 So there are plenty of things we don't see but we have evidence for believing that they exist. If we could develop a good way to... It's not so much that it's loud music, it's just the worst music that they keep playing. You notice that? Can we get some good smash sounds here sometime please? A way of like documenting talking with atheists because what we're using is like a non-confrontational approach to talk about deep beliefs that doesn't turn the conversation into an argument or a debate. I've watched you and you don't debate, you interview very well. Thank you, thank you, I appreciate that. Yes, very good questions. Thank you so much, I really appreciate it. And so the method is called street epistemology and it doesn't necessarily go as long with someone who has a very reasonable base. But when they... I guess I'm done. When they say that hey I believe in aliens or I believe I was visited by UFOs or that God talks to me in my left ear or something like that. It's the right ear. There's a way to have that conversation, get to the foundation and then come back up from the foundation and then the other person is much less confident in that position because they exercise some critical thinking. And all the method is just a chance to give someone a chance to think about what they believe in. Would you mind if I did that with you? That's fine. I imagine you're an atheist already? No, I'm not an atheist. You're not an atheist? No. Okay, what? Since we're in a curve already, huh? Yeah, yeah, yeah, show me what you got, show me what you got. Alright, so hi, I'm Ty, nice to meet you. Ty, I'm Danny. Danny? Yeah. Danny? Danny, what brought you over here? Well, I'm here to interact and talk with people who are... We're not part of the protest. We came here to talk with people who are. Okay. So we're kind of doing the same thing you're doing. Fantastic. I love this thing. Okay, so then would you say that you are religious or anything like that? I'm a Christian. You mind if we just like skip all the intros and all that stuff and just like talk about the faith? Sure. About my lack of faith? I love that too. That's fine. I want to have the best way of coming to a conclusion as well. So which God are we talking about and how... Yahweh, the God of the Bible. Yahweh, the God of the Bible. Jesus Christ. Okay. Who is Emmanuel, God with us. Okay, do you have a specific denomination that you represent or that you believe got the most accurate perspective? Well, I guess I'm bad as to my beliefs. I belong to a bad as church. Labels tend to... And denominations tend to divide us many times. I think so as well. We have distinctions, we believe. And the real essential doctrine is I share with many other people, Presbyterians, Methodists and so forth. Okay, okay. There's definitely a lot of overlap, but it's good to know like exactly how do I put it? Because there are groups that believe in slightly different things. Sure. It'd be nice to know where you're coming from. Absolutely. That's good to know. Okay, so I guess then what is the reason that you believe in this God if you don't really ask me? Well, I think the Bible is in God's inspired word. I think he is the one true God. It does have certain elements of faith to that I understand. I do believe it's a reasonable faith. You know, faith is not believing in your heart what your mind finds to be absurd. Okay. But believing in your heart what your mind finds to be reasonable. You know, the writer of Hebrews defined faith as a substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. How would you define faith? I think the same way. Substance of things hoped for, evidence of things not seen. It's not complete knowledge, it's enough knowledge that a reasonable person can believe these things. It's not a leap in the dark like some people seem to think that it is. Okay, so you say evidence of things... And all people have faith. Evidence of things unseen, you said? That's from Hebrews, the book of Hebrews. Evidence of things hoped for, a substance of things hoped for, evidence of things not seen. Can I ask you how confident you are in this God existing based on this... What do you call it? Near 100%. Near 100? Not 100%. You're at least open minded. I do believe it. Look, I'm human. I have doubts from time to time. That's right. And that's... Anybody who says they have no doubts are fooling themselves. Clemson fans? Well, maybe less doubtful. You know them with the bridal snakes and you're like, yeah, we like the tigers. The tigers, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We see those little bridal snake things that they got on. All right, I'm clear. So, because you are using... Could you tell me the most reasonable method that you're used to get to that high confidence and is it faith? Well, I think Scripture itself is consistent. I mean, people today are arguing that it's not, but there are difficulties one can see in the Bible, but there are answers and resolutions to those. I think it's a consistent message from the beginning to the end. Okay. The revelation of God to mankind over time that people early on didn't know everything that God wanted to reveal because God chose not to do that. I think it's a consistent message and I find that compelling. Do you think something that's consistent is a reasonable way to get to a conclusion? Yeah, I think consistency has to be there. If you don't have a consistent system or consistent set of beliefs, then that's problematic. Can I throw something out here? Yeah. This might be... I don't want you to critique it as I go. But if I had a coin, it's not a trick coin, it's your supporter. I'd flip it, catch it. It's on the back of my hand. I don't know if it's heads or tails. Do you know if it's heads or tails? No. We both don't know. That might be the best answer for at least right now. Right. But I could keep saying it's heads. I can consistently write down a thousand votes at its heads. I can have this guy, this guy, this guy, everyone say it's heads. Does that make it any more likely to be heads? What is consistency have to do with the actual matter of the truth? I don't mean consistency in the sense that people are agreeing with something. Consistent message throughout. A consistent non-self-contradictory sort of message is what I'm talking about. We can all non-contradictory agree that this is heads is not the same as heads. You're talking about hypothetical though at this point. Are hypotheticals allowed to be questioned? Are hypotheticals a good way to figure out things? Oh, yeah. It can be. So in this aspect, in this aspect as a tool, what's the correlation between the consistency as a tool? Hypothetical based upon no knowledge whatsoever. You have no knowledge of the coin. So knowledge is better than consistency, maybe? They go hand in hand. They're not contradictory to one another. Shouldn't they? What is the real fundamental reason if it's not consistency then? If I could be consistent. I think what you're getting down to is the question of truth. How do you determine that's true? Truth is true whether I recognize it or not, whether I believe it or not. Something isn't true because I believe it like the flip of your coin. Or if it's consistently said. Something is true because it's true. Right. And my attempt is to conform what I believe to truth. Okay. And I think, again, it's may seem foreign to someone from outside, but I do believe the Bible is God's revelation to man. Not a problem there. So consequently that is truth. It's propositional truth. It is truth whether I believe it to be true or you believe it or anybody else believes it is true. So what I'm wondering is there's an element of faith there coming in? Sure. I'm wondering what's a good method to get other people to test that and determine if it's true or not. Testing the Bible? Or testing faith? Testing God? Testing things in the hopes of determining if it's true or not. Like, someone could say it's true. I could say it's true. But what's a good way for me to test to see if that's true? You have to look and see if it's true. I mean, take your hand off so we can see what's ahead of us. Just making sure you said I have to look and make sure to see if it's true. But faith is based on evidence of things unseen? Yeah. Okay. Substance of things, hope for evidence of things not seen. But you see, you can still have evidence of things without seeing those things. Okay. I mean, I've never seen an electron. No one's ever seen an electron, but I think most of us here believe electrons exist. I've never seen the wind. There's plenty of wind today, but I can't see it. I can see the effects of the wind. Okay. And so there are plenty of things we don't see, but we have evidence for believing that they exist. If we could develop a good way to... It's not so much that it's loud music. It's just the worst music that they keep telling us. Do you notice that? Can we get some good Smash Mouth in here sometime, please? I'm from California. Anyway. So I can't see wind, but I can do tests that are pretty reliable for me to determine the presence of wind. And I'm totally fine with those. I can't see an individual electron, but we can make enough of an arc of electrons or you can see them. Absolutely. We can do tests. I have a physics background, so... Nice, nice. Good. Good on you, man. So I'm wondering then what's a good test that we could do to determine, and I'm open to it. Okay. But I'm wondering what's a good test. I think one of the large ones I like to use is the complexity of life, for instance. Okay. I looked at this last night and I should have brought it with me today and I did not, but I have an arrowhead, a couple of them at home. And my mom used to talk about finding arrowheads when they would clow in the spring and I thought that was way cool. I was like archeology and history and all that kind of good stuff. Yeah. So I used to live in South Carolina. I am, man. Some good friends of mine who had some property out in the country that I did frequently found arrowheads in the spring when they clow. So I went out there and I walked for an hour and a half looking in the morning and that afternoon looking, I picked up a rock. It wasn't, I picked up another rock. After about an hour and a half I found one and I was very overjoyed. I finally found one of my own. I could buy them but now I got one I found. Nice. I decided to walk back towards the house with this fellow with me. We walked about 10 feet and I found a second one and the question is how did I know I had an arrowhead when I found it? Okay. Do you want me to answer you? Yeah. Go ahead. Yeah. They have a very distinctive look. They've been cut by people and we have other ones that we can compare them to and say, hey, here's an arrowhead that's been made. Here's another arrowhead I found. They share some of the consistency. The type of rock that it was it obviously had been shaped and it formed. Oh, no. I'm so sorry. It had been designed and would pick up that rock and seriously argue, well, they just weathered that way. No. It's a natural process. Are we in agreement that we know that it was designed by comparing the things that are not designed? Like here's an arrowhead that looks like it was designed compared to a rock that's not designed? Yeah. So my point is is many people, everybody can hold that arrowhead. The last thing I want to do is please. People can hold that arrowhead in their hands and marvel at the design and yet the same time they're missing the design in the hand that holds it. Can I tell you a really quick funny story? Yeah. I accidentally left my marker outside without the cap on. So I can't record I can't record anything there. So I would be using that if I could. So instead I'm using pencil and pencil. Bad design. It's under my seat. Oh, thanks. Bad design. Anyway, I'm so sorry and interesting. Anyway, so the point is the hand is an incredibly design thing. The circulatory system, the biochemistry going on. It's just a part of the body. And any every living organism is incredibly complex. 150 years ago people thought that cells were pretty simple. We now understand it's the other way around. The cells are what's really complex and what's going on is unbelievable. And its complexity is infinitely greater than that of a rock. Would you say that complexity? But the point is Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. There is incredible design and living living creatures. And so the need to look at living creatures me, you, the plants the birds flying overhead. I cannot believe It's really awesome, isn't it? that this happened by itself without any design, without any designer, without a creator. So I think creation itself screams out that there is a God. Mind if I just catch up? Mind if I just catch up? Just trying to catch up. So I was asking for like a good way to test if something was true. I guess we're using the God as the basis on this. God of Yahweh, specific God. You said that based on the complexity of things that are like alive or like the world basically how complexity is is proof to you that a God exists. I'm wondering is complexity a good it's a it's complexity a good sign of design. For example, if I had a light bulb that took one step to screw into a hole and make a light in my room or a light bulb that took 40,000 steps to screw into a hole and make the same amount of light. Which light bulb was better designed? The first one, I think would be that simplicity is the hallmark design, not complexity. So then why is why do you look at something that's very complex and say, oh, a brilliant designer must have made that. You're only looking at one feature of the light bulb, the least important really the light bulb itself is highly designed. True, but a more simple one would be better than a highly complex one. Well, a simple one in the sense of if they do the exact same thing. Why would you want to screw the thing 40,000 times to do it? Who cares what I want doesn't make any sense. It's a question of the design of the aspect. That's from really complex things. Well, the problem is complexity is oftentimes and I will admit this and I have to be holding, I don't see any advantage to one that takes forever to screw in. Yeah, it seems like we like simple textiles. We want smaller phones. We want more efficient cars. We tend to run away from complexity and get towards simple things. Well, no, no, the more efficient cars are not simpler. I can make them more complex. I have a 60 year old car at home. Yeah. And I can work in it very easily. That's totally fine. I can make that car way more complex if I work on it. I'm not about to work on that car I drove up here today. Yeah, because it's good as it is. Why did I drive it? Well, it gets like three times the mileage the other car gets. Yeah. And also it has twice the mileage that the other car had before it before it needed major engine work and so on we go. And if I went to your car and I try and it's already good enough. It's good as it is. It's already designed more complex. It's already designed very, very well. Totally fine. I think we've gotten a far foot here. The design and complexity are not the same thing. True. But it seems like they already like it. It seems that complexity is not the homework design. It's simplicity that's the homework design. Not always. No. Okay. There are many systems that are very complex and they have to be that way in order to work. Some designs are better in some places where it can be complex and better. Then it doesn't seem like complexity is the best way to look at that. It's not so much complexity as it is design we're talking about here. Design to do certain things. I'm totally fine with that. I'm totally fine. I'm just saying that in some cases it seems where simplicity is better some cases maybe complexity is better. I would agree. How do you know which one's better? I mean in the case where either of them can be better. Yeah. Looking at something that's really complex saying proof. No, again how does that work in terms of complexity and I keep talking about design are two different. Okay. They're related but not the same thing. Let's go to design then because it seems like complexity doesn't matter as much then. Let's talk about design. I compare things that are designed with things that are not designed. That's how I recognize something that's been designed. I take that arrowhead compared to a rock that's not an arrowhead say this looks like it's been crafted that looks like it's not crafted. What are you comparing against something that's not designed for you to come to the argument that they're both living things as opposed to non-living things? Did God not make living non-living things? They made both, yeah. Okay, so we're doing the design both? Yes. How do you recognize design though? In rocks? Not as easily. It's not an easy way. What's a good way to determine that? That's a tricky question. I think so too. Okay. What would you say then is if maybe we can like move away from that? What's like another way to test the presence of a God? I guess you're trying to build a different design? No, I guess I mean like I feel like we talk about complexity, we talk about design. What's another way that we can test? I want to make one point though. Oh please, please, please. I want to be very clear that the design in the world around us leads us to believe I think a reasonable person to believe that there's a creator that doesn't follow that that creator is the creator, the God I've identified, the God of the Bible. He just tells you there's a creator. We cannot, I don't think by ourselves, we really can't determine the characteristics or the properties or the, of that God. Oh, that's interesting. What got you to the Christian God? Pardon? What got you to the Christian God, though? Scripture. Oh, okay. I believe that Scripture again is the revelation we have. Just asking you a different question. And there's again faith involved in that and I, you know, ask me to prove that Scripture is true. I don't care about that. Scripture doesn't even even try to do that. It's always says like I said, my goal isn't even really to change your mind. It's just, can we work together? Two different ideas, two different backgrounds from the same side of the table. I'm talking to the table. Can we come up with a method that's maybe a little bit better to convince someone who's like me or like things like me. Oh, here's actually a really good method to like show that these points that you're articulating actually have like a reasonable basis behind them. And I think we can work together on that. I'm wondering, it seems like no other than this possible. Okay. Can we talk about faith then for a little bit? Yeah. I think you've defined it already from like the biblical sense. But like, do you have a personal definition that is meaningful to you? I think I gave it to you earlier. I said it's believing in your heart what your mind finds to be reasonable. I need to write that down. That's my own. I'm sorry if I'm taking it. It's not original to me, but I'll. I want to put that up on a wall, like with one of those like woodcut fonts. I was a professor 45 years ago. Can you say that again? Just while I'm listening. Faith is believing in your heart. In your heart. What your mind finds to be reasonable. What your mind finds to be reasonable. Okay. It's a big week. All right. Whoa. The important people are starting to show up. Yeah. I thought we were already here. I must be Kensley Rye with all the tax dollars. It's a fantastic joke about a limousine that got like T-section, but it became an arrow. I don't know the I don't know the basis of the joke. It's a funny joke. It was an empty limousine. Everyone walked out. Everyone was fine. Anyway, sorry, sorry. I think it's a joke, but go ahead. I did it. I did it. I'm not good. Anyway, believing in your heart. What your mind finds to be reasonable. Now I get it. You get it? Yeah. Yeah. So back to the camera. You got a limousine. It gets the intersection. In my head, it's hilarious. I just haven't like figured out the words around it yet. I was thinking of an envelope. I was thinking of a pierce arrow. A what? A pierce arrow. Automobile they've made for about 75 or 80 years. It's a car from back in the 30s. Okay, okay. Anyway, Rub there with the doozy. Would you mind telling me about believing in your heart what your mind finds to be reasonable? And you can change this. Sure. Yeah. How is that a reliable way to come to a true conclusion? About what? About anything. About anything? I guess I'm not sure exactly what you're asking. Put that coin. Catch it. Right now we both don't know. Oh, okay. In that particular case. But I could believe in my heart what my mind finds to be reasonable. And at this moment I could reasonably find it at its head. But not having any knowledge whatsoever. I know it could be heads or tails. That's all you know. I know quarters because of the way how the face is on one side and the eagle is on the background. It has a slight proportional chance to be more heads. That's reasonable. But I don't think you're on mind to say that it's one or the other. You can say it's one or the other. But you can't say definitely it's A. Until I have a better way to examine that. Yeah. So could I use faith to get to a conclusion that one has or one tells? Faith in this particular case. But I mean I guess I don't see the application coming in this particular simple case. Sure. But could I use faith to come to the conclusion that it heads? So there are certain things that I can have faith about and certain things that I can't have faith about. Is that more accurate? Well again a priori deciding that it's heads is not a reasonable thing to believe. Even if I had a reasonable even if I believed it with my heart and had a reasonable person on my mind. That's not the point. I mean you're wanting to put faith ahead of your mind in that case. I'm not saying that the mind has to go first or that faith has to go second or first or whatever. The two have to be hand in hand with one enough. You can't say that one then preempts the other. They work together. So even if I had 100% faith on something that I wasn't using my mind. That's not a reliable way to come to a conclusion on something. Say that again? If I use only faith to come to a conclusion that's not good enough. I need to have other aspects. Like again with the way of defined faith or whatever. Cool. If I had faith that was telling me something but my mind was telling me something else what should I rely on more? Well I actually deal with those kind of questions all the time and I sort through them. There's not an easy three-step process. I can't say well do this, this, this, oh I can't do that. I'd love to know about the process. It doesn't have a simple one. There's no simple three-step process. Sorry I forgot to start the timer. Thinking yeah is not easy. Most people think that it is but it isn't. It's a very laborious process. Critical thinking you know. Critical thinking is and I've changed my mind about a lot of things. The last three years I've changed my mind about some big things and I will continue to do so. Can I fill something out? Yeah. And I'm asking. I'm not telling I'm only doing my asking. I hope you're having a good time in this and I'll get it and walk away if I didn't. And I'm laughing too so I'm still happy. Cool. You're asking some great questions by then and I appreciate that. And I appreciate your attitude. Thanks man. I'm wondering what's a good way to come to a true conclusion. That's really what I care about the most. In the event that I don't have in the event that I'm using a method that's not good to determine if something's true or not true. I'm happy to dismiss it if I have a better method of questioning. Uh-huh. But you have something else in your mind telling you the opposite and you have to laboriously think about it and maybe sometimes come to the position that your mind had. Is that not a demonstration that maybe even if you have 100% faith in something that thing may not be worth your worth endeavoring as a true person? People call that a crisis of faith. That happens to a true person. Sure. If I can have faith in things that are true and things that are not true what's the value of faith for determining if something's true or not? Everybody has faith. Not saying that I'm not even tackling that point. Everybody has faith. Not only are you tackling that point but I'm wondering as a method to determine if something's true or not if I can have faith in things that are not true and faith that things are true what does having faith do as a means towards getting to a true conclusion? Well, faith is part I mean, there are people here today who believe science is the way to find all truth. That's a faith statement. They believe that to be true even though they can't prove that to be true. How do you feel about I don't know as an answer when you don't have enough? Oh, the years I taught I use that answer all the time. So what I all the time I would say I don't know about it when I didn't know the answer and when I thought I knew the answer I'd love to give you my system and get some feedback from you. My idea is like with that coin like with anything if I don't have enough evidence to support the conclusion I'm willing to say I don't know until I have better evidence. Sure. Agreed. Because I can have faith in things that are true and not true I don't see it as a useful system to determine if something is true and what I'm looking for is a useful system to determine if something's true and not true. What do you think about that? Well, again, I think hidden the reasoning there is that some people have faith some people don't have faith and I think that's wrong everybody has faith. Let's say I did have faith but I still don't value it as a decision-making process tool to come to a true conclusion. Alright, that's fine. But you have to have if you come up with I'm definitely capable of believing in my heart what my mind finds reasonable but I don't value that as a good way to get to a true conclusion. No, but the thing is if you come up with your method your certifier method of discerning truth you have to have faith that that method works. Do I? I think so. Otherwise, why would you trust your system to do that? My point is everybody has faith at some level they may deny it in fact the more they deny it the more convinced I'm sure that they do have faith. Interesting. It's impossible not to have faith in something in themselves someone else but it's I'm not even really arguing the idea of everybody has faith and my question is is it a good way to reach a true conclusion? It's a part of it it's not the sole way to do it. Okay, so there's other things that needs to be supplemented It gets back again to the intellect again the mind has to be there. Okay, okay. I mean I think many times atheists and others criticize Christians for thinking you're all about faith you know theology was once called the queen of the sciences did you know that? No, I did. Yeah, it was once called the queen of the sciences. Which queen? Elizabeth? She had like a small puzzle over her face. It was considered to be the best of the sciences. Now we've changed the word science a hundred and eighty years ago to mean something else and what it used to mean but the thing is theology and biblical studies is a very rigorous intellectual sort of exercise Okay. And maybe people of faith doing that but they very much use their mind to do this it's not a matter of this false dichotomy between faith and reason. That's a false dichotomy. And I think you know people here are throwing the word reason around some of these organizations and I'm saying well you know we looked down on people like me saying well you're working in faith and I work for reason no, you're working from faith too. You just don't know that you are but you are definitely doing it. I think based on how you define it everybody can have faith I don't have a problem with that my question is just if someone came to me and says hey I use faith to come through. And that's bogus faith I don't understand how you came to that I need a better way to determine that. It might be it might be and there might be a God there might be but I need a better system than faith. But believing its heads doesn't make it heads its heads whether we believe it or not it might be heads whether it is or not. Exactly we're talking about the ultimate reality here so I guess what I'm doing is like can we work together with people who are convinced and maybe with the people who aren't convinced can we have like some sort of system where we can talk to each other or we can come up with like a good method I think so too I think so and I think a lot of times people get so emotionally invested in their conclusions that they are willing to have these kinds of questions Oh I agree with you And I appreciate you know like this openness I think it's nice that people can just come together and just like this is what I think truth is really what do you think okay well I'll modify it I'm not trying to change your mind but like maybe we can like refine it to get to something where it's like okay the next time we come together and like talk about this we'll be on a much closer level with each other and we can be able to tell what's true and what's not true Do you have any questions for me? No it's good I'll let some of the other guys take over tag team yeah let me tell you I've been interviewed by a lot of people we're going the best Thank you so much I appreciate it you're good you're very fair I really appreciate your attitude okay okay no pleasure I have a wonderful challenge you too