Pints With Aquinas - Counter Cultural, Rings of Power, & Apologetics w/ Michael Jones InspiringPhilosophy ​

Episode Date: March 7, 2023

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We are live on points with Aquinas. Matt Fred here before we jump into today's discussion. I want to invite you not to be a wanker. Wanker is a slang term in Australia. And I think also what? It's also English to on the nose. I'm sorry. Carpenterize.com.

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Hello. What's going on? It's lovely to have you. Interesting. Interesting ad to start this one with, but I love it. Yeah, you were saying people have asked you to do ads, but. Yeah, I don't on my channel, inspiring philosophy. It's just I do more like documentary style things and it'd just be weird be like,

but wait before I get to the before I get to more scholarly sources, let me tell you about this awesome juice or product. Yes, yes speaking of the juice, juice! There'd be no way to do it. No, no, yeah and no it just doesn't feel right. I'm a 501 C3, someone on profit. People donate to keep me going. And that 80% of what keeps me going is donations. So I'd like to honor that and stay in ministry and stay focused on that. And I don't wanna put ads in it. So that's what I do.

You have an excellent channel, which we'll link to below and people should go check it out and subscribe right away. One thing I love about your channel is you take, basically it's like academic lectures that are actually, it makes them digestible for laypeople like myself. And they're really well put together. That's what I do.

I try to take the very complicated self-heal finance scholarship and put it in a video form with graphics so you rarely see my face in my long form content and just make these graphic driven animation style videos to explain in so many ways, just try to dumb it down for the average person. So I'm uploading a video on eschatology soon on did Jesus actually predict the end of the world in the first century?

That's coming out in a few days on my channel. And I'm going to argue no, it's a little bit more complicated than that. There's a lot more going on in the ancient Near Eastern and the Greco-Roman context. Will Barron And then I know you've been doing a lot on TikTok. How did that happen? Because I saw a meme today from the Babylon Bee and it was screw tape saying, actually, forget everything I told you, just get him to download TikTok. They'll take care of the rest. So why have you ventured out on TikTok? Will Barron TikTok is a dumpster fire for sure, but there are a lot of people on there that need to hear the gospel, if you want my honest opinion.

So about a year ago, my channel was kind of becoming stagnant growth, because YouTube was like, we want short, short, short, short videos. And I was like, I don't do shorts, I do long form documentary style stuff. And so I was like, I don't know, I'm losing donors, I'm stagnant growth, I gotta do something. So I said, I'll just try, I got to do some tech talk stuff.

And then I started to get good at it and it took off. I'm growing on there now, but I do that these short little quick comical videos half the time. So most of it is just me responding to some crazy thing. You may have heard on Joe Rogan or some crazy tech talk theory, like Constantine invented Christianity or early mushroom cult nonsense and just me debunking it but you know making jokes along the way. Like I just did a video debunking someone claiming they found the Ark of the Covenant. No they did not. So let's debunk this. The Vatican already has it so unless they went into the Vatican. Yeah yeah yeah. Oh that's really cool

and did you notice a big spike in your growth after TikTok?? The moment I got on TikTok and I started taking my TikToks and posting them to YouTube, YouTube let me grow again. So yeah, picked up again. Could you envision a type of social media that was just so appalling? And I'm not talking pornographic or anything, explicitly immoral, but just by its very structure that you'd be like, it's not worth even wading

into those waters or you think we think we've got to go everywhere? You know, I thought that was TikTok. I didn't want to go on it. I didn't want to go on it. It was a dumpster fire. But you know what? Since I've been on there, I've gotten testimonies left and right from ex-Muslims, ex-atheists. Really? Yeah. Tell us about some of those. So I did a dispute with an actual scholar, he's big on TikTok, over just if the Old Testament endorses polygamy, and I was arguing Leviticus 18, 18 is actually implicitly saying polygamy is wrong.

It's using this phrase, a woman to her sister, and it's an ancient Jewish, ancient Hebrew idiom to say, don't take another woman, you can only have one wife. And we had a little dispute and someone saw it and said, I'll check out more of his stuff. About a month later, she said, you know, I became a Christian because of your channel. And I wouldn't have seen you if you weren't on TikTok doing this dispute over something that seems frivolous, but no. Yeah. So people like myself shouldn't be too much on our high horse when it comes to

things like TikTok. We should stoop to conquer. By the way, I am on TikTok. But I don't. Well, think of it like this. If that was God's mentality, and everyone got off his throne, lived as a Jewish peasant in Galilee, not even in Judea. He was in the backwater.

He was with the hillbillies up in Galilee. And he said, you know what? And look what it did. So I mean, as I've told people, Christ is not a God like the God of Islam, or any other religion. Christ is not a God like the God of Islam or you know any other religion. Christ is not a God who says go do as I say, here are the commands from heaven. He's a God who says come and follow me, do as I do and together we will change this world.

So it's it that's that's true love right there. Yeah although for me I had I deleted Twitter with great pride right before Musk got on. And it wasn't because people shouldn't be there. I'm not saying that it was more that I knew I shouldn't be there because it just like I think a lot of people would admit if they were candid, it brings out not the best in them. And that's what I was seeing in me. And I was also seeing the limited impact I was having. And I was all because I was like giving people my Twitter username and password so they could post for me. And I was paying them to do that. And I realized that, OK, if I really wanted this to be effective, I have to be in there frequently and using it the way it wants to be used.

And I just did not have the energy for that. So it's hard Twitter. I mean, you got to remember what Christ said be as wise as serpents, gentle as doves, but it's hard on Twitter because it just, it riles you up. So I don't even get in a lot of Twitter fights anymore because I know it's not going to do any good. But it is interesting because I feel like TikTok is the visual Twitter because they truncate how much you can share and the kind of quote tweet that they added to Twitter several years ago so that you could dunk on people.

That's kind of what a lot of sane people are using TikTok for today. Like, look at this crazy person, and they respond. Which, there's something to be said for that. I mean, crazy ideas should be refuted. Yeah, I mean, but also when you're able to do it in a video, you have body language, you have tone. A lot of times people read body language and tone

into a tweet, because they don't hear the person say it. So people were interpreted in the most negative way possible. Whereas if you see me on TikTok, you'll notice I never am intentionally trying to insult anyone. I will mock bad arguments for sure. I will mock bad arguments every day. I mean, because they need to be mocked

if they're really that bad, but I don't mock every argument. If someone has a good objection, I will address it without making any jokes or quibs or anything like that. But at least on TikTok, you can see that you're talking to a person. You're not talking to a text on a screen that you're just going to lash out at. Yeah. And you went to Sikh. I did. Focus the Sikh conference.

The big Catholic conference in St. Louis. What was the first time you... By the way, we should point out we are drinking Blue blue label scotch because we found it in the cigar lounge randomly I want to say a big thanks to Zeph for allowing me to you know I don't think I've ever had blue label scotch before it is really good You can have some just you got a little you got to keep doing the cameras and we got to keep talking without story I got a feeling I'm not gonna love it

Well, that's because you're foreign. Yeah, it might be that. Let's see here. All right. Cheers. Cheers. Oh, that's really lovely. Very smooth. Yeah, very good.

I love it. So yeah, I went to Seek, the big Catholic conference. How did you get there? The first time you've been to something like that? Yeah, well, I mean, I've gone to the evangelical theological society conference every year. Little different, I imagine. Yeah, a lot of, I go there because I got to talk to scholars. And I track down, like this year, I did track down Dwayne Garrett. I'm like, hey, I've been emailing you about a video I need you to review. Can you get back to me? But yeah, SEEK, I was sent emailing you about a video I need you to review, can you get back to me?

But yeah, I was sent there because I have a very generous donor and he was like, hey, I need you to meet some people there that are gonna help you. Fundraise, help teach you better fundraising techniques because I'm horrible at that and I need more donors. So he sent me out there, you know, he was very gracious and kind and I really appreciate that. Do you have a team of people or is it just you running everything?

It's just me. On purpose or? No, I'd love to have a team, but I can't afford it. Even just one person doing part-time things? I had a guy in Norway doing some editing for me, but I ran out of money, unfortunately, over the summer. So I'm trying to like figure out ways to fundraise so that I can get to a point where I can hire an editor again.

Yeah. Okay, sweet. And so what was your experience of Seek Like? I loved it. I think I think it was really good. And I would hope a lot of Protestants attend something like that, because honestly, if you took Protestants and they're blindfolded them, they wouldn't know it was a Catholic conference. I think C.S. Lewis. Taylor Marshall is going to do a whole video on this being like, he's right. And he is the problem with that.

C.S. Lewis was quoted more than I think the Pope there. Yeah, well, with good reason. I mean, so like, you know, it's, I think, I really hate the divide between Protestants and Catholics and I wish that could be bridged in ways. I think, you know, going to something like that is good because I'd like to go out and say, hey guys, we're all Christian.

If you attend there, you're gonna get the gospel. You're not gonna get some weird, obscure thing you get from like anti-Catholic Protestant apologists, and it's like some sort of pagan mockery of the gospel. It's not. You know, it's like every Protestant knows that every Catholic is worshiping Marian statues, and every Catholic knows that a Protestant is a heretic that hates whiskey. Exactly, hates alcohol, and we... Oh, God. And every Catholic knows that a Protestant is a heretic that that hates whiskey. Exactly. He hates alcohol and we know God. Yeah. Now, how do you how do we bridge that guy?

I think the other day we did a pretty good job. We had Trent Horn and Gavin Ortland debating Soloscriptura. And I think most people in the comments you'll see most people were just so pleased at how amicable the discussion was that you can be convincing. You can attack a position, but you can also be really pastoral. And I think they both did a pretty good job with that. Yeah, and we need more of that. I think one of the greatest things I read on this was a Peter Craife book with, he wrote with Ronald Tosilli, Handbook of Christian Apologetics.

And they had a chapter on salvation and they said, you know, we think that the issue here is just, it's not even doctrinal issues, it's semantics. When Protestants say saved, they mean regeneration, the initial point. When Catholics talk about salvation, and this is coming from Craig, not me, they're talking about the full process including sanctification. So we all agree we are just defining salvation differently. They're talking about the full process including sanctification. Yeah, so we all agree We are just defining salvation differently. We're all on the same team Which we should expect given that there's over 500 years that separates us. We're gonna use language differently Yeah, I think we are seeing some advancements there. Yeah speaking of craves He also said when a maniac is at the door feuding brothers reconcile

And that was his point of like ecumenism where we can find it But that was a good point too. So is that one of the reasons you're passionate about that? Is the kind of the encroaching secularism and atheism? I see two encroaching problems, yes. The encroaching secularism, the atheism and then the other extreme on the other end, the radical Islam, radical Muslims, you know. I've dealt with some of them online recently and oh man, it is just as scary but in different ways. Is it? Different ways. Why? What's different about it? Because I've seen vitriol from Catholics, from Calvinists, from Orthodox, from everybody. So how does it differ? Well, I mean, just like what Islam promotes and not not all. I mean, there's reform Muslims who I think are great and they're on the same page. But I mean, I've seen some Muslim apologists now on YouTube promoting things like child marriage, polygamy,

the capital punishment for homosexuals and apostates. Everyone should be aware, all women should be veiled up. And it's like, this is just the extreme bad on the other side. Now again, it's not all Muslims, but you see a lot of like really popular fundamentalist Muslim apologists now rising up and it's scary. And it's like, so yeah, we don't wanna go

into this secular side where it's all like, you know, free love, no rules, nothing matters, you know, maps and drag queen shows and all this stuff. But we also wanna go to the other extreme. And Christianity is right there in the middle, you know, maps and drag queen shows and all this stuff. And we also want to go to the other extreme. And that's good. Christianity is right there in the middle. You know, we got to hold the middle because that's my fear is like, you've got the woke left who are spiraling towards wokeness and it's just increasingly woke and weird.

But you have the same thing, too. Like I I'm sure there's some Catholic out there somewhere saying, yeah, no, you absolutely should like behead sodomites. Maybe there isn't. But here's my point. My point is just like, we're all look, we're looking for either the most based YouTube channel or the most woke YouTube channel.

And we're pulling away from each other and becoming increasingly insane. That's exactly what it is. And we need Christianity to hold the middle to be the guardrails that keep us from doing that Yeah, it's because I get the reaction. I mean you see You see the degeneracy of the left and what they're pushing and what they're pushing on children and you want to just yeah Swing as far away as you want to swing all the way to the you know that that radical Islamic side That's rising up now and that's just as damaging to children and women and all sorts of things. And the research makes the hair on my back and my neck stand up.

But you know, it is what it is. We got to hold the middle. And Christianity has been responsible for so much change and progress in the past 2000 years, people don't realize. Yeah, I was going to ask you that. So one claim atheists often make is that wherever Christianity enters, things get worse somehow. No, opposite. You look at research that's done by people like Ronald Tisalem, Robert Woodbury, and a bunch of other studies they cite is that what has produced so much change has been Christian missionaries, Catholic and Protestant. Ronald Tisalem has a really cool model he ran in one of his papers.

And he just showed, look, look at things like voice and accountability, political stability, political transformation, more, you know, democracy, these kinds of things. Protestant and Catholicism was positively correlated with all this thing. Citizen empowerment, voice and accountability, political stability, Islam, He also looked at Islam.

No, it correlates with none of these things. Robert Woodbury's model, he looked at where influence we see from Protestant and Catholic missionaries. So it's not just like a religious impulse that's making things flourish. No. It's Christianity specifically. It's not even just Christianity. It's Christian missionary activity.

So that directly comes from the Great Commission. So it's directly coming from the tenets and the teachings of Christ. But Christian missionaries, Robert Woodbury has done this in numerous models and he's cited other papers that have found similar conclusions of what he has found. But Christian missionaries go into these countries and we see education start to flourish, colonial reform. So, people think Christianity is responsible for colonialism. No, it was Christian missionaries pushing against colonial abusers saying you have to treat them like people. They are the descendants of Adam, okay? They are the image of God. Treat them like it. So it was Christian missionaries publishing colonial abuses is why we know about it, how Europeans found out about this. It was

Christians spawning abolitionist movements and saying you got to treat these people equal. You can't treat them like slaves or like second-class citizens. So Robert Woodbury's research is showing that where this stuff goes around, Christian missionary activity leads to more education, more prosperity, more colonial reform, more education for girls. I remember he cited a study recently and he talked about how in Africa when Catholics and Protestants were competing with each other, you know, competition actually led to more education for girls and where education didn't lead the girls, it was in Islamic regions where they didn't want missionaries to come in.

But then you ask the question, why weren't they educating their girls? Because we know education is correlating with so much positive effects. So historically, if you even look at what historians like Tom Holland or Rodney Stark have said, so much progress over the past 2000 years has come from Christians saying, stop treating these people like second class citizens and slavery and infanticide, we're all the image of God.

Tom Holland has a great book on how Christianity in many ways smashed the real patriarchy, not the patriarchy the woke crowd talks about today, but the ancient patriarchy where men controlled their daughters and they used them in marriage alliances. And what did the Catholic Church do? They came in and said, no, romance is a right. Women should get to marry who they want. So they started marrying couples in secret. And that's where witnesses come from. You need a witness to prove this was actually taking place. And Tom Holland says that the Catholic Church was stepping on the toes of patriarchs everywhere and giving women the right to choose who they want to marry, not being married off like they're just property of their fathers or grandfathers.

Yeah, that's fascinating. Here's a false dilemma for you, but then you can kind of elucidate why it's false. Would you rather live in a fully woke culture or a fully Islamic culture? Who do we have more in common with? Who's more of an ally? Man, that is tough. You know, I'd probably go with what Tom Holland says that in some ways this woke, I'm building on what Tom Holland says, he doesn't say this, but I'm building off what he says. The woke crowd is sort of like a perversion of Christian ideas, because it takes things like freedom and equality that it gets from its Christian history and just takes it to, you know...

It wants to help the victim, the downcast. Perverse extremes. So I'd probably pick the woke culture. I mean, they're bad. Both are bad. I'm not going to say that a purely woke culture would be good because you look at things happening in places like Canada or Britain right now, it's horrible. You know, Christians aren't allowed to preach from the Bible, which is ridiculous. But yeah, not Islamic culture. Did you see that news story recently out of, I think it was London, where that woman was arrested for praying outside of an abortion clinic, praying quietly?

Yeah, horrible. Well, wokeism is cancer and the cure is Christianity. How so? And that's a lovely statement and I agree with it. But let's talk a little bit about this because look at, let me compare something to what has been studied more is Christian nationalism. Now, I am vehemently against Christian nationalism because it's against the gospel. You know, look when I'll credit my pastor who are Reverend priest, whatever, I'm not going to say what he was, but he gave this illustration. He said, look at what happened when Jesus was taken up on a hill by Satan, showed him

all the kingdoms of the world. Now Jesus was going to get that. He said after the resurrection, all authority on heaven and earth had been given to me, but Satan offered him a political way to get to it. Just do what I say and I'll give you all this. You don't have to go to the cross. You don't have to do all that. I'll give this all to you. We also see Christ running away from the crowd because they came to make to it. Just do what I say and I'll give you all this. You don't have to go to the cross. You don't have to do all that. I'll give this all to you.

We also see Christ running away from the crowd because they came to make him king. I forget where that is. Yeah. Christianity through political means. That's what Christian nationalism is trying to do. We're going to institute Christianity through these political means, not through changing hearts one at a time. And that's what Christ did. That's what we're supposed to do. So, but studies have shown, and I demonstrated this in a video, does Christianity cause Christian nationalism is the title of the video, that Christian nationalism is actually more prominent among unchurched right-wing leaning people. People that don't pray, they don't go to church,

they lean more towards Christian nationalism. The more you go to church, the more you're going to reject that idea. So, scholars like Philip Gorski, Kenneth Vaughan, who's a friend of mine, Roger Brubaker, all have pointed out that what happens is Christian nationalism is a secularization. It takes the symbols of Christianity and it perverts them, reinterprets them in a political way. The Nazis did something similar. It was a political religion in my view, and they took Christian symbols and they reinterpreted them in their political ideology.

Christian nationalism is a far less extreme version of that. It just takes Christian symbols and makes them political. Wokeism is doing that in a different way, just more like a left-leaning idea. We're gonna take Christian ideas of equality and freedom and caring, and we're gonna divorce them from their religious aspects, their Christian base, their Christian

base, their Christian roots, and we're going to reinterpret them. And so it perverts what Christianity is trying to do. And when you take ideas you get from Christianity away from their roots, it's going to end in a social disaster eventually. And we're seeing the beginnings of that. I said the other day that I sometimes fear that I'm treating Christianity more like a philosophy than a person. You know that that he is the syllogism. This is the true thing and we just need to get everyone down on the way reality is. And I forget the whole love affair with Christ. I think it was Chesterton who said something to that effect. Let your religion be less of a I don't know what he said syllogism I think it was that and more of a love affair and maybe there's something similar happening here with Christian nationalism is we take the markings of it we kind of we kind of Robert of its of its power it's really supernatural power and then we we want to impose that.

Yeah well it's on the right it's Christian nationalism on the left it's woke ism it's they they want the things they get from Christianity, but they don't want Jesus. They don't want to follow Jesus. They want Jesus to be in their club, but they don't want to be in Jesus's club. They don't want to call him king. They want to call him, you know, a nice representative of their position. They reduce him from king to their public rap guy. And that's horrible. You know, everyone wants everyone wants Jesus to be in their club. No one wants to kneel to him, though.

So what will happen? Sorry. What what do you know? It's better than coughing. What is sometimes I wonder that people like Jordan Peterson and other folks, right, they might point to the pragmatism of Christianity and how if we accept these ancient truths that kind of cohere with human nature, then it makes sense and this is why they work in these missionary activities with seeing human flourishing. But it's just a story that coheres with human nature, but it isn't actually a historical

event. I think there's a lot of that kind of talk. Who's the fellow who wrote the the madness of crowds or the. I don't remember. Gay English dude anyway. Yeah, he's actually pretty great. Like he's got. Right. No type in the madness of crowds or something. I think it's like that.

And he seems to have a lot of respect for Christianity and thinks that the West is dead as it severs itself from the branch or, you know, what gave it birth, but still denies it as objectively real, denies the existence of God, or at least thinks, well, we've got no compelling reason to think that God exists. Let me give you the bad news first, and then I'll give you the goodness. The extraordinary popular delusions and the madness of crowds? No, everyone in the chat is telling you I bet. Everyone, the chat is always right. Right now.

So I'll give you the bad news first and then the good news. Yeah, it this is what happens is people see the good in Christianity, but they don't want to join it. And you can't take the good from Christianity without taking Christianity. Numerous studies have shown there's a difference between two things we see in social science, extrinsic religiosity and intrinsic religiosity. Define those. So extrinsic religiosity is like, I'm a cultural Christian. I go to church to be part of a social club. Richard Dawkins could be extrinsically religious technically, because he calls himself a cultural Christian. Extrinsic religiosity is I'm religious because I want to follow the tenets of the religion. It's part of me. I want to, in Christian terms, I want to follow

Christ, I want to get to know him, I believe he's real. To be intrinsically religious, you have to believe the tenets of the religion. To be extrinsically religious, you don't. It's just part of your social group. And so I say atheists say, you know, we can have all the good of Christianity because we can have, you know, clubs and groups. Numerous study and I mean numerous studies show that all the benefits of Christianity come from intrinsic religiosity, decreases aggression, decreases extramarital affairs, more self-control, more agreeableness,

conscientiousness, these types of things. Extrinsic religiosity, it's actually negatively correlated with a lot of these good things. It actually, it's not, it's correlated with more depression, lower five big personality traits, agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion, openness to experience, and neuroticism. It's positively correlated with neuroticism, I believe. So, this shows us that the good that comes from Christianity comes from people that actually have to believe it. You just can't have the Christian nationalism. You just can't have the woke-ism. You can't divorce Christianity from it's, because that's what motivates people.

It's not just yay You know, let's go out and serve people Why are we going out and serving and helping people because Jesus Christ rose from the dead? Yeah, and now we are part of the New Eden We are now part of the kingdom and we're gonna live like we're living in the New Kingdom Living in you know, the kingdom of heaven. There's actually something to stand on. This is new death has been actually been defeated Now I have something to motivate me. I mean, here's a way to explain it. Go to the poorest people of the world and tell them, hey, do good because it's the right thing to do. Who

cares about metaphysics and philosophy? Or go to the poorest people in the world that dig in trash for food and say, the creator of the universe became a human. The poorest of humans died the death of a slave so that he can have eternal life with you. Now, which is gonna motivate them to actually do the good? Why do you think in California right now there's a homeless crisis and people are living on the streets?

Secularism is great for the rich and the elites because they have purpose, they have money, they can invest in things like going to Mars or building social media companies. The average poor Joe, what does he have to live for? Christ, an actual God that cares for them. The rich and elite don't care. Secularism is great for the elite and the educated and the professors and all, but for the average Joe, the average person, it doesn't motivate people to change because they'll look at it going, you know, hey, I only got what 50 60 years left

I'm just gonna live for the fun and yeah, the elites can figure out how to get us to Mars and all and how to advance Society, I'm just gonna do some drugs drink watch my favorite shows and die eventually, you know That's a good day. I fully believe that that interior religious Religiosity is the path to personal and cultural renewal, but couldn't it be the case that internal religiosity works better, but it's still false? Like I can believe things that are false. It's true, it's possible. So why not just explain the fruits of Christianity that way?

Like it's a really good story that if you actually believe it, it will make your life better, but it isn't true. But you're not allowed to know it's not true for it to work. Well, there is a difference between something being pragmatic and something being true. I mean, Ptolemaic astronomy is useful for navigation, even though it's false. Death is a truth, even though it's depressing and sad and it doesn't really help us in ways. So I mean, you could do that from an outside perspective, but again, going back on the inside perspective of Christianity, my point is you can't just be

extrinsically religious. You got to be intrinsically religious to get the good that Christianity is producing. Now I said I'd give you the bad news. I'll give you the good news now. Okay, the good news is I think society has a lot of self-correcting measures. So like Michael Bloom, he's an evolutionary biologist, will say that, you know, evolution selects for religious people because they have more children. If you become atheist or non-religious, you have far less children than religious people do. There's a great book called Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth? It's pointing out in 100 years most people will still be Christian or Muslim because, you know, the left atheist, this kind of idea, it thrives on getting converts really. It doesn't thrive on birth rates. So and because of that

Evolutionarily speaking humans are just religious. It's what it feels like the left has done a really good job at taking Christian children and making them atheists So why can't they just take our children and use them against us? Well now but remember in the 90s We were far less polarized than we are now Okay, so now more conservatives more religious people are polarized. They trust the left and atheists less now. They're protecting their children more. They're saying, don't go to universities, go to a trade school. Don't go to that secular university,

go to this religious one. So in some respects, yeah, they can do that, but the more they keep doing it, the more they're polarizing religious individuals, right-leaning individuals, to the point where in the future generations,'re going to be protecting their children more. That makes sense of my own experience. Do you mind if I ask how old you are?

I'm 37. I'm 37. I'm not old. You'll get the reference. Okay. I'm 39. I am old. I'm 37.

What music were you into as a teenager? Emo stuff probably. I was into heavy metal. Yeah, a little bit. This is coming back to your point, believe it or not. I was into heavy metal. Yeah, a little bit. And this is coming back to your point, believe it or not. Like I was into heavy metal. I was into wearing black. I was into wearing like skulls on my T-shirts and like death metal

posters on my wall and writing suicide poetry for attention and things like that. And when I have tried, not that I want my kids to be listening to heavy metal, but there's been a few times when I listen to this excellent song called Master of Puppets from Metallica. And they don't get it at all. Like, why do they sound so angry? And I'm trying to I'm wondering what this is. Like it felt like in my generation, maybe your generation too. You can tell me it was like rebelling against the man and authority.

And whereas now I keep using my son as an example, I don't think he'll mind it. My son, who is not like an overly religious, he kind of person, he's certainly not a compliant child. I wish he were. I don't really. I'm glad he has some piss and vinegar in him. You know, he said to me the other day that like he's made a New Year's resolution not to watch Disney this year because they push all the gay shit on us, dad. Now he doesn't say that to impress me. Like he's just, that was like a side point that he made like two months after New Year's.

And I just think that's really cool. It's almost like Christian conservatism is the new punk rock. It's the new counterculture. Yes. I mean, what do you think about that? Since you'd listened to emo music and we're the same age and like, and your point, right, about, about the right protecting their kids and more polarized?

Yeah. Well, I mean, yeah, there's that aspect. And by the way, my 37 references from Monty Python, the search for the Holy Grail. Okay. I love that movie. It's a long time since I've seen it. I didn't know you were called Dennis. We didn't both ask.

That's the reference. So we should watch that after this. Let's cut this room. It's the only year in my life I can say I'm the same age as we should watch that after this. Yeah, let's cut this room. It's the only year in my life I can say I'm the same age as Denny from Monty Python, so I'm going to enjoy it. Nice, nice. So let's talk about this, though.

So yeah, I've talked about how Christians are now becoming more polarized, they're going to protect their children more, but they've also inadvertently turned Christianity into the counterculture. When you and I were kids, it wasn't the counterculture, it was the main culture. Now it's becoming counterculture. So now it's cool kids, it wasn't the counterculture, it was the main culture. Now it's becoming counterculture. So now it's cool to rebel against the man. Who's the man? Disney, Hollywood, the elites who are all woke.

So culture has these self-correcting measures. You know, it goes back to that old saying, great men create good times, good times create weak men, weak men create bad times, bad men create great times. That's fantastic. So right now we're in the phase of weak men creating bad times, and we men create bad times, bad men create great times. That's fantastic. So right now we're in the phase of weak men creating bad times and we're entering bad times.

I think that's what the truth is. I hope I'm wrong, but I think that's what's happening. And clearly next couple of decades we'll see. But I mean, what's gonna happen? So we've gone through these cycles in history before when people were predicting the end of civilization, woke isms gonna destroy everything. No, first of all, I'm a Christian, Christ is King, He knows what He's doing, we'll be fine.

He lets us go through these cycles and every time we go through these cycles, Christianity grows a little bit more. Go through another cycle, Christianity grows a little bit more. It's just going to keep happening. So trust the King, He knows what He's doing. Just do your part. I love it. It's such a different message to some Christian messages you get out there which sound like

Fox News. Like, everything's on fire and you're going to die unless you kill these people. They don't say kill these people, I don't mean that. Unless you kind of like stand up against this mob that's coming against you and it puts you in this fight or flight response, but you can't see clearly when you're in a fight or flight response. I mean there's a place for that, but it should not be Christians' main or even secondary fight in my view. Our main fight should be what Christ gave us, the Great Commission. If we focus on that, if every Christian just focused on that mainly,

I guarantee you we would be in the phase of going great men and great times, but we're not right now, unfortunately. But again, the Great Commission is what we were called to do. If we do that, I guarantee you things would get better real fast. And that's what I try to do. On my channel, that's what I focus to do. I I don't on my channel That's what I focus on here. Here's why Christianity is true. Here's the evidence become a Christian Yeah

How do you personally keep your intrinsic? Religiosity from becoming merely extrinsic What kind of practices do you try to implement daily weekly such that you can maintain that personal relationship across? That's a good question I mean, I go to church for one thing. I think that's very, very important. It's commanded in Hebrews 10. There's enough reason. I think a lot of Christians today are sort of like, still have that, maybe that emo like voice in the back of their head going, I'm too cool for that. I don't want to be around those hypocrites. Well, you are too. You're not perfect. They're not perfect, but you still got to be there for them. So, you know, buckle up, humble yourself, and go to church. It's important

to be part of a community. Another thing is I pray constantly, I feel like. I'm constantly praying, Lord, help me lead my wife and daughter to Christ as best I can. How do I be a good example for them? When my daughter turns eight, I say we're're gonna start reading for the Bible at least one chapter a day because she'll she's learning to read right now when she learns to read Bible one chapter a day here we go. It's that kind of stuff. So you know pray every day and constantly I'm just I'm praying constantly like okay God show me what you want me to do and I don't I can't say that I've ever had God show up in a lightning bolt. You know, go here, do that.

But I just I pray it regardless. And I just keep doing I keep thinking, how can I help fulfill the Great Commission? How can I fulfill the Great Commission, not only in my words, but in my actions? Did you become a Christian at some point or were you raised and maintain your Christian? It's a complicated story. I was raised in a very fundamentalist church, you know, like Young Earth Creationist, Jesus coming back any day now, get ready for the rapture. You know, the rapture, not like the pre-trib rapture, you know, that's not taught in the

Bible. The pre-tribulation rapture is not taught in the Bible. There I said it. I don't even think post-trib is taught in the Bible because I'm not even a pre-millennialist, but anyway. And it just, it put a bad taste in my mouth. I once got taken from church to a hospital because I got a concussion from being thrown downstairs. Why were you thrown downstairs? Because I was a scrawny kid and easy to beat up. Oh, like other kids threw you downstairs? Of course. Or the pastor?

No, yeah, the other patch. It's like it's like the fundamentalists exorcism. Just throw them down the stairs. That would be amazing. I would tell that story to the day I die. No, it was just kids picking on me. And you know, that's what kids did. So what you say you became kind of disenchanted with it or it didn't stick or whatever.

What was it like? At what point were you like, I can't believe this anymore or? It was not that, it was I hated Christians because everyone, all my friends at school were like atheists or agnostic type folk, the emo kids. The emo kids. Yeah, and the kids in drama class were my friends. And all the kids at church were douche bags

that would beat me up and I hated them. So I was like, I don't want this to be true, kind of with my mentality. So I went through a phase where I was telling my parents, yeah, I'll go to church with you guys, but I mean, like, is this really true? And they're like, well, you can believe that we still love you, but you're still going to church as long as you're living in this house. I was like, fine, fine. But, you know, so I went through that phase for sure. And my phase that was like that was whenever I was forced to go to church, I would, but I would not recite the Creed.

Yeah. I think there's some something to be respected there, too, of a kid who at least wants to say what he thinks is true and not go along with what he doesn't. Wants to say what he thinks is true and not go along with what he doesn't yeah And you know the the way I became a Christian that was at the time I was really into like reading things on mythology I had books that I still have on Egyptian mythology or North mythology I just I thought it was interesting Yeah, and then I think I had a friend at high school who was like, you know Christianity is just based on Egyptian mythology Yeah, everything Jesus did Horace did. Yeah. And I was like, that's not right. I got the book, that's just wrong.

That's sort of nonsense. And so I was reading websites on it as well, and they're saying this kind of stuff. Because I also wanted to look for evidence against Christianity. And I think just maybe by fate or luck, I just found all the bad evidence against Christianity, like the really bad arguments.

And like, I thought at the time, like, oh, this is the best it is. Let me just see what is good. So I read Lewis. I read some apologists at the time. 17, 18, 19, that phase around there. And I eventually became convinced the evidence for the resurrection was strong. And I was like, I was challenged by a Christian. He says, just look at the gospels, the New Testament, the way you'd look at like any other ancient document. Don't treat it as divine, but don't treat it as like, you're just gonna be skeptical of everything regardless of what it says.

Treat it as, you know, unbiased as best you can. Just treat it like a regular document and see where the evidence takes it. And he told me apply the principle of charity, and I've stuck with that since. So, you know, if Jesus was born in Bethlehem, okay, fine. Fine. I don't see any problem with believing that. I'm applying the principle of charity. And then he moved to Nazareth. Okay, I can be charitable with that. And then just, okay, there's no real reason to doubt

this aspect. There's no real reason to doubt. There's good evidence for this aspect, for example. There's good evidence for this aspect. And eventually I just became slowly but surely came back to Christ. And what did that look like, coming back to Christ? Did it mean going back to your church? Did it mean finding another place? I mean, I went to the church I grew up in for a while. I mean, I had problems with it. No, it wasn't perfect for sure. So how old were you then when you came back? Like 17? Maybe 17. I don't know.

I was 17, yeah. I don't have an exact date. But I was one of those Christians who was so happy it made you sick when you came back, like 17? Maybe 17, I don't know. I was 17, yeah. I don't have an exact date. But I was one of those Christians who was so happy it made you sick when I was 17. I mean, I came back with a vengeance. Oh, no, I didn't. I came back with like, yeah, this is probably true and I want to be on the side of truth.

And there are good things about Christianity that really do bring out the best in people if you let it. You have to let it. And again, the studies in social science and psychology show that despite, you know, people have any having anecdotal evidence of this mean Christian, they knew once, you know. I think really a lot of our criticisms of Christianity come from the fact that it teaches stuff about sex.

Like when I was 17, 18, I maybe a little earlier, like looking into Buddhism and new age spirituality and really loving that because it talked about meaning and purpose and Oneness and these vague terms that I can interpret however I want and I can still fornicate my girlfriend and looking at porn was okay and things like that I really think it would be interesting what yeah, how many people would be? Raging Christians right now and of course that wouldn't that name wouldn't be worth it would be interesting what, yeah, how many people would be raging Christians right now. And of course, that wouldn't that name wouldn't be worth worth it if

we were denying the gospel, of course. But yeah, like Buddha didn't have a lot to say to me. Buddhism didn't have a lot to say to me about what I could do with my sex organs. So I was like, all right, yeah, I can have I can have the beauty of religion without the morality, sexual morality. Everyone wants religion to serve them. And Christ calls us to serve Him. So that's why no one really wants to follow Christ. They want to turn Him into like the representative for their club. You know, Jesus would be out here marching with me or he would be supporting the bill I want to pass kind of thing. And it's really hard for humans to say, you know, yeah, you're king, I'll do what you say, even though I,

you know, I may not fully understand everything. I think the more we study, we can understand why Christ gives the commands he gives. But I didn't have all the answers back then. What about like for you with those difficult teachings on sexual morality or other forms of morality that you didn't want to obey? You know the sexuality thing wasn't a hard thing for me. I was terrified of sleeping with a girl. Not because I was terrified of sex, but because I knew my brain, I knew my mind, I knew the moment I slept with a girl I would be attached to her. And sure enough that's what happens. I am committed to my wife for sure and she's the only woman I ever slept with, thank God. That's awesome.

And that's just sex is more than just physical. Again, it's the new punk rock It's like people who like no I say sex to marriage. It's like that is wild Exactly. It's the new counterculture. So, okay So then did that solve the question of God's existence for you the resurrection? Yeah, was that well proof that I was never an atheist. Yeah. It, I'll be honest, atheism never made sense to me. There's got to be a God. I mean, objective morality was always it felt in, you know, even now reading someone like Thomas Nagel, who's an atheist,

like it just resonates when he talks about how objective morality is and how like, yeah, he's willing to give up in response to Sharon Street. He's willing to give up neo-Darwinism to hold to his belief and objective morality, because he just knows it's so real, and that's how I felt about it. And like contingency argument stuff as well. I'm like, yeah, there has to be at least something, like some mind behind the universe. So I would have been maybe more of like an agnostic deist kind of person, but what sealed

it for me for Christianity was like the reliability of the Gospels and the resurrection. Had there ever been atheists or atheistic arguments that have caused you pause? To think, okay, maybe there's a point here and I just have these intuitions about God's existence but they're not necessarily sound. Yeah, problem of suffering. The problem of suffering is hard to think about. It took me a while to get through that one. Researching different things, going maybe this is good, maybe I should reconsider, going back.

Because I've changed my view on things. I mean, changed my view on the date of Exodus. I went from a substance dualist to idealist. I was a premillennialist to postmillennialist. I was non-Christian to Christian even. So I mean, the problem of suffering is a hard one. It's a difficult objection. Let's be honest about it. That's why I did a lot of

research on it. I'd like to talk about that, but first, if there's someone watching right now and they want to believe that God exists, but they just need to be given any kind of argument, and not just, well, doesn't it make sense? But just something more concrete. Is there a sort of argument that you might run by them? To believe in God or believe in Christian God? To believe in a God. Oh man, that's difficult because it's, every person's different and it's hard to psychoanalyze someone. I think a lot of the objections, the more I study psychology, the more I think people's objections are not intellectual, they're more emotional. And that is for a lot of people, that's true for us too as Christians. Yeah. We're very, we're neither logical nor emotional, we're a mix of both and it's hard to really tell. This is why

people spend years in therapy just to understand their own psychology. Oh, that's good. I mean, what I would tell people is honestly, do what I did. Look at the Gospels without the lenses of Bart Ehrman or out the lenses of Josh McDowell. Look, just treat them charitably. Treat them like you would treat the works of Tacitus or Suetonius or Plutarch. I'm not gonna doubt that Caesar crossed the Rubicon because I got good sources to confirm that.

I'm not gonna doubt many of the things Alexander the Great did. I got good evidence for that. Josephus, for example, talks about one point. Herod Archelaus went into the temple, slaughtered the Jews, and canceled Passover, and sent all these pilgrims home for the year. Now, that's a crazy event. That would have been monumental in that year, and for decades they would have been talking about that. He's the only guy who mentions that. Do we have any reason to doubt Josephus that that event happened? No. Okay, so apply that same type of reasoning to the Gospels. Okay, did Jesus, was he a teacher in Galilee, was he crucified, that he

probably cleansed the temple? Yeah, now start doing that with the evidence for the resurrection. Start looking at how this thing got going. Read someone like Mike Lacona. Read someone like Brandt Petrie, read someone like, I'm just reading Michael F. Byrd's book, read some of these guys, read the book The Jesus Legend, Greg Boyd is an author, read these kinds of books, and just try to be charitable with it and just see where the evidence for the resurrection goes. Because honestly, I could give you an intellectual argument all day from the moral argument or the contingency argument. I mean, I think what really leads people to Christ is studying Christ.

So study Christ. But contingency argument, I'm gonna keep going back to it even though it's a fun argument. Let's do that because, well, maybe another way of asking it is, you know, I like C.S. Lewis's discussion of faith. He said, now that I'm a Christian, there are times I have moods where the whole thing seems rather implausible. But as an atheist, I also had moods that made me think that atheism was implausible. We need faith. And for me, those times that I encounter things that I don't know how to make sense of, that kind of destabilize me, as it were. I like to personally kind of grasp onto the, well, no, I have reasons to think this. So what is an argument for you personally for God's existence that you

like? Well, I mean, just building on what you said, Jeremiah 79, the hardest wicked and deceitful who can understand it. So yeah, we all have those moods. I have them. I had one this week. This is all nonsense. Like, you know, I mean, I go through those. I'm not going to deny it. But again, what brings- That's so helpful to say that out loud. Because if you don't, people who feel that way think

that there's something terribly wrong with them. No, I mean, just for everyone watching, I have those moods. But what brings me back is again, the fact that I, the mental argument, the fact that I'm like, okay, no, I've gone through this evidence again. I have been publicly debating this for years and the atheist arguments are just, they're not good. They're not convincing across the board for me and I think just in generally. So I mean, great argument I use is more of an idealistic version of the contingency argument. I mean, the more I study reality, the more I'm convinced idealism is true, not physicalism.

I think physicalism is nonsense just from the hard problem of consciousness alone. But the more we study the nature of reality, the more it becomes abstract, the further you go down. So reading like philosopher slash scientist like Miner Coleman, he's a philosopher scientist, he's positing something called ontic structural realism. Now that's a big, big phrase, but what it basically means is that reality is just, it's not a substance. Base level all the way down in quantum field theory, it's just structures, information, particles, he says, are just basically spin, mass and charge,

but there's no substance there. Particles are just blips and waves. Everything down below is information. And it's contingent. If the universe is not reducing to an actual substance, like physical particles, because particles are just blips and waves. And philosophers like David John Baker

say the same issues happen for fields. Fields don't reduce to a substance. Fields aren't a substance. They reduced information as well. Everything just, when we study the physical, reduces information. So, I mean, and we see this in philosophy as well. So if I were going to pick up this, this thing, I can describe this as hard, greenish, shade color, it's round. I've just described it all in terms of mental properties, qualia. I can't describe this in terms of something substance, something physical. I've described it all in terms of mental properties, qualia. I can't describe this in terms of something substance,

something physical. I have described this in terms of mental properties, information. This is what David Hume, they attribute to David Hume, it's called bundle theory. Physical objects are just a collection of properties. And so idealists today, like Susan Schneider, pick up on this and they go,

yeah, physical objects are just properties. It's all just information. So to give the layman an analogy, think of a video game. If you go into a video game world and you pick up a cup like this, is it really there? When you leave the room, is the cup still sitting on the table? Or is it just ones and zeros?

It's all information contingent on a computer. Likewise, the idealist is just saying, yeah, the physical reality we exist in, quantum field theory, quantum mechanics, and philosophy, read the book Idealism, New Essays and Metaphysics, physical reality is analogous to the way it acts in video games. All of the, every physical thing just reduces information.

So physical reality reduces information. What process information? Well, the mind. And this just strengthens the classic contingency arguments. Physical reality comes from a mind. The more we study material reality, the more it just looks like an information construct. And the most likely explanation,

I'll go into this in more detail in videos on my channel, would be that it comes from a mind. Fair enough. And you think that once you've made that leap from there is no God to something must exist that all men call God, the next jump is easier. I think so. I mean, I would, as a classical apologist, I say if you can have God already in your background knowledge, it makes the resurrection argument more plausible. Yeah, and I think that's true

Yeah, I think in a debate that Trent Horn did with who's the fellow we were talking about from the atheist experience bald guy Goody Matt Dilla. I've debated him twice Yeah on what topics debated him on his religion harmful or beneficial and I debated on if God exists. He's a gifted debater. He's got. Watch my debates with him. Done. You'll be proud of them. I think that was very proud of them. Yeah. What channel are they on? A modern day debate. And one was on the non sequitur show. YouTube. Yeah. Would you mind putting links to those debates in the description?

If you just go to my YouTube channel, inspiring philosophy, go to the playlist. I have all my debates in a playlist. Excellent. Yeah. Would you mind putting links to those debates in the description? If you just go to my YouTube channel, inspiring philosophy, go to the playlist. I have all my debates in a playlist. Excellent. Yeah. I yeah. Oh, if you just go to inspiring philosophy, he has all the debates he's done, even on other channels in a playlist. Yeah, I think it was transplant to Matt is like, maybe we have to we have to conclude the reality is stranger than we first thought. So when you say, well, resurrections don't happen. Well, they might. This one may have. Yeah. And it's just just circular reasoning.

You know, we know naturalism is true. So therefore resurrections don't happen. Any evidence you can use for resurrection must be false. Why? Because we know naturalism is true. Yeah. Have you looked into any modern day miracles as arguments for God? It is on my list. I have not had the time. It's like one of those things that I know I need to get to. Oh, that'd be great.

It's just, you know, I got so many requests for different videos. I'm just about to do a series on eschatology and then I'm going to do stuff on the reliability of the Gospels. And then I want to get to the idea of genocide in the book of Joshua and then the book of Daniel. So I mean, there's stuff I got to get to. Yeah, sometimes you'll meet people who are really rich and they don't dress like it. And that's sometimes how you know that they're really rich

because they're not trying to put on a front because they know that they're rich. And I feel like that with you, like I feel like you're clearly intelligent, but you don't need to. I'm sure when you show up at these intellectual conferences, people, I'm sure they're very intelligent people are dressed like academics and you show up with your tattoos and I Appreciate that. I don't know. I just I always feel the more I know the more stupid I feel dude I feel like that constantly but I think it's because I'm stupid

You know, I like you told me this when we were at seek that you these scripts that you write and then Read and then have what do you what do you call them graphic videos or what would the. Yeah they're all in my long form videos any video over 10 minutes on my channel is going to be just you're not going to see my face it's just graphic driven content. So you write these and then you have them kind of essentially peer reviewed or you have one or two people read through them. Yeah I have a psychologist social scientists helping with a video right now. I'm writing

The video that's coming out was reviewed by a few scholars I mean I always try to get them reviewed by experts Have there been videos that you've posted years ago that you've come to think oh I that thing I think I got wrong and it's so wrong that I have to take it down. I'm gonna do that soon Yeah, I need to take down a video. I just did I'm gonna redo it in June. I Messed up. I mean, so I mean, but I did it with my Exodus documentary. I was really excited. I thought I had really good evidence for the Exodus around 1406 BC.

I uploaded it and Egyptologists critiqued it. He wasn't very nice, but he was right. And I had to, I had to surrender, swallow my pride, take it down. I worked a long time on it, but I don't want it to see my audience. And then I said, can you help me make a new one? What he said he said yes, and we've remade it and it's better now

And then we made part two on the wandering period the 40 years in the desert evidence for that Then we made part three on the conquest so Exodus rediscovered Exodus rediscovered wandering period Exodus rediscovered conquest Wow a lot of evidence for the Exodus right there, and he convinced me that the early day for the Exodus is wrong It's really the late date the Exodus happened under Ramesses II. That's where all the evidence is and I looked at it I saw it in my face and I'm like, I made an error. So I got I got to fix it Is this your full-time job now it is since 2019 Yeah, is that since you became a nonprofit and started I started I met became a nonprofit I think in like 2015 you make money then other than YouTube ads, please donate

I don't have people donate people spend five on or patreon locals YouTube members people donate on my web through PayPal People donate five fifteen twenty five a month kind of thing and then I have enough people to do that And then I can keep making these documentaries Yeah, I'd love to how many hours do you pour into one less pick one video and tell me how was you poured into it? So the video I got coming on Fridays on if Jesus predicted the end of the world in the first century, I mean I Know I can't ever count on I'd say, you know weeks Let's say so the video I did critiquing the doc, I did a video, it's 40 minutes,

critiquing the documentary hypothesis. This is the view that the five books of Moses were originally four different sources and then they were stitched together. So there were originally two creation accounts, there were originally two flood accounts and they were stitched together and I critiqued it. So editing that, I started on Monday morning of a week

and I basically worked eight hour days till Friday. So five, eight hour days just on editing. Right, you know, to record the video that probably took about four or five hours of just, you know, cutting out my voice has to crack all the time because I'm still apparently a teenage boy. My voice cracks all the time.

It's all that screaming to the emo music back when you were 17. Yeah, exactly. And so that took a day because I'm exhausted after those. Writing took probably two weeks. Reading took months, you know, in my free time. But I don't just do one video at a time. I'm like, so I'll get up and I'll be like, all right, I'm going to edit five minutes of this video day.

Then I'm going to take a break, read 30 pages of this book. Then I'm going to do a TikTok video. Yeah., then I'm gonna take a break, read 30 pages of this book, then I'm gonna do a TikTok video, then I need to research for this debate coming up. So I mean like- So are you pretty scheduled? Like on a Sunday night, do you know what's gonna happen that next week? And is it very-

I plan out maps in my head. This is what I need to get done this week. Yeah. I also know there could be interruptions or delays, that kind of thing, but I kind of plan that stuff out What do you do in your spare time? I drink man Drake that's it. I drink it's funny. I'm drinking this blue label scotch And all I want to do is pour it back in the bottle and drink bourbon

No, I'm offended I'm gonna take this yeah mine now. Yeah, there's nothing in here. This is a clean cup Do you want this Thursday? Do you want my swill? I'll take your sweat first of all, you'll take this Well, I will take from a really nice first of all a nice cup You're also welcome at any point Thursday to come over and grab this bottle of it'll be good for you I do I do want you to please move the bottle to the back. Yes, it's in both the singles. Oh my goodness Yeah, please. Thank you. So whiskey is the only whiskey is the only thing that's antiseptic. So it's actually helped. So you pour your thing.

I mean, I know what antiseptic means, but how do you bacteria can't survive in it? It can in others. Other things like beer. Yeah, like tequila. Yeah. Whiskey whiskey is the miracle liquor. Oh my God. That's why it's used in like war movies.

So like cure wounds, like, you know, cover wound vodka. No, really no bacteria can grow. I can't remember the name of the study So you know, you'll just have to trust me so much better They did a they did a study, you know, so bourbon is it works as well But sort of scotch they did a study with like, you know vodka whiskey Beer wine and you know the, they put bacteria striving in all them except whiskey. Interesting. So I wonder what that is or why it's not like the alcohol percentages more. So I have no clue, but it is interesting.

And I would, I got to find that study again. Yeah. Do a video on it. So just delay the Christian stuff into a whole video. Yeah. Please don't do that. I don't think Jesus would like that. Yeah. I do that. Yeah. What else you read? A lot. Like fiction? I've read Lord of the Rings. How many times? Oh, man. Well, I've read it out loud twice to my daughter. Beautiful.

Read it out. I've read The Hobbit out loud to her like probably six times. She loves The Hobbit. Yeah. So I've read The Lord of the Rings. The whole the whole trilogy out loud, three, like 10 to 20 pages a night. That's right. And I think I've read it Lord of the Rings the whole trilogy out loud three like oh well like 10 to 20 pages a night. That's right. And so I think I've read it out loud twice as well. I've decided that I prefer Tolkien to theology and philosophy books. It's just a stage I'm going through because I think it's more factual.

Well, sometimes the beauty of Tolkien is Tolkien was a genius. He was not an academic philosopher, but he was he's one of the most influential philosophers ever. Why? He put his philosophy in fiction and more people can digest that easily. You go up to the average person on the street and you start talking to them. You talk to a guy at the bar.

You get him talking about Lord of the Rings. He's gonna know Tolkien's philosophical views more than he would know Bertrand Russell's philosophical views. Because Tolkien put philosophy in his work, deep, rich philosophy, and if you read it and you really let it like, you let it soak into your brain, you're gonna go, wow, there is some philosophy in this about how the smallest of creatures can make the biggest change,

how the way we defeat evil is not with big swords and big guns, but with love and ability. Yeah. You know, that's the whole theme of Lord of the Rings is that none of them take the ring and use it for power. They, they, they Aragorn passes it up. Gandalf passes it up. Frodo doesn't use it.

He takes it to destroy it. That none of them use the ring to defeat Sauron. And what does the ring keep constantly tempting them with? Like, how does it tempt Sam when he's in when he has the ring and Frodo is taken into the tower? It says you know the ring comes in and says you'll turn you'll turn Mordor into a big beautiful garden and you'll have armies you'll lead to defeat him. You can be the hero of the story and the way you defeat evil is by rejecting that.

Wow, that's really good. Yeah, and then how does that apply to the Christian life with our little YouTube channels thinking we can save the world? Yeah, exactly. It takes Tolkien's idea. You're not going to be the savior of the world. You are going to play a little part in this and just, you know, save, love others, show people Christ, Save one person at a time. Sam saves Frodo, and that's all he cares about. It's just saving his master, saving his... Keep going. I'm gonna look on the court. I'd love... Go for it. Yeah, so Sam saves the world. Tolkien said Sam was the hero of the story.

He saves the world by just caring about Frodo. And that's what we do in our life. We save the world just by caring about those that God has put in our lives. We don't do it by becoming the big hero to defeat the Illuminati or the New World Order, you know, tearing them down with everything. We save the world the way Christ saved the world,

which is just loving the people that were in his lives and then commissioning them to go do the same to others. And then you change the world one heart at a time. That's how you save the world and that's what Tolkien was teaching Don't pick up the ring of power Because you won't if no one can defeat the Dark Lord Notice how no one defeats the Dark Lord Lord of the Rings Frodo doesn't Frodo fails at the end He gets up he gets up to Mount Doom and he can't throw it in and what happens is is

Gollum comes in bites his finger off and he just trips and it in. And what happens is, is Gollum comes in, bites his finger off, and he just trips and falls in in the books. There's not this big climactic scene of him hanging on. And the wisdom of Gandalf to foresee that this creature may play some part. Yeah. Well, he even says in the beginning of the fellowship that Bilbo spared him out of pity and love. Pity may rule the fate of men.

And so, yes, and it was just, the hero of the Lord of the Rings, according to Tolkien himself, was God. Because God defeated Sauron with divine providence. He put things in place so that everything just fell into place and the ring falls in at the end. That's how God wins. Because no creature in Middle Earth,

Gandalf, Aragorn, Frodo, Galadriel even, Tom Bombadil, the Ents, none of them were powerful enough to defeat the Dark Lord. His armies were too big. Sauron was too much of a powerful Maiar. No one could overtopple him through mere strength, but they defeat him through humility and love. They say, look at what the forces

of the West do at the end. We lost, we barely struck a victory on the Pelennor fields. We have dwindled forces. All we could do now is sacrifice ourselves, sacrifice ourselves to give Frodo some more time. They go to the Black Gate thinking they may die, but they do it for love of their loved ones back home for the love of Frodo.

Humility. They don't go with power and might. They go with humility and love. That reminds me of the line from Chesterton, the most extraordinary thing in the world is an ordinary man, his ordinary wife and their ordinary children. Exactly. Isn't that lovely? So here's that line from the two towers, Sam and Frodo in almost despair.

It's like in those great stories, Mr. Frodo, the ones that really mattered, full of darkness and danger. They were those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. And I think Frodo says, at least in the movies, I forget. What are we holding on to? Yeah, what is there that there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it's worth fighting for?

I love how was it like how modest that assertion is. It's not like because it's good everywhere you look. It's like, no, but there's some like this, like there's bourbon on the back porch with a friend, you know, but yeah, you're all scotch. Yeah. There's there's you and your wife having a conversation and laughing in the morning such that you wake up the kids. Is that just me?

You know, there's some good in the world, Mr. Frodo, and it's worth fighting for. But take that and apply that to your, the real world. Christians contact me sometimes and they're like, the woke crowd is ruining the world, the Illuminati controls everything, this kind of thing. New World Order is going to have us eating bugs and living in pods soon. And I'm like, who did God put in your life to love? Do that. Do you think Christianity is really threatened of being destroyed right now? It was more threatened under Nero or the Diocletian persecution or when in the 700s when the the Muslims were marching up Spain and about to take over France.

Christianity was more to the threat of being destroyed then than it is now. Absolutely. Think of Peter being crucified upside down. We've got good reason to think that one of the last things he saw was that obelisk that now stands outside of St. Peter's. That was a necropolis. That was a graveyard. And that graveyard and now St. Peter's. Like, if you were to stand there and try to say to a Christian who was losing hope, one day, you'd be crazy. You're crazy. My favorite story about that is when Peter fled south Just before his crucified and he saw Christ carrying a cross going north and where are you going Lord to Rome to be crucified again?

Mmm, just shows you crisis still with a suffering and super passive aggressive It's the other thing you learn from that story. No, no Christ was very very I think he was a funny guy Yeah, but but yeah that funniest was a funny guy. Yeah. But, but yeah, that- Funniest line in the gospels. I have one. What's yours? Lazarus is dead.

Because his disciples go, well, if he's sleeping, we'll just go wake him up. He's dead, you morons. That's what I mean. That's right. I like the, which, you know, the beam in the eye, like you're walking around with it. I just, that image, one day I was reading that gospel and it just struck me that someone's walking around with a gigantic beam hitting people in the head. And you've got a splinter in yours, or a beam in yours asking for the splinter to be removed.

But the main point I was trying to get at was, is like, people are so worried about the end of the world going to happen, we're going to be dominated by the woke crowd or by Muslims. Christ will change the world as he's going to, one heart at a time. Just play your part. Be like Frodo and Sam, just play your part. Be like Aragorn, just play your part. Don't try to be the hero.

Don't try to be like, I'm gonna start the YouTube channel that's gonna take down the Illuminati. No, you're not. You're not the hero. Christ is the hero. Accept that. Play your part. Mm.

You and Peter Crave should get along really well. I'd love to meet Peter craig I gotta do this again where Peter craig comes in and you come in I've had him on like three different times or four different times now and every time I think this could be the last time I have him on if you bring me back to to drink. Oh, he's gonna die. I'm pretty sure he's aware of that He's like 86 you bring me back to talk with Peter Crave. Man, I owe you a debt. All right. I'll ask him if he wants to come. I'd love to come back. I'd fly in just for that. Oh, my gosh. All right. I'll see if I can hook it up.

Actually, now, while I'm thinking of it, would you mind slacking Melanie and maybe just well, you're probably busy. We'll do it after. I will fly back. I will fly all the way from Tucson back to student. I love that, man. It took me three interviews to finally feel comfortable with him. The first two of like, hello, Dr. Crafter, and I was I was quite nervous and understandably, I should be nervous. I slug compared to him every time. Every time I pick up one of his books, I'm like, Oh, right.

Another Crafter book. This will be good. And then I'm like, Oh, man, he is he is so underappreciated as an intellectual. Did you see his interview with Peterson? No, I did Oh, man, I was watching. I didn't even know that existed. Yeah, it didn't get nearly the traction I think it ought to have gotten and and it was the one time I wish Peterson had have not spoken or spoken I mean all respect to the man. He's obviously brilliant. I love what he says, but in this interview, I'm like Just let Peter craig speak Yeah, I think I think Jordan Pearson's great, but I think Peter craig just definitely.

Oh, my gosh. Yeah. So thoughts on here and we'll see how long you can go for here. Thoughts on Amazon's rings of power, ring of power, rings of power. I haven't even watched a second rings of power rings of power. I'm sure you love it. I hate it. I hate everything about it. I hate everything. It's wrong.

And it's, it gets Tolkien's philosophy wrong. It gets Tolkien's ideas wrong. It gets his lore wrong. Why are there two Durans existing? The dwarfs thought Durin was re reincarnated. So there should not be Durin the fourth and during the fifth. That doesn't make sense. The creators obviously don't care about Tolkien and his lore. They messed up the timeline. So Isildur is apparently existing in the same

time as Celebrimbor. What is going on? Okay. So here's the thing about stories. The best stories, and you know this is true, but you don't realize it. So you know it subconsciously, but you don't realize it. The best stories, characters drive the plot. The worst stories, the plot drives the characters. So in Lord of the Rings, Frodo leaves this Shire because he loves the Shire. He takes the ring away from the Fellowship because he loves them and wants to protect them. Sam goes with him because he wants to. George R. R. Martin writes that way. Characters are going to drive this plot. Give me an example of a movie or story where the plot drives the characters well we'll do that I know you're gonna say that but since I

haven't watched a second of it what would be a Michael Bay films like Transformers 2 okay you know this kind of stuff which is action happens let's react oh I see you know action bad boys to action happens let's react it's always you have characters doing things but it boys to action happens. Let's react. It's always you have characters doing things But it's always action happens characters have to react to the action rings of powers like that It's glad real is leading this charge. She's apparently general and not the the royalty she I have so many problems with the Lord. I want to let you go on as long as you'd like to So don't curtail any of these beautiful thoughts.

The first episode of Rings of Power, Galadriel is a general in like the army of some sort, even though she is supposed to be royalty. She's not going to be leading troops. She's royalty, but she's leading troops in the waste in the northern area. I forget, it starts with an F, I forget the name of it in Tolkien's world, but, and they call her Commander Galadriel. And so what happens is they mutiny and they, so she's got to go back. So she has to react to the mutiny.

Then the King, Gil-galad decides she's going, he's going to send her to Valinor. So she has to react to that. First of all, elves were not sent to Valinor. Gil-galad's not a gatekeeper to Valinor so she has to react to that first of all elves were not sent to Valinor Gilgala's not a gatekeeper to Valinor in In Tolkien's world. It's a choice every elf has to make do you want to come to Valinor stay in Middle-earth? You have to make this choice and the way they treat in the show is like oh, yeah Good you did really good therefore you get a reward you get to go to Valinor

No some of the elves don't want to go because they consider it, they'll be like, the way that Tolkien has it is that they would prefer to be the greatest race in Middle-earth versus the lowest race in Valinor. But they treat it in the shows if it's like a gift, oh, you were the gatekeepers to Valinor and now you get to go.

So they send her to Valinor and she's going to react. And the only choice they give her, she gets all the way to Valinor. The only choice, and you know she can't go to Valinor. So what, she's on a ship to Valinor, she's almost there. You know, she's gotta go back to Middle Earth. What is she gonna do? You tell me, if you've not watched the show,

what is her only choice? I don't know. She's on a ship to Valinor. How does she get back to Middle Earth? Flies on an eagle. Make Matt take a couple guesses, because I know what happened. There's no eagles.

She's gotta get back to Valinor. How's she gonna get back? She's gonna get back on a ship? There's no ships. She's got to get back to Valenard. How's she going to get back? She's going to get back on a ship? There's no ships. How's she going to get back to Valenard? Does she walk across the water like Christ? Well, she can't walk on the water. How does she get back?

Does she dig a tunnel? She can't dig. She's in the water. Does she find a portal of some kind? She swims. She swims. She jumps in the water and decides to swim across an ocean basically the size of the Atlantic.

And does she look like Aquaman diving in? Yes. Yeah. And, but, but just, she's just so lucky. She just happens to find a raft of survivors of humans on a raft in the middle of this gigantic ocean, which doesn't even make sense in Tolkien's lore because humans were forbidden to sail so far west that they could not see the island of Numenor. But there just happens to be paths of Numenor

way out west, I mean, this raft of humans that had their ship destroyed and they're on a raft. And then she's on the raft, they all die except one, who just happens to be Sauron, by the way. Yeah, the only human she's left with just happens to be Sauron in disguise. What are the chances? Then they just happen to get picked up by another ship. You just happens to find them and take them to the Numenor Yeah, that's how bad the writing is. There's no characters driving the plot

It's just things keep happening to them and they have to react. I see that's horrible writing So let me just talk to the creators. That's horrible writing. You should never been in charge of the show. That's horrible writing. You should never been in charge of the show. And honestly, if I saw you face to face and you asked me these questions, I'd tell you it again, because you need to be told this stuff. It's called tough love, right? Give us a good show. That was not a good show. So but in reality, things do happen that we have to react to and sometimes You know, we're not directing the story of our lives We're just that that's drowning and that happens in the Lord of the Rings

You can see times where they just have to react but still you have defining moments of the story is When the characters are driving the plots, but still there are times when things happen except like Marion Pippen come across treebeard They have to react to that. You know, Gandalf comes back from the dead, Auror Gorn, Legolas and Gimli have to react to that. But still the defining moments, you know the story or when Sam and Frodo decide to go off by themselves.

Yeah, and they don't have to. Yeah, they don't. They choose to. They have love for the show. And same thing in like Song of Ice and Fire. You know, the defining moments are when, you know, things like John decides to be the man he needs to be, or, you know, Edward Stark decides he's going to be

the honorable man. So what is this? This is... Game of Thrones. Yeah, I've never watched it, because I... I read it, it's different. So tell me, tell me on the books, because I would never, I'm not judging others,

well, I might be judging others, because I do think it contains pornography I know I wouldn't say it is pornography, but it certainly contains it so I wouldn't watch it So I haven't watched a second of that. I don't maybe I've seen bits and pieces but very like accidentally. Yeah Yeah, to be very specific People ask me if I do you dance? I'm like not on purpose Sometimes accidentally I trip and stuff happens,. I don't dance unless that would be empty. So you need to be clear about that. But you, yeah, the books are good. Oh, so as someone who loves talking, I'd love to

hear your thoughts on Martin. That's because Martin, you know how sometimes philosophers in the past would like turn another philosopher on their head. So like Marx turns Hegel on his head. Kant turns, you know, Hume on their head. So like Marx turns Hegel on his head. Kant turns, you know, Hume on his head. Aristotle turns Plato on his head. That's what's happening in this. Martin takes the philosophy of Tolkien and turns it on its head.

He takes the writing of Tolkien, turns it on its head. In what way? You use the ring and you win? What's the- No, not in that way. It's in Tolkien's world Being noble being honorable gets you Uh doesn't get you death. It gets you life. It gets you to keep going in the exact opposite of martin's world

It's eddard stark is such a noble and honorable man. He he is he's so honorable He's willing to sacrifice his public reputation to be honorable And so that's that's that's one of the I won't tell you, but that's, he does something to sacrifice his reputation for this, but, and it gets him killed. He's so honored. And then that unleashes chaos. So in some ways, Martin is not, he's saying be honorable. And what happens in Martin's world is because the bad guys are not honorable and they kill all the good honorable guys. They unleash chaos upon Westeros. And that's And it's horrible what had happened. So it's, you know, like, you know, I've heard Crave say this and I totally agree.

You know, Tolkien was a bit of a Platonist. Like the world of Lord of the Rings is like, it's like ideal, it's better. Everything's more real. In Martin's world, it's like the exact opposite. It's like one low below, it's like Platonism, like Tolkien's world is one level above ours. Martin's world is like one level below ours. So would that lead to a sort of nihilism or hopelessness?

Should I even be dabbling in these books then if? So here's the thing. Yes kind of in that book But you you read Martin's books and you're like these are great lessons to learn about how not don't do these things in our world Yeah, you know you read his books and go yeah, don't kill the honorable Edward Stark people because here's what happens. Here's what happens Isn't that kind of like a Breaking Bad, you know Shakespearean King kind idea? Yeah, I actually like Breaking Bad a lot I actually am beginning to get tired of the good guy who becomes evil over time and look at what a shitstorm has created I'd like to see someone who's shitty and chooses to be good. That would be an interesting twist on things. But one of the ways Martin turns Tolkien on his head

is that in Tolkien's world, good guys are not supposed to rise up and be the Nietzschean ubermesh, take power. They gotta be humble and just love and do these things. In Martin's world, it's kind of like that. It's like, there are some good people, John Snow, Arya Stark, Tyrion Lannister, and they do need to rise up and be the ubermashes. They need to be these new men who come up

with new ideas. Otherwise, if they don't, the stupid people like Joffrey and the bastard in the North, crap name is the escaping me, the Bolton, the Bolton bastard, or they're going to destroy the world. So you have to rise up and take power in some ways. But Tolkien is like, no, that's the bad. But in Martin's world, sometimes the good people have to do a little evil to save the world. Sometimes they have to take a little power to save the world.

And, but I think people should read Martin's work in the sense that learn from it. Don't become like this. So you've read all the books. You've read the books. The audio books. Oh, okay, yeah, cool. I listened to them in the car in the past. Having spent so much, see, I didn't have a taste for reading until I became a Christian.

I had never read a book. I think I read Choose Your Own Adventure books, maybe one, something to do with Taekwondo Master or something. And then when I was 17, I just, I was ravenous for books on the saints and Christ. And I loved that. And then I started studying philosophy. And so I was reading the pre-socratics and Plato and everyone else. Well, a lot of others. Um, and then I immediately became kind of, uh, you know, like Dostoevsky and Tolstoy and, and I'm just like, I just want to read something stupid again. But not again. Just I want to. So I started to read some books. I'm trying to take delight in just fun candy fiction. Like you don't eat it to sustain you. You don't read it to sustain you, but you just something to read. So I tried. This is going to be funny. I looked up the,

is it Witcher or the Witcher? Is that what it's called? I, I, yeah, it's a video game. I, so it was a book first, wasn't by a Polish author. I didn't know anything about it. So I thought I'd give it a shot. And within the first two pages, boobs. And I threw it directly in the bin. I'm like, I can't do boobs. Yeah, I was really pissed when I, uh,

Like immediately boobs. Yeah, I got the game in the tutorial level. I was like, what? Oh, in the game too. Yes. Yeah. Can't do boobs. So you know, you're a Christian one. It's's like I can do boobs, but in the right context not from a polish fat. It's gonna make sense Well sure

Song of songs for example, but here's what I'm asking you This Martin fellow was his name George Martin George our our George our our Martin boobs everywhere just boob city George RR, George RR Martin boobs everywhere. Just boob city. Not not in Vegas. No, they're in the book, but it's not gratuitous. It makes sense when it happens. Is there porn in the book? I mean, they talk about sex.

Yeah, I mean, I can't do it. It's like a wound, right? It's it's like stuff from my past. One of the biggest bad guy, the biggest bad duo is these. Don't be explicit. The Lannister twins But I mean so I look forward to not reading this ever here's an I won't say anything else But here's the you hate them so much

You just like you've got to keep reading because you want to see them beat but at the same time He then takes one of the Lannister twins Jamie and starts to slowly turn him into a good guy. And you get mad at Martin. You're like, no, he's evil. He's done these horrible things. But then you also are like, okay, but he is start, oh no, but there's beauty in that. There's beauty in that because think compared to Christianity, Christ takes the worst of us and turns us into good. Martin takes the worst villain, Jamie Lannister, that you hate in the first few pages and starts to slowly turn him into a good guy. So there is beauty in that. And look at what, you know, if Martin could do that with

Jamie, look at Christ, think about what Christ could do with us. Or a different quote. If, if this potato can become vodka, you can become a saint. Um, all right. Yeah. I said, I don't think I'm going to read it. But it's fair enough. You know, I wouldn't. Yeah, it's like scotch. And everyone likes it. Yeah. So I read Harry Potter while I was away in Guatemala just for

just for fun. And I liked it. It was like charming. But I just thought I just well, I this sounds pretentious, but I had the Brothers Karamazov here. And I understand we're not all called just to read Dostoevsky forever

I get that and that's why I'm taking a vacation from that and reading some other kind of sci-fi post-apocalyptic things but It was just I just put Harry Potter down. I get it. Yeah. Yeah, there's something Did you learn Spanish while you were there? You said you were I went to Spanish school for a week Yeah, and so now I'm fluent. That would have been cool, huh? That was true. Yeah, I live in Tucson. I've been trying to learn Spanish for years. I should have been at the time.

I think if you want to... I think if I wanted to... If I needed to learn it, like if I felt like our Lord was calling me to start a Spanish YouTube channel or something like that, I think I would have to go there for like six months and live in a home of other Spanish speakers and really try to limit English entirely.

Yeah, I agree. And not read in English, try not to watch anything in English. It was exhausting. It was exhausting sucking constantly. It's like when I tried jujitsu for like a week. It's like you just suck continually and that's humbling and very tiring. So it's just like a four hours one on one with this this lady trying to teach me. And by the end of it, you just fried. I believe it. It's beautiful. I mean, it's yeah, I had such a bit of this way.

I have such respect for people who are Spanish speakers who speak broken English or anybody who speaks broken anything Oh, God bless them. Oh, yeah I never I would never mock and if I have I repent but yeah I would never mock anyone who's learning a second language and it's broken because man, it's hard especially in English is super hard. I Mean think of they said that to me. They said that's much harder. Think of the word are EAD Yeah, what word I just say are a are A D. What word did I just say? R A E.

R E A D. What word did I just say? R E D E. R E A D. Oh, sorry. Read. No, I said read. Yeah. It's a stupid English.

No, it's true. The example they gave me was like tree and three. And they're like, it's so similar, but it's a different word. And that's yeah, it's like, okay, so I don't know how to do this, but, um, however you say man and eat is very similar. So like hombre and hombre. Hombre, my, uh, so those things and yeah, yeah, it was, it was fun. Yeah.

I need to learn it. I'm, I'm, it's, it's before I die, I'm going to learn Spanish. I in Hebrew. I keep, oh, really? Oh, I want to learn Hebrew. So can you read Greek? No. I mean, again, it oh really? Oh, I want to learn Hebrew. So that Greek Henry Greek No, I mean again, it's here here here put yourself in my shoes I could either spend a few weeks learning a language that I would benefit from or I could spend a few weeks making a video

That I know will possibly help lead someone to Christ for sure. So I mean it's like Sam doesn't need to learn Elvish He's got his mission. He can just do that. He doesn't need to yeah Yeah It's like Sam doesn't need to learn elvish. He's got his mission. He can just do that. He doesn't need to yeah Yeah, so I think what would Sam do Sam would take care of Frodo instead of learning elvish and staying in Rivendell And that's how I feel sometimes. I want to learn Greek and Hebrew I do but what's on your do mommy asking? What's on your arms? Yeah, so they look new. No. No, these are these for a couple years So they're very they don't seem to have faded much Jose of four six my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge and then the first the first phrase of second Corinthians, 10, five. We destroy arguments.

Mm hmm. That's good. Who are some Christian apologists that you liked as you were kind of gaining your kind of apologetics chops? The one guy I really liked early on was a guy named JP Holding. Has a website called Tectonics, and man, he really did help me. And, you know, he may not know it, but he really did help me. And I probably would have started my channel if he did not put out these ridiculous articles on like obscure things that probably like

maybe a few people read, but I was one of them. And, you know, does it make you because it does me try to take people seriously when they thank you. As opposed to being dismissive or falsely humble when someone says your channel like has like brought me to Christ. I honestly I love hearing that and like it makes me so happy inside I don't know how to respond I don't know how to respond. I don't need them. I want to come up to me too. A few days ago and said you saved my marriage. Then he looked at me with an intensity which let me know he needs me to hear this and I didn't know how to hear it. I was just I don't know what that means. I'm so great. Praise God.

But I never know. I wish I had some proof something profound to say I'm always like that's great. I'm so happy. Thank you. I always feel like like a chump when I say it, but I mean like it does mean the world to me. Yeah, but I mean, it's I always feel like like a chump when I say it but I mean like it does mean the world to me Yeah, but I mean it's I always feel like this This no, I mean, I mean I had a guy cry one time in front of me I didn't know what to do I

Just so I started mocking him and I felt really bad about it. Oh Yeah No, I was trying to remind myself like what it's like when I go to people who have had an impact on me and I thank them. Like, how do I want them to respond? Like, I want them to take it seriously and not just be like, Oh, praise God. Yeah, we all get that man. Praise God. But I'm trying to say something nice about you.

And I need you to hear it. You know, yeah. Yeah, it's hard to do. I went up to E. Randolph Richards. He wrote a book called Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes. And I went up to him at ETS in November. I said, your book changed the way I read the Bible. And he was so nice about it. So I really do appreciate that. How do you respond to the hiddenness of God, this argument? And I'm not going to, you can still man it for me, but the idea being if God exists and wants me to be saved and

I need to accept that salvation in some capacity, then I need to first at least know that he exists. And yet there are atheists who really would believe in Jesus Christ and God if if they could. Would they? I mean, there's something we don't know how to wait. How could you be kind of answer that? Yeah I mean human psychology is so complex when people when an atheist tells me if you just gave me the evidence I'd believe I go uh-huh That's not how your brain works. That's not how we work as humans That's this isn't the way it is flat earthers exists

Okay, the evidence the earth is round is there and there's people who don't believe it. Don't give me this nonsense that if I just gave you the evidence you'd change your worldview. We know from studying the brain that when your beliefs are attacked, even little beliefs, the lizard part of your brain lights up. Flight or flight response. I've been doing an experiment for years now

with a stupid issue that I've been dealing with. It's called, is Christmas pagan? There is no evidence any aspect of Christmas is pagan. There is none. Every time I say that, and I have all, I have every single source I need to prove that I can prove that from, from here to Tuesday, every time I bring it up, there is some, somebody in the comment section, no, you're wrong. This goes on more than we're talking about.

I've gotten in long common threads where I go through and I'm citing, here's what the phylokeleon calendar says. Here's what Microbius says. Here's what the earliest texts on Yule logs are. And there's no evidence Yule logs go back to paganism. I can show you the first reference to a Yule log and John Aubrey's work. Okay. They still don't believe me.

You know what it tells me? It doesn't matter how much evidence I give people Christmas isn't pagan They're still gonna believe it because they want to now take it with something that's much more Life-changing some more fundamental more impactful like Christianity You really think something that's more threatening to the way people live is gonna they're gonna change just like give them the evidence It's not how people are abortion. I mean before modern I mean, before modern sonograms, people would say it's not human, it's not alive. And then you would, as the science developed, you're able to show very clearly, look at its heartbeat, look at its brain, look at how it acts.

And they still, people tell me it's a clump of cells. I mean, it's ridiculous. It doesn't matter how much evidence you show people. And this has been shown in psychology. I remember reading a study one time where they had two groups. One group they asked, what do you prefer, home care or daycare? So group A said home care, group B said daycare. Then they gave them each two fake studies. One study showed how good home care was and one study showed how good daycare was.

And the people in the first group that preferred homecare said, oh, they used reasoning to dismiss the daycare study. They looked for things to dismiss it. Same thing in the other group. They did look for things to dismiss them. People build their worldviews. We all do it. We need to recognize this is the way we are

because the first step to realizing we have a problem is accepting it. We all want our worldviews, the beliefs we currently espouse to be true because the lizard part of our brain lights up and we go, I don't wanna be wrong on something. That's what I was telling myself when I took down my Exodus documentary and had to redo it.

An hour long documentary I uploaded, I was like, I cannot be given to my lizard brain. I know this is true about myself. I know I want it to be true and I could easily make the evidence fit But I know I gotta do what's right and that was hard I mean, I literally cried so I mean I know what it's like, but that's the way humans are So when you tell me you just give me enough evidence. I'll believe I'm like you're a human man

That's not the way we work. I will give you the evidence and I will argue this is true But people will not if people do not want Christianity to be true. They will not accept it. And I believe it was, was it Pascal who said it? You know, like there was enough evidence out there for anybody who's willing to say that, yes, this could be true, but it's not forced upon us. It's not like in your face kind of thing.

Yeah, enough light for those to seek it. And I think that's just the genius of God. It's there if you want to come to me, but it's not going to force you. People have changed their minds over facts. Yeah. Things that they didn't want to be true. So you're not saying don't give people arguments. No, give people arguments for sure. But I mean, just accept that if they're not open, they're going to find any way they can to dismiss it. And I've got to accept, I may be doing that the same. Exactly. I was about to say that.

It obviously cuts both ways. It does. There are Christians who might say, give me the evidence and I'll become an atheist. And you'd say exactly the same thing, presumably. I mean, yeah. And you know what? I'm a theistic evolutionist. And you know what happened was, as an atheist online said, you know, if you were, you know,

like, could you just look at this a little more objectively? Like, you know, the same thing earlier, a few years ago, a Christian told me to do with the Gospels, and I was like, oh, that's, that hit me hard. And I was like, all right, I will. So I read Jerry Coyne, I read some, I'm like, you know what, I guess I'm convinced. And this is just the way, the way it is. And Christians today still attack me for it. So you denied evolution and then changed your mind on it. I see, yeah. And yeah, every time I got to change my worldview, it hurts. It hurts my brain. I don't want to accept I'm wrong on something.

You know, the video I'm taking, I'll take it down. I just keep delaying it because I hate myself for being wrong on something. But I'm going to redo it in June. And I just hate the fact that I was wrong on something. But I mean, here's another thing I got to fix. And yet clearly God's existence could be more evident. Could be isn't.

And that's not a problem because because the earth is round and people still don't believe it. Look, God could show up in some people's. I mean, people like R. And raw Matt Dillante have said these kinds of similar things. People have asked me, if God appeared before you, would you believe in God? And they've said things like, no, I could be hallucinating.

Again, people will find excuses to believe what they want. I think, and some people will say, they'll say, no, no, if God did appear, I would believe. And I'm like, you might. I mean, that might be just another way for you to tell yourself these relaxing things. It could be, could not be. This could just be a way of you trying to feel comfortable

with yourself and not feel like you're doing this. So then what advice would you give to the person who says, if there's arguments, I do want to change my mind? Presumably it's not, no, you wouldn't. So what would- The advice I give is this in talking to the person, accept that you won't, won't. First of all, first of all, the first step is accepting that's just not who you are. That's not the way you think. That's not the way you are. Except you have a problem. You do want all your current

beliefs to be true. I want all my current beliefs to be true. I have to fight that every day. And I hope I'm getting better. I may not be. I hope though. So just accept, first of all, that's not the way you think. And then try very, very hard. I mean, like, very hard to just study the evidence objectively. Look at the Gospels with the principle of charity. Look at the evidence for the resurrection. I recommend Mike Lacona's book and the methodology he uses on the resurrection. So he says, look, a theory to explain historical facts is going to have explanatory scope, explanatory power, plausibility, the least ad hoc, provide illumination. The resurrection theory has all of that. It

is the least ad hoc. It is the most plausible. It explains all the facts are on early Christianity with the least amount of assumptions. It also has plausibility because it has evidence from other arguments for God's existence. I mean, I can, you may come to a different conclusion, I'm gonna disagree with you, but that's all I can do at the end of the day. I can't psychoanalyze you.

I can just present the evidence and say, this is why I think it's true, and we debate it. But try to look at the evidence as objectively as you can and accept that you can't That's what we all have to do. Yeah Are there doctrines of Christianity not that you want to be true and so make the evidence fit? but are there doctrines that you don't want to be true that you've Maybe tried to disprove or wish you could disprove

Christian doctrines, but have ultimately said no, this is true, even though I'd like it not to be. Yeah. I mean, if I'm being honest, maybe the idea, sometimes I do wish Marcion was right. The God of the Old Testament is not Jesus. Oh, Marcion, yeah. Yeah, Marcion's. It'd be so much easier instead of going through the cultural context of the Mosaic law, the

cultural context of the book of Joshua, just to say, yeah, that guy was evil, but that's not who Jesus is. That'd be so much easier. But I have to recognize this is not what Jesus taught. He clearly taught he was Adonai. He was the God of the Old Testament in the flesh. It'd be so much easier to, in some regards, to deny the Trinity. But the Trinity is true. God is triune. Jesus is God. The Holy Spirit is God. The Father is God.

They have three or one, but the three are not each other. Because the Trinity trips people up. It's confusing to some people. And they want it just easy for them to dismiss it instead of going into the complexity and the beauty, the beauty I think we have in the Trinity. I want to write my dissertation on the Trinity whenever I ever get there. But I mean like.

Isn't this the appeal people see in Islam? It is said to be a much simpler faith. It's one that can try to encompass all the other quote unquote prophets, right? It's simpler for sure. But then you get into Islam and you realize it has a lot of historical issues like the Quran denies that Jesus was crucified. Right.

You know, Mike Lacona and Bart Ehrman did an eight hour debate on the resurrection. I know. Did you listen to the whole thing? I listened to most of it. I paid to listen and I listened to about 20 minutes. I'll probably get there. But my favorite part of that whole debate was they just kept saying, everyone knows Jesus was crucified. Denying that is ridiculous. And I kept thinking, they don't mention Islam, but I kept thinking about it in the back of my head.

Well, so you could say on the surface, maybe Islam sounds simple, but when you start getting into the nitty gritty problems in the Quran, issues with like Sura 65 verse 4. Which is? About, you know, women you're allowed to sleep with and it could very well imply you're allowed to sleep with prepubescent girls. Some have argued that and it puts the hair up on the back of my neck.

And how you're allowed to hit women. And the morality that comes out of Islam just seems so, it just violates everything I know about ethics. It's just, did it come from a morally perfect being. That's my biggest objection, it was long, but then also the historical blunders in it. Like getting the idea of Jesus not being crucified. Like why would you have that in there?

This is just, historians that deny the resurrection say the one thing we know about history is Jesus was crucified. And the Quran denies it. We know a lot of the stories in the Quran came from Jewish and Christian apocrypha works like the infancy gospel of Thomas or the Targum of Esther. And it's like this, we know where this stuff came from. This is not coming from a morally perfect being. This is coming from a culture of its time in Arabia that had limited

access to some Christian and Jewish texts. Do you think it's more helpful to think of Islam as a Christian heresy then? Moser- I mean, technically you could think of it that way, I guess. I mean, it kind of is. Mason- Why is it that you think that those who would be in the camp of those who were called woke seem more open to Islam or defending Islam? Moser- Because the woke crowd is all about the oppressed. And in their view, Islam is oppressed by Christians in the West. We don their view, Islam is oppressed by Christians in the West. We don't celebrate Ramadan, but we celebrate Christmas and Easter. Well, that's oppression because Muslims don't get their special holidays, special time for them, but Christians

get their special time for their holidays. So they feel for the oppressed, the transgender community, and religious minorities. They don't realize that it's vehemently opposed to, Islam is vehemently opposed to wokeism and Muslims can quote me on that. I fully believe that. I just look at the two different doctrines, the two different beliefs and they're just, but the woke crowd doesn't realize that.

All they are thinking is they're oppressed. Therefore we're on the same side. But that's such a surface understanding of Islam and it's horrible. Have you done any debates with Muslims? I will April 22nd Debating Daniel Huck he gets you on if child marriage should be allowed. Hmm It's gonna be a fun debate tune in it'll be on moderate a debate and he's taking the affirmative

Yeah, and YouTube will allow these views. I Hope so. I mean in the debate it'll be different because you're coming together. But presumably he share these views elsewhere on YouTube. He sure has. And these videos are allowed to stand. This is nuts. Just get ready for a wild ride. That's all I'll say. OK.

Look forward to it. Well, on that note, let's take a break. And then when we come back, I'd like to take questions from those who are sitting in super chats and then our local supporters. If you're watching right now and you do support us on locals, go over to matfred.locals.com and put in your question and we'll make sure we get to it. How long is the break? Well, usually like, like three minutes would be good.

Is it not working? Are they still listening to me? Say. Is it? Any sinner is capable of being a great saint. And any saint is also capable of being a great sinner. Hello.com. So if you haven't yet got the app, hello, what are you doing? If you have a smartphone, go and download Hello. But first go to hello.com slash Matt Fred. Hello is the number one Catholic prayer and meditation app on the web. And it's fantastic. And it actually beat TikTok recently as far as in the episode. Did you know that? It's crazy. It's legit.

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It will be on your channel or? I might post. It'll be on modern day debate live on April 22nd. I will, I might post to my channel after just because people have asked me to start doing that. But yeah, I, I, How do you feel when you go into debates? You said you'd like conflict. I always feel nervous, but also excited. Like I'm ready to go in. I sometimes I thrive on conflict. Yeah. And so I, I, I love debating and love exchanging ideas.

I'm like, I'm excited about it always. I appreciate the honesty. Like it's like, yeah, this is, this is, I'm, I'm, I'm nervous. I'm excited. You want to keep that though. I think I used to speak to high school students. I speak to like 50,000 teens and college students a year. And I get up and speak to it.

Like when you were there at seek, I spoke to like 8,000. It's like, yeah, of course I'm a little nervous and excited but you want that you want that to propel you mm-hmm so you're like fully alert fully awake I think if you lose that yeah then there's a good reason to be only I might I have a rule about debates I don't drink I don't drink 24 hours before the debate okay I only eat meat. Is that right? Yep. And no conjugal relations with the missus. Well, I'm typically traveling. So, yeah, it's easy.

Also, this would be in person debate is in person. I'm flying to Dallas for it. Nice. Oh, I almost want to come. Come. You can be in the crowd. You want to do a debate or hold up a poster? Yeah, I'll be there. David Wood will be there.

I think John McCrae is flying in just to watch him. What do you mean? David Wood. David. Oh, David Wood. David Wood's doing another debate there. Yeah. Okay.

Fantastic. You know, Trent is in Dallas. I should tell him about that. He should do a debate. He should debate Matt Dillhunting. Oh, I see. You're asking, do I want to do a debate? Meaning this is a group that hosts debates.

Yeah, but John McCrae, he said he's going to come in just to watch. He's not doing a debate. Okay. I don't do debates because I'm not good at them. Oh, shame. Yeah. I'm not good at thinking on my feet and I feel, and it makes me really anxious. Understandable.

I'm okay engaging kind of adversarially if I like the person and there's like rapport there. So I hosted a couple of debates on my channel with Cameron Batuzzi, you know, because it's like we I like him and I I feel like neither of us are gonna try to take any low blows. We're just trying to understand something to you. You like him? I'm kidding. I don't like him publicly, but probably, you know, I do. I like him a lot. Cameron's great.

So that I can do, but I can't. Yeah. All right. We have questions. Do it. Is there, Mart Hartman asks, an especially annoying atheist argument that is easily refutable, but people continually trotted out or fall for it? Oh, there's so many. There are so many. Oh, my goodness. An easily refutable one would be that religion causes harm. Oh, Christian religion, Christian religion.

Here's one. Christian religiosity leads to all the war and violence in the world. Utter nonsense. There's a great book by William Cavanaugh called The Myth of Religious Violence. And when I talk to historians about history of war and religiosity, they always keep telling me, read that book, and I'm like, well, I have read that book. And they're like, okay, good, you know the answer. It's utter nonsense. There's no evidence Christianity leads to more war and violence. I hate hearing that over and over again. It's just utter nonsense. It's debunked by the easiest response ever. Correlation is not causation. Just because there have been Christians involved in wars doesn't mean Christian religiosity caused it. Going back to a lot of the wars in Europe, the 30-year war everyone thinks is a religious war.

Well, France joined the wrong side. And then the Pope blessed France fighting against the Holy Roman Empire. Like this was not a religious war. And William Cavanaugh debunks this quite easily. So I'm sick and tired of hearing that nonsense. For me, I mean, a really easy one to refute is the, you're only Christian because you were raised that way. This is what Craig obviously and everybody calls the genetic fallacy.

I like what Trent Horn said about this. And I don't know if this is his wording or not, but he said, that would be like saying to an atheist in Portland, the only reason you're an atheist is because you were raised in Portland, Oregon on a strictly vegan diet and your brain hasn't developed necessary, hasn't developed enough to be able to interpret arguments and understand them for God's existence. That's a bad argument. Because it's just because someone might believe something for a particular reason doesn't mean they're wrong or a bad reason.

Yeah. Okay. This person who wants to be anonymous says, is there a fully sufficient philosophical argument that demonstrates gender ideology is false? Do we need theological perspective to come to this conclusion? To be clear, I'm not suggesting that gender dysphoria is not a serious mental health condition for those with the bone of Fide disease, but curious about engaging the group for whom gender has become discernible. I've had enough time convincing others without theological perspective. Let me just say this because I don't know how many thoughts you have on this.

I'm going to be interviewing Jason Everett next week and he's just written an excellent book on this whole issue. And I think he's going to approach the topic with a great degree, great degree of charity and clarity. Yeah. The issue has always confused me because when you because when you say things like, you know, gender is just something in my brain, I can change it, this kind of thing. It's something I honestly have not studied that much, but it's always been just confused me.

It's like, I don't understand how you could define yourself that way. I think the problem when it comes to Christianity is that like, for a lot of people in the woke crowd or the transgender community is that their identity is sort of tied to the gender they want to be. And for Christians, our identity is tied to Christ and who he wants us to be. And so who Christ wants us to be is who he made us to be. So in line with like Aquinas and natural law theory, we're going to go along with how we were made to be.

The transgender community rejects that and go, no, I get to determine who I'm. It's Nietzschean, it's ubermesh. I get to be the master of my own fate. And the Christian, it seems so bizarre to us, is because we're like, no, Christ is the master of our fate. He made us this way. This is what we were made to be. So, I mean, it's something I've, again, it's another topic I'd like to study more, but it's just always been like, for the Christian mind, it just seems so odd to us because we don't look at our identity as something that we can just

determine. These are things beyond our control. Yep. Good. Kelly asks, my cousin recently decided she doesn't like the Bible. She was raised Catholic, went to college for natural sciences late in life, 30s, and I think she is an atheist space. I think she is in an atheist space at this point. She seems to get hung up on specific passages in the Old Testament, and her relationship with her intensely superstitious Catholic father isn't healthy. This may be a vague question to ask since there are only so many details here. How do I approach a conversation about God with her? Yeah, it can be difficult to say the least. You know, the best conversations I've had about God

with atheists is over a drink. You know, just chill and relaxing, bringing things up. Just, you know, have a casual conversation with her, pray there's an opening, go for it, and be prepared. You know, as Scar and the Lion King would say, be prepared. You know, study these things. Watch, go on my channel, watch,

I did a series Genesis 1 to 11, and it's just animated graphic videos of me going through each chapter. It'll give you things to bring up. You know, like for example, why does God tell humans in Genesis 1-28 to subdue the earth? Well, if the earth was already perfect, why did it need subdued? It's kind of like God's implying it's not perfect outside of Eden.

I want you to take Eden to the rest of the world. Your job is to make the world a better place. So that doesn't fit with the perspective that everything was perfect in the beginning and then only sin corrupted all of creation. I would argue it corrupted humans. Because I do believe in a fall and an Adam and Eve and an original garden there. But it seems to imply in Genesis 1 that there's more out there than meets the eye. It's not this idea that the entire globe is perfect. There's no death or suffering. You know, I remember Michael Heiser would say, if an elephant fell on Adam, he would have died. He's not like an immortal Superman type thing.

There was, you can see there is death before the fall. Joshua Johnvaney wrote a dissertation called Death in the Garden and basically points this out. You can see death before the fall. But watch my Genesis 1 to 11 series. That'll bring up some interesting things and just try to throw them in the Garden and basically points this out. You can see death before the fall. But watch my Genesis 1 to 11 series. That'll bring up some interesting things and just try to throw them in the conversation. Like maybe this is not what the typical fundamentalist

understanding of scripture is. Maybe there's more complexity here. Maybe there's more that meets the eye. I'll tell you this, read in the ISV translation, Genesis 3, you won't see the word serpent ever. They use a different word. Nahush. Is it?

They use the word Nahush, but they translate it differently based on the vowel points. Now you said that you believe in original Adam and Eve. Now many people who accept evolution would say no, there can't possibly be an original Adam and Eve. Why do you accept that? Well, because look at how Genesis 1 and 2 is laid out. Genesis 1 talks about humanity in general terms. So humanity, wherever it is, is my image. Then we see in Genesis 2.24, a toledoth.

This happens a lot in Genesis. This is the phrase, these are the generations of Terra. These are the generations of Ishmael. And it always introduces what comes after that person. So in Genesis, we see it in Genesis 2.24, these are the generations of heavens and the earth. That's telling us this is not a repeat of day six. This is the next day.

This is what comes after Genesis one. It's like a chapter marker. Then the next thing that happened was, well, okay, that means that all the humans that were there before came before Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve are not the first humans in my view. And I don't think 1 Corinthians teaches that. I think we're reading into that. Because it says Jesus is the last Adam. I see. So you don't think that Adam and Eve were the first parents of the human race? No, they were the first priests of creation. They're like Moses in some ways, or Jesus. You know, Paul contrasts Jesus and Adam.

First priest, the priest that failed, the priest that succeeded. Adam is the first priest of creation. He's the first one God made a covenant with. And he represents all of creation, including all the humans at that time. And so when he failed, all of creation failed with him, just like in Christ, we all succeed. So it's the same kind of contrast there. And you have videos on this on your side. My Genesis 1 to 11 series, yeah.

Mitchell Godfrey says, what frustrates you most about refuting the type of content you primarily focus on? Having to repeat myself. I mean, I feel like I have to constantly point out the same objections I hear over and over again are just crap. Constantly having... here's the thing I think I frustrate. Stop reading the Bible. I hate having to point this out. I don't need scholars. I just need to read the Bible. I hate when I hear that. I have to keep refuting that because you do, if you're not going to read this, the scholars are trying to get us to read the Bible in its cultural context.

And if you don't read the Bible in its cultural context, you're going to read it in your own cultural context. You're going to read it through your own cultural lenses. So you're just, and when you say don't trust the scholars, just read the Bible, what you're really saying is don't trust the scholars, trust me. Bible, what you're really saying is don't trust the scholars, trust me. I know better than the scholars. Trust my interpretation of the scriptures. Don't trust the experts. So I'm not doubting scripture, I'm doubting your interpretation of the scriptures.

So I'm sick and tired of hearing that nonsense. So trust experts, read experts. They went to school for a reason. You don't have to agree with them on everything, but at least listen to them. Yeah. Peter B says, dang, being an IP subscriber, that's your podcast. For over a decade. Glad to see him on here. I'm curious. What video does Michael think was the most difficult to create or release?

That's it. I'm trying to go back through all my videos. To create, I mean, the hardest part for me is writing. So maybe the video I did called the Lost Message of the Bible, because it's very, I'm trying to go and trying to show what the whole message of the Bible is and how it leads to Christ and what Christ is doing and how it's about ending exile but not the Babylonian exile. It's a bigger exile and that took a long time to write, get through and try to get that out. So maybe that video, it took a while for me to write that script.

All right, digging into our super chats here, Eric Collins says, IP thoughts on Ben Stanhope no longer being Christian. I looked at his work as a potential way back to Christendom but felt it strengthened my now agnosticism. Then shortly after he left the fold too." I don't know who this person is. Yeah, Ben Sandberg is a scholar I've worked with. He wrote a great book, Mischreiting Genesis. Again, I can't psychoanalyze someone. I've not talked to him as to why he left the faith. All I can do is point you to the evidence. Ben's focused on Genesis, but the core of the faith is Jesus. Look at the evidence for the resurrection, the reliability of the Gospels. Read the book,

The Jesus Legend. Read books like Why There Are Differences in the Gospels by Michael Lacona, his book, The Resurrection of Jesus, Michael F. Byrd's book, The Gospel of Our Lord, Craig Keener's book, Christobiography. Brant Petrie's got a good book, The Gospel of Our Lord, Craig Keener's book, Christology, or Christobiography. Brant Petrie's got a good book, The Case for Jesus. That's the core of our faith. Genesis is secondary. Let's be important here. That's what Stan Hope was focusing on. I would say the same thing to him. I'd encourage him to study the evidence for Christ, for his resurrection. That's what I meant. I'd say the same to you.

Look at that. That is the core of our faith. Questions? We have a lot. Okay, feel free to go through them. It happens. One of them from Luth Lexer donated two Aussie dollars. Okay, thank you.

And said, Michael, I love you, have my theological babies. That's weird. I will have your theological babies that's weirder my Matthew a $20 thank you and said Mike thank you for sticking it out through the dark days of new atheism YouTube I am glad that that face but it's spelled with an S, I don't know what that is, is close to death and your channel's comment section has become more civil.

God bless you for putting up with the trolls. Yeah, I'm glad to do it. And the best way to deal with trolls is to ignore them. They eventually just go away. And yeah, you could say these are dark days, but it's always darkest before dawn. So get ready for a revolution. May take a couple of decades decades but we'll get there.

Taddeus2000 donated $10 with no note. Thank you for that. John Rasuse, mental hacker, gave $5 and said, I think maybe if you, I don't know what your position is on this, it's a statement Quick reminder to Michael God can create a rock so heavy He can't lift it as God is not limited to the laws of logic he himself created Yeah, I would cite Richard Swinburne on now that sentence doesn't even make sense It's just like a it's a collection of words that purports to be a sentence, but it really isn't it's like saying could God toted an 11 could God nose your hair? Could God read a five?

These don't make, we're using words in the collection of a sentence. So when that sentence, can God make a rock so heavy, is saying, can the most powerful thing in existence make something more powerful than him that he couldn't overpower? No, because he's the most powerful in existence. It's just illogical.

Okay. To Hugh said, have you ever read on what psychophysical harmony is and how it's supposed to be evidence for theism? If you have, can you explain the implications? I have, not recently. And I'd probably want to look it up before I comment on it because I'd probably make a fool myself if I didn't

But yeah, it's I'm not convinced. That's even a strong argument. Maybe a secondary argument for God's existence, but I've heard of it Yeah, okay has IPs thoughts on Ron Wyatt's Noah's Ark and Mount Sinai Explain that to those who aren't aware of it. Okay, so Ron Wyatt is a nurse who turned adventurer, decided he was going to go to the Holy Land, and claims he found Noah's Ark, Mount Sinai, chariot wheels at the bottom of the Red Sea, and the Ark of the Covenant, and Sodom and Gomorrah. No archaeologist takes Ron Wyatt seriously. He's a fraud, and even answers in Genesis of all people have come out to this guy's nuts. He didn't find any of this stuff. Just please stop listening to him. They have every reason to believe him and no, it's utter nonsense. He claims he found

this stuff. The site he said was Sodom and Gomorrah turned out to be just natural place where there was natural sulfur. Same with Mount Sinai. It's just a natural occurring like a blackening that happens in Arabia on top of mountains. There were no chariot wheels where he said they were. They didn't even have the technology in the 80s for him to dive down that deep, even though he said he went down that deep.

And he did not find the Ark of the Covenant. If he did, in the place he said it was, we could go and look. People went and looked where, you know, he said he found it's not there. He's a liar. Don't trust him. Cool. Feel free to turn this one down. Is that what they say or what you're saying?

No, I'm saying this because I know what the rules are. Have you explored Catholicism? Why or why not? Yeah. Again, I keep any sort of denomination aspect private. I'm just here to bring people into Christianity. Yes, I have explored Catholicism and I have opinions on it, and they're all in here. Okay. And you're gonna have to donate a lot on patreon.com slash IP.

Yeah, what is the Patreon donation number? What is the donation number to get you to say publicly what denomination you are? It's like Chris Rock finally came out and spoke about the Will Smith slap. I love my patron donors, but I don't work for them. I work for Christ and I don't think Christ wants me to reveal that right now. Suck it, patron donors. Next question. Donate, please donate to help my cause, but you're not going to,

your money is not to buy me and stuff like that. Yeah. All right. Are there any videos or playlists you made long ago that you have different views on now or outright reject? That's to Hugh as well. That's a good question. I mean, I would probably update my views on the ontological argument.

I don't think it's the best argument. I think it can still be good, you know, in conjunction with other arguments, but maybe when I was first studying, I was really excited about it. Maybe I wouldn't be so excited about it now kind of thing Okay, I recently saw your video with Bart Ehrman on the book of rebel. Sorry Horace Godson That's a cool name. I recently saw your video with Bart Ehrman on the book of Revelation

What are your thoughts on Revelation being in a drastically different? Greek style in John's gospel and the epistles. Yeah, I mean, I think it's possible. I want to study, I know some people argue there's a chiastic structure in between John and Revelation that John, the author of John, he's also the author of Revelation because there's this chiastic structure

that Revelation sort of goes back through John, but in reverse possibly. And I want to look more into that, but I mean, it's entirely want to look more to that. But I mean, it's entirely possible there were more than, you know, there were more than one John. John was a common name back then. So it could have been another John that wrote Revelation, not who I would say John the Elder

who wrote the Gospel of John. I think it's very possible. Could have been another John, you know. Okay. Do you have these other newer ones, Matt? Or do you want me to read them? Oh, yeah. Let me let me pull them up.

I wanted to ask A question that I have now forgotten Awesome. The answer is yes. So I have a question. Are you a Mormon? Uh, what do you think of Dan McClellan? Yeah, he's very very intelligent guy I I think he's very intelligent knows a lot knows his stuff I just think he's wrong on many things and I've gone back and forth with him in TikTok videos.

I think he's wrong to conclude Deuteronomy 32 is about, is showing a distinction between El and Adonai. I think that's a stretch. There's a lot of things I just disagree with them on and I think there's just as many as intelligent scholars out there who know as much as of things I just disagree with them on and I think there's just as many as intelligent scholars out there who Know as much as he do and just disagree with him on those things as well But I mean I respect the guy for his intelligence for sure

Here's a good question given that you've talked a lot about mere Christianity and just kind of getting people into that funnel as CS Lewis talked about AJ Wilson says where do you draw the line for someone being a Christian? For example, belief in the Trinity, etc. Well, yeah, you deny the Trinity, you're outside of Christ. I don't care. Trinity is an essential Christian doctrine. So you gotta accept, you know, essential Christian doctrines. But why, who says they have, who says they're central or not central? Well, because as a community of believers, we need to have boundaries that define our faith. We can't open the floodgates and allow for just, you know, anything. I mean,

we have to define what Christ taught, what defines His church, and what pushes it forward. And I think the best way to do that is essential Christian doctrine. So Trinity, essential, virgin birth, resurrection, physical resurrection, second coming, Jesus will return physically as He left, inspiration of Scripture, these kinds of things I think are essential. I think if you reject these things, and I think that Trinity is so essential because it's the core of any religion is who is God. You know, you can't be a Christian and deny who we believe God is. He's triune. He's Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

If you're rejecting the core of any faith, which is you focus on God, you know, you're not part of the body of Christ. I can't get around that intellectually. To Hugh, says, is Pascal's wager a good argument in any way? Yes. It's good if you have someone on the fence. So it's not an argument you use to get someone to believe in God. But if you have someone who's like,

look, I got really good evidence for God's existence, you know, the resurrection argument, contingency argument, moral argument, and there's other arguments like suffering, divine hiddenness, I can't make it in my mind. Pascal's Wager is sort of, it's like the, you know, it's like the deal breaker right there. It's like the tiebreaker right there. Look, it's going to make more sense for you to be a Christian based on what you

can gain versus what you can lose. So just go on it, go all in at that point. Yeah. And I think you have to add some qualifiers before this works. It's obviously not an argument for God's existence. It also doesn't work if you have three live options or five live options. It's if you're at the point where atheism and Christianity look equally plausible, then you can make a decision based on self-interest. And if you say, well, isn't that a hypocritical thing to do? Well, no. But if it was an atheism's true, why would that be a problem?

Why would hypocrisy be a problem? So I actually really like the argument self-interest is not necessarily bad It's right bad out if it goes too far. I mean we should all have self-interest. You should feed yourself I mean you should Yeah, yeah, okay IP love the videos says Bradley Joseph. I'm a former Mormon and atheist now Christian Do you see more Christian apologists in the years to come? I want to ask your thoughts on Mormonism to just more generally. Yeah, because I'm seeing a lot I don't know if it's like a new campaign they're doing but whenever I open up YouTube on the very top of

Their desperate and because their religion it's the one religion on earth we can demonstrate is just wrong. No, there were no horses in the New World. No, Israelites did not build ships and travel to Mesoamerica and then fight wars. And it's just utter nonsense. I mean, it's demonstrably false at this point. There was no iron weapons or horses in the New World. Move on. So yeah, it's just, I don't know how anyone can be a Mormon today. The book of Abraham is obviously a forgery. We found Joseph Smith's, the scroll he claimed to have translated. Okay, that's not what it said. It's not, it's a, it's a typical ritual text for mummification. It was not what Joseph Smith said it was. The answer to his question, yeah, I do see more coming out.

Because again, as I talked about earlier in this interview, Christians and people on the right are being more polarized. They want to defend themselves more. They're being more protective. And this is the kind of things that are gonna happen. It's not like it was 30 years ago where everyone was just a Christian because you lived in America.

Now you have to intellectually defend yourself. And that's gonna create more apologists. And we'll see more. When did you start your YouTube channel? The end of 2011. Okay. So you've been doing this longer than most Christian apologetic channels. What advice do you have for people who are starting one up?

What are some pitfalls they might fall into that you'd like them to avoid? Okay. Don't ask yourself why you're doing it. Because my original goal was to get a thousand subscribers. That was it. I didn't think I'd ever get there when I uploaded my first video. If your goal is to get famous or to be as big

as like Matt's channel or my channel, you're not gonna make it. You're gonna get burnt out. Cause you're not do, you don't have the right motivation. I mean, if I lost all my donors tomorrow, I'd have to get a job. I'd still make videos though, because I want to. I wanna put this stuff, I just would make less.

Because I have to take care of my family. That's my first ministry. Taking care of your family is your first ministry. So I'd have to get a job working at Costco or something, and that's what I would do. But I'd still make videos when I had the time, because I love doing it. So do it because you wanna do it,

because you love doing it, not because you're gonna get yourself famous, or you're gonna be want to do it because you love doing it not because you're going to get yourself famous You're gonna be able to turn it into a full-time job If that's your goal, you'll get burnt out within two years and you'll give up. No, that's such a good point because yeah, I Yeah, not exactly the same thing. Is this something I would do anyway? Is this something I find life in is it? Beneficial to my own sort of spiritual life and those who are watching me? But if I'm just doing this to supplement my income so that I can quit my job or to reach

100,000 subscribers, it takes a lot longer than you think. And so if that's your goal, as you say, yeah, you get exhausted. And I did everything wrong too. I should have. I'm upset that there aren't in between trophies between now and a million. Man, a million would be nice. I mean I'd love to have that reach, you know, think of the people you could get out to. Yeah, have you ever been worried of having a YouTube channel penalized or canceled? No. Do you tend to wade into the waters that might get you?

I don't know. YouTube defines me as educational. And so every time I have had any issue that it's like resolved within a day, I have more problems on TikTok and they're horrible. Are they? Take all the problems I've had on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, any social media network, it's all dwarfed comparison to the problems I've had with TikTok, hate them.

They're so bad. This fella Rorick Says hey IP by the way Thanks for the super chat thoughts on updating your video and sort of in Gamora considering how the destruction layer at tell Elhamman has been called into question. Yeah, it's been calling the question and if I could go back in time I wouldn't make the video on it because it's been called in the question. So right now it's just on the limbo.

I may be wrong on that. I'm totally open to the idea that, yeah, Tel El Hamam may not be Sodom. So right now it's just like, it is what it is. I uploaded a video arguing for it within a year of me uploading that video, then it became into question. But when I uploaded the video, it wasn't a question,

but now it is. It is what it is. I'm not gonna redo it until I get more data though. I mean, like, it's just, I put a note on that video saying, this has now become the question, I no longer support this for right now. I'm just, I'm agnostic on the whole situation.

Did you say we have a question on lying? Why not? A couple people asked if you guys would, because apparently you guys have differing perspectives, so a couple people asked if you guys would go back and forth about it. Yeah. So I think I think my view tentatively is that it's always wrong to lie. I feel very uncomfortable with that view, but it's the view that seems to have been held strongly by Augustin and Aquinas and Bonaventure. And so I'm open to changing my mind but it seems to me that the one of the primary ends of speech is to communicate truth. It's not the only end but to you tell me where your family is so I can go murder them. That was a question posting... No. No, I can't.

You can't, yeah. I can, but I won't. Okay. But, so let me... That was a question posed to Kant. Because you said the same thing, but let's say you were... Let's say the government came on your door and we were living in a post-apocalyptic world and they're like, do you have any...

You know, let's say, I don't know... Only white people can live in America, you know, do you have any people hiding in your basement that might be of the wrong color? Right. So why don't we come in and look? I see where this is going. And I think that if I'm right, that I would either misdirect them or I would lie. But I, but, but I, and I think I might not be culpable for a serious lie.

That's my view in lying. But that but unless I've it's just such a slippery slope, like when all of these great saints and fathers say it's wrong, then I really don't want to give myself any loophole. That isn't to say I won't. Like if someone came in here looking for you and my only option was to lie, I probably would but I don't know if I should. I definitely would, but I don't think I should.

I mean, I would say 99% of the instances, it's wrong to lie, but there are going to be sometimes it's a gray area. Like Rahab lied to protect the Israelite spies. Jeremiah at one point, the king tells him, if you go and tell them what we were talking about, they're gonna kill you. So he goes out and lies to protect himself. People have brought up this thing in the gospels,

in John seven, his brothers come to him because they want him to, they are against him. They say, you know, go to the feast and prove yourself. And he says, I'm not going to the feast. But then he goes to the feast. Did Jesus lie? No, scholars will say he didn't immorally lie. What he did was he misdirect because they knew, he knew, because he's,

you know, he knew what they were doing. They were, they were trying to trick him up to get him to go and get himself killed before his hour. And that was not God's plan. So you could say that lying is good if you're protecting innocent, if you're doing it to like save a life. I don't think I'd say that. And so let me kind of push back and say, are there any actions that you think are never allowable? Rape. Okay.

So you could never rape to prevent something. Anything else? Torturing innocent life. Okay. Torturing innocent life. Okay, torturing innocent life. Is there any, what would be the least serious thing that you think is never allowable? It's a good question.

So I'm a virtue ethicist. So it's hard for me to say because. Because I mean, as a Catholic, we would use this language of intrinsically evil acts, which is just to say that the object is wrong no matter the circumstance or intentions. And so there's lots of things I could think of, right? Like, you know, probably like masturbation would be one or fornication would be one.

Yeah, I could say I could say fornication, masturbation as well. OK, so if you say that, then my question is, and this is a very weird thought experiment, but that's the joy of philosophical reasoning, you know. But if someone said, like, I'm going to kill these 50 people in your basement unless you commit this unspeakable act. I think most of our intuitions will be, well, then you permit you do the thing. Yeah. But you've just told me that it's something you don't think is allowable. You know, you can say like, yeah, just some sadistic person

was like, you know, masturbator, I'm going to kill you. I mean, okay, sure. This is when people are logging into the stream. Wait, what the hell are they doing? Yeah, exactly. Masturbator, I'm going to kill you. You can picture that in a horror movie, though.

I mean, it'd be creepy as hell. I wouldn't watch it. It'd be horrible. Yeah, or rape this one person or these other people will be raped. Well, I don't think you should. And I think the same thing with masturbation. I think the same thing with lying. So my point in using that example of this is the least serious thing

That's never allowable I would say masturbation and I would so therefore I'd be unwilling to do that to save the juice and I would be unwilling To lie to save the Jews though. I probably would because I'm not causing harm So you think of the thought of experiment that people have used to try to argue for abortion like if you woke up and you Were attached to somebody who like was being using your to argue for abortion. Like if you woke up and you were attached to somebody who like was being used in your organ to keep alive, what would you do? What would you disconnect?

Or would, and you know, and the answer to this is what I've seen people talk about, I could disconnect cause it's passive. I'm just disconnecting. But if the only way to disconnect was to stab the person, I wouldn't do it because that's actively causing harm. So there's a difference between like the active and the passive act.

I'd have to, in each of those situations you're bringing up, I'd have to think, is there a passive or an active act happening here? You know, with the masturbation thing, I think it's not hurting anyone. It's hard to do. It's difficult situation for sure. But with rape, I'm actively causing harm.

It's gonna bother. It feels like I can't do that. Well, this is what I just kind of propose for people and just to ask them that question. Like what's the less, the least serious thing you think is never allowable and then replace that with lying at the door to the Jews. Because I think we all-

You mean the Nazis, not the Jews. Sorry, not the Jews. I'm really glad that I've got a guest who can correct me here, because that would have been even worse than the mastermind. Or I will kill you. We have Kanye come on next week. I'm not funny. No, whatever.

No, never. Bless him. God bless him. Seriously, I mean that. Jesus, save him. Yeah. But I think that is a good thing, because I do think our natural inclination, so obviously you lie because of this and we don't tend to realize well

There are other things that we would think on a unallowable So I to you know, I would recommend just like I'll listen to this debate that you did with Matt Dillahunty if you were looking for a very excellent debate between two Catholics who disagree on this issue I would say it's between father Gregory pine and Janet Smith two Catholics who disagree on this issue, I would say it's between Father Gregory Pine and Janet Smith. That was, I'd say, the most excellent debate I've ever hosted on my channel, because after every one of them finished speaking, I agreed with that person. It was so well done. Anyway. Yeah, it's an interesting topic. Check out my videos on virtue ethics. I did a video called Christian virtue ethics, where I argued the T the New Testament doesn't teach day ontological

ethics. It teaches virtue ethics. Okay, awesome. What else you gonna talk about? Or should we wrap up? We got another question. Yeah. All right. Keep sending the money. We'll keep sticking round. I do apologize. This one is worded kind of aggressively. Is it about masturbation? It's not good. I wouldn't read aggressive questions about masturbation. The nomination question is off the table. The same person that asked the nomination question, Poland. I have a different one. Good IP.

Could you please stop using the secular terminology? B, C, E and C love the videos. What's wrong with saying before Christ's era and Christ's era? I think that's not what people mean by it, right? That's what I mean by it. Yeah, but why, but why change it? I mean, it was BC and AD. Why not just use?

What's wrong with before Christ's era and Christ's era? Okay, I have, you know, you're being funny. What changed that led us into Christ's era? No, 100%. It means common. They mean common era, though. Sure, but we know what they really mean. We entered Christ's era.

Come on. What is the common era? What made it common? Yeah, but I think you have to keep in mind the intention of the list. Sorry. Yeah, no, you're exactly right. The reason they're doing this is to get around Christ

being the central event in human history. Isn't there an obelisk at the Vatican? Yeah. OK, you're exactly right. The reason they're doing this is to is to get around Christ being the central event in human history. Isn't there an obelisk at the Vatican? Yeah. OK, what had happened? We took it and put a friggin cross on it. Exactly. Guess what I'm doing to be CE and CE? Put a friggin cross in it.

But it's not like the obelisks once belonged to Christians. The Egyptians took them back and then we took some Egyptian. That would be more the analogy. Yeah. Well, I mean, I could say the same thing. The stones that made the obelisk were made by God and it was turned into something evil. Returned to something good by Christians. I'm not saying you shouldn't use it, but I'm just wondering why you do use it. Is it because it has more of an appeal to a secular audience? Because that would seem to me to make sense.

I just I didn't see an issue with it because I'm like, come on, you're not fooling anyone. And I'm not going to get petty over it. Yeah, I just I just say people I do it because I'm like, come on, you're not fooling anyone and I'm not going to get petty over it. Yeah. I just, I just say with people, I do it because it, in my view, it's because wise as serpents and as gentle as doves, and this is a way to be gentle and wise. Again, to me, when you asked me to define BC, I'm going to say before Christ's era, there's no thing, there's no such thing as the common era. It's nonsense.

We know what we're talking about here. Don't think you're going to fool anyone when you say common era. It's Christ's era. That's nonsense. We know what we're talking about here. Don't think you're going to fool anyone when you say common era. It's Christ's era. Sweet. And honestly, as a post-millennialist, yes, I live in Christ's era. Christ is now king. He's been king for 2,000 years. This is his era. One of the things I love about Pascal, right after the wager, he addresses those people who say, what if I don't feel like I believe this stuff?

And his answer is to do the things Christians do, like take holy water and say your prayers and read the scriptures and these sorts of things. I like that a lot. What kind of advice would you give to somebody who wants to be a Christian? I mean, maybe something similar. Christian, this is a nonsense we get from American evangelicalism. They said, you have to feel the Holy Spirit and the power. That's not how Christianity has worked historically. I don't remember reading Justin Martyr going, I know Christianity is true because I feel it in my heart of hearts. He never said that nonsense. I'm Christianity is true because I feel it in my heart of hearts. Doesn't that, you never said that nonsense.

I'm not a Christian because I feel the Holy Spirit or God. I'm a Christian because I know the evidence supports it and I can see it and I can, I go to church. I go through the motions. I take part of the things that happen at the church. I don't wanna give away my. That's right. Just things that happen. I almost said something.

And I'm like, well. That's fine. Because I know this is true mentally. I don't know what is always true in my heart though. And Jeremiah said the heart is wicked and deceitful. Who can understand it? Jeremiah 79. You're trying to believe Christianity for what the Bible says, not the way to believe Christianity is true. Don't believe it because your heart tells you, believe it because your mind tells you. And when you believe it because your mind tells you, your heart will come to love God as well. Because you'll see what

He did for you, you'll see how He went to the cross for you, and then you'll learn to love Him because of that. So I agree with you, but just to push back a little bit, what about the person who may not have, sort of, may not think they are intellectual enough to sift through this evidence, or may not have the evidence at their disposal, and do have what they would consider an encounter with Jesus Christ. You're not... Well, if you've had an encounter with Jesus Christ... And by that, what they might mean is, I was in the context of Christian prayer and experienced something I've never experienced before that felt like whatever, liberation of some liberation. You have personal evidence.

I see. That has changed your worldview in your mind. Yeah. It's not, you just got a feeling. You may have gotten this feeling and now you know that's real. So believe because you act, God has actually given you that evidence.

So you're gonna, there's no way around it. You got to believe Christianity is true because of mental evidence you've been given of actual concrete evidence that your mind has been given. So whether you've been given it or not, believe because of that, not just because you have magic feelings all the time that make you keep you going. That's good. I just thought to myself how like sometimes you try something and it works like your whole life just starts bearing fruit and I was trying to think of this analogy like remember the old food pyramid that talked about how you should eat grains and all these sorts of things and so that's the evidence of the time right okay I gotta eat grains and all this stuff suppose somebody said well I'm actually just not gonna eat grains I'm gonna eat just meat and vegetables and then they start realizing they

feel way healthier despite the evidence that's in front of them. You're talking about me. Yeah. I've been doing it for the past month. I've been doing basically carnivore. That's my wife right now, too. Yeah, it's been great. I feel wonderful. But I think that's a that's not a bad analogy, because sometimes you try something and you can't make the evidence fit. But everything in your life gets better. Right. So if I if I have my wife and my children and my friends and I start acting like a Christian, whether or not I have external evidence, other than that,

that evidence is something my wife, my life starts working better. It could be. Yeah. I mean, everyone's different. It's hard for me with my analytical brain to understand that, but I mean, I'm willing to accept that I don't have all the answers. Yeah. Well, I mean, like right now, if I started to act as if atheism was true, I think my life would fall down a deep, dark hole. I think if I started acting like that, I would just I would I would worry more and I'd probably think more about how much I got a little bit of time left. I'm just going to try to enjoy it for me and my family and the people I love. And that's all I care about.

Why would I keep making videos when I can just figure out how to win the stock market? I'll go become a financial advisor and make all the money I need. Yeah. All right, this has been fantastic. Michael, thank you for coming on my show and I've admired your work for a while.

I mean that, I'm not just saying that because that's what you're supposed to say. I've loved your videos Well, you too, man. I've admired a lot of the stuff you do for sure cool a lot of it. What don't you admire? I'm just checking lack of facial hair need more. I want more How's your wife with your facial hair? She okay with it? My my brother asked me to shave my beard for his wedding my wife. I've never seen her so angry He is not shaving his beard ever. She got on the phone with me. This is not happening.

So I had my beard in his wedding. So you know, that's the difference. My wife's OK with my facial hair. She just can't kiss me and enjoy it. So as I've said before, given my wife's other health issues, any obstacle to marital intimacy coming from my end needs to be shot in the face or shaved. How many times do you have to hear that stupid joke? Right?

Yeah. All right. Well, God bless and thanks. Anything else you want to point people to? I mean, we've got your website there, your beautiful YouTube channel. We're going to point people to anything else. So follow me on Instagram or Tik Tok. I do show a little comedy videos. Nice. Like people love them.

So, I mean, do that. What is your Tik Tok account? Inspiring philosophy. That's good. Right. Yeah. Same thing. And I'll come back to do it again. Yeah. We've got to get craved on. Oh, I'd love to do that. Yeah. All right. So let's see. Inspiring.

Oh, my gosh. I feel dumb. I just the Tik Tok is looking at me. Just watch one of my Tik Toks. Oh, Sophie. Let me see. Watch the one I just the tick tock is looking at me. Just watch one of my tech talks. Oh, Sophie, let me see. Watch the one I did. Which one are you looking at? I'm just I'm trying to I'm not logged in because I don't know the watch the one I did recently.

Oh, eighty three point nine thousand followers. That's crazy. Yeah, watch. Watch the how many? There's a bunch of this guy. Who's this guy? Inspiring Philopsoap. I have no clue using your logo probably. Yeah, you know, so good Let's see how many I have because I just have Thursday dump all the shorts we do on YouTube. Yeah. Yeah, just 5,000. I Mean, I put a lot of effort I make video specific for tick tock and Instagram

Okay And so what's the difference between making a video for video for TikTok versus making a video as a YouTube short? Like what do you think of differently? Do you do shorts on YouTube? Yeah, well, I make videos specific for all of those. So for shorts- Oh, that's what I mean, yeah. For, it's not just me cutting something out of a stream.

It's video specific for Instagram, TikTok, shorts. We do that too. We do that too. I don't know. No, we cut them out of the stream. We cut them out of the stream. But if you do that- But then we add a bunch of words and things. Oh yeah. No, we cut them out of the stream. We cut them out of the stream. But if you do that- But then we add a bunch of words and things.

No, it's as I specifically- What works on TikTok and Instagram is responding to other people on those platforms. And that's what we do a lot of. I see. Like, watch the video I just did recently where he tried to claim that L and the God, and the divine name are actually two different deities.

It should be at the top of my page. Yahweh and L are the same God. Oh, I see it should be at the top. Yahweh and Ella the same God. Yeah, if you watch. Hey heretic Jesus was not the son of Yahweh. That's not accurate. Nobody can see this. Never they could hear it. He just stares at the camera.

What are you doing? He said he is the son of Elia. That is just another name for the god. Oh, my gosh. That's really good. That's what I do. This is the best. The best bit about coming up to the end of an interview is like they can check out. This is just for

us. This is not about us totally off the rails. And it's the grace. Yeah, it's the visit. Pull up a ticket for you. No, you're very good at this. Wow. How difficult is that to make them? Because you're used to editing all sorts of graphic videos together.

But what's this? I just do them in Premiere. It works. And I try to make them. Is that all he does? He just says that one thing. So is it exhausting? What do you look up?

Just stuff. People tag me in videos and like respond to this. And I kind of go through them. I'm like, could I make this fun? No, this was a question. I could respond to this, but it would take me like, you know, 20 minutes. I don't have that. Yeah, I could respond to this, but it would be boring.

Oh, here's a fun one. I'll do this, you know, cause I'm trying to make them entertaining. I don't want my tech talks to be, you know, No, this is, no, this is significantly better to what I do. So I can see why. Yeah, that's awesome. Sorry. Not significantly better. Not even better. You suck. No, don't go that far. I'm taking this. That's right. Oh my gosh. This is awesome. Well,

people should go check that out as well. I did that. And I, you know, I've had some people already say that they are, you know, a good way to get people in your tribe is to defend them. So thank you for defending Catholics. I know you've done that. Oh yeah, for sure. Chris, these Catholics are Christians. Why would I not defend Christians? Right. Oh, I defend, I have defended Catholicism so much on tech talk. You know how much, you know how much Constantine did. Oh, my gosh. He created all Catholicism and it's all paganism. And you worship statue. I'm like, yeah.

No, it's so insane. Yeah, there was he was a busy guy. It was very talented. There's a book called Roman Catholicism. It was kind of an anti CatholicCatholic polemic and everything he accused fella Constantine of bringing into the church is almost all of it that I found was in the church fathers prior to Constantine. Of course.

Yeah. Alexander his slop in his book, the two Babylon's utter nonsense. I hate that book. It says the Catholic Church, which is Nimrod and semi-Ramis. I mean, it's not even just bad, it's bonkers. Yeah. If you had to quit. YouTube or TikTok, which one would you if you had to? If I had to what?

If you had to quit YouTube or TikTok,ck which one would you take talked with. Yeah I mean my because I guess this stuff leads into the deeper self-custody the deeper stuff that's what I enjoy more I like doing the long form stuff more than the short form stuff I know. I can make the short form stuff fun but I still prefer the long form stuff one thing I wanted to ask you before you go is Joe Rogan on Christianity. And if you were on Joe Rogan show, what would you hope came up and how would you respond? Constantine evidence for the resurrection. And then I would go over all the evidence for the resurrection. And I'd also explain Constantine didn't create Christianity, just deal with a lot of the bad stuff I've heard on that show and these little clips here and there.

I'd love to present a case for the intellectual side of Christianity on his show. So if he ever has me on, I'd be more than happy to just drop everything I'm doing and go on. Joe, if you listen. All right. Thanks so much. Thanks, Thursday. Thanks everyone for watching.