The Iced Coffee Hour - "Money Is EVIL!" Cliffe & Stuart Knechtle Debate The Existence of God & The Afterlife

Episode Date: March 3, 2025

Tecovas: Right now - get 10% off at https://tecovas.com/iced Oracle: Cut your cloud bill in half—switch to OCI today https://oracle.com/iced Ramp: Now get $250 when you join Ramp at https://ramp.com/ich Gusto: Try 3 months free at https://gusto.com/iced Follow Cliffe and Stuart: https://youtube.com/@givemeananswer?si=oVR7wczZ2PS56iYo NEW: Join us at http://www.icedcoffeehour.club for premium content - Enjoy! Add us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jlsselby https://www.instagram.com/gpstephan Official Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeBQ24VfikOriqSdKtomh0w For sponsorships or business inquiries reach out to: [e-mail] For Podcast Inquiries, please DM @icedcoffeehour on Instagram! Timestamps : 00:00:00 - Intro 00:01:45 - Most intense debate 00:03:30 - People who never question existence 00:06:11 - Why should people listen to you? 00:06:42 - What happens after you stop living? 00:08:09 - Thoughts After Life? 00:11:12 - Why live for Jesus? 00:12:52 - Sponsor - Tecovas 00:19:52 - How do you know you're right? 00:23:30 - If sins are forgiven, why not keep sinning? 00:25:11 - Are some people born evil? 00:28:38 - Do pets go to Heaven? 00:30:40 - Do some lives have more value? 00:32:30 - Sponsor - Oracle 00:33:43 - What does Heaven look like? 00:36:08 - Reincarnation and past lives 00:39:03 - Why would God test humanity again? 00:40:09 - Are biblical stories literal? 00:45:42 - Logical proof for Christianity 00:58:01 - How to resist temptation 01:00:38 - Why is Christianity declining? 01:04:03 - How to start praying 01:08:18 - Sponsor - Ramp 01:09:42 - Sponsor - Gusto 01:11:07 - What is blaspheming the spirit? 01:15:05 - Thoughts on televangelists 01:16:08 - Is wealth bad? 01:17:24 - Should you tithe if broke? 01:22:49 - Hardest belief to accept 01:24:12 - Does everything happen for a reason? 01:26:56 - Hardest concepts to explain 01:28:17 - Last time faith was doubted 01:32:37 - Why is hatefulness increasing? 01:35:40 - Struggles with self-absorption 01:39:59 - Confidence vs. arrogance 01:42:23 - Confessions Near The End 01:48:19 - Any supernatural experiences? 01:49:46 - One question for God *Some of the links and other products that appear on this video are from companies which Graham Stephan will earn an affiliate commission or referral bonus. Graham Stephan is part of an affiliate network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites. The content in this video is accurate as of the posting date. Some of the offers mentioned may no longer be available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The biggest questions of life are where do we come from? What is our purpose? And where are we going? The word God covers an enormous range of different ideas. You don't just logically come to faith. You can't logically prove God. You can't logically prove Christ. How do you know you're right?

And how do you have such conviction? We don't know we're right. That's why it's faith. What happens when you're just, die and after you die. Because this guy put his faith in Christ, we're going to see them again in heaven. But all I got to do, Graham and Jack, is look up and consider the vastness of the cosmos. If there is a supernatural being who created the cosmos, it's not stupid to believe there's life after death. When is the last time you both seriously doubted your faith?

Stuart and Cliff, thank you so much for coming on, the iced coffee hour. Thank you for having us, guys. Yes, thank you. great. Thank you for bringing us into your beautiful home out here too. This is so crazy. Briding us with coffee and cookies. You guys have been so nice. Very, very generous. So thank you for that. You guys run a non-denominational Christian ministry out here in Connecticut. You guys have consistently gone viral from your college tours from a bunch of podcast interviews you guys have done with people like Patrick about David, Alex O'Connor, Impulsive, George Janko, and Matan Evan. And you guys also have a YouTube channel called Give Me an Answer.

which I really enjoy with the college tours. I think you guys do a great job. I appreciate you, Jack, Graham. So which debate has been the most intense out of everything you guys have done so far? I would go all the way back to our very first debate. You remember that one up at the White House? We had a debate with this youth pastor

who lost his faith, and I think he did a lot of straw manning of the faith. Yeah. You're really good at, I think his intensity is really good in cases like that where guys claim, oh, I was fully a believer in every kind of way and then just lost it because of some type of inconsistency in the Bible that I saw. And you're good, I think shining light on that with your intensity and then all of a sudden that kind of uncovered potentially an emotional bias. Why did he lose his faith?

I think there's one major reason to lose your faith. And that is I'm offended by God because God tells me what to do and I don't want anybody telling me what to do. So I think there's an innate human bias. I think I have it against God because I don't want people. telling me how to do I what to do I naturally resist authority I don't want to be told and I think that that's a very good reason why a lot of human beings say no to God and what was your argument against that to him in that case and what made that so strong between you two the argument that the Bible's unreliable is I find very flimsy and if a person can't grasp that I would just ask them to ask themselves the question what do you live in for and what

It's the evidence of what you are living for is the truth. And the options to answering that question, other than Christ or God, are so flimsy. They are so ill-supported by evidence that to act like, the real reason I can't believe in God is because of lack of evidence is a smokescreen. What about people that don't even, that aren't even curious about that? They don't even ask that question. What am I living for? What's the purpose of all of this? Some people, this sounds a little bit offensive to say, but maybe you're like jellyfish in the tides.

just enjoy and exist through life rather than wondering things like that. Unfortunately, Jack, I think you're absolutely right. And that's why it's amazing to watch young men and young women when they're holding their first baby all of a sudden start asking those questions. Because when you're holding a new life and you begin to ask, oh my goodness, why is human life valuable? Oh, my goodness, is there a purpose to life? Oh, my goodness, what am I going to teach this child ethically?

What's right? What's wrong? And oh, my goodness, they are going to be going to grandpa and grandma's funerals fairly soon. So we're going to have to ask, is there life after death or not? All of a sudden, you begin to grapple with those issues. But you're absolutely right, Jack. For many of us, the question is not those issues, which are deep, hard issues, but rather the issues are, where's the next party?

How can I stimulate my nerve endings better? How can I get ahead in my career? And it's sort of like right here. That's the only thing I think about. I'm excited for this podcast. I told a lot of my Christian friends that were doing this, and they obviously were super excited. They're like, oh my gosh, I think these guys represent the text extremely well.

They have the right interpretation of it. So they were very excited. For our background, just so the viewer can get an idea, I was raised completely agnostic. My mom was Jewish, Ozkanazi Jew. My dad was Christian. I was raised nothing. But I'm totally open to things. I'm just heavily skeptical.

You guys both say that the logical answer is Christianity. You say the logic would lead to Christianity, which I find very interesting. And we're going to get into that this episode. Graham, your background. of people, for people to understand where you're coming from? Yeah, I really was just raised with Christmas. That was about it.

My mom was raised Jewish. Didn't really follow that. As for me, I mean, that's basically it, but I'm completely open. I really don't have an agenda either way. If I also didn't introduce you guys perfectly well, you guys are welcome to introduce yourselves to fill in any gaps.

Yes, it's very clear. You did not introduce me correctly. Okay. He's not my brother. I am Stewart's fault. Not my husband. Not my brother. He's my dad.

I claim to famous. I'm his dad. I get to be his dad. No, you didn't. He didn't. He didn't. Oh, okay. He ages really well.

He did nivia for me every single morning. I'm just stressed all the time with my kids. Did I actually call you brothers? No, you didn't. I was saying, I know you're not. Oh my gosh. I was so embarrassed. Did I miss that too?

I was like, I was checking notes. You maybe he had to be horribly embarrassed. I was going to be horribly embarrassed. Not a thing. No. I'm just a very proud father. That's all. Okay. We're both pastors. He's a senior pastor.

I'm an assistant pastor. For those that are unfamiliar with you guys, why should they listen to you in particular? Because if you listen closely to us, we are consistently challenging people to read the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John for themselves. Do not take it from us. You'd be a fool to put your faith in Christ because I believe in Jesus or because Stuart does. But when you go to the source documents, the historical eyewitness reports about how Jesus lived, taught, died, and rose from the dead.

There you have an opportunity to ascertain Jesus. a fool or Jesus the truth. Okay, so I would say just to start this off, my main skepticism comes around heaven and hell. What does the afterlife mean to you? What happens when you die and after you die? We believe that once you die, you have kept your relational existence and opportunity to keep relationships going forward. You're not going to be some type of spiritual, just kind of aloof being that's ethereal, struming a harp on a cloud. oftentimes other religions say that's exactly what you are or you or somehow you just get caught up in an all soul type of existence and you lose your individuality we believe that you keep your individuality

and jesus actually died physically with the body and rose physically so we're going to have physical lasting existence that's why steve jobs when he said finally at his deathbed he finally started to really grapple with these questions that you were talking about because he didn't really grapple with him much during his life he kind of just waded off and said you know purposes to make money here and to create. Well, eventually when he was on his deathbed, he said, hold on here, all my experience, all my relational experience as well as my wealth and what I've done with my businesses, I don't think this is just going to go away with the click of a mouse.

I think there's got to be something more, and he would call that heaven. So it's a relational existence where we'll be able to recognize each other if we accept Christ versus something that is either you just fall through a trap door into darkness, or you just get caught up in an all soul, or, something like it. And then what about hell? Like how how is hell depicted? Because that for me is a very interesting one. It sounds illogical, or at least not intuitive, that someone can exist not well for a life that's maybe 20, 30, 40, 50 years long and sin and not ask for forgiveness. And then for eternity be banished to hell. What is hell depicted like? What is the general understanding?

Well, sin doesn't send you to hell. It's what you do with Jesus Christ. What do you do with God? Are you going to live for yourself? So David Foster Wallace, you guys probably know him. He wrote infinite jest. Was probably going to be the greatest writer of our era. Atheist, he said, everybody worship something. If it's something that is ultimately ultimately infinite, it can buoy you in a way where you can make it through suffering. But if it's something that is like looks, talent, money, that's all going to fade away. And eventually it'll eat you alive. And so he pointed to a type of heaven. hell. He ultimately didn't believe, but he said it makes a lot of sense. And so for us, we say, all these kids on a college campus, back to your question a second ago, these kids on college campuses believe in a heaven and hell typically. And there's a growing belief in hell specifically because they want justice. Justice is intimately connected with hell, infinitely. Because if you don't have hell, there's no judgment day. And ultimately, endless amounts of people are going to be ripped off. And there's no justice from a moral objective perspective either, if there is no God. So what's the primary judgment then? Basically, like you said, if you believed in

Christ. Yeah, if you decide I'm going to give up myself to gain myself, if I'm going to live for something outside of myself and say, I'm going to humble myself in order to say, God, I want to live for you rather than me. Now you're moving in that direction versus living for something else. I agree. That's probably a moral statement to live for something more than just yourself. So I agree with that. But you could also live for your children, you could live for the community, other things that sure the text would support. But technically, if you're also morally not living for yourself, you're doing something just and therefore you probably, you know, should get into the gates, right? Need a vehicle that isn't afraid to make a splash? That's the Volkswagen Tauce.

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I mean, if one of my kids dies and I'm living for them and I turn them into God, I'm going to have an existential breakdown. Jordan Peterson talks about that. You guys head on your show. He flat out said that. If I'm living for a parent or a kid, I will have an emotional existential total breakdown and I will be depressed significantly

the rest of my life if I turn them into a God. Rather than something that is infinite and personal, you know, endless amounts of people say this. Victor Frankel, man's search for meaning. He said people were literally shriveling up and dying or they were becoming tremendously self-ful. if they did not believe in a god outside of the prisoner of war camps. So if you live for something that's finite, it's going to destroy you eventually.

But why do they need to live for Jesus in particular and not maybe another god? For like any other religion out there, would they go to hell? Right. And so the question becomes, who are we to judge hearts? We are not universalists in saying that any religion, it doesn't matter what you are, you're going to heaven. If you follow it sincerely, no, it's not about how sincere you your belief is. It's about the object of your faith. And is there evidence for the reliability of that object or not? Is it just, oh, no, I'm going to be sincere. This is my religion that I grew up in, and that's what I'm going to follow. Versus the evidence for, no, every single person, like he just said,

every single person is going to ask those big questions at some point. Leo Tolstoy, when he was at the very apex of his writing career, everybody knew him in the world, had an existential breakdown because he said, wow, I'm going to die one day and all these books that I'm writing, all this money that I'm accruing doesn't really matter whatsoever. He has this breakdown. So the question becomes back to my dad's original point, who or what is more reliable than Jesus Christ and who you're living for. So you have to do your research, but we don't believe that if you don't have just the knowledge, God's going to send you to hell. So it's not just a knowledge thing. It's how do you live out your life as well. Is it? And,

I living in such a way where I am humbling myself and getting outside of myself, or am I living for something like money or something related to money? The logic of heaven, hell, part of it is, if there is no God, if there is no day of judgment, if there is no heaven and no hell, you've got to think, okay, then what is there? And I think it's rather obvious. But you know what? Before we go into that, I got a surprise for you. Got a gift. And I've never got a pair of these in my entire life.

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And if you believe that, then what does that mean about life today? What it means about life today is it doesn't matter, whether you're Adolf Hitler or Mother Teresa, because ultimately you're going to end in the same place, the fertilizer pit. So part of the logic of a day of judgment and a heaven and a hell is, no, it does matter. God created this for a purpose. And if you choose to violate the purpose for which God created you by living a life of Adolf Hitler, you will be judged for that and that'll be hell.

And then the second point is, hell is a result of me choosing to live my life separate from God. It's not a result of ignorance. It's a result of me choosing to say, God, I have a better way. I want to live separate for me. So it's an active choice. Correct. So you can't, in theory, I know you guys have addressed this before, but you can't be born into a culture that doesn't have any, like, Christian values or you couldn't be a person

that, you know, you're born. And then one year later, you fall sick and you die or something like that. Those people did not make the active decision to stay away from the church. So they can still go into heaven. That's biblical, too. When David messes up has the adulterous affair with Bathsheba. And obviously, a baby is. born out of tremendous sin. It's an adultery, and there was murder because he sent Mariah to the

front lines, and Mariah was killed. He specifically says, I will go to that baby. That baby will not come to me. So in my circumstance, I know you guys don't know because you're not guarding the gates, but if I don't necessarily reject Christ, which I don't, but if I just live my life as what I like to think of is a pretty good man, and I do have principles that align with the values of Christianity, and I try to help people and contribute to my community and be a good father eventually and a good husband, then would that be sufficient? No, it won't be sufficient. Because I'm like you, Jack. You and I are two great guys. We haven't murdered anybody. We've never stolen a bunch of money out of a bank or from a person's wallet. We're really decent guys. But unfortunately, for us,

the standard on the day of judgment is not going to be good American citizen. It's going to be God's holiness, his moral perfection, and although I have never stolen money, I've been greedy. Although I've never murdered, I have hated. So I'm not this wonderful guy that I wish you both from Las Vegas would believe that I am. All right? I am a dirty, rotten center. Now, religion says, if you follow the rules, you'll make it to heaven. And Jesus Christ says, no, you'll never make it because of you following the rules. Because although you follow many of the rules and you live a good life and your conscience tells you you live a good life and your rational mind tells you you live a good life, you also experience guilt. And guilt is my alarm system, God says,

of waking you up to the fact that you haven't always done good. And that's where the cross of Christ comes in. He bleeds and dies on a cross to forgive us for our wrongdoing to reconcile us to God. But even right now, I'm not like I said, rejecting Christianity. I'm just existing and not like making that active decision. Isn't there some sort of distinction between the two of like someone presents me with it and I'm completely like, no, never talk to me about it ever. Or they give me the facts and maybe it's enough evidence

to support that it's true, but I still reject the facts and the evidence. Wouldn't that be more rejecting Christianity than simply existing through life? And, you know, as we discussed before, and sure, I'm a sinner. But there is, you know, sinning comes in different, it comes on a spectrum.

Yes, it does come on a spectrum. But Jack, if I say, you know, hello, Jack, and then I turn my back to you and I ignore you, that's a form of rejection. And so if I sort of give tacit acknowledgement to the existence of God, but don't take him seriously, that's a form of tacit rejection. I'm essentially rejecting. No, if you treat me with kindness, then it's incumbent upon me to respond to your kindness and to trust you and to love you and build a friendship, build a relationship with you.

And when you're confronted by Jesus Christ, who gives his life for you, I don't think there are a lot of people who've given their lives for me. When he gives his life for me on a cross, then all of a sudden it's incumbent upon me to respond to him. Well, couldn't you also argue that people give their lives when they go and they volunteer for the military or they join or they fight for our freedom, that they also give their lives for us? Great point, Graham. They sure do. In fact, just this past week, I was with a guy who's a sniper in the armed forces. And what he has put himself through and what he is opening himself up to is incredibly. He fought in Afghanistan. He fought in Iraq. And believe me, I thanked him for his service to our country.

But it goes beyond that. It goes down to God, do you really care for me? Do you really want me to spend eternity with you in heaven? Whoa, if you do, I've got to respond to you and trust in you. And ultimately, Graham, you and I are going to trust someone or something. If I don't trust God ultimately, I will trust myself ultimately. For instance, when I read the Bible and I say, well, I don't like that part of the Bible and I don't accept that, what I'm saying is my judgment, my impulses, my feelings are more important.

I trust them more than I trust what God has said, supposedly, in this book, the Bible. In other words, if I don't worship God probably as an American, I'm going to worship an idealized version of myself. how do you know you're right and how do you have such conviction? Where does that stem from? Well, we don't know we're right. That's why it's faith. But everybody lives by faith and belief.

Sure. Even the most ardent scientists live by many rules of faith and belief. I mean, they need constants going into their experiments, right? They're going to believe in those constants before they start their experiments. Well, that's faith right there. So we don't have certainty or proof.

There's next to nothing in this life. that you can truly prove. That's why we go by the evidence. That's why the militant atheist who says, oh, faith is just, you know, begins where reason leaves off, is completely wrong. There's a faith statement within that that they're making because they can't prove what they're saying there.

So you can't prove if there is a God, and you can't prove if there is no God. But we live by the conviction of how we live, how we think, what our relationships, why is loving at the center of our existence, if we've just evolved, red tooth and claw, that doesn't make any sense. There's a spiritual existence. As a mental health therapist, I talk with people endlessly, even if they're atheists,

about a spiritual realm. Everybody believes in that now, to some extent. So we have convictions, but we don't have proof, but it's back to Jack. I find Jack very interesting when you talked about how he's a good guy. Well, how do you know you're a good guy? People define that differently in every kind of way, but then I love that you said I live by Christian principles. So you're kind of a cultural.

Christian. And so you're well on your way, even though you're questioning, is Jesus the way the truth in the life? So we don't live by certainty, but how do you act? Why do we live by these Christian principles, all of us seemingly? This might sound stupid, but in terms of proof, what about existence of dinosaurs and showing dinosaur bones and things like this? That doesn't contradict the Bible at all. The Bible never answers the question, are there dinosaurs? The Bible never answers the question. Is North America in real geography? The Bible never answers the question. Is there Australia? So you can't argue from silence. When a text is silent, you have to respect the silence of the text, and there's no talking about dinosaurs in the Bible. So therefore, it would be

dishonest for me to say, oh, the Bible does say there are dinosaurs, or for somebody else to say, the Bible contradicts science. Scientific evidence that there is dinosaurs, because the Bible does nothing of the sort. No, this is, you know, once again a common question, but I feel like needs to be addressed because I still have never heard like a fully satisfactory answer to it. But if you exist your entire life rejecting and then on the deathbed or for some short period of time, you ask for forgiveness, is that enough to do it? Why or why not? It's definitely enough to do it, which is a clear symbol of how much God loves you. It's a clear sign that God really wants you to spend eternity with him in heaven.

and if you genuinely repent on your deathbed, as the thief who was nailed to the cross on the side of Christ did, he turns to Jesus and says, remember me when you come into your kingdom? And Jesus does not say, we'll get down off the cross and say 12 hell marries and work in a soup kitchen. Instead, he says, I tell you the truth. Today you'll be with me in paradise.

You see, that's grace. C.S. Lewis was walking through the faculty lounge at Oxford, and the faculty was having a debate. What's the difference between Christianity and every other major world religion? And C.S. Lewis said, all easy. Grace. Every major world religion says there's no such thing as a free lunch.

Earn it. You pile up the good deeds and if you pile them up high enough, God will smile on you and you'll be in Nirvana or heaven. And Jesus says, no. Jesus says heaven is a gift that God gives you that you don't earn, you don't deserve. It's a gift I offer you through grace.

So if we're born sinners and we have a natural disposition towards sinning and evil, then wouldn't it make sense then if that is the evidence-based conclusion to live a life of sin because you and I can end up in exactly the same place. How does that justify putting your life towards faith rather than these other things that maybe biologically speaking are more desirable?

Oh, but Jack, as Stewart alluded to beautifully, you're not this wantonly evil guy. You're a really nice guy based on the evidence that we've seen so far. You can contradict that way. I don't think you will, Jack, okay? So you're a really nice guy. All right? Why is that? Because you're created in the image of God.

You're not just a dirty, rotten sinner. You're a human being created an image of God. You have a conscience. You have a rational mind. You have this innate ability to love to really care. I think you probably have a great friendship with Graham. All right? Well, that's part of what it means to be created in the image of God.

But you also have a readiness to sin factors, what Dallas Woolard, the USC philosophy professor called it. You also have a tendency to sin, as I do. we're all mixed up kids. I mean, Jack, when I was a little kid, 50 yards out that door, in a sandbox, I picked up a metal truck and dropped it on the head of a buddy of mine

when I was five and he was five. Well, I'd never seen that behavior modeled, but he offended me. So I picked up the truck and dropped it on him. I'm a dirty, rotten sinner. But I didn't do that consistently. I also shared and was generous. So we're all mixed up kids, I think,

and that's one of the reasons I believe in Christ, because that's his analysis of the human dilemma. Are there certain people, though, that are born evil, per se, or is everyone born a sinner in the image of God? And they have, like, sure, the natural disposition towards sinning, but they can, they naturally will as they grow up and are impressed upon will develop some sort of ambition and desire for good. Freud talked about this clearly. As a secular Jew, didn't believe in God, but he said there was an id, ego, super ego. And so you were born good in some ways and born with this id,

which was tremendously sinful and evil in another way. See, we were just talking about New York City earlier. Look at Nazi Germany. How many thousands upon thousands just fell prey to what Hitler was doing? And they thought, you know, okay, Aryan race kind of makes sense. We're living in fear anyway,

and the nationalism is strong. And they just fell prey to, yeah, let's wipe out the Jewish race. How many thousands? And they were at the top of the intelligentsia, many of them. in the world. So we were talking about New York City. Do you know how many people just stood by in the subway when that woman was burnt to death by that illegal immigrant? Six. They were just watching right there, I mean within 10 yards, doing nothing. Or for example, 1964, Genevice, the young woman who was to death. You know, that man was sitting her to death right there in New York

City, Upper East Side, and all of a sudden all the lights came on in different buildings. He runs way, because he thinks the cops are going to show up, all 38 witnesses in those buildings did not a thing. They didn't come down. They didn't make any calls. And what did that? What happened? That man comes back 10 minutes later and just finishes her off. So if you don't think that we have evil in our hearts that we're not dirty, rotten sinners, I don't know what that is. I don't have a name for it. Why do you think so many people stand and watch instead of help? Because we're dirty rotten sinners. We have that side. We're creating the image of God. We have the ability and potential to do great good.

We almost worship each other in a way because you have something in you that I really like. But at the same time, I have this readiness to sin factor where I can do great evil. And I think that ushers in a realm that we call personal, supernatural evil. And if there is no God, that isn't a category. That isn't real. We don't have a name for evil. Evil is innately a religious term. The person that you brought up, Genevise, you said, Genevice?

I think that's, yeah. Yeah, so her life was cut short. Maybe she didn't have the opportunity, like a lot of people have, if they exist for long enough to be introduced to something like that. Or maybe she was introduced, but she was young and she was naive. And so she rejected it. Her life was cut short. She had less opportunity to be able to get through the Golden Gates. What does something like that mean?

Does God know, because he's the all-knowing, that if she were to continue on her life, then she would have continually rejected it for the rest of it? Jack, you're absolutely right. God is all knowing. That's why I'm real grateful that on the day of judgment, no one's going to be able to trick God, fool God, pull the wool over God's eyes. No, God's all knowing. God is just, and he will judge justly. That is why I have hope for the future, because I know that ultimately justice will win, ultimately evil will lose. But remember, no day of judgment, no heaven, no hell. The good die young, evil wins often. What about cats? Because Graham has a cat named Ramsey,

and he really loves... And Dog Bailey. And Gigi as well. Don't forget Gigi. He really loves his pets. Something as simple as that. Are they going to be there? Well, the lion will lay down with the sheep.

We get pretty clearly. And if that's biblical, I think that's more than just metaphorical. I think animals, yes, they're not creating the image of God, per se, like we are. So it's a little disturbing to me that 35% of Americans now say that they would save their animals life before a stranger. They said that?

35%. When did that come out? It was growing. It came out a few years ago. Why do you think that is? Do you think it's a cultural shift? Is it like an individualism, you know, growing in our society and people caring for themselves? It's secularism.

Secularism, even though belief in God is growing, at the same time, secularism is growing in different pockets of the nation. And so when you lose the image of God, if I don't think you're an eternal person who's worth really loving. well, why don't I choose my cat? Especially if I think you're kind of in my way and especially if I think like, oh, I don't really know you, so why would I have an attachment?

This would be an interesting thought experiment if you had two buttons in front of you. One saves your pet, the other saves a random person that you don't know on the planet. Would you do? Yeah. Well, I think that would change it a lot. Yeah.

If you don't know the person at all, and they're so far removed from you that you'll never see them, you're never going to hear from them, but your pet is right there and you can visually see your person. hat staring at you. And the Bible would say, morally speaking, you should save the human, because a human's life is more

valuable than an animal. Animals. Although I might step on a cockroach, I better not step on you, Jack. Although I might step on an ant. Yeah. Cram, I better not step on you. Because you are created in the image of God in the way the cockroach and the ant are not. Now, that does not mean that the cockroach and the ant are insignificant, but it does mean

that you are a creation of God in his image, which means you have a value. and a dignity that the cockroach and the ant do not have. Do some people have more value than others? Because if you could rank people higher than dogs, higher than cats, and go down the spectrum, every human is technically the same, even though some people might have a much greater impact on society than others.

But not if there is no God. Because if there is no God were the result of evolution, and some of us are evolved higher than others of us. And that's why you had eugenics back at the time of World War II, because certain Aryan races were superior to other races because of evolution. And logically, that makes sense. But the Bible insists, no, you're not just an evolutionary product.

You're a human being created the image of God with innate, intrinsic value and dignity because you're not simply a highly evolved ape. You're a human being created in the image of God. When we're debating Hindus on college campuses, and Hinduism is growing actually on college campuses, I was frequently pushing them on the... the caste system because it comes back to your question.

I went to the Hindu temple down the street. I was definitely the only Caucasian guy there, but it was quite an experience. And then I went to a Hindu home. And I was sitting with two women. And I said, hold on, don't you have more value than you because you're higher up in a caste system? And they started giggling awkwardly.

They said, well, we're kind of doing away with that in Hinduism, but we're trying to figure it out. Because technically, yes, I have more value than you. Can you explain the caste system? Yeah. I'm not familiar with that. So the caste system is basically you're born into a certain level of value or not culturally.

And so it's a cultural issue that they have set up. So it's not necessarily a type of works. It's not like you work better and do more things, and all of a sudden you're higher. No, you're actually born into it. So you can't get out. Is it based on your family or gender? Exactly.

Okay. Reincarnation. Yeah, reincarnation. Your past karma. In terms of heaven, do you have a certain image in your mind of what that would look like? Does it differ between you two?

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Because you are made to trade, and TD Easy Trade is made to help. Download it now. In terms of heaven, do you have a certain image in your mind of what that would look like? Does it differ between you two? Or is there, like, like you said, like we're going to have some sort of physical body. You know, like the classic Hollywood illustration is like clouds everywhere, you know, like big golden gates and that's it. Like, you know, you reunite with your dead great grandpa or something like that. Yeah.

When Jesus said, in my father's house, there are many rooms and I'm going there to prepare a place for you, that could be metaphorical. Or it could be, hey, there literally are homes up there. And this place down here is going to look like a trash can compared to what heaven is really going to look like. But no, the Bible is pretty silent on what specifically it will look like, which I like. I mean, if it's God and God is creating an eternity that is perfect for us, I would guess the Bible would be pretty silent on that because we wouldn't be able to logically grasp it. So this is, Jack, I do have an image of heaven in my head and it's wrong. Okay. Because the Bible doesn't give us a photograph of heaven, but for the past 2,000 years, followers of Christ have tried to draw that picture.

Obviously, Dante tried to do it, very clearly, in the divine comedy and other places. but no, the Bible does not give us a photograph of heaven. And therefore I have to have the humility to say, I really don't know. But what Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 2.9 is, I has not seen, ear is not heard, mind is not conceived, what God is prepared for those who love him. We do know that we'll have resurrection bodies. Heaven is not going to be spirits floating around for eternity.

You will be you, I will be me. We will be able to continue to build a friendship, a relationship. We do know there will be no more evil or suffering. no more fighting, no more war, no more disease, no more death. It'll be eternal joy. But there's no photograph, and I have a problem with people who like to draw the photograph and then say it's a Christian understanding. No, there's no photograph that Jesus or the Bible gives us.

Don't you guys believe that there's a soul and a self that will continue on forever? I do. There's got to be, right? Yeah. It sounds like there should because I, first of all, hate the idea that, like, you know, don't exist. But then again, someone said it's basically like, what do you remember before being born? Yeah.

And I'm like, okay, well, I guess that kind of makes sense and alleviates my fear, but I don't know. I do find it interesting. I've been so obsessed with like the past life experiences and hearing some of these stories about a kid who comes up and speaks naturally a language that did not exist for the last 5,000 years isn't taught. And this child speaks it fluidly.

Or other stories where you hear were they could recollect a specific memory of a point in time, go back to that and say, I remember this, being like three or four years old. What are your thoughts on those sort of experiences? Be skeptical. Be very, very skeptical. Because a lot of them have shown to be totally fraudulent. But second point would be it maybe is an indicator, a very physical, more tangible type of indicator,

that indeed there is an existence after this life. But you've got to be very, very careful because, I mean, I just heard about a movie It was made of a little boy who had a near-death experience and came back and explained a lot of things. And a movie was made about it. And then, oh, by golly's turned out to be a fraud. So you've got to be very, very skeptical. You've got to demand evidence of reliability before you trust. Otherwise, you'll have your lunch eating for you.

But there's over 300 peer-reviewed articles at Duke University of near-death experiences that have occurred. That's Duke University. What are the commonalities that you found from those? A warm feeling, floating outside your body, and clear recollection of things that you saw when you were unconscious and you're able to read back exactly what was seen, for example, on a medical report of somebody down the hallway. Or a boy falling out 12 feet out of a tree was another one who he was able to recollect and tell his mom exactly what occurred later on. And he was fully unconscious. So for me, I was telling somebody who you guys know pretty well, he's pretty big right now. He was pushing me on, hey, Stuart, you keep claiming that all these Muslims are becoming Christians over in the Middle East and Africa.

That's ridiculous. And I said, well, hold on a second. Endless amounts of testimony right now, thousands upon thousands. And I have a friend who, once I graduated grad school, he specifically went over there to test this out. And he said, hey, look, man, this is absolutely going on. It's amazing how many of these Muslims who are strong in their faith are giving up land, property, I mean, at the risk of their own lives, because they meet Christ in a dream. So these are all testimony. I think you're probably more skeptical than I am about them.

I used to be very skeptical. But I was starting to buy into 400 million personal testimonies in India alone talking about supernatural experiences. I mean, do atheists go and question these people? The average atheist does not. And they just say they're all hallucinating or something like that. I'm sorry. There's too many testimonies for me to believe that they're just hallucinating. So this is from the text,

but why did God decide to test humanity again after Jesus' thousand-year reign with Satan? That's a very specific interpretation of some rather vague passages in a highly apocalyptic book called the Book of Reindeer. Revelation, this thousand-year millennium. All right, so I don't think that I would personally follow that line of thinking that you've just articulated. I think the Bible is pretty clear that Jesus is going to come again one day. He's going to return a second time.

But exactly the events surrounding that, when that's going to happen, I think we have to be very, very careful. Because in Matthew 24, Jesus has, no one knows the day or hour of my return, not the angels in heaven nor the sun, but only the father. as it was in the days of Noah, so it'll be at the coming of the son of man. From the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up till the time Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and swept them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the son of man.

Two men will be in the field. One will be taken the other left. Two women will be grinding with a handmill. One will be taken the other left. Therefore, keep watch because you do not know the day or hour of my return. Do you believe certain biblical stories like Noah's Ark occurred exactly as it was written in the Bible? Yes, I think they did occur exactly those were written in the Bible, but the caveat there is make sure that you interpret fairly. And where would you say your interpretations of the Bible

differ? I don't know. Where do our interpretations of the Bible differ? Check me if I'm almost being heretical here right now. I would be open to the potential of metaphor as well as mixing, with Egyptian creation stories up to Genesis chapter 11. And then all of a sudden you get Abraham. We get all different forms of archaeological evidence with what Abraham did and how the Israelites traveled and the supernatural that occurred. So am I open to the fact that the talking snake may not be actually a snake? Yes, I'm totally open to that.

So somebody who pushes me really hard on, well, now you're not taking the Bible seriously. You don't believe, for example, that the Earth is just 6,000 years old? Come on, you didn't count up the years, Stuart? No, I don't think the Bible's silent on how old the Earth is. I don't think it's a scientific textbook. So I don't think I'm blowing the Bible to pieces when I say, potentially after Genesis Chapter 11, that's when the actual literal historical events occurred. Am I wrong on that? Jesus says, I'm the vine. Is he claiming to be plant life? Jesus says, I'm the door. Is he claiming to be two pieces of plywood slapped together again? Jesus says if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. Is he calling for self-mutilation? No, no, no, no.

He's not claiming to be plant life when he says, I'm the vine. He's using metaphor to communicate a truth. I am the source of life. You better be connected to me as a branch is connected to the vine. I am the door. You enter heaven, you enter real life through me, not claiming to be a piece of plywood. on hinges. Yes, he calls us to cut off our right hand if our right hand causes you to sin, which does not mean literally cut it off. It means if I want to pick up a gun and blow you away,

I better act like I don't have a hand, so I can't pick up the gun. And I better work at knocking guns out of the hands of people who want to murder with a gun. And the same way, I want to try and knock Satan out of people's hearts. But it doesn't mean I'm going to go up and knock Graham in the head. No, when I'm speaking metaphorically, I'm going to pray that you do trust in Christ, that you come to belief in God, but I'm not going to hit you on the side of the head. Why is it so open to different interpretation? For 2,000 years, the historic Christian church has followed an orthodox faith. So when you talk about 36% of the world being Christian, a few research, that would be defined as who Jesus was. Did you live, die, teach, and live out that teaching and then actually rose

in the dead? That's who a Christian truly was. was back then and is today. So yes, it's at times frustrating, I think, even for us, certain interpretations, for example, of predestination and free will. Why do so many Christians just chew each other up over those issues? Can it just be clear, God? So yes, that's frustrating. But for 2,000 years, I mean, you go right back to the early monks and what they passed on or the church fathers, what they passed on, or the eyewitnesses to Jesus himself, what they passed on. it's all been consistent all the way down. It's been crystal clear.

But the miners have been difficult and debated over. But that's why St. Augustine himself, the biggest church father who ever existed, said in the essentials unity, but in the non-essentials, grace and bear with each other as you figure these things out. Verses the Zwingleys and the others who said, oh, you don't believe in infant baptism?

You believe in believers baptism? Okay, well, come here. going to drown you to death. And that happened oftentimes. So it shows how evil things can get when you say, I have the truth on this minor issue. And if you don't buy into it, then I'm going to kill you for it. But I think you've asked a great question about communication. All right? When he was a little boy, his room was a disaster area. It's calling you out. Okay? But wow, why do I use that word disaster area because I want to communicate vividly to you instead of me saying okay when he was a little boy the truck was over there it should have been over here the bed should have been made

this way instead of just thrown together instead I tell you his room is a disaster area and in a way that is an ability I have to communicate more clearly and you do the same thing we use hyperbole we use metaphor simile we paint word pictures and we use language that if you were to take it literally it would be His room is not literally a disaster area, but we use that kind of language to impress upon a person an image to help them understand the main point. And I can promise you, if you go out and start developing a relationship with a young lady that turns romantic, I think if you keep everything black and white, everything mathematical, that relationship's not going to go too far. To communicate love, to communicate trust is a challenge when it comes to how you communicate that and what type of

images do you give it to a person for them to mull over? You talk a lot about how logic will determine that Christianity is the answer. What verse, what thing from text, what piece of evidence or advice or statement have you both made that you've found to be the most effective at converting people? When Jesus is coming to heal Jairus' daughter, Jiris doesn't know what to do with Jesus. He's heard that he's a miracle worker and healer. But Jesus talks about, hey, believe that this will happen. And Jairus says, I do believe, but help my unbelief.

So for me, it's, I want to come check this Jesus out. See, everyone in the Bible, even doubting Thomas, or, for example, Philip and Nathaniel in John Chapter 1, you know, Philip doesn't bash Nathaniel over the head. Neither does Jesus. Philip says to Nathaniel, come and see. Jesus says, come and see, come and check me out. Don't just believe in me with blind faith. But that gyrus passage has always helped me because I've been a doubter. I've been a doubting Thomas my whole life, probably more so than my brothers and my parents.

And yet that passage alone is Jesus is saying, hey, doubt all you want, but please come and check me out and keep checking me out. But check out the alternatives too. Maybe I've miscommunicated. This would be a classic example of this whole tricky issue of communication. No, you don't just logically come to Christ, come to faith. All right? You can't logically prove God. You can't logically prove Christ.

All right. But logic is involved. Thinking is involved. What I mean is this, Jack. Jack, this pink elephant right here on my right hand, this pink elephant has brought my life meaning and purpose and joy and hope. I really hope you'll believe in this pink elephant. I hope you'll say, really, Cliff,

what on earth is the evidence that the pink elephant is really here? And if I say to you, Jack, I'll pay you $1 million if you believe in this pink elephant, although because you want the million dollars, you might say, okay, Cliff, I believe there's a pink elephant. You know that your mind will not allow you to believe in the pink elephant here, because there is not a shred of evidence that the pink elephant is really here. So when we say that logic is important, what we mean is your mind will not allow you to believe something that is not supported by evidence that is contradictory to the evidence your mind won't let you do that i don't care how much money i offer you know very well that when you walk out of here you're saying cliff was nuts so there's no pink elephant on his right hand so reason is important

i mean think about it where does reason come from if there is no god reason comes from non-reason Why would you trust the thoughts of a monkey? Well, I probably wouldn't, Cliff. Good. But if my mind is simply a highly sophisticated monkey's mind, why do you trust the thoughts of your own mind? Now, in a sophisticated way, that's called epistemological nihilism. And it's basically the idea that why do you trust rational thinking?

If rational thinking comes from the irrational or the non-rational, or just a monkey. The reason I trust my rational mind is because I believe that my rational mind comes from a rational being, a creator, who gave me this rational mind. And that's what Einstein was enthralled by. One of the biggest miracles is that our minds have the ability to get in touch with reality. Why is there not a total disconnect between my rational mind and reality? And Einstein was enthralled by that. So that is what I meant when I say logic is important. It's not that you can logically prove God. But if you think clearly, and when I say think clearly, I don't just mean some philosophical argument for God's existence. When you look at your experience of life,

Jesus makes far more sense than any of the options. What do I mean? Well, I mean by that. When you get to know Graham well enough, you know that Graham's a great guy. You also know that there's some things about Graham that are questionable. And Graham will find out the same thing about you. Okay? And you'll find out the same thing about me. You've been very kind and you've talked about how nice guys we are. but I can promise you he's a sinner and I can promise you I'm a sinner and you get to know us well enough and there's going to be some selfishness some greed that's going to be embarrassing all right now when you look at the worldview that best describes how you can do great things and you can do some really warp things Jesus answers that question in other words he describes reality as you experience it in a really profound way does that make sense he can describe it but he he still doesn't necessarily, like, it doesn't, it's immaterial. Yeah.

And it's hard to adopt as someone who's open to it, but just skeptical, something that can't be touched, it can't be seen, it can't be any of that. And sure, humans have a natural inclination towards spirituality, absolutely, because we do ask the question, why do we exist? And maybe some people get the answer when they have a child. Because it's like, well, I exist to reproduce and to have a family and this and that. I like to think that it's more so in the wise words. of Tom Billi, he said this, which I love Tom Billu. He said, I exist to increase human flourishing and

decrease human suffering. And so, sure, the Bible might be a great representation of that set of values. And it's a great interpretation. It was very well ahead of its time. And it's very intelligent and this and that. It's so hard to trust something like that when you also have communities that get together and they increase human flourishing and decrease human suffering. And, you know, we have a natural disposition I like to think towards a little bit of good, maybe 51, 49. And over an expanded, a big enough expanded time horizon, then that will, you know, increase flourishing and decrease suffering. But who's to say, again, what is good if there is no God?

Because back to Hinduism, for example. Would be flourishing as opposed to suffer. Well, but so then he's going to say that in Hinduism, when the husband dies and the wife is burned to death and her body is put on her husband's in a mass grave, they say that's a very good thing. So that's not flourishing for the woman, obviously, as we don't. define it, but they would define it as, no, that's good. They need to go into the afterlife together. So for whoever he is, I believe he's ushering in the Christian perspective on we are created in

God's image and God has created us to flourish and to help others flourish. And destruction, entropy, evil, those are all real intangibles immaterial. And if you have the intangibles and immaterial, then that's going to push you to some type of spiritual realm and reality. And so what explains that spiritual realm and reality? Well, if there's only physical reality, you can't explain. That's the atheistic worldview. That's in no way going to connect and say, wow, there is a spiritual reality. But we all know there is a spiritual reality or something immaterial, for example, that you

are communicating, which is, hey, look, the biggest questions of life are, where do we come from, what is our purpose and where are we going? Biggest questions. At some point, every single human being that I know at least is going to ask those questions. So the typical college student is asking those questions, but there are definitely some who are saying, no, no, no, I'm just going to get through school right now. I could care less about those big questions. But they're going to have to ask them eventually.

And so back to that person, it's equally valid and okay in my mind if there is no objective good an objective meaning to say, well, who are you to tell me that flourishing and versus destruction and not flourishing, why is that innately good or better if there is no God? Why in the world, if I'm sitting on the top of a building and decide to throw my baby off of the top of that building, if there is no God, who am I to say that that's bad? But if there is a God and I'm throw my baby off the top of the building, then that's morally, objectively evil and wrong if there is a God. Another way to look at it is you're a really nice guy and you're an agnostic. And I would argue the reason you're a really nice guy is because you have a conscience

given you by God and your conscience and your rational mind enable you to understand this is really good and this is really evil. But the point we're trying to make Jack is there is no basis for an objective good or an objective evil if there is no mind, no God prior to the human mind. because if there is no God, then we create good and evil, and they're not objective, they're subjective, which means you might define flourishing today as giving him a meal. You're going to buy him dinner tonight. That'd be nice, Jack.

I'll put on the company. Thanks a lot. I like you, man. I appreciate that. But if tomorrow you say that good is to stick a knife in Graham's back, you're not wrong. You're not objectively wrong, because right and wrong are just in relative, subjective taste.

But you could across enough people with the law of big numbers get seven billion answers to the question, is it a good or a bad thing to stab somebody? Good. Kill them. Then you could determine, even barring, I like to think, Judeo-Christian values. Yep.

If you just ask people, people that have no idea, people of tribes. And you're like, okay. And they're like, well, why? You know, what did he do? And they're trying to justify it. They have some sort of moral compass aside from, Okay, it sounds like I'm saying something that... That's really good.

And that's what I'm saying. That's exactly. You're absolutely right. Take enough data points. It might be 5149. But you see, the point... You're absolutely right. Around the world.

It looks like we're reading off the same sheet music when it comes to, yeah, sticking knives in people's backs is not too good. There are some unfortunate aberrations from that. But the question then is, why does that understanding come from that indeed murder, adultery, are really evil? evolutionarily speaking, you could say that humans have learned that we work better as a community and a rising tide lifts all boats. And so if you help out somebody, then you're bound to be better off. And I think humans, yes, while we are naturally a little bit selfish, I don't think being selfish is a bad thing.

And I think that you can be selfish and help yourself because that's kind of a prerequisite to helping other people. And then eventually, if you're in a better spot, like it helps the community and increases flourishing. And so we've learned because we're smart enough, fortunately, that that's the way to do it. But just don't help somebody outside of your tribe. Well, that is selfish because it's hurting your tribe. If they're in direct opposition to your tribe, but if they're kind of just existing, then expansion of the tribe is never a bad idea. Like you could, this is very hypothetically speaking. Yeah, no, no, no, it's a good one.

I'm just trying to like. Yeah. But I think we have so much tribalism in our nation today, and that's only growing. the extremism and saying, oh, if you're a Democrat and I'm going to completely look down on a Republican, or a Republican is going to completely look down on a Democrat. And we're going to shout over each other. We're going to totally disagree on what is morally, objectively right or wrong, because so much of it has become subjective. And so much of it is based off of just emotion. I'm just going to emote and say, this is my view on things. And you better get on board with my tribe or, you know, you're done with it. So when you have moral objectivity, which is immaterial, has to be given by something spiritual outside of the physical.

Well, now a sudden you're saying, okay, we can speak the same language, what is morally right and wrong. Now we may have differences on small ethics and that sort of thing. But if you're going to take it from you scratch my back and I'll scratch your back, yes, innately, that is selfish. Because we have so many people in this day and age now saying, well, you didn't really scratch my back, so I'm done with you. I mean, I am done with you.

And that yet again shows that our, especially our generation, is living for self. It's all about self assertion versus sacrifice for others. Because if I'm truly living based off of this evolutionary cycle, again, it's strong eat the week, you're in my way, and so I'm going to dominate you in some kind of way because it's all about me. How do you resist cultural influences like greed or lust or any sort of pleasures like that? Well, as a cultural influence, but it's also, as I've tried to point out to you guys, part of my sinful nature. All right? Nobody has to teach me to be greedy. It comes very naturally. Now, there are many examples, though, in my culture, as I've been watching the news and movies that influence me to be greedy, the advertising industry, etc. All right, so we've got myself, my sinful nature, we've got the culture, as you pointed out so well, Graham. We also have, I'm convinced a personal being who's committed to evil, a spiritual being called Lucifer. M. Scott Peck, the great Connecticut psychiatrist, wrote a book called People of the Lie after he wrote the book The Road Less Traveled.

And in his book, he's arguing that American psychiatry should have a branch of evil. But I really like this issue of motive and what really drives us. Graham, if you scratch my back, then I will scratch your back. Wow, that's pretty self-centered, isn't it? You better first scratch my back and then I'll scratch yours. So we'll take a step forward. Graham, I'm going to scratch your back because I think that there's a higher probability

that you will scratch my back if I scratch your back. Okay, we're moving a little towards more altruism, a little less self-centered. Graham, I'll scratch your back regardless. Even if you don't scratch my back tomorrow or whenever, I'll scratch your back. Okay, I think that's real love. I really want the best for you.

I really want your good. Okay, now, here. Here's God's love. I'll scratch your back even if you stick the knife in my back. And that's what the cross of Christ is all about. God says, you basically stuck the knife in my back, rebelled against me or ignored me, however we want to frame it. But I still love you so much that I sent my son Christ to bleed and die on a cross

to pay the penalty for your wrongdoing to forgive you. Now, that's why I follow Christ. Really. It's not because of the logic. It's because when I'm confronted by love, I'm confronted by reality on a depth that I've got to respond. Because to be honest with you, my relationship with him, with his mother, with our two sons, with our daughters-in-law, with our grandchildren, far outpaces. Any logic, any scientific principle. It really is all about love.

And once again, here's where Jesus comes in. Jesus says, yeah, the real purpose of life is to love God with your life. your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself. Bingo. My experience of reality is spot on. Why is it then that Christianity has been declining for the last 50 years? 40 years. Why is that? It's growing faster than ever, oddly enough, because you're probably talking about in the West because it has decreased some. But no, Christianity and Islam are going to take over the U.S. soon, 60% of the U.S. And so when I talk to Muslims, it's how they know this on college campuses.

They'll be like, yeah, yeah, you and I, we're going to take over the U.S. largely because of immigration and growth in numbers because generativity, Christians have more kids than atheists and agnostic. So it's growing, but it's growing in, like wildfire in Africa, China, South Korea, and Latin America. Why is that? I believe personally that that's connected to things like forgiveness. People are finding forgiveness, intimacy with God, who a God who actually loves you, equality.

So one of the fastest growing churches, actually in the Middle East started by females. Let's talk about risk. That was one of the fastest growing churches in Iran. And why did they start that church? Why did they become Christian? Because they said I was being abused by my husband. that religion says that men can do whatever they want to me and i believe that we have equal value and so i believe in jesus christ and so they started this church and it just ballooned so i think

whenever there is tremendous martyrdom whenever there is persecution like in the underground church in china there's going to be a hundred million christians in china probably in the next five years they're saying i think the persecution is what's all of a sudden causing this explosion and in Africa in the last hundred years went from 2% to almost 50% Christian now. So a lot of it has to do with the poor. Jesus Christ calls the poor frequently, calls those who are humbling themselves. So that's why you have the sermon on the mount, sermon on the plane. One is more so about humbling ourselves actually in such a way we're giving away money or we're sacrificing for others relationally and the other's more spiritual on humility. So I believe it's ultimately God working,

but people are starting to say, hey, a lot of these things like we are all created equal, a lot of these things like forgiveness, our buddy Logan Paul, said, I love the value of Christian forgiveness, the principle of it.

And he had to forgive somebody. That's why he said somebody was really wronging him. But he said, I love this Christian idea of forgiveness. And I think we've seen a decrease in it ever since we've adopted the philosophy of you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours. Because ultimately it's about,

no, you better do this for me. I'm not going to really sacrifice for you and forgive you if you don't scratch my back, because we've set this type of principle up in place, and that's dangerous. So others, though, thousands of Muslims becoming Christians in dreams. So there's all different kinds of ways that Christ is reaching people, and it's amazing how it's happening, and the Christian faith is still the biggest religion in the world. Atheism is declining in the U.S.

It's going to go from about 13 percent, they're saying, all the way down to 8%. And so it's ballooning for different reasons, but it's really exciting stuff, because I think you like, like you said, the principles of compassion, sacrifice, loving, all came from the Christian faith, beginning early in the Roman Empire.

For someone that's never prayed before, how do you recommend someone go about their first ever prayer session? Prayer is simply the real you, talking to the real God. The thing that I like to do is to teach people to draw up a chair, next to them, an empty chair, nobody's sitting in it. And I encourage them to start talking to Jesus as if he was sitting right there in the chair.

Meaning by that, you have to dig deep, you've got to get in touch with who you are, with what's happening, and then you've got to pray to the real God. So that means you need to read the Bible. That would be very helpful to understand what the real God is like. Little boy was painting a picture, and Dad said, who's the picture of? Little boy said, it's a picture of God, Dad. Dad said, oh, no, no, no, no, no, son. Nobody knows what God looks like.

Little boy says, well, they will when I'm finished with this picture. So adults are a lot like that little boy. We like to paint God in our own image. I like to believe in a six-foot-one-inch white male God who likes basketball. Oh, that's interesting, Cliff, and yet so happens, you're six-foot-one-one-inch, and you are white male and you like basketball. Well, isn't that interesting? No, prayer is not sort of constructing a God who I hope exists somewhere and then sort of trying to talk to him. No, prayer is the real you talking to the real God.

And so the challenge is you got to ask the question, who is the real God? And that's where Jesus comes in. He claims to be revealing who the real God really is. And what if you don't get an answer? Four answers to prayer. First answer is no. I don't like that answer. but God is not the little cosmic bellboy who fetches my bags every time I had to ask him to.

So the first answer is no, Cliff. Second answer is slow down, Cliff, be patient. Third answer is grow, Cliff. I'm going to use this situation in your life to grow you in character spiritually. And then the fourth answer is go, go, yes. So I've got to allow God to give me all four of those answers. 15% of atheists pray. So they don't believe in God, but they pray.

So innately, we have a desire to cry out whether we're in our pain or oftentimes even when things are going well. For me, it's the Lord's Prayer. You can break it down into A, A, adoration, adoring God, saying, God, you are ultimately worthy of my allegiance. C, confession. I apologize for being tremendously prideful at times. Yesterday, I lost my cool in the basketball court. I apologize for my rage or my lust, whatever it might be. T is thanking God for things.

just thanking God. I mean, look at the psychological studies on gratitude. Gratitude is the healthiest thing you can really do. And then S, supplication, that's when you ask for things. See, so many people think prayer is just shooting up flares into the air and saying, God, can I have this, this, this, this, and this. Well, that makes me more anxious if I just do that. Anxious, because I don't know how God's going to answer or if he's going to answer. No, prayer is all about not getting God just to answer all of my small issues. No, it's all about getting to know God and putting God, and putting in his rightful place, not treating him as if he's just my secretary, who I occasionally go to, to ask for things. Simone Veil said, prayer is all about attention. So we just talked about

attention. How attentive can we be in prayer? Prayer is all about wrestling. I mean, every single example of prayer you get in the Bible, whether it's Habakkuk, Jeremiah, David, so many prophets and the kings, they are yelling at God in their pain. They are yelling at God in unanswered prayer. they are yelling at God when they're struggling with things and they can't get over certain character issues. I mean, David, in the watches of the night, he's dealing with anxiety, and yet he's saying, praise the Lord of my soul, all my inmost being, praise his holy name. When I do that, my anxiety and stress is just alleviated. For me, when I've been in the hospital before, and they thought I was having many strokes,

all of a sudden scriptures came pouring into my mind, and I just started praying. That was the only thing I could say, actually. I wasn't able to speak. So prayer is something that's so gutteral, it's so innate within all of us. We want to cry out to something. And the saddest thing for an atheist is a Christian can say, thank you, God, for what I have in this life. But an atheist has no one to thank for what they have in this life.

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I don't really perfectly understand what that is. Can you help me understand what is the unforgivable sin? Yeah. If you get into a fist fight and you knock somebody out, cold and they end up dying and you were in a fit of rage when that occurred and then you get knocked out and you die well are you going to hell i mean your last passionate act was killing somebody even if it was accidental are you going to hell for it no it's no one thing one sin that sends you to hell or if you're in a road rage incident you kill somebody you die at the same time are you going to hell. I mean, your last act was an act of rage. Christ never says that, never points to that. There's no one single sin that's sent you to hell. And so I'm not going to name a certain

denomination, but a certain denomination when I asked them this question, hey, is there one unforgivable sin? And they say, yes, obviously. Where in the Bible do you get that sends you to hell? Nowhere. I mean, Elijah makes the point that it's not my life to take when he's but nowhere does it say is someone going directly to hell if they commits. So the unforgivable sin or grieving the Holy Spirit is living a life of hypocrisy. I'm saying, hey, Jack, you're a good buddy of mine. But you know what? I'm going to cheat with your wife.

Oh, I'm so sorry, Jack. Sorry I did that. Nope. I'm going to do it again. So it's hypocritical living. That's why Kira Knightley, the great actress, said, oh, it would be so easy to be a Christian. You could just live out the Christian walk and then break it and then go back to Christ say, hey, I'm so sorry, forgive me. And then just go do it again. No, that's cheap grace.

It's playing a dirty trick, a dirty game with a relationship with the God of the universe. I mean, you would never treat Graham in that kind of way, would you? You wouldn't be friends. I hope not. So it's cheapening the relationship. It's beyond cheapening the relationship. It's it's embarrassing. You can't have a friendship that way. So it's knowingly, just like consistently cheating on your relationship with God. essentially over and over and over and over again. Because I was kind of curious earlier in this conversation, I mentioned, okay, well, as long as I know that on my deathbed,

I can go and I can, you know, ask for forgiveness, but I can lead a life full of sin. And I know I have, let's say, 60 more years where I can just go and, you know, succumb to all of my sin and desire, then I can still, like, we're going to end up in the same place, but you're saying if I'm making that calculated decision, and I have all of the evidence and information, and I consistently just, like, cheat on my,

relationship with God, not with any of my friends, then that is blaspheming the spirit. That is going to 100%. You can't, there's no forgiveness. Yeah. I had a friend tell me in high school, hey, Stu, let's keep smoking weed together and drinking as much as we can and let's go sleep with as many women as possible. And then when we're in our late 30s and we're having kids, that's when we'll accept Christ. Well, how do you know you're not going to die before then? And also, again, it's playing God. and saying, ah, God, you didn't really create me in your image. You didn't really create me in such a way where it's healthy for me to serve you and love others.

So those are the two reasons. And you see the hypocrisy behind it. That's a type of grief in the Holy Spirit where I truly believe in God. But you know what, God, I'm going to live any old way I want to. And that gets back to a heart and motive issue. You know when you're going to say, hey, God, you know what? I know you tell me not to look at it, but I'm going to look at it all the time. And I'm sorry, but I'm going to choose,

I'm just going to keep looking at hard. No, I think you're going to get to the point of saying, this isn't just a slip-up. This is me saying, I'm going to be God, and I'm going to make my own choices on how to live. And so that's where God is saying, be very careful. And what I'm curious about is how Christians discern against someone who is very sincere

in what they want to get across and someone who's just seeking personal gain. Like, I think a lot of Christians, criticism has been directed towards like televangelists or people who have used donations to fund luxury lifestyles and private jets and mansions aren't they incredibly judgmental of those televangelists my goodness they don't they got a bad rap for hell reason i would argue no they're not they might be being judgmental but when jesus says in matthew seven one judge not less to be judged he's not saying suspend your critical thinking and stop making analysis no if that teleevangelist

is saying, I believe in Jesus, and then they go out and sleep around. I believe in Jesus, and then they go out and live an opulent lifestyle and could give a rip about the poor. That's a good analysis. We got a problem here. And that's why the word hypocrisy is vice's complement to virtue. Vice understands, you claim to be a follower of Christ, you could give a rip about the poor, you are one stinking hypocrite.

At what point is amassing a certain amount of wealth like sinning? is because I know like gluttony kind of right would would somehow play a role in that I'm guessing yep or some form of greed could probably play a role but like is wealth in and of itself just in a vacuum a bad thing at a certain point nope that's a very sensitive question jack and the reason is such a good question is because the sin that Jesus attacks most consistently in the new testament is greed the Bible consistently says not that money is evil but that the love of money is evil and yet it's amazingly easy in our culture to justify not being more generous and giving more away, keeping more for myself.

And to be honest with you, Jack, you've just put your finger on the biggest ethical struggle I have. I'm a pastor. I speak to university students about faith in Christ. Why do I have as much as I do? Why don't I give my money more of it away? In light of the fact that we do have the solution for starting to, babies, give them money, buy food, and feed them. Why do I not give more away? And that is probably the biggest ethical struggle I have, Jack. So you're right. It's a very, very difficult issue.

Now what about for the people who can't afford to give money to the church, but they feel compelled that they have to? Otherwise, they're not going to be in God's good grace. Or the people, let's say that maybe they're having trouble paying rent, but it's accustomed to pay 10% of their income to the church. But maybe they're struggling behind the scenes and they really can't afford to do this

but they feel like if they don't something might happen. The tithing money like support those families? Yeah, exactly. It oftentimes does. We have a Samaritans fund

at our church so we help out the poor and that's tremendously important. But if you go back to the Old Testament, you know, you have the Levitical laws. It's more like 26%

tithing. And then you have 10% in the New Testament. So you don't have this ironclad law again that if you don't tithe that's going to send you to hell. You'll,

look at the widow, very poor woman, gives away two might. I mean, that's a lot of her possessions that she's giving away. That's just sinking her into more poverty. Well, that's why Jesus talks about a joyful giver, giving in response to what he did on the cross for us, grows us in our own joy. You know when you give away to others. I mean, talk about selfish, you can be selfish. It's one of the quickest ways to get happy is when you give away your money, oddly enough. That's kind of strange. So no, I personally believe at times I have friends who've sunk into tremendous debt, and I think they should wait to give, wait until you slowly get out of some of that debt. So you don't have to give that week.

There's nothing in the Bible that says that. How do you know when you're ready to give? The way that I just transparently see it is, you know, this could obviously come across. It's very selfish. I'm just trying to be transparent and honest, is that I need to take care of myself and have enough money invested to then be able to make sure that I'm able to take care of my family. I want to have kids and I want to have a wife and lead a good life and I want to give away money and donate.

But in order to do that, I need to build up a certain investment portfolio that would allow me to guarantee at the bare minimum I can take care of my family. But technically speaking, even if I'm earning an okay amount of money, like I could be donating more of it. I do donate a little bit. But I know I could do more. But I'm also like really focused on making sure I guarantee like I'll be able to take care of those people.

What do you think about that? I think you've just shown us a tremendous example of discipline, a very healthy, good discipline. You need to discipline yourself financially. So you make whatever you make, I would encourage you to set in your own mind and heart the amount of money you want to give away. I would encourage you to save, as you said,

you were looking forward to having a family, and then I would encourage you to adjust your lifestyle. And that's the hard part for, I think, for most of us. I've got to adjust my lifestyle to live within my income so that I don't slip into debt, but I've got to be thinking about being generous, I've got to be thinking about the future, and then I've got to think hard about adjusting my lifestyle.

I also, oddly enough, I could do the calculations, I think to myself, well, if the S&P 500 grows at 10% per year, like if I'm able to invest, you know, an extra 500 bucks a month instead of giving away $500 per month right now, like the exponential value in terms of what I can, can give in the future, like that as a as a true number will be larger than if I give away $500 right now and consistently over time because I'll just be able to give more like relative wealth

than if I were to just give right now. Is there anything like that that's how my mind. Yeah, well, it's interesting how in scripture, especially in the Old Testament, you get these things called the gleaning laws and that comes over a long period of time where eventually you're supposed to leave a big part of your harvest and a good part of your harvest to the poor to come collect and they were to collect it. So that's against socialism and certain laws when it comes to finance because they're to collect it. It's not you giving it to them. They're to collect it. So that takes time. That's not weekly. That's not a type of weekly tithing. So I think you're kind of connected to these gleaning laws that happen more annually.

interesting. Hmm. And Jack, your discipline is outstanding. Yeah. Because you and I live in a culture that says just pile up the credit card debt. So I commend you highly for that. And then I ask you, please read the Gospels, exercise discipline, read those Gospels in order to determine whether Jesus is reliable or not.

It takes discipline. Jack's discipline is good, but his investing skills are not. No, let me. Come on, man. That's a simple. It's off color. I mean, he's not wrong. But he also, he is a little bit wrong.

He goes down. Okay. The S&P's down reason because he dumped in a large amount. I told him. The end of the year, you know, I'm thinking, the next day, it's just down. He's your friend, Jack. He's not wrong.

In fact, I appreciate that he's telling it to me straight, you know. I like to think I can pick out individual stocks and, you know, hit it on the upswing. It's funny. I don't tell Jack what I invest him because I know as soon as he does, they go down. But in fairness, I do like 95% of auto invests as a B 500. It just so happens if you ever see like a little blip in your portfolio.

No, I just lump sum invested shortly before that. The day before. Yeah, the day before. So SB 500 guys, not individual stock picking, just letting you know. And no credit card debt. So I'm curious going back to this. What has been the most difficult belief or concept that you wrestle with? The problem of suffering.

John and I have a younger brother who lost a seven-year-old daughter. in a horrible car accident. And he's a transplant surgeon. He was out transplanting kidneys and livers out and pancreas out at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. So I flew out there and walked with him around the field behind his house. And to listen to the pain over losing his little daughter was incredible. You know, so the question obviously then becomes, okay, the babysitter didn't see the stop sign,

drove right through the stop sign, and a pickup truck at 55 miles an hour came careening down the road, smacked into the side of that car sending our little niece, his daughter, into an early grave. Okay, God, why didn't the babysitter see the stop sign? Why was the pickup truck coming exactly 55 miles an hour? Timing was perfect, just creamed into the car. See, there's a bunch of, I do not know. I don't know. But my faith in God, my faith in Christ is not based on the circumstances of life.

It's based on the character of God. And that is why it's so important to read the God. to figure out, is God really good? Because if Jesus revealed God accurately, God is really good, in spite of all the horror, the suffering that life throws right into your face and my face. So in a case like that, because I'm just trying to think abstractly, does everything happen for a reason? And if someone in that case goes through suffering, was that meant to happen? I would be very, very careful with that line of thinking. Yeah. Everything happens for a reason. Uh-uh. If I hold back and smack you in the face scream as hard as I can and then say,

oh, God made me do it, or, well, there was a reason that I needed to do that. Be very careful. Very careful. Okay. No, I think that we live in a world where there are accidents, where there is great unfairness, where there is incredible chaos. And no, I am very loath to say, oh, there was a reason for this. We really don't know. Romans 828, God works together all things for his good. A lot of people will rip that passage right out of context and say, oh yeah, see, there's a reason for it. You know, God has a reason. No, he works all things of the good and the bad, ultimately for his great purpose. But that's not saying that he's bringing on the bad, bringing on the evil. It's not like Hinduism that's saying, hey, my cousin, his niece, who died in that car accident, did something wrong.

because there's always a one-to-one connection at Hinduism. If you did something wrong, that's why you suffered. If you suffered, it's because you did something wrong. Atheism, secularism, it's not really that wrong. That's why C.S. Lewis, the most reluctant convert, the greatest mind over at Oxford and Cambridge, said, originally, I wasn't a Christian because I didn't think there was enough evidence. But then all of a sudden, I was really encountered with a lot of suffering. And then I really thought, if there's a God, he's definitely not a good God, to a

suffering. But then I thought a little harder and started to reason with myself and saying, oh, wait, if I believe that this is really wrong this suffering, well, then I'm ushering in a type of moral obligation. This is morally wrong. It's intangible. So there must be some type of spiritual, ethereal existence that actually says, this is really wrong. Because from an evolutionary perspective, it's not really wrong. You could say it's sad, but there's not real evil. there's not real suffering where it really should be wrong in itself so all other is again it gets back to your very first question you know why jesus why would this make also you know make sense in a way that i should be able to grasp it well what are the alternatives so you can't just look and just put

jesus christ in the judgment seat on the dock you have to put all the alternatives and if you do so we believe it's not even close we believe that the christian worldview by far and away makes no sense What's the most challenging aspect for you to share these thoughts with non-believers? And what are some of the barriers that you found that you have to overcome? Sex. It's always sex. Really? Yeah, we was talking to a guy at Yale, and he just kept jumping all over the place.

Oh, there's inconsistency in the text here. Oh, over here, Stuart, you know, you don't live a consistent lifestyle anyway, so probably I shouldn't believe in Christ. Oh, here, he was just doing the machine gun style. One, two, three, kept going. And then I said, I think there's something underneath it. I think it's more of an emotional issue. You know, the question becomes, if Christianity were true, would you believe in it?

Oftentimes people say yes. Oftentimes people say no. If they say yes, then it was an evidentiary issue that they had to, they believe it actually is true, so I better hold on to it. It's truth. If they say no, it's clearly an emotional bias. It's no, I still don't want it, even if it's true.

And so what this guy did eventually, I said, okay, so you don't like the ethics. Which ethic do you not like? And he said, sex. I want to sleep around as much as possible. I said, well, that's why, exactly, it's an emotional issue for you. That's why you don't believe. Now, he didn't fully say yes.

But he got to the point of understanding what I was saying there and started to really grapple with it. Yeah, it's more of an emotional issue. It's more a volitional issue, how I'm living versus really dealing with the evidence. When is the last time you both seriously doubted your faith? And what was that like? This morning. Seriously? Well, yeah, every time I sin, I'm doubting my faith.

Every time I sin, I'm saying, God, you're not really good. I got a better idea. You may, you know, I've expressed doubt in your faith by sinning, but maybe made an intentional, like, and thought about it and wrestled with your faith. You know what I mean? Like something where maybe you were thinking about it for a few hours or a week or a couple weeks and you're, like, confused. I am self-absorbed.

And instead of thinking about the other person, I think about myself too much. I mean, Christ calls us to live lives of service. Why is that so hard for me? Because I got real needs. And Jack and Graham and Stewart, you know, your needs are nice. And I'm sure you've got needs, but my needs are more important. See, I've got to get to the point where I realize your needs are just as important as my needs. And that's where I'm going to serve you guys.

I'm not just going to be self-absorbed into myself. So that's what I struggle with on a daily base. When we talked about the old, we've had a few, how many debates have we had with atheists over slavery in the Old Testament? That's one that's really, that's a hard issue.

Yeah. I think done a job on our minds and hearts. I believe yet again that theocratic law, the mosaic law, makes by far and away the most sense when it comes to slavery in the Bible. I don't think the Bible in any way says that slavery is good.

And yet there are a couple of verses, like in Exodus 21. that are tough to wrestle with. So that would be one. Okay, that's a classic example. When I first was hit with a slavery issue, I know I remember exactly where it was. It was University of Texas, Austin,

a bunch of grad students who were really after me. This was years ago. And it was a whole issue of the Bible does not come out and just flat out condemn slavery right from the beginning. And, you know, I said, okay, fine. I hadn't really thought about it. So I went back and talked with some Christians who are far more intelligent and well-read than I am,

and they helped me begin to work it through. But I still struggled with it. It was still hard for me. And it's been now 40 years since that time. And the more I thought it through, the more I am at peace with it. The Bible never endorses slavery. The Bible never recommends slavery. The Bible gives us instructions on how cultures where slavery was rampant are to handle it.

And when Paul writes, slaves obey your masters, he's not saying that slavery is good. The same way if you say to me, Cliff, I just entered the armed forces. Should I kill someone with my gun? And if I give you an answer, I'm not saying all war is good. I'm not even saying the specific war you're fighting in is good.

I'm saying, you've enlisted, obey your commanding officer. But then I'm going to go on with a caveat. But if your government calls you to kill someone in order to keep gas prices low at the pump, you better be a conscientious objector. No, don't kill anybody. So this whole idea that the Bible is pro-slavery.

I mean, baloney, the second-greatest miracle in the Old Testament was God and the Exodus, delivering the Hebrew slaves out of Egypt. And what Paul writes in the letter of Philemon is, hey, Philemon, I'm going to jerk your chain, buddy. I met your runaway slave on Esimus in prison. I led him to faith, and now I'm going to send him back to you, and you're not to accept him back as a runaway slave. You're going to accept him back as a brother in Christ. And he got problems with that?

pay. That's really interesting. And I see a lot of parallels between that and other things I see online or things I've gotten hate for online, which is I'm saying a statement of fact or a piece of guidance or advice that isn't a moral statement. Bingo. It's just a statement. Exactly. If I'll, I can go to someone and say, you should take supreme responsibility for your life, take agency over your life. If you're ever in a bad situation, think what can you do to better your situation? And people online will think, oh, well, you're not sympathetic towards the environment around them that put them in this really bad situation. I'm like, well, I'm not even considering that because it's like that's out of the question.

I'm just trying to help. Thank you. And so I see that a lot of hate stems from that. It's like everyone sees everything as a moral statement when I'm just making a simple statement. Very good. Why does it seem like hate is increasing? Is it just because it's what's shown online? Or is there a reason?

This great sociologist from Notre Dame named Christian Smith. He talks about how. how as we're losing the concept of sin in the U.S., the more hate is coming into play. Because no longer do we realize, hey, you mess up all the time? I shouldn't be shocked by that. I mess up all the time, you shouldn't be shocked at that. One of the greatest things he's ever said to me

was don't be surprised by somebody's sin. Because I get surprised all the time. Oh, you snubbed me? What the heck? I thought we were buddies. I thought we were colleagues. What's going on here? And so Jonathan Haidt out of NYU, another great psychologist, sociologist, said that we were all born self-righteous.

All studies show that. And so it goes back to, I'm not really a sinner. I've got this right. You've got that wrong. And because of that, hey, I'm going to hate you if you do wrong things, if you do bad things to me. So as that leaves, I don't think as the doctrine of sin leaves, are we necessarily going to have a great person. here in the U.S. I don't think all of a sudden everybody's going to bring out guns and knives and just start killing each other. Do I think we could head in that direction? Absolutely. And that's what

he says, because all of a sudden, moral obligation will break down. All of a sudden, you create the image of God, me creating the image of God, that's going to break down. So I'm going to demonize you in any kind of way I want. I'm going to judge you in any kind of way I want. And it's my truth. Your truth is your truth. My truth is my truth. So it's just subjectively, morality just breaks down. sexual confusion it's breaking down left and right and so this idea of hate faction all of these things are growing tribalism

all these things are growing and it largely has to do with America's concept of sin was right there from the beginning with our founding fathers everybody was clear on we are all sinners and yet we are all equal created the image of God all of that is broken down

and as pastors we encounter people all the time sin That's a dirty word. I don't even know what it is. So that's what Christian Smith, the sociologist at Notre Dame, puts out beautifully, and I think it's true. The reason I like the question is because it's a classic example of why agnosticism, practically speaking, is impossible. Because I will either hate you or be apathetic towards you or love you. And the way I respond to you shows my worldview. It shows, do you have innate value or do you not? and if you don't have innate value and you rub me the wrong way,

there's nothing wrong with me hating you. That's what you deserve. But if you're a human being created an image of God, and if there is a God who created me to love you and to love my enemy, shoot, I got no choice. Hatred is wrong. I must love you, even though that's the last thing I want to do.

I'm curious in terms of the self-absorption. Has that been something that you've had your entire life? Oh, yes. Absolutely. I've been, that's why I agree with C.S. Lewis when he writes in mere Christianity that the great sin is pride. The great sin is self-fascination, self-righteousness. I am the greatest. We've talked now for about an hour about me. Let's change the topic. Let's talk about my career now. It's all about me. And that's why Christopher Lash wrote the culture of narcissism. We are just become narcissists because it, It makes sense. It's all about me. I mean, if there is no God at the center of the cosmos, it is all about me, my life and how much I can get, how much I can use you, manipulate you, to get for myself. But if there is a God of the center of the cosmos, and it's not just about matter and energy and money and pleasure, if I was really created to care about you and to bring good

into your life, and if that's a moral absolute, then I better get off my lazy backside and start working for your well-being and not be so self-absorbed as I too naturally am. I was watching this morning with my daughter's, a certain movie that was, it was a cartoon, but it was all about this girl fulfilling her own dreams and getting other people out of the way, because I'm going to fulfill my own dreams and aspirations. Every narrative in our culture today is about our own dreams and aspirations and becoming an authentic self. You're all the time.

That's everywhere. So no longer your earlier point, Graham, of living for nation, patriotism. If you look historically, we used to live primarily for God. Then it shifted into the 30s, 40s, and 50s, strong sense of patriotism. But now it's all about the self. Living for the self, self-absorption. So you're supposed to be self-absorbed. And it's a good thing.

But why wouldn't you? No, no, no. It's all about your career path. Just live for you. If anybody gets in the way, get them out of the way as fast. as possible. And so what that's creating is back to why do so many college students perhaps find what we're talking about attractive is because they are hurting due to this narrative. Because you think it's helping. You think it's going to bring about your own personal happiness, right? My pursuit of

happiness because it's all about me. I'm going to get there. But you never really get there. It actually, the more self-absorbed you are, the more prone you are to depression, anxiety, and severe stress. And so so many of these students, who, whether it's DMs, emails, whatever it might be, that's typically what they'll say to us. They'll say, hey, look, thank you for helping me with my pain

that's connected to my self-absorption and depression. Because self-absorption is high self-esteem and low self-esteem. I don't know about you guys, but, you know, when I was an All-American in sports, high self-esteem, but then after graduating,

I didn't have that anymore. So all of a sudden I had low self-esteem. All right, your dream being just as arrogant and prideful, whether you have high self-esteem or low self-esteem, because you're just obsessed with yourself. So so many of these students that we're talking to, as we point to Christ, as we point to God, they're coming out of their pain and learning, hey, it's not all about me. And when they do that, they find hope, joy, and peace. So I could be also equating incorrectly self-esteem with like happiness or joy. Because if I'm getting what you're saying, it's like you're supposed to detach your happiness

from accolades achievements where you're at in life. Is that true or is that a misrepresentation? Yeah, it's the whole idea of born a man, died a doctor. You lost yourself. You know, you're a doctor. You were just living for your career. And oftentimes those people are the most miserable and arrogant. And so, no, it's very healthy to live for accolades in one sense. But I certainly hope we're taking the number one commandment in the Bible seriously, which is love the Lord of God with all your heart soul, mind, and strength, love your neighbor as yourself. Because every happiness study points to, if you truly want happiness, you're going to worship God, a God, they would say, and you're going to serve other people.

And where do you differentiate between confidence and arrogance? Yeah, for me personally, I think confidence is all about getting off that self-esteem home run track. You know, if I'm really feeling like I'm knocking out of the park, that I'm just high. prideful it goes to my head but then all of a sudden if I start to fail if I lose a job if my kids or somehow I feel like failures then it goes to my heart and I feel like a total failure so confidence comes with getting off of that type of you know rat race and getting onto forgetting myself and when I forget myself and live for God now all of a sudden I'm not

going to have low self-esteem I'm not going to have high self-esteem instead my pride is just going to be over here, and here I am living for God and other people, and that's when I'm functioning in a way where I'm truly confident, and that's a healthy confidence, rather than what culture says, what positive psychology says, I won't name any names, it says, no, no, no, puff yourself up,

talk to yourself. And the more you puff yourself up, okay, great, maybe you get out of your depression out of that type of self-talk, but you also become tremendously arrogant. An excellent example of this is what's happened after these college football bowl games, so many of the coaches and the players have been saying, all glory to God, all glory to Jesus Christ. Okay, now that does not mean I'm not going to go to practice tomorrow and I'm not going to get

as prepared as I can be for the next run of the competition to be number one in the country. But what it does mean is my confidence is in God. My confidence is in Christ, meaning by that my value comes from him, my purpose comes from him. I'm going to seek to honor him ethically as best as I can in other words I am confident

about what God has called me to do my confidence is in him in the gifts and talents he's blessed me with my confidence is not I'm the best you all can bow down before me

I like getting your moral value from something other than yourself for I also don't I don't like adjudicating right versus wrong I don't want to bear the responsibility of knowing like what is the morally right thing to do in a certain circumstance. Like, I'd rather, like, ask my dad or I'd rather, like, ask my mom, you know what I mean? Or, like, ask someone else, because I don't want to make the wrong moral

decision. So that's, that's kind of nice. I know that you've spoke to a lot of people on their deathbed, which is very interesting. It's not something a whole lot of people get the opportunity to do. What are some of the common threads you've seen? When they read scripture, they break down, crying. And a lot of them haven't read scripture in their entire lives, maybe when they're really young from their parents. But there's something about the power of scripture that is a little more powerful than Shakespeare and other beautiful works that I believe God is speaking directly to people's hearts through. I truly believe that. The reason why the Bible has been the best-selling book every single week since its inception in the world, there's a reason for it. Something about

it and I would say it's because it's God inspired and so when I see these people breaking down in tears if you just give them a little bit of scripture think why is that what what's going on there because it oftentimes surprises me and they could be from many worldviews what about regrets or other things in their life even if it's removed fully from religion just trends you've noticed patterns yeah the biggest questions and concerns that people have on their deathbeds are could I have loved better? Could I have given more money away? And what did I do with my relationships? How much time did I spend with my family? Those are the biggest three questions that most people deal with. And we have the opportunity of saying, hey, look, you got some serious regrets? What worldview

gives you an opportunity to get rid of those regrets better than a worldview that says it's all about Jesus's grace and forgiveness. And it's nothing that you could do or have done. So good or bad that makes you higher in the eyes of God. Because it has nothing to do about our works. It's how we respond to him. So for us helping somebody understand that, look, Jesus Christ died on the cross for you. He suffers with you. There's no other suffering God out there. So when Paul talks about we are all new creations, the old is gone, the new has come. that's when people experience peace, and it's not about what I've done.

How do they come to grips with death? I've had several situations where there has been real anger and there's been real despair. I'll never forget in a hospital near here going to a room and the man was not real pleased to see me and his daughter was there and she was not real pleased to see me, but he had a son who really wanted me to be there. So in honor of the son and his request, I went.

But when I raised the issue of Christ and God, the guy sat up in his bed, waved his fists like that, and then fell back. And so I knew I had to be very quiet. I could not say a lot. I wanted to respect the man and his beliefs. And yet, if you're going to be intellectually honest, that leads to despair. Because death is the end. We all know what happens when we die to our bodies. They rot.

And the whole idea of life after death is a fantasy. if there is no supernatural God. No, we become fertilizer. And that's truth. That's accurate. So it's very infrequent that I meet someone who's willing to logically take atheism to its logical conclusion, which is despair. But I have the utmost respect for the great philosophers like Nietzsche, Camus, Arthra, who pointed out, the only question you got to answer is why not commit to... I mean, why keep living?

if it's all a crapshoot, if it's all ultimately meaningless, why continue to suck wind? And I think that to be intellectually honest, if you're agnostic or atheist, you have to ask the question. It's not that you have to commit, but you've got to ask the question, why should I continue to suck wind? Why should I keep going? Because it all is over when I die. And that is why the resurrection of Christ is crucial. And that is why I respect Christians who struggle with doubt, who struggle with fear of death, as they're beginning to realize I'm not going to be on this earth much longer

but they go back and study the resurrection did he really rise from the dead or did he not if he did wow there is life after death if he didn't well I'm not sure there is life after death and if there is no God there's definitely no life after death

you don't talk to people who come back from the dead when you're dead you're gone but if there is a supernatural God then it's possible And often for me, when I do funerals, it's hard because I'm standing there in front of a casket and the family and friends are around, and I'm trying to communicate, because this guy put his faith in Christ, because this woman put her faith in Christ, we're going to see her again one day, those of us who've trusted in Christ. We're going to see them again in heaven.

And at times I doubt, at times I'm sitting there saying, are you sure of that cliff? I mean, this is a dead body and a casket. You really think you're going to see this person again? but all I got to do, Graham and Jack, is look up and consider the vastness of the cosmos. If there is a supernatural being who created the cosmos, it's not stupid to believe there's life after death, because that's peanuts compared to creating the cosmos.

In other words, if I meet a woman or a man who can bake bread from scratch, they're a very talented chef, it's stupid to me to think, Can they really toast a Pop-Dart or a bagel? Well, of course they can't. They can make bread from scratch. Well, if God created the cosmos, of course God can bring a resurrection body together, life after death.

So see, so much of this comes back to, is there a supernatural God or not? And has this supernatural God revealed himself in Jesus Christ, or has he not? Have you ever had any supernatural experiences or anything that maybe you've seen that you just can't explain? When my grandma was dying, his mom, all she could do in her final moments was quote scripture. She couldn't speak. Friedrich Nietzsche, who was, let's just say a strong atheist, same thing. He couldn't speak any other words than quote the scripture he was taught and memorized when he was a little boy. So he hated the idea of God, but he went to his death, quoting exactly what Christ talked about.

And so my grandma obviously opposite from Friedrich Nietzsche, she's had one of the strongest faiths that I've ever been around. But that was one of the closest supernatural experiences. I've had a couple, but that was one of them, seeing her quote scripture as she was passing out of this life and how she couldn't really say anything else. I thought, whoa, God is in this place. Like there's something going on here that's pretty powerful. And how interesting it is that memorizing scripture, even if you're an atheist, actually studies show that, and these are from secular studies,

show that it pushes away Alzheimer's, and it's actually tremendously healthy for your brain, unlike memorizing other things. So again, I don't know what that is. I'm not sure that maybe that's a supernatural piece as well. So I think the power of scripture itself and how it comes out of people, especially on their deathbeds, is a supernatural thing.

If you could ask God, one question, one question, One question. What would it be? So he asks this to strangers. All the time. All the time. So it's fascinating you're asking. What would you ask?

What would I ask? Yeah. I would ask, why did you not intervene and have the babysitter stop at the stop sign instead of having him just crean through the stop sign and have my niece die at an early age? The problem of suffering. And what do you think he would say? Oh, a lot.

A lot. And I think one of the first points would be, Cliff, the reason you're outraged over the death of your nieces, because you know how valuable life is. If life is trash, if life is insignificant, and if love is just a chemical reaction, you wouldn't be so hurt and so outraged. I mean, just think about it, grief.

What is grief? Grief is loving someone and losing them. If you don't love them, you don't grieve. And if you don't lose them, you don't grieve. But if you really love someone, someone and you lose them, you grieve, and it hurts big time. Well, is love real or is it just a biological chemical reaction in the brain? And if it's just a biological chemical reaction because there is no God and it's all chemistry and chemicals, what are you doing, Cliff? Live out your

worldview, be intellectually consistent. If that really means so much to you that your little niece died, don't get bitter against God. Thank God for her. Thank God that. Thank God that you. that you're going to see her one day, and thank God that love is real and love is really what it's all about, not trying to figure out how you could have created a better universe than God did, where your niece wouldn't get killed at an early age. I mean, it is so arrogant when the student at the University of Arizona said to me, well, if I was God, I could have created a better universe. Oh, come on, you're not that knowing. You're not that smart. I hate to tell you that you could create a better universe if you were God. Give me a stinking brain.

That is the height of human arrogance. And the reason I know that is, because I didn't have a good answer for that student. I said, hmm, hmm, and I called up my brother, who had just lost his daughter in that car accident. He said, excuse me, you're talking to a university student who says,

if I was God, I could have created a better universe? Uh-uh. And one of the key parts in there is free will. I mean, to love demands free will. If we're just robots, we don't love. Love is a free decision to care about someone. To be compassionate. You don't have to love.

I don't have to love. And so God creates us with a free will in a sense limiting his power. And obviously that's a risk that we would abuse that free will. And that's what sin is, the abuse of the free will. And it has horrible consequences. But it'd be that issue that I would, the issue of suffering. For me, it would be why hasn't Jesus returned yet? God, why haven't you set your son to earth?

With all the suffering, with all the pain, with all what's going on, isn't it time to return? But we have many friends who say, he will be returning, and it will be on January 23rd. And I don't agree with that. Even Jesus didn't know the day or hour. I think that's pretty clear. And yet there are signs that point to it. And Romans 8 talks about groaning that we see here in this planet.

And obviously Revelation, a lot of people trying to. take that literally. But we want Jesus here, I think. When do you think that would happen? When? Oh, I have no idea. If he doesn't know, I definitely don't know. But it makes a lot of sense when he came first. That's when the greatest trade routes were beginning. That's when the power was going on in Rome and eventually literacy as well. So made a lot of sense when he came. And I think it's so it'll make a lot of sense when he returns. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you guys. Thank you guys. This has been such such a pleasure. and your beautiful home too.

Thank you to the audience. Really appreciate it. An audience of three people listening to it. Family members. So once again, really appreciate it. Thank you guys. Great coffee, great sugar cookies. Great podcast.

Thank you guys for watching. Make sure to like and subscribe. Flew all the way over here to make this happen. We'll link their stuff down below in the description. Check it out too. Thank you so much. Until next time. See you.