The Eric Metaxas Show - Richard E. Simmons III

Episode Date: May 1, 2020

Best-selling author Richard E. Simmons III brings his own fascinating insights into the series of essays from his newest book, "Reflections on the Existence of God."

As the announcer of this show, I sometimes ask myself, to what shall I compare Eric? Shall I compare him to a summer's day? Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May. But not Eric. I'll tell you nothing shakes this guy. And now here he is, wearing green leotards and a gestures coxcomb, Eric Mataxis. Exiton, stage left. Hey there, folks, welcome to the Eric Mataxis show.

Have I got a show for you? You know how much it means to me to talk about whether we can know. God exists. To ask the big questions, can we even know, and how can we know? And does he exist? A lot of people just want to know, does he exist? My question is, can we know? Because what if we couldn't know? What if he existed, but we had no way of knowing? What are the clues that we might look at? This has fascinated me for years, and I'm thrilled to say that there is a brand new book that I want to recommend very highly to you. It's by Richard E. Simmons, the Thurface. The Thurface. I third, not to be confused with the exercise guru, whom we've tried to get on this show time and time

again, and he's just refused us. So I said, well, just get me any Richard Simmons. So we got Richard E. Simmons, the third, who happens to have written this wonderful book called Reflections on the Existence of God. Richard E. Simmons, the Third. I am thrilled to have you. Congratulations on the book. Thank you, Eric. It's a real pleasure for me to be with you. Well, I know we've met, and I see that you've put some of my books behind you, for those watching on video, I've also put some of my books behind me. It's an important thing to do for everyone when they're on TV to put some of my books behind them. In all seriousness, your book, it's a little hard to describe, so maybe I'll let you do it. The title, of course, is Reflections on the Existence of God.

But how do you describe this book when people ask you about it? Well, what I wanted to do was write a very well-researched book that would, be easy to read and understand. And so what I ended up doing was writing the book in short essays. People seem to like that. And I divided it into 10 sections. And I think it's very comprehensive as far as covering the issues that really make a good, strong argument for the existence of God. But I really, I wanted it so that young people could read it. My three college student kids have read it. And, you know, it can be read and short. You could take 10 minutes and read maybe two essays.

And from my experience in previous books that I've written, this is very popular. And so I think it's well researched. I think it's comprehensive, but again, it's easy to read. Well, part of the reason I'm thrilled you wrote this book, Reflections on the Existence of God, is because it's the kind of book that I would like to write, but I'd prefer that someone else write it. You know, it's one of these things that we need to have books exactly like this. A short book, easy to read, that kind of covers it all in a way that an open-minded skeptic would, I think, you know, be greatly benefited by reading the book. So it seems to me that you have to have written the book with that kind of person in mind.

Clearly I did. There's no doubt. And in the work that I do, I encounter a lot of skeptics. But it's been interesting, Eric, that I've had a number of Christians tell me how I just got an email yesterday about how much it has increased their own faith. It's helped them with doubts that they've had. And I think that's a problem some Christians have is that they live with doubt. And so I've been pleased that in one sense it's really kind of written for everybody. Well, I was going to say it's what I try to do in my own books because I realize that there are tons of self-identified Christians whose faith is compromised or at least not very bold. And if you're not sure of what you believe and you have all these doubts, you're less likely to share your faith and to be excited about your faith. And so I think it's a very, very important thing to write books to encourage people who would say, well, yes, I have faith, but I have questions. Your book absolutely does that. I did read it. I've probably forgotten most of it, so I was looking at it again yesterday. And there's just so much in there.

I don't know where to start. So I'll ask you, where would you want to start? Well, let me, why don't I share with you why I wrote it? I think that that's important. There's a real important component to that because I've been working on this for years, truly for years as far as reading books, reading articles, and essays, and I had files of material. And I just felt like since atheism is on the rise in America, and I think Christians are struggling with how do I engage in this skeptical culture that we live in?

I felt like the time was right. And also, I read about a study that Pew Research had done and asking why so many young people who grow up in the church, while they abandon their faith when they go off to college or they go out in the real world, And for so many of them, it was because they had doubts. They had questions and nobody ever answered their questions. And so I felt like that that could be a really good tool for them. But one of the things that I learned from the life of Francis Collins when he tells his story, his spiritual journey, he was as a resident, as an MD, as he was getting his medical degree in Chapel Hill. And he had this little old lady as a patient, and she asked him, she had strong faith.

And he was an atheist at the time. and she said to him, Dr. Collins, you've been so kind to me. You listen to me, share my faith with you, but I don't know what you believe. Would you mind telling me, sharing me your faith? And Collins was just floored. He didn't know what to say to the lady. And it struck him is, you know, and he began to ask himself, am I an atheist because I've looked at the evidence and come to this conclusion or mind an atheist because that's what I want to be? And he realized in science that he always did the research and then came to conclusions. He said, but when I came to issue of faith. He said, I've never, I've never looked at any evidence, which led him to begin

looking at the evidence. He read books. He read C.S. Lewis. He even read the Bible, and ultimately became a Christian. But this is what's significant about it. He says, I'm convinced today that most of the atheists that I encounter are just like I was. They've never looked at the evidence. And Dallas Willard says the same thing. He says, most atheists he knew, he's of course deceased now. He says most of the atheists he knew at USC where he was head of the philosophy department for several years and taught there. He said, most of the atheists that I know are guilty of irresponsible disbelief. In other words, they disbelieve without ever looking at any of the evidence. And so I decided if somebody wanted to look at the evidence, where would they go?

Because there's so many books and so many of them are weighty and difficult to get through. I wanted to write a book that lays out the evidence and does it in a very simple way. Well, you've done that. congratulations. And as I say, we need more books like this. I've come to the conclusion that the evidence for the faith is so overwhelming that it's almost a joke. The issue is that nobody knows it. Nobody talks about it. You don't hear about it in the media. But the evidence, if you're a thinking person like Francis Collins, and of course he's a very thoughtful, kind person, I've gotten to meet him many times. But if you really want to know,

I got to tell you, the evidence is there. And your book is a perfect example of it. I mean, I think that anybody reading your book with an open mind is going to say, you know what, I don't need to think about this too much anymore. I may still have questions, but it really does seem kind of obvious. The evidence is just, it's been hidden from me because we live in a culture that pretty much avoids it. Right. Yeah, I would agree, and I've said on many occasions, the fact I'm speaking Friday on the compelling, it's going to be titled the compelling evidence for the existence of God. And I've said this many times that the evidence for God is very powerful and very compelling, and the evidence for atheism is very weak. In fact, I call it atheism as one massive contradiction, and I pretty much lay that out in the book. Well, it's funny. I'm writing a book in some ways similar to the one that you've written very different in other ways. But your book has been very helpful to me. And I will be ripping off a lot of it. I just want you to know in advance because it's just that good. It's so pithy. But it is kind of funny because that's what atheism is. It's a massive contradiction. When we come back, we're going to go to a break. We're going to continue the conversation, folks. The book is reflections on the existence of God by Richard E. Simmons. You need to be a massive contradiction. a copy. We'll be right back. Oh, honorbound coffee.com, my pillow.com. These folks are heroes. Please support them at this time. Folks, do not forget to see no safe spaces. Fantastic movie. Nosafaces.com. You got to go there, no safe spaces.com and use the code save 25. Hey, folks, welcome back to the Eric Metaxas show. I am talking to Richard E. Simmons, the third. And because he and I have met a couple of times, I feel free to embarrass him and to

say that I really was hoping to get the exercise guru. We failed and we said, you know what, let's get the Christian apologist, Richard Simmons. What are you going to do? You can't have everything. Richard Simmons, are you at least related to Gene Simmons of Kiss? Give me something to work with. Not that I know of. I have never thought about that, possibly, but I don't think so. Because you look so much like him. It's a little scary. Okay, seriously, though, you're, you're book is called Reflections on the Existence of God. It really is terrific. We were talking at the end of the last segment about how atheism ultimately is a gigantic self-contradiction. That's the conclusion I've come to. In other words, it's, it is itself an absurdity, not a conundrum, but an absurdity. But people fail

to look at that. People seem to shrink from seeing that it is a snake swallowing its tail. It just doesn't make sense on any level. It contradicts itself utterly. You deal with that in the book. Yeah, in fact, I deal with it a lot. In fact, that really leads into a really good conversation is, you know, why do people believe what they believe? And there is a section, one of the 10 sections, is on the psychology of belief. And to me, it's very interesting, really fascinating. And I go in and talk about how so often, as Pascal said, people form their beliefs not on the basis of evidence,

but what they find to be attractive. I love the story of Mortimer Adler, who for the first 82 years of his life, he described himself as a pagan. And then he surprised, I think all of his colleagues, when at the age of 82, he became a Christian, and he lived to be 98 years old. And he had that 16 years to reflect on his life. He said, you know, for a number of times, I strongly considered becoming a Christian.

I really thought about it. He said, but when it got right down to it, I realized I didn't want to live the Christian life. And so I refused to do it. And then he finally obviously changed his mind and became a Christian. And during that period, he said, you know, it's interesting. Looking back, I truly believe that my reason for rejecting God was not because of, for intellectual reasons, it had to do with my will. And I found that to be fascinating, because this is a brilliant philosopher. Augustine, St. Augustine even said, I resisted God for so long because I thought I'd be miserable without the embraces.

of a mistress. Probably one of my favorite illustrations on this as far as the will versus the intellect is in one of of Scott Peck's book, he talks about a patient of one of his. Her name was Charlene. I don't know if that was a real name or not. But Charlene was coming to him for counsel. And one of the things he realized was that she had a biblical worldview. She had been raised in a Christian family, and she had so much of a biblical worldview.

And he asked her, he says, why does it your faith, your belief in God, why does it have any impact on your life? And he said, she paused. And then there was this explosion. She says, I can't do that. I can't do that. There's nothing in that for me. It would mean my death. And then she said, I want to live for me.

I want to live for myself. And that was, I mean, what an unbelievable admission. But Eric, I think that's what happens in a lot of people's lives when it gets right down to that. They just really don't want God. And so it's much easier to say, I don't believe in him than saying, I reject him. The book, you just referred to M. Scott Peck's book, People of the Lie. He's most famous for the road less traveled. But when I read the People of the Lie in which that story about Charlene is featured,

that was the book that I would say led me to faith to see the true nature of evil through the eyes of a Harvard psychiatrist named M. Scott Peck, I said, if that kind of evil exists, and at the end of the book, it's clear that it's satanic evil, I said, wow, okay, then I believe in God. Because my question was always, is there anything out there? Is it just us in a materialist universe, or is there anything out there? And if somebody points to the devil, I will say, okay, fine, there's something out there. I'll pick God. And it seems to me that that's another thing we don't talk about in our culture is evil, particularly satanic evil. That is something that you deal with in your book. Yes, I do. And it's kind of interesting that like Ravi Zacharias says whenever he goes to a college campus to talk about the existence of God, the first question that always comes up is, you know, how does a loving God allow there to be evil? and yet as you read through this the fact really one of the first sections I deal with is is the issue of evil but if you really understand that in order to have

evil you have to have a standard of goodness you know we all have this sense of awedness we have certain behavior we expect from certain people and whether it be to do justice to be unselfish to be honest to be loving whatever and that on the bottom of the goodness scale is evil. But where do you get the goodness scale? I mean, you know, if you don't have, basically you need to have a God, a moral lawgiver, in order for us to have good. And so a number of people believe that the issue of evil is a great argument for the existence of God and not against him. Oh, I would certainly, I would certainly agree with that. And as I say, that it, that was the

case in my own conversion. But, you know, when you talk about people's will, I think what's interesting to me is that when C.S. Lewis, for example, wrote on this very subject, I mean, he talks about the Dow and, you know, he talks about what you just talked about, but it was a more logical culture. In other words, the problem, part of the problem with our culture today is that people are not particularly logical or not particularly moved by logic. They seem to feel that logic, it can be a way to truth, but feelings are another way to truth. And if I feel a revulsion to belief in God, that can be enough. Yeah, I would agree. We are truly a culture that's into feeling and not nearly as much into thinking. And so I would certainly agree with that.

So in the book you refer to Camus and Sarcha coming to faith at the end of their lives, I knew about Mortimer Adler. I don't think I'd ever heard of Albert Camus or Jean-Paul Sartre finding any kind of faith. Can you talk about that? Because that's unknown, it seems to me. Yeah, I was pretty stunned on what I discovered about Camus. I had it when I was in college back in the early 70s he was required reading in one of the philosophy courses is book The Stranger and I've heard others who were back in my era who he was kind of people's heroes back in the 60s in that period of rebellion

and he was clearly a very outspoken atheist he talked about the absurdity of life and then I read about a book that was written by a pastor by the name of Howard Mama, who every summer would go to France and to Paris, and he would speak at American-speaking church. And one Sunday, he sees in the audience this celebrated atheist, Albert Camus. And they get to know one another.

And the thing for Camus was the fact that life was so empty and so meaningless. And he felt like, and I think, and I talk about this in the book, We are telic creatures. In other words, we are purpose-driven, meaning-seeking beings. And he basically found life to be just empty. And he started searching. He started just coming and sitting in this church. And it's a fascinating book.

It's called, I think, Albert Camus and the preacher. And the last time, right when he left, Kamu tells him, this is what I want for my life. You know, I want to put my faith in Jesus. And the last thing he told, Camus told the minister at the airport when he was going back to the states, he said, I'm going to keep, I'm going to keep seeking the faith. And, you know, this was, this was back in 60. He couldn't really keep up with him. And six months later, Camus died in a car crash. And so, and I write in that particular essay, I think so many people have no idea that Camus would have come to the faith. I'm sure a lot of his followers might have been disappointed. I don't know. So from your point of view, he straight up became a Christian.

You know, he, you know, Eric, I think he did. And I think that it was, you know, God had that as part of his life since he died six months later. Based on what I read in the book, I would say yes. We're going to go to a break. Folks, we're talking. with the author of Reflections on the Existence of God. Wonderful, short, important new book, Reflections on the Existence of God. We'll be right back. Christian bestselling author and speaker Richard E. Simmons does not shy away from the big questions of life.

His latest book is called Reflections on the Exist of God, and it tackles the biggest question of all, does God exist? I've read this book and I've got to tell you, I'm a little biased, but you can imagine that I like it a lot. because Simmons offers insights for those grappling with life's biggest questions. Where do we find meaning in life? Who determines what is evil? Can we be moral without God?

Does God even exist? Former White House aide Wallace Henley says, I've taught apologetics for many years and I've read every scholar mentioned in this book. Of all the books on apologetics, Simmons is the best I have ever read. This book is easy to read because it's divided into a series of brief essays perfect for a devotional or discussion with a friend, I highly recommend that you add a copy of reflections on the existence of God to your pandemic reading list. Simmons asked questions that speak directly to one of the most important things you possess your worldview. Folks, you know how important this is to me.

Your worldview is going to impact the way you live your life for better or for worse. If you want to challenge yourself to spiritual and intellectual growth, and I hope you do, then be willing to ask yourself life's toughest questions. dive in today by picking up a copy of reflections on the existence of God right now. Go to existence of Godbook.com. That's existence of Godbook.com. Hey there, folks. Welcome back. It's the Erkman Taxi Show. I'm talking to Richard E. Simmons the third. He is the author of a new book called Reflections on the Existence of God. It's way easier to read than the title makes it sound, Richard E. Simmons, the third.

You realize that. It sounds like a, like a tome, but you've written it as a, with a lot of pithy quotes and in short chapters. So it is the kind of thing that, you know, almost anyone would enjoy, it seems to me. Yeah, when we're trying to come up with a title, I felt like that would be a title that might be intriguing to everybody, regardless of your position. You would at least want to pick the book up, maybe thumb through it if you're in a bookstore. and once I felt like that you did that, you would want to pick up the book and read it. And plus, I've got your endorsement, Tim Keller's endorsement on the back of the book. So I think if they saw that, they definitely would want to get the book.

Some people, some people. I think maybe Tim cancels me out. Let me just say that, you know, I'm not familiar with your story exactly. When did you come to faith and what have you been doing with your life up until writing this particular book? Well, thank you for asking. I came to faith in college. It's a long story. One of my best friends, really my roommate in college, had a bad motorcycle accident. And I kind of went through what a lot of people did. A time of reflection, a time of, I mean, I had everything going for me in my life. And yet I was very unhappy. I was very empty. And I really believe that God drew me to himself, my sophomore year. It's kind of a long story. I won't go into it. And I came to. Christ then. And I really began to grow spiritually in college. I went to a small liberal arts college in Tennessee called the University of the South that's wanting. And I majored in economics, and then from there went out into the business world. But I had the opportunity as a volunteer

to work with teenagers, which gave me opportunities to speak. And I'm probably more of a speaker than I am a writer, even though I loved to write. And in fact, a lot of my books are really nothing more than series of talks that I've given that are converted. You know, we transcribe them, convert them into books. But after graduating from college, I was in the insurance brokerage business here in Birmingham, Alabama, for 25 years. I had a great job. I had a great career. I was very blessed.

Then I got married. I'd never been married. I got married late in life. I got married at the age of 41. And we had three children pretty quickly. and in my job, as a CEO of my company, I was traveling a lot. And I also had a ministry. I was teaching men's Bible studies.

And I began to realize that something had to give. And it wasn't going to be my wife and kids. And so it was either the ministry I was doing or my job. And so a little over 20 years ago, I retired and formed a nonprofit organization called the Center for Executive Leadership. And I work with men. And there's 13 of us that work here now. We even have a publishing company that publishes my book.

And it's been a, it's, Eric, I love, I'm 66 years old. I love what I do. I love coming to work. And I'm just, I'm very blessed. Is there a website for the Center for Executive Leadership that folks can go to? Yes, there is. It's www.w.w.com, C-E-N-T-E-R-B-H-A-M-H-A-M-D-O-R-G. And there you can get my boss. Ham.org. Yeah, and on the website, you can order the book. You can read the, I do a blog every Monday. I've got a lot of my recorded messages. And then you can find out more about what we do. We've got a prison ministry. We have a lot. We have a counseling ministry. We have two counselors,

the one who does counsels people that struggle with depression, another that works with people in their marriages. And so just kind of slowly and incrementally, the organization has grown over time. Well, it's wonderful. So the website is the center be ham, as in Birmingham, the center beham.org. So back to the book, what else is there in this book that might surprise people? I think one of the most interesting sections of the book, I'd say two things, is the, I think it's the fifth section on life experiences. And I talk about, for instance, the issue of love, And I contrast the atheistic view with the biblical view. Then, and atheists have to acknowledge pretty much if they really thought through their belief that love does not exist.

You know, we're just a mass of chemicals. As B.F. Skinner said, we're a machine. This is a huge one. I mean, I talk about this almost always, at least glancingly, and I'm writing about it in my book now, too, that it's such a big thing and no one talks about it, that if you don't believe there's a God, then this, concept of transcendent love, something beautiful, it is nothing but chemicals designed, you know, through random mutations to perpetuate the species. It is so bleak. Almost no one has the ability to face that level of bleakness. No, you're absolutely right. And right next to the issue of love, I talk about, there's an essay on, and it's very similar on beauty. You know, what is beauty if there is no God?

Richard Dawkins says it's an illusion. It doesn't exist. It's a chemical reaction in your brain. And, you know, people can't live that way. I mean, that's absurd. But the one that I find most interesting, and it's really at the back of the book, the last section is on the massive contradiction of atheism. And I talk about consciousness, fascinating, that, you know, you think about the materials that make up our world. I can look outside right now and you see dirt and rocks and brass. and you see water going down a stream. And to think from that kind of matter, here we are today, conscious beings with a self-awareness. And I find it so interesting that, again, Richard Dawkins says, I have no idea how consciousness came about. His good friend Steve Pinker, who works, is a psychologist at Harvard, I said when it asked about human consciousness, he says, he beats the heck out of me. I have no idea.

And so it's hard to believe. to go to a break. Forgive me, Richard. We're going to go to a break. Folks, this is great stuff. Don't go away. Oh, it was beautiful, magical. Folks, welcome back.

I'm talking to Richard E. Simmons, the third. The book is Reflections on the existence of God. Richard, you were just talking about consciousness. Reprise what you were just saying as we went to the break, because this is so compelling to me. Yeah, it's, and to me as well. And to me, from the atheist worldview, a lot of them are embarrassed about it.

one gentleman that I quote in the book says he is embarrassed to even talk about this because the atheistic worldview has no response for this. They have no understanding of how did we become conscious beings, self-aware of who we are. And even some of them like Francis Crickis says, you know, it's just an illusion that our thinking and our awareness and our ability to reason is illusion. You know, you've got to be kidding me. But there's a truthfulness to that if, in fact, as you say, we're nothing but chemicals. If we're nothing but a product of nature, what is consciousness?

And so from a biblical worldview, it's pretty easy. There is a God who is conscious and who can think and reason, and we're made in his image. So you can just see how the biblical worldview really just makes so much sense, because you have to ask yourself, if an atheistic worldview cannot explain the world that we live in, you'd have to wonder why you would want to believe it. And if it doesn't work out in the real world, you'd have to figure something's got to be wrong with it. And yet, again, as you said earlier, I think a lot of people really don't think through their worldview and how they came to it and why they hold on to it. Well, I think it's very frightening for many people because they, I think they suspect that there may be a God and they kind of don't want to know.

It would be too disturbing to them like the famous woman Charlene in the M. Scott Peck book that they don't want to know. And I also think that we live in a culture that it's mostly about distraction. In other words, we are able to distract ourselves from deep thinking. In previous generations, for sure, previous centuries, it was less possible to distract oneself from thinking about death, from thinking about meaning in life because we didn't have so much entertainment and so many options. And there was much more death around us, obviously. But I think that's the issue today, is that people are quite,

able to distract themselves. And that's one of the reasons I'm so excited about your book, because I think that it is the sort of thing that if someone reads it, suddenly these things become real. You cannot distract yourself anymore. I couldn't agree more. And in fact, there is one essay on the issue in the section on human experience on death. And I was shocked and how so many atheists are terrified of death. Freud was absolutely terrified to die. You read about, that's one of the reasons I think Sartre came to faith. He basically said, I don't want to die in despair.

And you see this in so many lives. And I read just recently about a guy by the name of Julian Barnes. who has written a book called Nothing to Be Afraid of. And Barnes says, I'm embarrassed that I'm so afraid of dying. When I don't believe in God, I don't believe in an afterlife. And what I've concluded, Eric, is that so many people, when they get to the end of their lives, there's this fear of death and dying, and they haven't thought about it, because as you say, they've had this perpetual distraction going on in their lives.

But they get to the end. And in the book of Ecclesiastes chapter 3, verse 11, it says, God has planted eternity in our hearts. And so, in my opinion, what's happening to so many of these people is intellectually they're saying, there's nothing for me to be afraid of because I'm going into this everlasting sleep. But what happens is that in their heart, they sense, and I think they know that they're eternal beings and that death is not the end. And it is absolutely terrifying because they have no idea what lies out there. And, you know, I mean, I think that's true. I also think that if you actually think about, I mean, let's say hell doesn't exist

and all that is going to happen is you're going to cease to exist, that itself, if you think about it, can be as terrifying as hell. I mean, the thought of utter non-existence for some people just it must be unthinkable precisely because, you know, God has engraved on our hearts a longing for himself. And, you know, the idea that it doesn't matter can't really exist in a thoughtful person. You mentioned this, the novelist Julian Barnes. He wrote Flaubert's Parrot, and, you know, he's a celebrated, clever writer. But you also mentioned in your book, Stalin's death. Can you talk about that? Because I believe Stalin's daughter became a Christian, very interestingly.

Yeah, this was in Newsweek magazine describing his death. And she said, these were her words. She said, my father died a terrible death. And she said he was, you know, he was on his deathbed. He was unconscious and he was just restless. And she said, all of a sudden his eyes opened. He sat straight up in the bed that he was in. He raised his fists and shook it and then put it down, laid back down, and died.

And she said, it was clearly, he was clearly, like he was shaking his fist at God for one last time. And I think, you're right, I think it had a huge impact on her. Yeah, it's amazing. I'm friends with people who have spent some time with her, and it's an amazing thing, first of all, to meet the daughter of Stalin, but then to think that she was a woman of faith. It's incomprehensible. Who are some of the other folks that you mention in the book? Because you do mention many people that we would know.

Yeah, I mentioned, well, let's see, David Hume, are you talking about those who were struggling with death at the end of their lives? Yeah. And then, like I think I mentioned Freud. You're right about Stalin. In fact, in one of my previous books, I have a whole chapter about, this was years ago. And it's amazing the number of prominent atheists that have been frightened of death and dying. Sartre was another one.

And as I mentioned, 30 days before he died, he says, you know, I do not want to die in despair. And the one that I think I find most interesting is Donald Kagan, who was Archbishop of Canada, Barry. One of his good friends was with Bertrand Russell right before he died. Oh, hang on. Let's hit pause. I don't want to miss this. We're going to go to a final break. We'll be right back with Richard E. Simmons.

Don't go away, folks. Hey there, folks. Do you have stuff with Richard E. Simmons? The book is Reflections on the Exist of God. We were just leaping into a conversation about the celebrated atheist, Bertrand. Russell. Tell us, Richard, about him. Well, of course, he was, and I find, I tell you, Eric, what's interesting is all of these atheists that we've just been discussing, they were all very, and I don't mean this in a self-righteous, they were all very arrogant about their belief.

They were very confident in what they believed. Russell probably more than anybody else. He was the one that said, if you stand before God one day and you had to, if you had any complaint, what would you say? He said, he said, you didn't give me enough evidence to believe. But what most people don't know is that Donald Kagan, who was the Archbishop of Canterbury a number of years ago, one of his very close friends was with Russell on his deathbed. And Russell turned to him and asked him, will you pray with me? Now, I know nothing else about the prayer. I know nothing else about what happened after that. But I even had to, I went to a lot of trouble to make sure that that was true. And I documented it from the source that it came. And what is the source? That's fascinating. It's a book that was written. In fact, it's one of the footnotes. And it's from the book that Donald Kagan wrote. And then he tells where it's, and he tells where it can. came from. It's interesting. I, in the course of my life, heard the story, I guess it was in the fall of 1988 from an evangelist Lee Buck. He was an amazing man in the insurance industry before he went

into full-time evangelism. And he told the story of leading Margaret Mead, the Margaret Mead, to faith in Christ. And it's a staggering thing because you think this is one of the, you know, architects of the sexual revolution. This is one of the celebrated intellectuals of the 20th century who, you know, like Hugh Hefner and Kinsey and Freud led to the dark spiritual climate in which we have found ourselves. And at the end of her life, she knew she was dying from cancer. And he led her to faith. He didn't know that he led her to faith, but some months after she died, a close friend of hers found him, tracked him down in Darien, Connecticut to let him know that, you know, she had accepted Christ. I mean, it's pretty amazing.

You think that, you know, if a half a dozen of the ones were mentioning really, we've just got a minute left. Tell us about Freud. Was he actually afraid of death? I was not aware of that. Yeah, in fact, if you really want to read a terrific book about Freud, it's Armand-Nichael's book, the question of God where he compares the life and world views of Freud with Lewis. And Freud was a very unusual man. He was, he was, in fact, he was very, he was miserable. He had a, he led a miserable existence. And I talk about that also in the section on happiness. And he, uh, he thought about

death every day of his life, he said. And he also believed that the key to happiness was through pleasure. He called it the pleasure principle. And I mean, he was one of the first people to try cocaine towards the end of his life. And he was consistently trying to fill his life with pleasure. But then as an old man, he says, you know, that pleasure is fleeting and that it really is isn't the source of happiness in life. And so for as brilliant as he was, and for the impact he had, he lived with fear and he truly was miserable. And I wish I could remember the quote.

He says, you know, why do you want, he says, why would I want to live a long life when it's so full of misery? And so that just tells you something about his life. We are, unfortunately, we're out of time. And I didn't realize that he had committed suicide until recently. kind of makes sense. Richard E. Simmons, the third, I want to thank you for writing this book, Reflections on the Existence of God.

It's an important book. I hope a lot of people will get it and give it to as many of their friends as they possibly can. Thank you so much.