The Eric Metaxas Show - Is Atheism Dead? Launch Day! (continued)

Episode Date: October 20, 2021

Eric continues the celebration of Launch Day of IS ATHEISM DEAD? showing the evidence from both the world of science and biblical archeology that our universe is a result of an Intelligent Designer. ...

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:11 Texas show with your host, Eric Mettaxas. Albin, I find myself in Wichita, Kansas. I don't know how this happened, but I'm here. Here's the issue. Because it's the launch date today, Tuesday, for my new book, I probably never mentioned it. It's called Is Atheism Dead? Yes.
Starting point is 00:00:35 And it's a handsome book. It's 400-something pages, color photos. and you can get it for 45% off if you go to my website, Ericmetaxis.com, scroll down. This is very limited. I don't know how they can do 45% off. I'm not joking. I don't care where you order it from, by the way,
Starting point is 00:00:59 but I'm just letting you know. But because today is the launch date, you thought you could interview me about the book. Now, we did that in hour one. We recorded that a couple of days ago. But of course we didn't scratch the surface. There's so much bizarre stuff in this book. I'm so excited about it that I can't shut up.
Starting point is 00:01:19 And I apologize. So let me just ask you. Why don't you ask me, you know, or you don't even have to ask me a question. You can just comment on what you've read because you've had a lot of interesting observations. And I was thrilled as the author to hear you respond to it. No, no, it's just been tremendous. I was reading it on the train in and out of the studio. And then, of course, you went on your book tour.
Starting point is 00:01:43 You've just started it basically. And today is the big day. By the, here's what it. Usually I have a candle in a cupcake. And I say, congratulations. Happy new book to you. Happy new. But this one has a black cover.
Starting point is 00:01:57 It's about, well, death is atheism dead. And it's kind of rhetorical when you ask the question. It's about life. Yeah. Because if death is dead, then it is life that is alive. But that's another story. Go ahead. Go ahead.
Starting point is 00:02:11 Now, John Smirak and others have actually brought this out. It's really written in three parts. There's the scientific part about whether you should believe in God or not, and science is continually proving the existence of God, not just like, yeah, maybe some misferrous. No, there's a loving God who is a designer and designed this place that we live. Okay, then there's biblical archaeology that continually proves that the Old Testament and New Testament, these are not just stories. These are true accounts of what happened in the past. So that proves the God of the Bible, belief in a God of a Bible, of the Bible who's a designer and a loving God. And then the last part is just delightful because it's about a previous atheist like Camus and John Paul Sart and how they came to faith at the end of their lives. And that's incredible because they looked at the evidence and they were open-minded. And you said at the end of the book, and this will be my opening. questioning to you. You said that you can no longer, because of the evidence, be an atheist, but it's still okay to be an agnostic. So what is the difference between an atheist and an agnostic? I think an atheist is a person that really, for them, it's a philosophy. In other was they say there is no God and they take this stance against God and they claim that that has to do with reason and their pro reason and anti-faith. All of that falls apart when you look at it. It doesn't make sense. It's just kind of an angry. It's like a tattoo. It's like, hey, my dad,
Starting point is 00:03:49 I'm my own man now. I think at some point you have to go through that and to the other side and see that even if you don't like people of faith or you don't like what the Bible says, you can be an agnostic and say, I have questions. I mean, gnosos, you know, it refers to knowledge. Agnostic is to be without knowledge, to still have questions. I'm not sure. That to me seems respectable. And yet what we call atheism, which says, I know there's no God.
Starting point is 00:04:28 or I'm pretty sure there's no God. I don't think in this day and age, it can make sense if you look at the evidence. If you don't look at the evidence, I mean, if you read this book, I don't see how you come out an atheist. You may still say, well, I don't like the writer. He's an idiot. I find a lot of stuff in your tenuous. Great. It's a free country.
Starting point is 00:04:53 You can think what you like. But to say there's no God once you read the scientific. And by the way, have we played the Hugh Ross hour yet? He's coming up this week. Hugh Ross is coming up. Hugh Ross says, and this is true. In other words, in my book, I talk about all the evidence coming out from science that makes it less and less possible to fathom that the universe just arose randomly, right?
Starting point is 00:05:18 Hugh Ross says practically every day, every month, more evidence is coming out. And he's on top of this. If you go to reasons to believe, which is his magnificent ministry organization, wow. But he says it just gets worse and worse and worse and worse. If you are clinging to some idea that science is going to prove there's no God, the opposite has been happening for decades and it's accelerating. So I just think we have to be honest. And it gets to the end of the book, I talk about what I call the founding myth of atheism,
Starting point is 00:05:51 this battle between Galileo and the church, which when you read that chapter, you realize that itself is a lie. The way it's been presented is essentially not true. But the bigger issue is that Galileo was a profound Christian who believed that, what's what the scripture says, the heavens declare the glory of God. In other words, that whatever you study in the heavens or on this earth, it's going to declare the magnificence of the God who created it. And so he's looking through his telescope.
Starting point is 00:06:22 He sees, for example, the big issue was that. that, oh, the planets and the sun are not revolving around the Earth. On the contrary, it is we on Earth who are traveling around the sun. And he said to people, take a look through the telescope. Don't take my word for it. Look through the telescope. Look at the evidence. Dare to look at the evidence.
Starting point is 00:06:45 Yeah. And people refuse to look through the telescope. And he joked about it at one point. But I feel like people are so dug in. in. Yeah. Excuse me. People are so dug in that they don't even want to look at the evidence.
Starting point is 00:07:00 They just bat it away. And I think, well, that's the thing. You're just asking people to keep an open mind. Just keep your mind open to what we're going to present here. That's what Galileo. You can't prove God. In other words, God himself has to touch a person's heart. So there's a great mystery there.
Starting point is 00:07:18 But you can try to understand the facts. It's kind of like if you study math or science or history, you just want to know what is. And I think people can become so entrenched that they don't want to know what is. They don't want to know the truth of the facts. That's bad. So I want to say to people, I try in the book to present it as fair-mindedly as possible. I've discovered three or five ridiculous typos, which we have to change. I think I say something crazy like the diameter of Jupiter is 900,000 miles across. It's 90,000 miles across. I think I say something that Pluto has no moons.
Starting point is 00:07:58 Technically, that's not. There's a couple of things like that in there, but we're going to fix them in the second duration. But none of that will affect the basics, as you'll see. But I say that just so that, you know, when you're rushing a book to print, you miss stuff like this. But I just think the evidence is so overwhelming that I want at least people of faith to acquaint themselves with these facts.
Starting point is 00:08:22 because it is. It is. It's overwhelming. And almost nobody knows this. So I'm a popularizer. I put the stuff in a book to make it easy for your average reader. You know, you don't have to read the books that I read. But you can at least grasp the basics. And I'm telling you, we're living in exciting times right now. This is very exciting that this knowledge has not been known on a popular level. Yeah. You know what? And this, I don't, I don't think this is in. book. I haven't gotten to everything. I'm a few pages from the end, believe it or not, but John Paul Sart, his dying words apparently recorded by a guy named Pierre Victor, he said this. This is amazing from Sart. He said, I do not feel that I am a product of chance, a speck of dust in the universe, but someone who was expected, prepared, prefigured, in short, a being whom only a creator could put here. And this idea of a creating hand refers to God. And that's amazing. I mean, those weren't his dying words, but they were near when he was near and he wanted to
Starting point is 00:09:28 write this down to make it clear. Yes. That this wasn't the dottering ravings of a of an old man, but that he had thought this through. But it's more dramatic than I even remembered. When you just read it right now, I thought that's Jean-Paul Sart. Yes. Like the idea that he, who was this arch atheist philosopher that he wrote this and it made his atheist friends very angry. Oh, we're going to a break. We'll be right back. Don't go away. Hey, folks, I've got to tell you a secret about relief factor that the father, son, owners, Pete and Seth Talbot, have never made a big deal about, but I think it is a big deal. I really do. They sell the three-week quick start pack for just 1995 to anyone struggling from pain,
Starting point is 00:10:15 like neck, shoulder, back, hip, or knee pain, 1995, about a dollar a day. But what they haven't broadcasted much is that every time they sell a three-week quick start, they lose money. In fact, they don't even break easy. even until about four to five months after, if you keep ordering it. Friends, that's huge. People don't keep ordering Relief Factor month after month if it doesn't work. So, yes, Pete and Seth are literally on a mission to help as many people as possible deal with their pain. They really do put their money where their mouths are.
Starting point is 00:10:42 So if you're in pain from exercise or even just getting older, order the three-week quick start for 1995. Let's see if we can get you out of pain too. Go to Relieffactor.com. Relieffactor.com or call 800-500-584-800-584. Factor.com. I use it. It works. Folks, today's the day my book launches. You can get a very, very inexpensive copy at our website, ericmataxis.com. You have to scroll down to one of the links on the book page.
Starting point is 00:11:25 Alvin, you've been interviewing me about the book. So have at it. This is fun to be on the other side. Yeah, I just want to, I want to finish up with John Paul Sart. Believe it or not, the New York Times Obit said this, John Paul Sart finds the exit. That's a joke. That was a joke. I was so hoping that the Times had actually said something about this. Well, people may not get the joke. He wrote a book called No Exit. Yeah. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Oh, and okay, now dovetailing off of all that. This, I really like this in the book. You talk about deathbed confessions, and you say they're not out of desperation. they're out of something else. Do you remember what you say in the book?
Starting point is 00:12:07 Yeah. Yeah. You explain. Well, people like Christopher Hitchens, who passed away a number of years ago, very typically, viciously characterized deathbed conversions as, you know, just moments of desperation, fearful desperation. And they're always characterized negatively. And I said, well, look, maybe that is true.
Starting point is 00:12:29 But the opposite is also true. And you've seen this time and time again. When someone is dying, they often don't care what other people think. They're not afraid of what somebody is going to say at a cocktail party. They're able to look for the first time with perfect clarity and honesty at what they see. And people don't often talk about that. That sometimes you see the true person when they're facing death. It was probably the great Dr. Johnson who said that, you know, the prospect of death focuses a man's mind.
Starting point is 00:13:12 I can't remember. I'm paraphrasing. But there is just something about that that when you're suffering or when you're actually facing death, you're very inclined to be more focused on these things. You can't bat them away. They don't leave your field of consciousness, so to speak. You're thinking about them all the time. And I think you have many cases of people who, as they approach death, they're forced to get serious. They realize I can't play games anymore.
Starting point is 00:13:45 And so they do come into the church, ask for forgiveness. That's really serious. And that's another thing that simply needs to be said, that the lie promulgated by people like Christopher Hitchie, that the deathbed conversions are all by definition nonsense. That is itself nonsense. And I think one of the reasons I go so hard after Hitchens and Dawkins is that they pushed powerful untruths over and over and over. It was nasty.
Starting point is 00:14:18 It was intellectually dishonest. And when you keep talking about, you know, faith is the precinct of people who aren't interested in logic and facts and reason. And then you yourself are promoting lies and using sophistry and really, you know, juvenile forensic tactics, you know, just to get the audience on your side and not really being yourself honest. You have to be called out on that. And I was, as I've said it many times, stunned by how bad, particularly Hitchens and Dawkins
Starting point is 00:14:54 are as philosophers. I mean, it's just staggering. It's like they simply didn't care. and they had a great incentive just to get laughs, to get applause, to get people on their side. They're preaching to the choir of people like them who had perhaps been stung by religion in a way that made them have a particular animus against it. So I just thought it needed saying. Yeah, and it doesn't hurt book sales either if you continue to. Oh, well, that's the whole thing.
Starting point is 00:15:24 They sold zillions of books. And I was reading their books. I thought, this stuff is horrible. unless you want to believe it and then you're just going to, you know. Yeah, sometimes people just believe what they want to believe, not what the facts tell. We would never do that. Not, no, not us. Hey, listen, I like this.
Starting point is 00:15:41 This is taking us back to the middle part of the book. What do the numbers nine and one thousand two hundred and thirty five mean to you? What do the numbers nine and one thousand two hundred and thirty five mean to me? Actually, I don't remember that one. Can you give me a hint? Yeah, I'll give you a hint. The Bible. The Bible.
Starting point is 00:16:06 I still don't remember. Okay, up to page nine, a lot of people using arguments. Oh, oh, I say, yes, yes. Well, part of what I say when I'm talking about Stephen Collins, the Albuquerque archaeologist, is an amazing, he's just an amazing man. and he discovered biblical Sodom. And I thought to myself, people tend to discount the early parts of the Bible more than any. They say it's mythical, it's this, it's that, whatever. But they also tend to focus on that.
Starting point is 00:16:39 In other words, you've got a huge book filled with stuff, but they almost want to find the most primitive stuff and act as though all the Bible ever talks about is a talking serpent. And, you know, I mean, not that I disagree with any of it, But the point is they use it as a way of mocking rather than dealing with, you know, the entire book, which is obviously just, I mean, it's a million different genres, much less different eras and different centuries and stuff. So I'm assuming you're referring to that. Yeah, yeah. The stories from the first nine pages of the Bible, a Bible that's over 1,200 pages long in the standard edition,
Starting point is 00:17:25 right that's from that section there from the earliest uh if you want days of the bible and recorded history they'll say oh that can't happen a talking serpent can't happen a flood can't happen but you think that that's all that's all the bible talks about that's what i find so funny it's kind of like like there's noah's arc there's you know there there there's the terror of of babel there's the there's the there's eden and this this is the first couple of pages of a vast book. And so I consider it taking cheap shots. In other words, I see what they're doing,
Starting point is 00:18:03 but you've got to look at the whole thing. Well, going even before the existence of Bible, that's what the first part of your book is about, about the science of how the world came into existence. Can you explain, here's a specific, can you explain what a proto planet is, and specifically Thea and why we should care about Thea. Do you remember that? Yeah. Yeah. And by the way, just to clarify, I'm not saying that I don't take the first pages of the book seriously.
Starting point is 00:18:33 I'm just saying that they're probably harder to defend and whatever. And people always home in on that to mock the whole Bible, which I consider a cheap tactic. If you're serious, you can't do that. But yeah, you just talked about a proplanet thea. Most people don't know this. And it's weird because, again, this is where science has only recently, told us how the earth came into being, how the moon came into being. You know, 50 years ago, we didn't really know this. And even that blows my mind that when I was a kid growing up, we didn't know these details. But the bottom line is that when the solar system was formed, I don't know, about 4.5 billion years ago, the Earth didn't exist. There was a proto-Earth, a planet smaller than. and the earth, which scientists called, call Thea.
Starting point is 00:19:26 It had an atmosphere like 50 times thicker than our current atmosphere. So if you're trying to breathe, it would be like breathing sand. Don't try it. It didn't have enough mass to support the kind of an atmosphere we need. It didn't have anything. And it was in existence for millions of years. And at some point, we now know this recently, a Mars-sized object. struck it so perfectly. If this hadn't happened perfectly, we would not be here. It struck it
Starting point is 00:20:01 incredibly perfectly, so perfectly that most of the mass of this maratized object that did the colliding, when it struck this protoplanet Thea, it was absorbed into the proto-planet, enlarging the protoplanet Thea into the size of Earth today. So they didn't just bounce off of each other. It was like such a powerful, perfect strike that it became what we consider Earth. And the part of it that was not absorbed was sort of shocked outward and congealed to form the moon, which is also very large. And the details, obviously it's in the book, but oh my gosh, the idea that this happened and that if it hadn't happened precisely as it. did, we wouldn't be here. Again, the more you know, which is why I hope people will read the book, the more astonishing it is. You can't do it justice in a few seconds on the radio program,
Starting point is 00:21:02 but you think, is there any way that this could have just happened randomly? I mean, I guess technically, but does it make sense that when this Marsai's planet struck the, it gave the new planet, now called Earth, the perfect atmosphere. Most of the, of the atmosphere, the thick atmosphere that had been on Thea, exploded away into outer space. I mean, it just all boggles the mind. We didn't know it till recently. Now we know it. Now you need to know it.
Starting point is 00:21:37 And it's in my book. Get in on the fun. Get in on the fun. Get the book today, folks. And leave your reviews on Amazon. Please, before the trolls start posting their one-star negative reviews who haven't read the book. Thank you. The canyons everywhere.
Starting point is 00:22:00 Hey, folks, Eric Metaxis here. Joe Biden and the Democrats have laid out the most socialist agenda our country has ever seen. Instead of following President Trump's blueprint that had the economy booming, the Dems are going to raise taxes, increase regulations, and skyrocket an already outrageous national debt. If your retirement is in traditional investments, it is in jeopardy. Americans should be diversifying their investments with gold and precious metals. Gold gives you control over your wealth and protects you from market, volatility, inflation, and a weakening dollar. When investing in gold, I turn to Legacy Precious
Starting point is 00:22:32 Metals. Legacy Precious Metals has over 40 years of experience in helping Americans protect their finances, and this team is prepared to patiently consider your own personal financial needs. If you're looking to invest in gold, call the good folks at Legacy Precious Metals today at 866-473-6204 or visit them online at LegacyPMinvestments.com. Don't leave your retirement to chance, friends. Contact legacy, precious metals today. That's 866-473-6204. Folks, today's the day my book launches. Is atheism dead? Please, please, if you haven't already get the book today, it makes every bit of difference. I don't want to beg, but I will. Okay, Alvin, you've got some, you're interviewing me, so you said you have some more questions.
Starting point is 00:23:26 Great book, of course. I've been reading it, and now I'm interviewing you, and it's exciting. And I didn't ask you to do this in case anybody wonders. No, but I always enjoying this every time something new comes out from you, which is every two a year or something like that. Okay, here it is. What is Hammer Robby's Code? This is a good question, I think. And what is its significance with the Old Testament prophets?
Starting point is 00:23:51 Oh, yeah. This is, it's actually not the prophets. It's earlier in the Old Testament. The bottom line is that when they discover, I discovered Hamarabi's coat. I think this was in Shushan or Sousa, which they also discovered. Like this is, you know, the, the archaeologists keep discovering things. They've been, oh, my goodness, we've discovered the city of Shushan or Sousa, which is where the book of Esther takes place. Nobody knew, did it really exist? Boom, they discover it.
Starting point is 00:24:19 And while they're excavating it, this is in the, you know, 150 years ago, they discovered this steel or steely. I never know how to pronounce it, with what we now call Hammerabee's Code. And it's a detailed law listing of laws, very detailed. And it lists, for example, the price of a slave at 20 shekels. And that and other things, which I won't go into because we don't have time. But we now have something from, you know, many, many centuries before Christ, that corroborates something that never could have been corroborated before, which is intense little specifics of, you know, when Joseph is sold into slavery in the early pages of Genesis,
Starting point is 00:25:11 how much money was paid for him, how many shekels. And you can trace it through the early pages of Genesis. So here again, you have out of the sands of the desert of the Middle East, you're getting archaeological, historical corroboration of tiny detail. from the Bible. There are other examples. I won't go into them because we don't have time, but it is so fascinating that over and over and over,
Starting point is 00:25:38 archaeology corroborates the historicity of the Bible. This is one amazing example. Actually, there's one more from the Amarabi's Code that it says the son of a free woman will proceed in terms of what they call primogenitor, if you're going to inherit, will precede the son of a slave woman. So Hagar, Ishmael, that whole story, you think one was born first.
Starting point is 00:26:07 Why doesn't he inherit everything? Well, in those days, the law was the opposite. And so you see it in the pages of Scripture, but then suddenly Himmerabhi's Code tells you, oh, yes, this is the law of the land in these days. So over and over, you see these quirky little things from Scripture being corroborated in history. it keeps coming out. It's another reason to take the Bible very seriously. Yeah. And you have to wonder, why did God allow all this stuff to happen where it could be
Starting point is 00:26:35 preserved under mounds of sand and earth and all that? And why was it revealed now when things are going really crazy? Yeah, right. Why are we finding this out now? Do we kind of need the idea that God really is there? And it's like when I was in college, there was a plaque you could buy. It said, God is back and boy, is he mad. Yeah, well, I'm not going to go into that. But it is funny, though, that just in the last 150 or so years, this evidence keeps coming out and out and out and out. And I even think in a book like mine, it's another level of exposure because something
Starting point is 00:27:10 could be true, but if nobody knows about it, does it matter? You need to kind of get it out. And, you know, I noticed so many things that people didn't know about. before we close this, I was going to say right at the end of the book. Yes, yes. I talk about beauty. Yeah. Beauty.
Starting point is 00:27:28 Yeah. And I think to myself, because one of the things I write about is the incredible bleakness of atheism and how almost nobody has the courage or the intellectual rigor to stare into this black abyss, to say that, okay, there's no God, which means necessarily, even though you don't, might not like it, it means there's no meaning in the universe. It means there's no source of meaning. It means that when something breaks your heart with its beauty, that's just chemicals, hormones, in your body, designed to perpetuate the species. There's nothing transcendent. Who can face that? Now, again, the reason I say, I think atheism has to die is because we now can
Starting point is 00:28:12 really see this clearly. But there are people who will insist, they will just bat that away and say, I make my own meaning. There's no God. I make my... That does not work out logically. So there are people who are going to insist that I can cry to sunset, I can weep listening to a beautiful symphony, and isn't that wonderful?
Starting point is 00:28:35 But God doesn't exist. Those things contradict each other utterly. There's no middle ground. And I point to that. I talk about, you know, my dad, when he was 16 years old, during the war, he found himself in the square of Argyzali. So he's 16 years old. The war is going on.
Starting point is 00:28:58 The island of Cephalonia is occupied by Germans and Italians. It's just this difficult time. And at midnight, sitting there in the square with a beautiful moonlight, they hear a trumpet playing, I think it's Tselli's serenade. They hear a trumpet playing this thing. And people in the square listen to this. music and start weeping. It was so beautiful. And it ended up being a German soldier playing this trumpet. And I asked the question in the book, we're at a time, but I say, are you going to tell
Starting point is 00:29:31 me that that was just notes? That there is no meaning. There is no beauty. There is no, none of it makes sense. When you experience heartbreaking beauty, it points to God. There's no way around it. It points to something beyond this world. It needs to be said. It needs to be understood. And we'll leave it there. Thanks, Eric. Thank you very much. Folks, get is atheism dead today? Hey there, folks. When running a business, HR issues can kill you. Wrongful termination suits, minimum wage requirements, labor regulations, and HR manager salaries are not cheap, an average of $70,000 a year. Bambi, spelled BAM, B-A-E, was created specifically for small businesses. You can get a dedicated HR manager, craft HR policy, and maintain your compliance, all for just $99 a month.
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Starting point is 00:31:00 Hey there, folks. It's my privilege to speak with the Senior Council at Alliance Defending Freedom, Kate Anderson. Kate, welcome back. Thank you. I've been talking this month to my audience about giving to Alliance Defending Freedom. They know how important religious liberty is to me and to the nation, but I thought, hey, let's come get some specifics from ADF. So what are the cases that you're working on now that might be of interest to my audience to understand what we're going through as a nation? Well, we just asked the Supreme Court to take a very important case out of Colorado on behalf of our client, Lori Smith. She owns 303 creative. She's an artist and a website designer, and she wants to be able to create freely, to create messages that are in accord with her religious beliefs. But the state of
Starting point is 00:32:00 Colorado is weaponizing a law to try to force her to create custom wedding websites that promote same-sex marriage if she creates any custom wedding websites. And that violates her core convictions and something that the government should never force anyone to do. And that's why we're asking the Supreme Court of the United States of America to take this case. Now, ADF, for my audience in case they're not tracking, you have argued numerous cases in front of the United States Supreme Court. That's a staggering opportunity, a staggering responsibility. What I always try to communicate, because I've gotten to meet Jack Phillips a bunch of times, if you all were not fighting these things, it's simply stunning to me to think where we would be as a country. And the reason I wanted you on and the reason I want to raise money for ADF is that I think most Americans really aren't aware of who is fighting the battle.
Starting point is 00:32:57 It's very theoretical. But you guys are fighting this battle. You're taking on these cases so that people like Jack Phillips and I can't remember the name of the woman we were just discussing. Lori Smith. So they can't be bullied. And it's nothing more or less than that. They're being bullied pressure to do things that violate their consciences, which I think many Americans, too, we've been so blessed by religious freedom. and we forget how sacred it is, that we have the freedom to obey our consciences,
Starting point is 00:33:31 and that the government has no right, the culture has no right to force us. So she is a woman of faith who doesn't want to create websites contrary to her views. We don't have to agree with her views, but that's her right as an American. And is this in Colorado? It is. And it's actually the same law that Colorado used to come after Jack over and over again. And it's something that we're seeing in other states as well, where the government is trying to weaponize laws to force people to create speech. Say messages, use their artistic talents to create things that violate their core convictions.
Starting point is 00:34:09 And if they can do this to Jack and to Lori on the issue of marriage, they can do this to anyone on any issue. And that's why it's so important that something like the Supreme Court steps in and tries to protect this freedom for everyone. Is it fair to say that you and the other lawyers at ADF could be making more money elsewhere? Probably. We work for a nonprofit. Absolutely. But it's a blessing to be here and to be able to do the work that we do because I think it's important for every American to be free in these regards. And it's important that somebody's working on this.
Starting point is 00:34:44 So I've been grateful to. I say that so that my audience understands, you know, not only are you taking these cases on for free. but all of you who are being paid aren't being paid what you could be making other places because you believe in this. You're actually giving of your own time and your potential income because you believe in America. And I just want my audience to understand that we're all in this fight. And I think part of the problems that we've had as a nation over the last decades is that we've sort of farmed out a lot of these things to the professional class. We forget this is our fight. This is my fight.
Starting point is 00:35:21 and when somebody risks his life on foreign soil, when somebody gives up a lucrative career to defend religious liberty, I need to share that. I need to be a part of that. And so I say to my audience, folks, please give what you can. Our website is metaxis talk.com. The Alliance Defending Freedom Banner is there. You click on it.
Starting point is 00:35:47 If you want to give something per month, that might be easier for you, but we all need to share this burden. This is a serious, serious moment in the nation where religious liberty is, for the first time in our lives, coming under serious threat, and we have to fight and we have to win, and ADF is doing that. Kate, are there any other cases that you know of that my audience should be aware of? Well, I just want to say, first, we're all in this together, and we really appreciate the donors that come alongside us and make it possible for us to defend these important freedoms for everybody. But there are lots of cases to be looking for. I think Lories is a prime one right now because I think it's going to hit
Starting point is 00:36:29 the national stage and be something that could have an impact for artists and speakers across the country. But Jack Phillips case continues on. We continue to work in other areas to try to defend on college campuses, religious freedom and free speech to protect life, to protect parental rights around the country and marriage and the family. And so we're working in many areas, but there are some cases I sort of bring forward to you because they're going to be more on the national stage and something that I think could have a big impact on everybody's freedom.
Starting point is 00:37:01 I think I bring this up almost every time I have somebody from ADF on is I want my audience to understand how this works. In other words, this has nothing to do with whether we agree with what someone says. I mean, if somebody says, I don't want to bake a cake that celebrates Christianity, I'm a Muslim. Well, I would say, well, wait a minute. I'm a Christian. Well, the point is we're Americans. We don't force Muslims to bake cakes celebrating Jews or Israel or Christians. We are free in America. And if we don't all understand how this works, we're no longer America. When we begin to force people to do things, whether you agree with it or don't, and that's why, folks, it has nothing to do with whether you agree with it.
Starting point is 00:37:42 It has to do with what is right for all Americans. And so if somebody has a view that I think of as paris, And I say, well, that seems silly to me. Well, I would still say it is that person's right. So I might agree with the person. I might not. In this case, in most cases, when it comes to ADF, I do agree. But the point is, even if you don't agree, we're not a nation that says, this is what I think, and I'm going to force you to go along with what me and the majority think. We have laws that say that even if you're out of step with the majority, you are a protected minority. We have a constitution that says you have religious liberty. We need to really understand that because people are using our ignorance to play us on things like this, usually with regards to issues
Starting point is 00:38:30 of sexuality. People get confused. Don't be confused. People can have any opinion they like, but they cannot be compelled to go against their own principles. Please go to metaxis talk.com. We really need your help. Support ADF. Please, folks. We need everybody to step up. Kate Anderson, God bless you. Thank you. Hey there, folks. Exciting news. We're going into the home stretch. That means that my book is launching. I cannot believe it. As the author, you just, you work so hard on something. I worked really hard on this book. And there's stuff in here, which I promise you, is going to blow your mind. Albin, you've been reading it and you've been having very positive experiences with it,
Starting point is 00:39:35 which always tells me when a friend tells me, you know, what he's reading. Yeah. Yeah, I've been reading it and it's fascinating. It's blow your mind fascinating. No, I mean, it is. And it's not because I wrote it. It's the stuff that I'm writing about is inherently fascinating. And so, okay, two things.
Starting point is 00:39:53 First of all, I've not mentioned this, I don't think, before. But one thing you can do. do is you can ask your local library to carry this book, carry copies of the book. It's already a bestseller, and that would be really helpful when libraries carry the book. So please, if you can, if you think of it, do that. I also ask you to think about buying copies to donate to libraries, to school libraries. It's just important this information, get out there and be available.
Starting point is 00:40:34 And you'll see when you read the book, if you haven't already done so, if you remember the launch team. Also, I want to say that please post your reviews if they're favorable as soon as possible because there are a lot of atheist trolls out there and they work really hard to destroy books like this.
Starting point is 00:40:54 Like they post one-star reviews on Amazon and they've never read the book and stuff. So we need your help to please, you know, as soon as the links go live, wherever it's good read, your Barnes & Noble or Amazon, as soon as you can, please post your reviews. It makes a big difference. And by the way, if Albert Camus was still alive today, he'd be given this a five-star review. Yes, he would. That's right.
Starting point is 00:41:21 I mean, some of the craziest stuff in the book is the fact that Camus and Sartt became, believers at the end of their lives. No one seems to know about this. Don't ask me how I discovered it except by God's grace. But when you discover it, you think, this is monster news. We've got to tell the world. The world needs to know. Whenever their names came up and say, oh, by the way, at the end of their lives, they accepted God. People are going to think, that's not possible. Well, you can look it up not only in my book, but in the footnotes and the bibliography. I also want to stress, we are doing a campaign for lines defending freedom. We really ask you folks to do,
Starting point is 00:42:01 I've become more and more free in asking, not just for money for these organizations or for people to buy my book, because I feel like we're on a crusade. We're not just doing entertainment here. We're trying to save America. We're living in some dark times. So obviously, if you want to support the program,
Starting point is 00:42:20 You can go to my store.com, MyPillow.com, Neutromedics.com and use the code Eric. Extraordinary products. The Bonhofer poster, by the way, is so inspiring. I wish I could get one up in every college room in America. But I want to stress ADF because the Alliance Offending Freedom, what they do to help religious liberty in America to fight for our freedoms. We will have on another guest this week talking about something going on in Seattle. it's just crazy that we have to fight these battles in courts.
Starting point is 00:42:55 They do it for free, folks. They do it for free. So they need our help. They are tremendously worthy organization. I will give you the phone number, actually. Obviously, you go to our website mettaxistalk.com. The phone number is 855-5-4753-33. 855-5-4-7-53.
Starting point is 00:43:17 And I also want to remind you, please go to my website, Ericmataxis.com, to sign up for the newsletter. Please. We want to send you our videos. We're all over Rumble. Please subscribe on Rumble, but we're having trouble getting our videos out because YouTube cancel us. We can use your help. Please go to Ericmataxis.com. Sign up for the newsletter and you can pre-order the book there at some really amazing prices. Just saying thank you.

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