punishment, sorry, really quick. This notion of punishment is really quite problematic, actually, because when we think about, let's say, the Jews being rightly punished by the Babylonians, we could think of that as just the free actions of the Babylonians, or we could, as Cliff pointed out, say, no, it's God's righteous judgment. But then whenever we see something immoral, any action at all, you could say, ah, that's God's righteous judgment.

And that means you're actually not in a position to say anything is immoral if you believe in this biblical God. And that's a real problem. It's not a problem when you read John 9 because Jesus blasts that line of thinking right out of the water when he's asked, why was this man born blind? Was it because his parents sinned or because he sinned? And Jesus says, neither.

So there's no watertight answer to the question, when does God judge? Why does he judge at that point? Why exactly does he judge when he judges? And we don't know. And not all of this is God's judgment. In fact, I would be very hesitant to say this catastrophe is God's judgment on this people. I don't know that. In the Old Testament, we do have a revelation that, yes, God did judge. But when horrible things happen today, I don't know whether it's God's judgment or not.

That's exactly my point. That is exactly my point. What I'm saying is, what I'm saying is that when you see something that appears to be morally bad, you can't say that it's morally bad because you don't know whether it's actually a free agent or whether it's God's righteous judgment acting through the Babylonians, the Syrians, whoever. No, that's false. When I see a man murder, when I hear about someone murdering a CEO, I don't say, oh, I wonder if that's wrong or not. No, it's murder. That's wrong. Now,

If something horrible happens to the murderer, I don't know if that's God's judgment of them or if it's the government's judgment of them or if it's just the unfairness of life. I don't know that. But I do know that the murder of someone is absolutely evil.

How do you know that in that case it was absolutely evil? How do you know that there wasn't some kind of, that this wasn't, maybe the CEO did something against God or the nation of Israel and God was inflicting his punishment through a natural means, which is, you know, assassination. That's a different question. If someone murders someone, I know that that murder is evil. Now, is that God's judgment of someone? Possibly, yes.

So I don't know that. Do you think then that the Amalekites... We do have so many questions. Do you mind if I... I just wanted this distinction between it being wrong for them to do it, but still maybe an act of God's judgment, because this would clear things up really easily. Would you say then it's the case that maybe the Israelites acted wrongly by killing the Amalekites, but that that was still part of God's perfect justice? Then we absolutely do have to go to the next question.

I can give you a chance to respond, but then we absolutely have to go to the next question because we've got a lot of people that are wanting to hear the question right and we have minimum time. Yeah, we have minimum time, Jake. Keep going. This one, Rufus says, what do Alex and Phil think about the evidence of resurrection based on the Shroud of Turin? A new x-ray technique was performed on it recently, giving evidence the Shroud was from the time of Jesus.

I think it's cool. I don't, I've seen a lot of stuff going around about the Charter and I haven't really given it the time of day. I've heard people saying that, you know, the carbon dating that placed it later was because they took it from a bit that was like reworked into it. To be honest, I don't know a ton about it. I do think it'd be awesome if the sort of best proof of Jesus's existence was like a physical shroud, because it would be a great reminder of the physicality of the person of Jesus. I think,

It seems to be a bit of a mystery how this imprint was left on this shroud. But to be honest with you, I just have to plead ignorance on that. Sorry if that feels like a waste of Super Chat question, but perhaps I can look into it in the future. Eastgate Adoption, it says, does the double slit experiment in quantum mechanics give evidence of an unobservable side to reality with infinite paths of causality? Could there be a god and afterlife where quantum effects happen?

So the many worlds interpretation, I think, is what the question is asking about. And it's certainly a legitimate interpretation of quantum mechanics. We don't know if it's right. There are arguments for and against it. There's no consensus that the many worlds interpretation is right. But even if it is right, what it would show is that anything, if you like, that can happen will happen. But it doesn't follow from that that God can happen.

So I don't think you can appeal to the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics to say that God can exist. I also suspect that God would exist outside of the material universe if he did. So quantum, the many worlds of quantum mechanics. I have a, I spoke to David Deutsch on this, a great episode where he sort of talks about it. It's not so much universes popping into existence, but sort of branches of reality within one quantum universe. I imagine God would sort of exist outside of that.

Follows Christian Apologetics says, I think they're saying,

There's a need for consistent natural laws, and that's part of the explanation for animal suffering. Also, with animal suffering, we only emphasize with them because of their experiences that are similar to humans, like characters in art.

So this is called, yeah, this is called the gnomic regularity defense in philosophy. And what it basically says is, well, God has to give regular natural laws. So he has to set up the universe in this way. Otherwise, we'd live in a crazy, topsy-turvy, Alice in Wonderland world. There's a couple of problems with that. Firstly, God does miracles.

so if god can do miracles then um he's clearly not sticking to perfectly natural laws uh second problem with that is you know people believe in heaven i believe stew mentioned that you know eventually the lion uh will lie down with the lamb so if that's possible then he doesn't have to do this sort of thing thirdly i think it's a failure of the imagination so we could imagine you know small tweaks that god could do that could reduce animal suffering i'll give you a

quick example. In our paper, we reference something called a predator trap. In a predator trap, you have an animal get stuck in a sticky material and they basically can't get out and they starve to death. But that's just the beginnings of the problems because then other animals

go in and they think, ah, easy meal. So they go in for the kill. They get stuck too. At the La Brea Tar Pits in California, we have the remains of 4,000 animals that died in this way. And we could easily imagine that God could have just given them the instinct to avoid these predator traps. They have the instincts to avoid fire. Would that lead us into a crazy, topsy-turvy Alice in Wonderland world? I don't think so.

It's from Elijah Bonham. It says, Stuart, Jews sacrifice children in Exodus to Yahweh, asking them for their firstborn sons on the eighth day. He accepted Jephthah's oath, knowing his daughter would come out first and then would be burnt alive. I need to read that passage, if you want to be honest, in order to respond honestly. You got it. Elijah Bonham also... Is that the passage...

Your firstborn shall be given to me. That passage. So I genuinely always wondered about that. I mean, it seems to imply that God was commanding. I thought you were going to sacrifice. Yeah, sacrifice to him. But I didn't know if if that was the verse you said you need to go and look at, because if you have anything on that, I'd be fascinated to hear. But otherwise, maybe not. I don't know. So I've always wondered what that's about. There is a good book called Child Sacrifice in Ancient Israel worth a read.

Elijah Bonham says, Cliff and Stuart, thoughts on the fact that Jesus failed to fulfill his own prophecy about his return. This generation will not pass till the Son of Man returns on the clouds. Matthew, Mark, and Luke sources. C.S. Lewis described that as the most embarrassing verse in the New Testament, by the way, just as a point of interest. Difficult verse to interpret the way I handle it is. The generation that sees these signs that Jesus has just articulated will also see his return.

Second one is the transfiguration occurs and they see the kingdom of God come in power as Jesus is not just a baby laid in a manger, but he is changed into a shining being that Peter, James and John see on the Mount of Transfiguration. It's a difficult passage. Those are two options in my thinking on how to interpret it. Yeah, the fall of Jerusalem, 70 AD, is the most consistent interpretation I've heard.

Although Christian apologetics says for the atheist. I think the most natural, sorry, carry on. Let's just go. Say, isn't the problem of suffering for animals assuming their purpose is independent from human needs? I'm not saying they have no value, but propose that their purpose is derived from human purposes. Of course, I don't believe in objective purpose in any sense for non-human animals, but it's not about...

the language of it sort of being well animals suffer because of some kind of you know reason for if god existed then there would be purposes right and maybe the only purpose that exists is human purpose and animals are essentially pawned in that process i would say firstly that seems relatively cruel to inflict so much suffering for some kind of inexplicable effect on humans i'm not quite sure what it is that all of this animal suffering especially that happened before human beings existed shall underline again uh i'm not sure what that would do for human beings um

But, yeah, also like the idea that animals are suffering because it somehow serves human beings I would just point to my example again of like the deer with his leg under the tree and think like what is that doing for humans, no, no human even ever sees it maybe this happened hundreds of thousands of years before humans existed like I just don't understand how that could be the case.

Harun? Just consider that predator trap example that I gave. So imagine that God gave these animals the instincts to avoid the predator trap. Would that harm humans? I don't think so. Harun Singh?

It says, God knew we would suffer, so he is evil for creating us. I wonder if you say that your parents are evil for bringing us into this world or bringing you into this world full of suffering too. Or maybe they had hope that you would prosper and find love too.

Yeah, man, sounds a bit antinatalist. Of course, we spoke earlier about the idea of actualizing only a world in which people freely choose to do good things. I think that, yeah, when parents have children, there's a big debate about whether that is in fact just a selfish act or not. But yeah, I mean, we know that children are going to suffer, but people do it anyway. And it's not generally thought of as evil. There have been people who've tried to sue their parents for wrongful birth because they think their life is so bad that they were wronged by being brought into existence.

There's a complicated problem in philosophy called the non-identity problem, which I hope to make a video about soon. But consider this, for example, if you had the option to have two children, let's say that you were about to have a child and you just knew somehow some scientific advancement that if you conceive today, your child will be born with a severe disability, like won't have functioning legs. If you conceive tomorrow, then you'll have a child who has functioning legs and a higher quality of life.

And there's no reason for you to prefer one or the other. It's just like totally up to you. You just know that if you conceive today rather than tomorrow, the child's going to have a severe disability that's going to lower its quality of life. If you chose to just do it anyway and bring into existence that child who had the lower quality of life, I think people would probably say that you made the wrong choice there, that you might have done something wrong, maybe even immoral.

But if that's the case, then think about the situation God is in, where he has the option to actualize all kinds of different existences, but actualizes existences in which there are more suffering, in which there is more suffering than there needs to be. So I'd compare the situation that God's in a bit more like that omniscient state of having different kinds of children versus blindly having any child and hoping the best for them, if you see what I mean. You got it. Just very, very...

Very quickly, the problem of animal suffering does not require you to think that there's anything more than just some unnecessary suffering. That's it. That's all you need to know. Just a little bit. Tiny, tiny bit.

This one is our last question. You've got to let these guys out of here. Folks, if I didn't get your question in the Modern Day Debate live chat, shoot me an email at moderndaydebate at gmail.com. We always try to do that. But in some cases, we just can't get all the questions in. And this is rare. But J. Dan says, for both what proof, in parentheses, evidence, answers or artifacts would you need for you to change your opinion to the other side?

Well, first thing that I would want is a good explanation for the problem of animal suffering, a good explanation for why there's so many mistakes in the Bible. There is some ideas that, you know, you could maybe encode messages into natural numbers. So in the book Contact, there is this idea that inside a pie, you would find an encoded message. That would be excellent evidence for a creator God. But of course, we don't see anything like that.

I, to specifically adopt, I suppose, Clifford Stewart's Christianity with Jesus as God and all of this stuff. I want to get something a bit more practicable than, than,

than this broad stuff. I suppose, for example, if we uncovered some early evidence of those 500 people who Jesus appeared to, and we had a list of their names, and we reliably knew that they claimed to have seen the risen Jesus in physical form, and that people did go and sort of check with them, something like that would be really powerful evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. If we had good evidence that the historical Jesus claimed to be God, that is identical to

not just saying I and the father are one and then implying that what he means is I'm in the father and the father is in me and the disciples will one day be in me as I'm in the father. Um, not anyone who's seen me has seen the father as he says to Philip, uh, uh,

and also when he says, I am the father of one, he's speaking to the Pharisees and they accuse him of blasphemy. They say, you claim me to be God. And he says, haven't you read your own scriptures? Don't the Psalms say that you shall be called gods. And if God's willing to call his counsel gods in the old Testament, then why not me? In other words, they sort of seem to misunderstand what he was saying. If we had some early manuscript evidence of Jesus claiming to be God, and we had some kind of good evidence of this, like 500 or maybe like, um,

More detailed accounts of post-resurrection appearances, that kind of stuff, putting those together, resurrected Jesus, Jesus claiming to be God as identical to Yahweh. I think that would be pretty powerful. You got it. And with that, you want to say, folks, huge thank you to our speakers. We're not going to hear from the other side. We're not going to hear what would change Cliff and Stuart's minds. Oh, you're right. I'm sorry about that. Cliff and Stuart, the floor is yours. I'm very grateful that that question was asked. I was fascinated by both Phil and Alex's answer to it.

Their answer was totally an issue of evidence, more evidence. If I get more evidence, then I will believe. All right, fine. The challenge is you're living for something. You're living for someone today. And you still haven't answered the question that I asked right from the start. What is the evidence that whatever it is you're living for today is true, is reliable? In other words, do you not have a double standard?

a standard of evidence that Christ must meet in order for you to accept him, that you're not willing to apply to whatever the object of your worship is today, whatever the object is that you're living for today. That's where we've got to be brutally honest with ourselves. If I have a standard of evidence that must be met in order for me to believe it, Jesus falls short. Okay, no problem. But what is the option that meets that evidence that you have required?

And that is why, Alex, I came down so hard on you for this agnosticism issue answer that you gave. It is intellectually unacceptable. It's impossible because you have to live for something. You have to value or not value people. You have to have an ethical system and you're basing it on something. You're too intelligent. You're too thoughtful just to say, I blindly just go about my life. No, you don't blindly go about your life. You look for evidence. So what's the option? And that's what I look forward to hearing from you at some point in the future.

Now, to answer this question specifically, if Jesus is not risen from the dead, my fate is bankrupt. So all you got to do is falsify the resurrection of Christ and my fate is bankrupt, as Paul points out in 1 Corinthians 15.

For me, it lands on the same two, just in different kinds of ways. Obviously, the resurrection, it's a falsifiable historical claim. No other religion has a historical falsifiable claim that if you somehow undergird in a way that upends it,

that the faith doesn't line up. It's not true. So you have to give me strong evidence that the resurrection didn't occur. So why the life change? Why the events so close to the writing of? Why the claims that they even saw something? Why the explosion of the early church overnight of Jews happened? It's just nonsensical. So even some of the top intellects who are atheists, I read, say, yeah, we don't have a good answer for any of these. So that's one. And then two,

It's the experiential side. Hey, guys, look, great philosophers, but I think you've got to grow in psychology and understanding the human experience. I think you could run circles around me philosophically and intellectually. I think I could run circles around you psychologically and experientially. So for me, it comes down to like, how do you explain evil, an entirely religious term? You can't come about that from an atheistic perspective.

Atheism is arguing from a negative, so it's a contradiction in and of itself. But agnosticism, I believe, intellectually aligns up, but experientially, you can't.

And it's kind of laughable. But I understand why you are an agnostic, because I have so many doubts. It's scary. I'm a doubting Thomas since I did from age 10. So I get it, Alex. I'm not saying it's ridiculous. But for me to really turn, it'd have to be the falsifiability of the resurrection. And then I would have to have more experiences that would say, hey, death's okay. Hey, no, it's optimism, not eternal hope.

Hey, justice is just relative. You shouldn't fight too hard for human rights. Hey, identity issues. Hey, identity issues. It's all relative. And just let that kid think that he's a cat and that girl think that she's a pig. Everything's fine because ultimately people just subjectively decide who they are and what their truth is.

All of these things rage against me, just like Steve Jobs on his deathbed. He was an atheist, but then turned to a pantheist. And he said, hey, look, intellectually, I thought I was kind of an atheist most of my life. But then all of a sudden, all this experience, he didn't say intellectual rationalism. And he's a brilliant guy. He said the experience of I don't think all of my work and all the equity from my relationships is just going to go away with the click of a mouse. I believe that there's more to life based off of experience.

So you'd have to shatter and rattle my experience. Intellectually, you have some good points, but experientially, I think atheism and agnosticism is seriously lacking. Got it. This one, or I should say, that is it. I do want to let our guests go. They have been here for a long time and actually we're past time. So I want to say thank you for them for staying past time. It doesn't have to be over in terms of listening to them though, because they're all linked in the description box below. If you would like to hear more from any of our guests, click on those links or

Right now, that's also at the podcast. All of our debates end up on the Modern Day Debate podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and we put our guest links in the description box there too. So I want to say thank you, gentlemen. It has been a true pleasure. It was a great debate today. Thank you very much. Good to meet you, Phil. Alex, great to see you. Appreciate you guys. Thank you so much.

If ever you're in London, come and call me. We'll go out. OK. We'd love that. Thank you. OK. Brilliant. With that, I am going to be back in a moment with a post-credit scene here on Modern Day Debate. We're going to split the chat. Sorry, I should say the stream is up. And I will be back in just a moment here at Modern Day Debate, letting you know about upcoming debates, including at DebateCon 5 this February. You don't want to miss it.

If you have not seen it at the bottom right of your screen, that is in Newark, New Jersey. And one of the debates will be Lawrence Krauss and Mike Jones debating on whether or not secularism or Christianity is better for society, as well as, like I mentioned, the potential for a certain Alex O'Connor to come and debate a big-time Christian debater. That is in the works as a possibility.

But with that, we will let our guests go. Thank you guys very much. And I'll be back in just a moment, folks. Thanks a lot. Taxes was waiting around for your taxes to be done, which led to worrying about not getting any money back.

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