The Eric Metaxas Show - David Wood - Part 2

Episode Date: July 28, 2020

Eric continues his conversation with Christian apologist David Wood, who reveals how his debates with a Christian in prison helped turn on the light of truth to his own faith conversion.  (Warning: Some content may be disturbing.) 

You know, they say it's a thin line between love and hate, but we're working every day to thicken that line, or at least make it a double, even triple line. Now here's your line-jumping host, Eric Mataxis. Folks, I'm talking to David Wood, continuing to talk with David Wood, about his life story. It's moving. It's fascinating.

In some ways, in retrospect, it's extremely amusing. Maybe because we know it turned out pretty okay. David, you know, you're a Christian today. You debate people. You've always been really smart. But to go back to where we were a moment ago in this conversation, I mean, you knew you were smart. And so here you are in this bizarre situation. You meet this Christian.

And it leads to you being put in a cell with cameras because they think you're trying to kill yourself, which in a weird way, what you're doing, I mean, not eating for, for. weeks. It might have done that. And didn't at some point they tried to force feed you? No, they were warning me that they were going to force feed me. They said, they explained it. They said, your body's going to use up all your fat, which by this time, it was almost gone. So I was 235 pounds or so when I got locked up. I got down to around 150, but once I started hitting, you know, 165 and 160 and 158, you know, just dropping every day. the doctor said, you know, at first your body is going to use up all the fat, and then it's going to turn to muscle.

And once it turns to muscle, it will actually start turning to even your heart and stuff like that. And so he says, you don't mean the fat's going to turn to muscle. You mean your body's going to start consuming your own muscles. Yeah, the body's going to turn to muscle, turn to muscle as an energy source. Right. And so he said, they can determine when that happens through blood tests. So they just were giving me daily blood tests, which was annoying. I'm thinking, gosh, I can't replenish this.

very well and you guys are just taking some blood from me each day but yeah they're testing me because once my once i started feeding off of my internal organs that's when they said that they would uh they would strap me to a table and and tube feed me and um and during this time i was uh i was uh studying the bible and at first it was it was mainly just to refute randy uh i I concluded that, hey, the reason this guy was beating me when we were getting into these arguments was that he just, he'd study this stuff. You know, he'd had a sincere conversion, and he'd been studying this stuff for years to the point where he decides he wants to turn himself in.

And I hadn't, and therefore, I was at a disadvantage. And so I decided I was going to, you know, read the Bible and learn that, you know, figure everything out and then go back to Randy and crush him and show him that I was right. and basically three things started bothering me when I was going through this. And in that video, I talked about it like it's kind of quick, but this is over, you know, this is over a few weeks that these things sort of came together. But one was a kind of, I guess you call it a kind of design argument where I was just, you know, it's a simple design argument.

And it's funny because I would think that I was inventing these arguments when later on you find out, nope, people have been arguing the design argument for many, many centuries. But I was just looking at the way the bricks were stacked up in myself. And I started thinking, you know, if someone told me that these bricks went into this order by any sort of natural process, I think he's an idiot. And yet, I believe that life formed on its own when the most basic life that exists is vastly more sophisticated than some bricks stacked up on top of each other. And that didn't convince me that God existed or anything.

It made me think, wait a minute, why did I accept the idea that life formed on its own without investigating that? In other words, I started putting that belief in the same category as like moral claims or religious claims and that there are things I was told and I hadn't questioned. And so it's, wait, why did I accept that? You know, I recognize that, hey, I have to reject these moral claims. People aren't defending them. They're not giving me any evidence to believe these moral claims. and these religious claims, people aren't giving me any evidence to believe those, so I'm not going to believe those.

And then I realized, wait a minute, no one gave me any evidence that life formed on and so. And they didn't. So it sort of started putting my beliefs about how the universe formed and how life formed and so on into that category of, wait a minute, these are, especially after Randy had been challenging me on my picture of reality, that I started putting these beliefs in that same category of things that I've been told without actually examining. So that, again, it didn't convince me that God existed. It just made me start thinking about that a little more.

The next was the resurrection. I found out Randy had told me, Randy had told me how the apostles died. And he gave me a copy of Fox's Book of Martyrs. And so as soon as I started looking at how these guys died, how the apostles died, these guys go to their horrible bloody death. it immediately kicked in. Like, wait a minute. My theory had always been that Jesus had some followers, and then he died, and they wanted

to keep his movement going. So they made up a story about him rising from the dead, and that's how they started off Christianity, and it worked, obviously, because here we are 2,000 years later, and people believe in Christianity. And once I found out how they died, then it occurred to me that it didn't make sense the idea that they had intentionally made it up, that they were, that they had fabricated that story. It didn't, it didn't make sense that they're going out and, you know,

being tortured and put to bloody deaths over something that they knew they had made up. I tried to think of one person in all of history who died for something that he knew that he made up. I couldn't think of one person. So I was like, what are the odds that Jesus got all of them, that he just got the whole collection of all the people who were willing to die for something that they made up? And so again, that didn't convince me that he rose from the dead. But it's, wait a minute, here I had this belief about Jesus and the origin of Christianity that I'd had for years. And simple facts refute my beliefs.

And so it's just things that required more thinking. And the final thing that was bothering me as a kind of, it was a kind of moral argument. But it really started when I mentioned earlier that you can believe these contradictory things. and you just don't spot, you don't spot the contradiction. All of a sudden I started, I spotted the contradiction between thinking that everything is meaningless, you know, here we are in this universe and our planet is this little speck of dust in this universe and we're these blobs of cells that are, you know, crawling around thinking that everything we do is so important.

And, you know, on the one hand, I believe it's all just meaningless. You can do what you want. You can kill anyone who gets in your way. It doesn't matter what you do. You can live your whole life trying to help people. You can live your life killing people. It just doesn't, there's no difference as far as the universe is concerned. It's all pointless.

And yet, I also believed that I'm this, you know, final stage of humanity and this advanced human and the most important human being in the world and that I'm some, I'm part of some sort of cosmic plan and everything. I just reckon, wait a minute, these things do not go together here. These things just do not go together at all. There is no, there is no best, most advanced, meaningless lump of sense. cells. What are you even talking about? It doesn't make any sense. And so I started having to rethink that sort of thing. And I recognize that either there is some sort of standard of better and

worse and things like that, in which case, I'm not it. Look at, I'm sitting in a cell. I sit around fantasizing about torturing people. What the heck am I? I'm in there for bashing my dad's head in. I'm starving to death, even though they bring me food. What, what, what, what, what, what business do I have thinking that I am the best just because I, you know, I don't feel emotions or something like that. So if there was some sort of standard, the odds of me actually being that standard or being in line with it, I just had no reason to think that was the case. And if there were no standard, then what in the world has all this been about, this whole journey where I think I'm something special. And so, yeah, my, it basically everything, everything in my worldview just started, just started breaking down. And I was, yeah, one of these days I was just sitting around thinking about, you know, everything I'd gotten myself into and where my current beliefs had led me and thinking about, you know, design in nature and the resurrection and whether there is some sort of.

of moral standard or something like that. And it wasn't, it wasn't like, hey, I now know that Christianity is true. It was more like, hey, if I'm wrong, I kind of need to know this. And so. Okay, hang on because we're at a, we're at a good point to pause. Folks, we'll be right back with David Wood. David, what you're describing is, at least to me, just tremendously fascinating, this process of questioning everything, but then eventually getting to the point where you question

your own assumptions and begin to poke holes in your own assumptions and then arrive at a place where it seems to me suddenly the Bible seems plausible, the God of the Bible seems probably. You're not sold, but something is happening to you. How old were you roughly at this point? I was 20 at this point. Wow. Okay. And so what precipitates you're taking an actual step toward God? Well, actually the psychiatrist didn't tell me this. My lawyer told me that the psychiatrist told her this, that they were going to send me to a place called Marion, which would have been my third mental hospital. So they're just going to send me there long term.

They're like, this guy's not eating. He's, you know, they don't want to deal with that. So they were telling me that. And then the doctor's, you know, threatening to tube feed me. And, yeah, one day I was just sitting there and I was thinking about like the situation I was in. And I had a flashback to a time when I got in a fight with seven guys. and they, I'm not saying that to sound tough.

They, they beat me senseless, took turns soccer kicking my head. But I was thinking, you know, after that I was fine. I was, you know, it's messed up, but I was, I was fine. I was fine the next day. And so I realized that what I was in, the situation I was in in the jail is actually way worse than seven guys, you know, holding me on the ground and soccer kicking my head, that this just wasn't going away. I wasn't getting better.

It's not a situation where I get better and that I'm better the next day. It's just I'm getting worse and worse and worse each day. And then I, when I started thinking that, I remember it too. Sometime earlier, I remember walking through a storm. And it was like a bad storm with lightnings crashing. And it sounds like gunshots right beside your head and so on. And just, I don't know why because I wasn't in the habit of talking to God. I didn't believe in God.

But I just said, hey, you want me to believe. believe in you, you better, you know, come down here and, and beat me into the ground and make me believe in you. And, uh, this is before you were incarcerated. You're, and you're remembering this. Yeah. And so, yeah, I remembered saying that in that storm. And then I was saying, wait a minute, I told God he would have to come down and beat me into the ground and, and make me believe in him. And here, I just, you know, I just concluded independently of, from that that this is like the ultimate, it's like the ultimate beat down, right? I've been beaten down before and this is way, way worse.

And I just feel like I've just been stomped into the ground. And so again, this is, that sort of thing was, that sort of thing, it's not, it's nothing that made me think, okay, this proves that God exists or this proves that Christianity is true. By this time, it's more along the lines of, hey, I'm on a path, I'm on a path here. And if, if this path is wrong, then, then I, I want to know it. And I concluded that the alternative, it was kind of, it was kind of, it was, it was, Jesus or nothing, right? It was, there were no other serious options on the table. If you can make a

case for any miracle in history, the resurrection would be your best case. And so it's either that guy or it's nothing. And if you're sitting there, you know, if you're sitting there thinking, wait a minute, here I am, I'm in a minicel for bashing my dad's head in, I'm not eating, about to be sent to another mental hospital. If, if something were true, then I am really, really, really messed up by that standard. And so, but there's, there's no way I'm getting myself out of that.

I looked around and I could tell this, okay, this is, this is what I am. And so I went from thinking that I was the best person in the world, to thinking that I was the worst person in the world. Like, they're starving people in the world, but, you know, if they could think straight,

I sit around thinking about torturing people. Now, let me just ask you about that. You said you were sitting around thinking, fantasizing about torturing people. Where did that come from? I mean, because that does seem, you know, not normal, obviously. Oh, yeah. I had basically a mental list of people going back to kindergarten that if I could ever get revenge on, I wanted to get revenge on. Basically, anyone who would ever done anything to me in my entire life.

But, I mean, yeah, I would sit around thinking, you know, about peeling their skin off and, you know, slaughtering their family in front of them and things like that. And so, you know, you're in a jail cell. You don't have a lot to do. So I didn't even read. Is that normal psychopathy? or do you think, because, you know, as I heard your story in the other versions of it on other videos, you know, you have to wonder if there's a demonic element because it's so dark some of this stuff. I don't know if you think about that or if you've ever considered it because it's just when you describe what you just described,

anybody hearing it just says, wow. I'm sure there are other, you know, a psychopath can be like the CEO of a company or something like that. He can be, you know, willing to trample over other people to get what he wants and he can be single might and stuff. As far as, you know, other psychopaths sitting around fantasizing about torturing people, I'm sure, I'm sure they do. And that's what's scary about them. If they start deciding to go become serial killers and killing these women, they're fantasizing about it. There's nothing that holds a psychopath back from doing that unless he's just doesn't, unless he's just being careful because he doesn't want to get caught. Normal people, they have some, they have something

that stops them from doing that to other people. A psychopath basically doesn't. That's why they end up doing that thing, doing those things. So, yeah, I was thinking, it was basically plotting for the, for the future, that these are the things I'm going to, I'm going to go out and do. And so, so anyway, at this point, I'm thinking, okay, here are the, you know, here's how I am. Here's how I am. And here's where my life is headed. If I'm wrong, it would kind of be, it would kind of be, you know, good to know that. But it was, you know, it was kind of Jesus or nothing, right?

Jesus is the alternative to all that. because if you ask yourself who, out of anyone in history, who has the ability to deal with people like that, to take really messed up people and change them into something else, you kind of get a list of one. It's not Muhammad. It's not Buddha. It seems to me that you, when you were reading the Bible,

it helped you to think more clearly. In other words, it seems like by reading the book, because you hear people say this all the time, like you should read the Bible, get in the word, get in the, But it seems like that's exactly what happened to you. By reading the Bible, it sort of straightened out some of your thinking so that you're able to go down this railroad track to reality. Suddenly you're looking at yourself.

You're thinking, if there's a standard, I'm as bad as it gets. There's absolutely no hope unless perhaps the Jesus thing, unless he's real, and maybe I'll try that. Yeah, and part of that what, part of that kind of weird moral. argument I started thinking about was, was based on Jesus. It's like, wait a minute, this guy's clearly better than I am by any standard, right? Any standard you give this guy's clearly better than me. And yet, according to my worldview, my picture of reality, there's no way this guy could possibly be better than me. And that's sort of what leads into, well, yeah, but nothing can possibly be better than anything else, according to my worldview. So my entire position is

breaking down. If there is some sort of standard, this guy's better than me. If there's no standard, then I'm not better than anyone else. So I'm just stuck. I'm stuck either way. But it's just fascinating to watch you become like more logical. In other words, there was a logic before, but it's like your logic has bumped into itself and you're forced to deal with reality. And the fasting actually helps that as well. You just start thinking a little differently when your body is feeding off a different thing. You start thinking, you start thinking more clearly and being able to focus more. And so all the stuff's coming, all this stuff's coming together. And then I basically got to the point where I was just like, okay, I don't know if, I don't know if

this stuff is, I don't know if this stuff is true, but it's either this or I'm just the way I was. It's not like I'm, what happens if I actually pray? What happens if I pray? And it's not true. It's not like I'm getting worse somehow. It's not like I've, it was. It was, what have I got to lose kind of option. Yeah. Yeah. So why not try it? And, you know, I'm not telling other people, hey, just believe it to try it or something like that. I'm saying, that's the situation I was in. That's the situation I was in where I could tell. I'm just getting worse and worse and worse. I'm deteriorating more and more and more. If this were true, it would kind of be important to know. And so if I pray and it turns out not to be true, well, I'm just in the same boat.

If I pray and it was, and it turns out to be true, then well, you know, maybe, maybe something will happen and I'll end up in a, in a different sort of situation. So, so I bowed down on my bunk and I prayed. And I said, I said, God, I don't know if I'm going to believe in you tomorrow, but I believe in you right now. And if you can do anything with me, you're welcome to it. And I went through a kind of sort of sinners prayer that came with this Bible study series that I was that I was going through and sat up from that prayer and the entire world looked different, looked like I was in a, I was in a different place, like everything and somehow changed colors or something like that. You hear people say these things, right? And listen, for a lot of people, that doesn't happen.

They pray over and over and over and nothing happens. And then you hear stories like yours where something actually happens. It's palpable. You see it. You know it. I'm just fascinated by that. When we come back, I want to hear the rest of the story. And I don't doubt my audience does too. So hang on. Folks. We'll be right back. Hey, folks, Eric Metaxis here. The Trump campaign has a special offer just for you. The president really wants to give you a sign 2020, make America Great Again hat. He wants to make sure the lucky winner is one of his top supporters. Be sure to enter soon because this is an opportunity you don't want to miss. The offer is only going to a select. group of supporters and you're one of them. All you have to do is text metaxus to 88022 today for your chance to win a piece of history, a 2020 make America great again, hat. Again, that's MET AXAS, METAXAS to 88022 to enter to win this contest and join President Trump in the fight to keep America great for four more years. This was paid for by Donald J. Trump for President

Inc. Folks, I'm talking to David Wood. David, so you pray this prayer. You're in your cell. And you say something actually does happen. You feel different. That's to me a miracle. Because what in the world did you do except pray silently, right? Yeah. And, you know, you hear people talk about feeling a weight lifted off them or something like that.

Mine was a little different. I felt like when I sat up from that prayer, felt like I'd been physically brawling my entire life to the... If you can imagine some, you know, some little kid being tossed into a fight pit where all he does is fight his entire life until he doesn't know anything other than just nonstop, endless brawling his entire life. And then all of a sudden it just were to stop and he were just sitting there and wasn't fighting. That's what it felt like.

It felt like when it felt like I'd been in endless fighting and violence and war. And all of a sudden it just like stopped in a heartbeat. And it was just calm. And so, yeah, he, yeah, so that kind of started it. And I had several years left on my sentence. But yep, that sort of started me off at a different direction there. I'd say so. How many years ago is this?

This is the 90s? Yeah, so that was 1996 there. So you become a Christian then in jail, and did they send you to this mental hospital? No. So after that, I started eating again and got pretty normal. I got pretty normal pretty quickly. They did send me to a prison that was a mental hospital previously and had mental health facility. So they had an entire building that was a mental health area in this prison.

But I remember that. I remember getting the paperwork when they were deciding where to send me. They had originally suggested one prison. And then it was scratched over and it said mental health treatment sent him to Stanton. So yeah, that's where they sent me. So let's, I guess I want to ask you because this is the question, right? You were a psychopath and you wanted to do horrible things to people. And then suddenly you have this prayer. Did those feelings go away or did you simply get better at managing them? You know, because I think we all have moments, right? Those of us who have not been diagnosed as psychopaths, nonetheless have psychopathic moments. how did that process work for you? I mean, suddenly, you know, you say you see things differently.

It almost sounds like there was some kind of deliverance because you feel different. But what happened to your desires and those kinds of things? Yeah, I can say a couple of things because it's been sort of a mixed change. Delusional thoughts, they went away instantly. And I didn't, it was years. It was years later when I would ever start having any sort of delusional thought.

And I noticed it would be, it would be times in which I was too busy and I hadn't prayed or read the Bible in a while. And I would start, you know, thinking that people were conspiring against me or something like that. And it would be, it would be weird because it hadn't happened in years. So at that point, I started thinking, well, wait, I don't believe that God actually. like cured me of that. I think he's like sustaining me and that I better I better I better I better stay in prayer and stay in reading the Bible because when I when I start veering off of that then I start having problems again. So there was that as far as as far as the psychopathy, uh, I still consider myself a psychopath just because I don't have, I generally don't have emotional reactions

to people dying to my family members dying just there's no, you know, I don't feel anything about it, but I don't have any, I don't have violent tendencies anymore. I don't want to hurt anyone. I don't think about, you know, torturing people or anything like that. So it's kind of a, yeah, it's kind of a mix. I do have violent tendencies. So I just want you to know, it's not only you psychopaths. It's just fascinating to me, though, that, you know, everyone deals with these dark desires in different ways. And it's fascinating to me how much was stacked against you. You know, that, but you're saying that by praying and reading the Bible, it actually pushed it away. I mean, I think a lot of people, they don't hear that often, you know, that when you walk with God intentionally, as you did, stuff changes.

That's, you know, to me, it seems miraculous to me. It's funny because, like, people who are close to me, they could actually, they would actually start to notice. Like, my friend Nabil from college, he would, he would, I mean, after college, after he became a Christian, he would walk up and say, hey, you've been reading the Bible? How's your prayer life? I'll go, oh, not good. He goes, I know I can tell because you're acting weird. And so he could actually, he could actually tell in how it was. You were just referring to Nabil Koreshi, who passed away a couple of things.

years ago. You said he was your roommate in college. Not roommate in the in, in like a dorm or something like that. We, we were both on the same, on the same sort of academic speech and debate team at college. You're friends in college. But that's, I want to talk to you about that. We're going to, you know, go to yet another break. But where can people find you before I forget? People can find me on, on YouTube if they type in David Wood on YouTube or, Act 17 apologetics on YouTube. They've got a bunch of mean stuff from people who don't like me, but they'll find me too.

Well, I think it's important to have people you don't like you, keeps you straight. We're going to be right back, folks. Don't go away. Hey, folks, we're back with David Wood. David, what a story. And, you know, you're sort of skipping glancingly over the top of it. There's so much here. But you said that you were friends in college with.

Nabil, has it pronounced, Koreshi? Koreshi, yeah. Who passed away. But the two of you, I guess it was a classic case of iron sharpening iron, that you helped each other. Well, it was kind of funny because, so I spent, you know, I finished out my prison sentence and spent, you know, I was reading the Bible and reading Christian. books probably four to six hours a day on most days for for their you know my entire prison stay after after I became a Christian and then I went to college right after I got out and ended up ended up sharing a hotel room with Nabil Koreshi on a school trip and thought you know how

interesting here here's a Muslim because his name's Nabil Koreshi but you know you don't know just based on the name how devout he is And we're in this hotel room. And I see him unpacking, and I'm sitting there reading the book of Isaiah, and he's unpacking and putting away his prayer rug. And I think, okay, well, he's devout enough to bring a prayer rug on a school trip. So it probably takes his religion seriously. And then I'm thinking, but, you know, I don't want to be accused of harassing a Muslim or something like that.

So God, if you want me to talk to this guy, could you let him start it? And shortly after that, Nabil says, So are you a hardcore Christian? And I said, yes, I am. And then we ended up spending hour after hour after hour arguing that weekend. I let him do a lot of the talking. And Nabil is sitting there trying to educate me on the nature of God and the reality of the Bible and who Jesus was and everything.

And the whole time I'm just thinking, dude, do you have any clue? Do you have any clue what I just been through that you're telling me? You're trying to educate me about Christianity. And so, yeah, we ended up becoming, we ended up becoming best friends and ended up talking a lot about Christianity over the next several years. But here's what was cool.

Here's how it all kind of works together. Is that lots of people, even Christians. even Christians during this time were telling me, David, you know, think about all the atheists you could be witnessing to when you're spending day after day after day, year after year now, talking to the same Muslim. But by that time, it was kind of built into me that it's not my place to say it's too late for this guy. And it's kind of because of my background, right? it was because of my background that I'm not counting this guy out just because he keeps rejecting what I'm saying year after year after year. This guy is much better off than I was and I became a Christian. So I can't say there's no hope for this guy. But that was the attitude that a lot of

Christians had this sort of Billy Graham evangelism mindset where you preach the gospel and then everyone comes forward to receive it. And then if they don't, well, you know, that's that's on them. Whereas whereas I didn't, I was like, no, this stuff can take, this stuff can take years to wrestle through and get your mind around. I didn't realize that God had used you to bring Nabil to faith. Did he write about that in his book? And I don't remember or did you? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, he wrote about that. Yeah, that's seeking Allah, finding Jesus. So for people read that, yes, I'm his friend, I'm his friend David from that book that he talks about having these discussions with. Now I get it. Well, how wonderful.

What a what an extra boon to this conversation to learn that God used you in that way. How magnificent. And I know that as a result of that, you are also very well versed in Islam, which most Christians are not. So you have done debates with people about Christianity versus Islam, have you not? and I'm just assuming that it was your time with Nabil that kind of sharpened your skills there. Yeah, I learned a little bit of time. I learned a little bit about Islam in prison

just because I had some Muslim friends in prison. So I learned a little bit, but you know, you don't have, I didn't have all their sources and so on. Whereas when I started getting those discussions with Nabil, I had a pretty good habit that people should get in the habit of, you know, when someone's making a claim or giving you an argument saying, I want to see that. I want to see that in your sources.

So I ended up buying the Muslim sources. And yeah, so took Nabil about four years and he became a Christian. And I was studying Islam and writing articles about Islam by this time. But once he, when he became a Christian, I thought, you know, cool, I'm done with Islam. I can get back to stuff I'm interested in. And it was kind of watching Nabil and the stand that he took for Christianity. After he became a Christian, I realized, wow, Muslims make really cool Christians. and part of it is because it's so difficult for them to convert.

They understand that their families might turn their backs on them, that people want to kill them. They've been told all their lives that if you say Jesus is Lord, that is the unpardonable sin in Islam. They understand. So they have all these obstacles. But the flip side is when a Muslim says, you know, I've been told all my life, this will get me sent to hell. And I may have to give up my family and I may get killed over this. But, you know, I want to know Jesus anyway. That's someone who will lay down his life if he has.

do. And so I ended up sticking with it. You know, it's funny because I was when you said Muslims make, how do you put it? I have said cool Christians. I think people. I was going to say, I think psychopaths make pretty cool Christians. And there is something about you and the way that you communicate that's a little different and it makes you the more compelling, not just your story, but the way you tell it. I think people get the impression like you've actually lived through this. You've lived through some stuff. So this is not simply some ideas you're kicking around. It's fascinating to think that just the journey you've been on. Everyone will make of it something slightly different. How do you spend your time these days? Mostly YouTube. So I did all my

school and then I kind of had a choice to go in a professional academic. route, but by that time, I was making YouTube videos, and I just, I thought, you know, hey, you know, I could either teach a couple of classes of semester with, you know, 20 or 30 students in the room, or I can do this where, you know, you make videos and they get hundreds of thousands of views. And I just decided that I'd rather communicate in this way. So I stuck with YouTube. And I know you're married. You got a bunch of kids. I want to ask you a couple more questions. Thank you, David.

But we'll be right back for a final segment. David Wood, we've just got a few minutes left with you. We will have you back if you will allow us to do that to talk about your video on cops, police brutality, and how black Americans view cops. Fascinating video you made on that subject and other subjects. But I was just asking you, you know, so what is your life like now? I assume that you're roughly 40 and you've got some kids. You got married.

Yep, got married and actually met my wife when Nabil and I were arguing one day. We're arguing about the resurrection of Jesus. And this agnostic girl came up to us and said, you're both right. I'm like, what are you talking about? We're both right. You're not making any sense here. And what she really meant was she's kind of a friendly agnostic that, you know, whatever you believe, if it helps you out, then it's true for you and so on.

But it's funny because Nabil and I both turned on her. like, no, I'm saying he rose from the dead. He's saying he didn't rise from the dead. It was the only possibilities here. One of us is right and one of us is wrong. Under no circumstances, are we both right and so on. But yeah, we liked arguing so much that we eventually got married. And we have five sons. Two of them are special needs. They have a rare genetic muscle disease. But yeah, we have five sons. And so now I spend my day with my family and making YouTube videos.

It's cool because I just, I love doing it. I love, I love waking up and thinking, okay, what's the video for the day? Let me start working on it, preparing it. You do a video every day? When I'm kind of on a roll, right now I've been putting out a video every day. Sometimes you get kind of burnout and stuff like that and you don't do it. You know, you have to take a break and stuff like that. But right now, yeah, I'm putting out a video a day.

You know, that's where we differ. When I get burned out, I just keep going and turn out mediocre stuff. So let me ask you before we go. We've just got a couple of minutes. Do you, have you done a lot of debates? I got the idea that you do public debates. Yeah, I've done somewhere in the 60s. I've done 60 some debates.

Most of them with Muslims, probably 10 or 12 with atheists. A couple with other Christians on certain topics. Like I had a debate with Robert Spencer on whether Muhammad exists. Robert Spencer wrote a book claiming that Muhammad probably didn't exist. Well, this is the good Robert Spencer. Yeah, I love Robert Spencer. No, you're thinking, yeah, Richard Spencer is the bad Spencer. Yeah, he's the, he's there.

Yeah, Robert Spencer, I know Robert Spencer. He and I are both Greek. And it's, so, yeah, so he claims Muhammad didn't exist. I've never heard that. Well, he said that it's, well, there's a reason. We don't have any early sources on Muhammad. and the Quran is very foggy about who is talking. It only mentions Muhammad by name four times,

and three of those could be titles. And so it's not, it's basically Muhammad, according to the Muslim sources, supposed to be going around and conquering all these things, and there's no good historical records of him and so on. So the skeptical route is to say either that he didn't, Robert doesn't say Muhammad didn't exist. He may have existed.

We just don't have enough reliable sources to know what he was like if he did exist. And so he put that out there. And I actually argued for sort of the traditional picture of Muhammad. So, yeah, we had that debate. Yeah, but the idea has been in 60-some debates. Have you, we've got less than a minute left, but have you been attacked, I don't mean physically,

but have you been threatened by Muslims? It seems to me. Yeah. I used to get threatened with death And my family threatened with rape and murder on a daily basis several years ago. It's funny is I actually get threatened way less now. So I probably get between two and five death threats a month now, whereas I used to get them every day.

But I think they realized over time that it just doesn't bother me. So they're giving up on that. All right. We're going to have to take that as a final word for now. David Wood really grateful for everything you do, everything you've shared with us for your time. I hope this conversation can be continued soon. Thank you so much.