 Welcome to modern day debate we are a channel that hosts debates on science religion and politics and we try to do it with the Goal and vision of giving everyone their fair shot to make their case on an equal playing field And want to let you know we're very excited if it's your first time here consider hitting that subscribe button as we have many more debates to come and Want to let you know up front as well just a couple of quick things first We are thrilled to let you know that modern day debate has invaded the podcast world So this is an addition to the YouTube channel if you have not found us on your favorite podcast app Let us know we will work to get on there Also want to let you know throughout the debate starting now even if you happen to have a question for the speakers Feel free to fire it into the old live chat and also want to let you know that you can do that starting now And super chat is an option in which case you can not only ask a question But if you'd like to make a comment toward one of the speakers or both of the speakers you can and they of course We get a chance to respond to it We ask that you just be your regular friendly selves folks and just show them the kindness and respect they deserve We are honored to have these guys here and that's why I'm going to introduce them to you right now Want to let you know David C. Smalley hosts a very popular podcast And so it's formerly known as dogma debate now known as David C. Smalley And I want you guys to know that his links are in the description and want to say just first Thanks David for being here with us It's a pleasure to have you if you want to share just about I think a lot of people if they enjoy a modern day debate They would love your David C. Smalley podcast And so if you want to share we'd love to hear about just what you've been up to there Thanks for being here David. Yeah, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it Essentially, I do what you what you do except I'm the guest all the time I just bring people on my show who typically disagree with my worldview whether it's religion It's usually religion. Sometimes it's politics or whatever and I just I extend the olive branch and have peaceful respectful Fun conversations with people who completely disagree with me and my worldview. So That's really why I started the show 10 years ago. It's been a pretty good success. It's what I do full-time now and Between that and stand-up comedy. That's how I make my living. So yeah, I would love everybody to go check it out I'm everywhere at David C. Smalley, whether it's Instagram Twitter or my website And if you want to be a guest on my show, you go to David C. Smalley calm click be a guest And you can come on my show to tell me why you disagree with me and why I'm wrong Absolutely, and we are also excited to introduce I want to introduce before we introduce Randall Brouser, I just want to mention that those of you you've probably seen Carissa has been here She's debated before she is our co-host and co-moderator tonight She'll be getting us started in just a second after I introduce Randall But I do want to let you know she is debated not only on modern a debate She's debated on other channels as well And so I just want to say thank you Carissa for co-hosting tonight as well as kind of co-moderating And we really do appreciate you being here with us. Well, I I'm very very happy I can so thank you for having me on Absolutely, it's our pleasure and want to let you know folks if you have not seen Dr. Randall Rouser's debates He has many debates on many places So for example if you guys have listened to you've probably heard of unbelievable with Justin Briarley a very popular podcast on Topics of philosophy of religion he has debated there as well as on capturing Christianity another very popular channel and Want to say Dr. Randall Rouser. Thanks so much for being here It's a pleasure to have you want to let you know that not only has he debated But actually he has written a number of books one of which I have linked in the description for you as well So if you'd like to check that out folks want to highly encourage you to check out his links as well And so Dr. Randall Rouser if you want to share just a little bit about your book Because I loved the title and the subtitle were really interesting for this And so if you'd like to share about your book as well as other projects you're working on We'd love to hear just what you've been up to Sure, thanks James. So Yeah, this is my 12th book and just came out this month. It's out right now in soft cover We'll be out in Kindle within a couple days. It's called conversations with my inner atheist And so it's a 25 chapters of a Christian having a conversation with himself By the through this metaphor of an inner atheist about various difficult problems So it's a lot of fun to write in terms of new projects I think my next project is scrambling to get course prep for the fall because I'm a professor and We have a strange new world of COVID-19 and trying to figure out classes online. So that's what I'm dealing with Absolutely. Yeah, I'm going through the same thing. So absolutely and we are we appreciate you making time I was just telling someone I was feeling overwhelmed about the transition So we are excited to get this get the ball rolling and so I'm gonna hand it over to Carissa She'll go over the format and then get the speaker started and I will be keeping an eye for your questions in the live chat folks Thanks so much Carissa. The floor is all yours Thank you so much James. So first off we're gonna start off with like a 10-minute opening statement first from the affirmative Dr. Rouser and then followed up by David and then we're gonna get into about an hour of just discussion And then after that we're gonna follow it up with a half an hour of questions and answers So first off, um, Dr. Rouser since you're the affirmative, would you like to give your opening statement? Sure, thanks. So I will say that James says it doesn't have to like that Like there's not gonna be a came that'll pull me sideways if I go over 10 minutes I could go maybe 30 seconds over or whatever. So I'm gonna aim for that 10 minutes though. All right, fine Okay, so my thanks to James for inviting me to debate and to David C. Smalley for agreeing to participate So the question of the debate is this his belief in the Christian God rational That's the way that this question was presented to me But of course if the Christian description of God is true then Christianity is true and thus to ask whether The Christian God is rational as an object of belief just is to ask whether Christianity is rational I am gonna proceed on the assumption that the essence of debate concerns whether Christian belief can be rational and in this debate I will argue. Yeah, indeed Christian belief can be rational Now I'm gonna define Christianity as a religion that consists of a particular set of doctrines Including the Trinity fall Israel covenant incarnation atonement resurrection second coming Bible as a medium of special revelation in short what CS Lewis called mere Christianity Notably mere Christianity does not include any specific interpretation of any of those doctrines So beware of attempts to argue for the irrationality of Christianity based on the alleged Irrationality of some subset of Christian opinion for example in the same way that one does not establish the Irrationality of philosophical naturalism Simplicator by attacking the rationality of some specific interpretation of philosophical naturalism such as reductive materialism So one does not establish the irrationality of mere Christianity By attacking the irrationality of some specific version of Christianity such as North American Protestant fundamentalism Next how do we define rationality well for the purposes of this debate? I'll define rationality in terms of a classic virtue a Virtue is a disposition to behave rightly and is contrasted with a vice which is a disposition to behave wrongly an Aristotle's account a virtue is a golden mean a disposition balance between two extremes The vice of deficiency and the vice of excess for example in between the vice of cowardice a Deficiency and the vice of foolhardiness and excess one finds the virtue of courage in Between the vice of stinginess a deficiency and the vice of extravagance and excess stands the virtue of generosity When it comes to the regulation of belief and proper belief formation We find that rationality stands in between the vice of extreme unwarranted skepticism a Deficiency and the vice of extreme credulity and excess in other words Rationality is the virtue of having cognitive capacities properly formed so that one believes when it is appropriate to do so and Abstains from belief when it is appropriate to do so thereby avoiding the irrationality of either excess skepticism or credulity importantly Rationality encompasses not simply proper beliefs as an output But also the proper reasoning processes by which that belief is formed It involves the articulation of the logical relationship between various truth claims the valid movement from premises to conclusion the assessment of intrinsic and contextualized probability and plausibility and an awareness of one's own cognitive biases in an attempt to redress them Keep in mind as well that an inscription of virtue is to some degree contextualized to Illustrate if Mike Tyson insults a man's girlfriend. Is it virtuous for that man to ask Tyson to step outside? Well, that depends on who the man is it would be foolhardy for PB Herman to ask Tyson to step outside But it could indeed be courageous for a Golden Glove boxing champion to do so my apologies for my dated cultural references by the way That's the same action can be foolhardy or courageous depending on who undertakes the action Rationality is the same whether a particular belief is rational is typically context dependent as such judgments are made relative to the specific Individuals in particular contexts relative to their current beliefs and experiences for example, if a man standing on a street corner and vises Smith that a new drug will protect against National for Smith to believe him well, that depends if Smith recognizes the man as dr Anthony Fauci then it may indeed be rational for him to believe it Whereas a Smith does not recognize the man. He would be probably irrational for him to believe it So the rationality of Smith's ascent is relative to his background beliefs such that as the belief that the man is a respected infectious disease specialist When a person claims that all expressions of a complex and diverse belief system or worldview are irrational They have a high burden of proof to demonstrate that there is no possibility For that belief system to be assented to rationally Raging across all the diverse sets of beliefs and experiences by adherence of that belief system or worldview for example Some theists claim that all atheists are irrational While there certainly may be irrational atheists to make the claim that atheism is always irrational such that all 250 million atheists globally are irrational irrespective of their background beliefs and experiences Well, that assumes a very high evidential burden In like manner some atheists argue that all Christians are irrational While there certainly may be instances where Christians are irrational to make the claim It is always irrational such that all 2.3 billion plus Christians globally are irrational Again irrespective of a background belief and experience. Well, that too assumes a very high evidential burden The more than 2 billion Christians on planet Earth form their beliefs under a dizzyingly diverse range of circumstances Testimony reasoned argument by experience and so on What is the basis to believe that Christian belief formation is always irrational ranging across all of these circumstances? At this point, it would be helpful to focus. I think on a specific example So let's consider two cases of belief formation by way of parental testimony We'll begin with atheist Richard Dawkins who recalls in one of his essays and was driving through the English countryside When with my daughter Juliet then aged six and she pointed out some flowers on the wayside I asked her what she thought wildflowers were for she gave a rather thoughtful answer Two things she said to make the world pretty and to help the bees make honey for us. I Was touched by this and sorry. I had to tell her it wasn't true Now Dawkins is teaching Juliet a distil logical view of nature a view that is consistent with Naturalism and atheism, but not with various other views including Christian theism What was Juliet rational to believe her father's testimony as noted above one is indeed rational to accept the testimony of another person and Certainly a trusted rental authority unless one has overriding reason not to in fact philosophers call this the principle of testimony So the onus would be on the critic to provide good reasons why Juliet could not be rational to accept the testimony of her father as to the Distiliology of nature and listen until those good reasons are provided. We should conclude that Juliet is rational Well, now let's come to our second scenario Rather than Dawkins and Juliet in the countryside Our countryside is now being visited by renowned British theoretical physicist and Anglican priest John Polkinghorn and his daughter Isabelle Isabelle also says the flowers are to make the world pretty and to help the bees make honey for us and Polkinghorn a Christian who accepts teleology in nature says yes, Isabelle God made the flowers to make the world pretty and give him praise and of that They continue on their way as Polkinghorn then begins to describe to her the mysteries of Schrodinger's cap Just as Juliet was rational to accept her father's testimony as to the distil theology of nature So Isabelle was rational to accept her father's testimony as to the divinely given teleology of nature So the onus is on the critic in this case David to provide good reasons why Isabelle and her famous father could not be Rational in precisely the same way as Juliet and her father The rationality of accepting parental testimony is but one of the initial steps in the rationality of Christianity as a Christian I personally have devoted careful attention to proper reasoning processes in support of my beliefs I have a PhD in systematic theology from a leading British research university I've defended my views in many debates such as this one I've also participated in devil's advocate debates in which I defend atheism because the ability to defend the views of Once interlocutor is a hallmark of rationality and intellectual virtue and I've published several books defending my beliefs most recently Conversations with my inner atheist It would be a downer if after all these efforts I have not even succeeded in meeting the minimal bar basic rationality But I believe I have provided excellent reasons to believe that I and countless Christians like me can at least meet the minimal threshold of being rational To conclude I've argued that rationality is the mean between excessive skepticism and excessive credulity We are rational to accept the deliverances of the complex Doxastic processes by which we naturally form beliefs sense perception rational intuition Testimony memory, etc. Unless we have a good reason to doubt them This includes both those who acquire beliefs consistent with views such as atheism as in the case of Dawkins and Juliet As well as a views such as Christianity as in the case of Polk and Horn and Isabel Unless and until a person can provide a powerful argument that all 250 million atheists are irrational Once you conclude that many of them are indeed Rational likewise unless and until a person can provide a powerful argument that all 2.3 billion plus Christians are irrational Once you conclude that many of them likewise are rational Thanks Thank you so much dr. Rouser for that opening speech I'm David if you wanted to go ahead and and Give your speech that would be wonderful Sure. Yeah, and I certainly want to thank everyone for having me as well as Randall for agreeing to do this and It won't be a big deal if that was more than 10 minutes because I doubt very seriously I'll use all of mine because I much prefer to jump into the conversation piece anyway I just want to say that just to start I Make a clear distinction between people versus their beliefs I would never say that all Christians are irrational even though It I believe Christianity in itself is irrational because I think an otherwise rational person Can believe something that is irrational if they were indoctrinated or have high emotions attached to it or have gone through trauma or whatever so To say that a person has an irrational belief is not to say they are irrational all the time. I also want to say that This idea that if the only way for me to say it's irrational is for me to Pick some very specific odd version of Christianity and argue against that I'll go ahead and ease your mind right now and say I never do that That's not at all what my scope is because the very core belief of Christianity is that a dead Jew Came back to life and then floated to heaven and somehow disintegrated into a spiritual world with a physical body Regardless of your denomination regardless of what tabernacle or Or name is on your church. That is irrational We have no record of it ever happening at any point in history and the only people Who say it happened are people that we just have to take their word for it who wrote this down in these books and so That brings me to Randall's other point which was about someone being believable or not or a trust worthy source to give that Such testimony and I loved it when he said that if if dr. Anthony Fauci says that This is the thing and he's a specialist in that it is rational to believe him It may also be rational to fact check him by the way But it's rational to believe him as long as the stakes aren't very high But if the person is just some random Joe off the street who wants to tell you that Masks don't even help or masks actually make you sicker or that this thing isn't even real There's not even a real virus. If he doesn't have the credentials. It is irrational to believe him So, why do you believe the authors of the Bible? You don't know anything about them. We don't know if they were liars We don't know if they were thieves. We assume they were human sinners from the perspective of Christians, but we don't know anything about them In fact, we don't even know who actually wrote that and we know that it's the gospel according to Luke or according to Mark Was there an actual person named Mark? I don't think Scholars are completely set on that we and also The original that was written is much different in many cases than the multiple Translations with the multiple versions we have access to today So your faith isn't so much in Jesus or God as it is in the people who wrote that stuff down Because if if he had written that, you know, it went when he appeared to the 500 for example If they had left a zero off We would be arguing today that he appeared to 50 if he had added a zero the Christians would be saying with full confidence Jesus appeared to five thousand people. No one person wrote down the number 500 Who actually wrote that down? Well, let's say it was Paul or let's say it was this guy Do you know for sure? Do you know for sure that Paul didn't write five and a scribe later changed it to 50? The bible has undergone so many changes and alterations and translations with anonymous scribes between Us reading it and them writing it in the original That I don't know that we can say with clarity exactly who these people were what their agenda was and what was going on With that in mind, they might as well be that random guy off the street telling you not to wear a mask You have no idea Who wrote that book? You definitely know it's not a dr. Anthony Fauci But you're believing with faith that this person is trustworthy because they're saying something that already comports with your preconceived worldview And your confirmation bias wants you to believe it even though it is entirely irrational One of the final points i'll make is We do believe people all the time We believe random statements all the time from random people if I say I used to work at coca-cola Okay, why not believe me? I didn't by the way Hashtag not a sponsor, but if I if I had it wouldn't be a big deal Right, who cares if I'm talking to you about something and you're like, hey, where's where is this bottle? I go, you know, here's the history between coca-cola and pepsi. I used to work for coca-cola Okay, that thing may go into your brain and you may spread that fact to someone else whether it's wrong or right But you have no reason to really doubt me because there's no real Consequences for believing or not believing However, if I said to you I used to work at coca-cola and in fact I walked out into the parking lot I made the entire corporate building float 20 feet in the air for about eight hours And if you don't believe that I did that I'm gonna set your house on fire Okay, well now I've raised the stakes now. It's really important. I've made an extraordinary claim Which suggests I should have an extraordinary evidence as as hitch and said so now Do you believe that? No, you won't believe that I did that but if you don't I'm gonna set your house on fire Well, why don't you believe it because that thing doesn't happen people don't make buildings float And if I did and I said, well, that's the that's the beauty of it. That's the magic of it It's the only time it's ever happened in the history of the world. That doesn't make it more believable Right, it's still illogical to believe that I did that and if the stakes are higher I should have even a greater burden of proof that I had the ability to do that Especially if I'm willing to harm you Simply for not believing something irrational So with that in mind, I've been in several of these debates and as randall said I've also argued As a christian on my show Against another atheist and so I appreciate along with rapid porch rules being able to eloquently and and and correctly state your opponent's position back to them So as I've done that multiple times And had multiple debates on my show It is quite often that the christian says the onus is on the other guy I think everyone knows that when you're in a debate and someone takes the affirmative The affirmative should have the evidence the negative side of the debate is Evaluating whether or not your evidence is believable. And so I don't believe the onus is on me And that's why I take the negative position in these debates. I don't have a we're not debating whether or not god exists We're debating on whether or not this is rational to believe and under any circumstance I don't think it's ever been rational regardless of Education or debates or experience At the end of the day, this is very simple The core of the christian belief is that a jew died Resurrected after three days and then floated to heaven with a physical body and somehow disintegrated into a spiritual world That doesn't happen and it's irrational to believe it did regardless of how strong your faith actually is Thank you so much david um if we would like to just get into some discussion That would be great About like 50 minutes to an hour and then we'll head into question and answer Yeah, that's awesome. This is gonna be a lot of fun. I can tell Okay, so I'm gonna give you my my initial quick response to what uh david said and and then a couple couple maybe other points, but of course, I don't want to A blabber on for too long So I'll just say a few things and then you could david you can come back and we'll just go from there Okay, so it seems to me my initial take on on what you've said is that you've done something Which I find is very common, which is to map one's plausibility structure onto rationality Simplicator in other words Uh, you have a particular framework what we call them plausibility structures, uh to sort claims Truth claims and the ones that you find intrinsically plausible or initially plausible and those that you don't And then you simply use that and map that onto rationality so that anybody who doesn't share Your plausibility framework is thereby irrational Uh, such as you know, you're simply saying well, it's just to believe that this dead jewish person rose again And then if you put it floated up into the heavens and disintegrated Well, that's just obviously that's irrational Well, the fact is that many people disagree with you and I think the problem is that you are simply conflating or mistaken Your own plausibility framework with rationality Simplicator the one other thing I'll say at the outset and you can come back on that Um You talked about at the end about burden of proof, which I found that interesting So you said uh the person arguing the positive has the burden of proof and that's why you take the negative So kind of like the implying I got an easy job because I don't have to defend anything Uh, actually, I think that's doubly mistaken. So the first point is Imagine a debate between a person who believes there is a world external to our mind Such as what most people believe and then a person who believes there is no world external to the human mind such as George Barkley the famous philosopher his view was that there is no world external to the mind He's just denying. He's making a negative existential claim On your view, George Barkley would not have any burden of proof to defend idealism because He's simply taken the negative view that there is no world external to the mind But the world realist has the burden of proof because they've committed to arguing positively That there is in fact a world external to the mind and I mean that's absurd. Clearly Barkley does have to defend a position Uh, now, of course, you could say well, you know what though Barkley is in fact defending a positive position He's defending idealism. That's a famous philosophical view He's not just making a negative claim or no claim at all. He's making a positive claim about the nature of reality Okay, that's a good comeback. But that is the same that also applies to you You're making a positive claim about 2.3 billion christians being irrational So you do have a positive claim that you have to defend you've got a burden of proof just as surely So, let me let me just chime in. I I want to let you finish your your no, no, no, I'm good You can you can just go now. Well, I just want to reiterate I said in my opening randall that I do not think christians are irrational and you keep stating that back to me As if I said it and I'm I want to be very clear up up front. I'm not talking about people I'm not saying christians are irrational. I believe most christians are rational. I I that's my position completely they use They're they're rationale Every day they go to work. They understand what time they need to be there They put one foot in front of the other They don't stand on their porch and pray to float to their car They use their their their rational mind on a regular basis So please understand that when I talk about the it's it's To believe in the christian christian god is irrational. That doesn't make the person Irrational, I think it's a there are other external situations that lead a person to believe whether it be most of the time It's indoctrination most of the time it's if it's not that it's usually a traumatic event Or what they feel is a personal experience that happened to them because they were raised to believe it So when something happened they put those pieces together and it further confirmed their belief I don't think they are irrational people. I just want to be clear about that Okay, yeah, I I'm I'm gonna go ahead and accuse you of an informal fallacy of equivocation here I hate doing that, but I gotta do it because it's a debate. So I want to mix it up Keep it interesting for people So when you when one engages in a fallacy of equivocation, right? They're they're blending two distinct concepts together You're saying I'm not arguing the christians are irrational. They are rational okay, but What you're doing there is you're conflating. I think these two different concepts of rationality one is Generally rational in life and the other is rational or with respect to this specific set of beliefs Namely christianity and that is indeed all we're talking about here We're simply talking about with respect to christian beliefs You've made a claim with respect to christian beliefs that all 2.3 billion christians are irrational And that's all i'm talking about here. I'm not attributing to you the claims that christians are generally irrational so that uh, you know, we cannot We cannot make informed economic or political decisions or something else No, I I recognize that that you concede that point We're only talking about the irrationality of christianity and that nonetheless is a positive claim that you are committed to You are arguing that 2.3 billion christians are irrational with respect to their christian belief Yeah, again within rapaport's rules, and I know you're an educated man, and I know you are familiar with that dandan it writes about it often in his books in order to adequately respond to one's argument you should be able to adequately Recite their argument back to them in a way that they would say yeah, that's that's my position completely And you're just not doing that with all due respect It's that's just not my position at all I think that oftentimes throughout my experience talking with christians It seems that christians will take a single behavior Not every time not all christians, but christians often take on my show anyway a single behavior and apply that to the character of the individual meaning Have you ever stolen well, then you're a thief Have you ever told a lie then you're a liar and it's usually a more of the like fire and brimstone style Apologist that just wants to trap you into saying that you're a wicked wicked person You were born evil and you should be apologizing and all of that, but i'll say to them well if i've stolen something That's something i did that was a mistake if i've lied It's something that i did to maybe save someone's life or to help someone who had a medical condition There may be justifications for some of these things and even if it was completely wrong That could be a mistake i made in my past and i've moved past that now There are people who harmed people or were very violent or were gang members and are now You know Preachers that are traveling the country telling kids not to do that. Are they still a gang member? Are they still violent? Are they still A rapist are they still a crackhead? No, and so i don't think that so for me to say and we really shouldn't hang up this entire debate on this one thing But for me to say that someone made an irrational decision or that it's irrational to believe In the core of christianity or in the christian god And and let me just finish that statement It is not and i'm this is the last time i'm going to say it it is not to say All christians are irrational I can say that a person who goes to work every day and takes care of their kid and pays their bills on time And we'll sit and do puzzles Which is a very strong sign of rationality putting the pieces together someone can follow basic logical syllogisms And and come to conclusions. They can do homework. They can do math. They can do spreadsheets They know how to operate a computer, but then they have this belief That they can control rainbows They feel strongly spiritually connected to the earth Even as a non-believer that they can walk outside and command a rainbow to appear It is irrational to believe that But what I call that person irrational as the core of their being absolutely not They have something in them that's making them believe something irrational That doesn't mean they are a rational person I didn't attribute to you the language at the core of their being they are irrational In fact, I quite explicitly said the focus of this debate is solely on christian beliefs So for example, I have a good friend. He's a physicist. He teaches at the university of alberta His name is don page. He was the chief research assistant for richard for steven hawking between 1977 and 1978 He's a world leader on the origin of galaxies And he's a christian. He's a devout Mennonite and I think that you would certainly recognize he's very rational with respect to most of his life But you have staked out a position that by implication don page is irrational with respect to his christian beliefs And that's all that we're talking about. We're not talking about the core of beings or something else Now now you said uh, you made a concept or a suggestion that Well, one of the catalysts for most christians is indoctrination I just uh, don't want to get on a tangent here But I'd like to hear your thoughts as to whether or to what degree you think Atheists are naturalists or secularists might indoctrinate and I'll give you a specific example So this is barbara erin reich. She herself is an atheist and she says this in one of her books Oh, I should in an essay she says I was raised on a real strong secular humanist family The kind of folks who ground you for a week Just for thinking of dating a unitarian or worse Not that they were hardliners though We had over 70 bibles lying around the house where anyone could browse through them Gideons my dad had removed from the hotel rooms he stayed in And I remember how he gloried at every Gideon he lifted thinking of all the traveling salesman whose minds he probably saved from dry rot Looking back, I guess you could say I never really had a choice What with my parents always preaching think for yourself think for yourself Do you think it's possible that atheist secularist humanists naturalists can indoctrinate as well? Of course, it's possible. Um, I actually just covered this on my most recent podcast and I would encourage everyone to go listen I talked with uh youth pastor john gary who's been on my show multiple times specifically about atheists indoctrinating their kids For the most part I would say if it was a venn diagram More people who indoctrinate their kids are christian. I think most atheists Don't I think most atheists perhaps tell their kids what they believe But when the child asks, uh, do you believe in god, especially if one parent does one parent doesn't The atheist parent typically responds. I don't know. What do you think? Because the core and we talk about this at our conventions and all the science conferences and atheist conferences Our core message is teacher kids how to think not what to think In in barbara's situation She was very likely indoctrinated into into uh, secular humanism Uh, I definitely taught my daughter what I think is the best worldview and I would never apologize for that But I also Read, uh, children's bibles with her. I taught her about Thor. I taught her about all sorts of mythology And I said, you know, this is this these are all the things out there on easter I would sit down and explain to her about the goddess of ester and fertility and she's one of the few young people Who understand why we have an easter bunny and eggs on easter Uh, she understands the reality and where that actually goes back to and that it had nothing to do with jesus originally I tell I teach her accurate history But to your question is it possible? Of course, it's possible I just don't think it happens near as much because the key with indoctrination is Teaching someone this is the only immutable truth Christians by nature do that. This is the truth God is watching you if you don't believe you're going to be thrown into a lake of fire Like there's all sorts of brands of this, right? But it's this idea that god is real and this is the reality and a lot of times anything outside of that Will break family bonds Atheists will typically go. I don't believe this stuff. But here's a book on jesus. Here's a book on thor. Here's a book on demeter Here's a book on You know christina and how he was hanged in a tree and his blood ran down to redeem the earth. Gosh, that sure sounds familiar Uh, we teach our kids about all sorts of mythology. So I then asked my listeners I said even if you're an adult I want you to write me and tell me If you're still afraid or have ever been afraid to tell your parents that you were an atheist and I received an influx of messages Only one atheist so far out of the thousands or hundreds of thousands who've listened to the podcast. I haven't checked the downloads yet One atheist said hey, I must be the outlier. My parents definitely raised me to believe that there was no god for sure Okay, so yeah, it happens. But not on the grand scale that indoctrination happens within christianity Okay, you've got you've got some anecdotal experiences there that you interpret in support of generalized statistical norms over populations I mean the next challenge would be to Provide rigorous statistical evidence if you want to make statistical generalizations, but now hold on. I'm sorry Randall you just provided anecdotal evidence from barbarous perspective and now you're accusing me of doing that to defend myself Yes, because I'm not making any claim about the ratios within populations. I gave one specific anecdote Which would provide evidence that at least one person was indoctrinated Is this debate about the rationality of christianity or about atheist indoctrinating their kids because I'd like to stay on the topic Yeah, so so the point I'm making is that you are the providing evidence you're making claims Which I'm just pointing out that you didn't provide statistical claims to support They're being more christians indoctrinated than atheists How many christian kids do you think are indoctrinated? I mean, I guess I guess I could are you are you honestly saying that you think more atheist indoctrinating their kids than christians? I see a lot of indoctrination in the atheist community I don't know. I can't make generalizations because I don't have statistical generalizations So I won't make them. What would the atheist? What would the atheist even say to the kid? I hate to pardon my interruption So sorry guys just to technically we are kind of off of topic unless there's a way in which if there's an explanation of like how this Directly kind of relates to whether or not christian belief is rational We can cope. We can keep going with it. Otherwise Yeah, let's come back to christian belief. So so david would what How many kids do you think are indoctrinated and what happens to the rest of them the christian kids? Okay, that's not the point of the debate either Randall. No, no, because because because because the debate is the irrationality of christianity So I'm gonna my daughter. I'm gonna respond in line. What was she? So I'm gonna respond in line with the debate topic that we agreed to talk about here So not only is the core of christianity, which you still haven't addressed by the way in my opening remark which was a response to yours that This jewish believing guy died and then rose from the dead Let's just stop there Resurrecting from the dead is irrational And then a human physical body with bones and flesh Ascending or floating up to the sky Where did it go? There is not a heaven up there. There is no firmament in the sky The original words for that meant something solid We now know that's not the case because we fly through what's called the firmament every time we're on a on an airplane So now believing that he went up to something is irrational and then how did his body disintegrate into what? How did he become a spirit? Where did his flesh go? Where did his bone go? You have to suspend rationality in order to believe this And then we have this whole other problem with this the the contradictions of god himself in the old testament As dan burscher said, how about we address the first bit there? Okay Okay, so let let me do two things so the first thing I think the one problem with your opening statement at the beginning Was you pointed to what you believe are alleged defeaters for the truth of christianity? So you said well, yeah, there's not good evidence in your view for the resurrection of jesus And you extrapolate from that that for example isabel Would be irrational to accept the testimony of her father john polkinghorn the physicist anglican priest But that doesn't follow because there can be good objections to a view and a person can still be rational to accept the view Particularly if not, they're not even aware of those defeaters There are for example Good objections to moral realism And yet most parents I think are perfectly justified in teaching their children the difference between good and evil Teaching their children that it is an objective difference and the children are are rational to accept that testimony I mean, do you not agree with that? I agree with that Okay So then you would agree that even if there are defeaters for a particular view a person can still be rational to accept the view No, I think the person can be rational. I think the view itself can still be irrational Which I've said at least six times now Which do you believe that there do you believe there are good objections to moral realism? Of course Okay But so then can a parent be rational to teach their child The difference between good and evil as an objective truth and can the child be rational to accept? Within reason I suppose Okay, but then that's the same parallel with isabel and john polkinghorn that polkinghorn can testify to her certain truths He believes things to be true Such as the teleology of nature or the fact that god made creation She could be rational to accept that even if there are defeaters that you believe are significant against Christianity Well, when you're talking about a parent you're also talking about a very strong difference in mental capacity A parent telling a child something Um, I believe that that would probably slide the scale of rationality when you're talking about a rationality when talking about a child Um, but I want to know from you Which part is rational about christianity? The the dead guy coming back to life. Do you find that rational? Do you find it rational that a human body floated and and ascended What about that is rational? Is it rational that he disintegrated and his bones turned into something else and he ended up in a spiritual realm Where's the rationality within those three pieces of your belief? Yeah, so this is a good so first of all, I want to just underscore the last point So we don't forget it and then we can move on to that So you are conceding That that there can be objections to a view and yet a person who's unaware of those objections can rationally accept that view Even if you think they're a significant objective That's not a concession. I never I never disagree. I never disagreed with that. Yes, but the implication is That isabel can be rational to accept the implication as you're avoiding answering my question and you're talking around the topic We agree to talk about no, so please answer my question This is the topic can isabel be rational? Yes, by implication if she can be rational to accept moral realism When there are good arguments for anti realism She can be rational to accept Christianity even though there are good objections to Christianity in your view That is directly the topic because it follows that not all people are automatically irrational as you claim Randall You are still saying I am talking about people And their ability to be rational Only with respect to Christianity the topic of this debate is is it rational meaning the belief? So Past each other The beliefs are only rational irrational with respect to believers who hold them Beliefs don't exist out in a nebulous realm Without a believer and then have the status of being rational or irrational Right, but you're trying to make my you're straw-meaning my position to make it sound like I am attacking individuals and saying they are not rational human beings And that's not it. I'm not no, I'm not concerned with with I believe you said his name was john and his daughter isabella I'm not concerned with their ability to be rational. I've asked you a direct question What is rational about a dead jew coming back to life? Floating up to the sky and disintegrating to a spiritual realm Please provide an answer and you're affirmative about how that is a rational thing to believe Yeah, okay, so so so what we'll leave that behind. I'll note that Don page for example, I think he's I think that you all I already pointed out to you Excessively that I think you do recognize don page is usually rational But you nonetheless do believe he's irrational with respect to christian faith. That's all we're talking about again Okay, so have you looked at the evidence for the resurrection? Like do you know why christians believe that because as I said one of the important Aspects of rationality is the ability to steal man the opponent So what the way that I hear you talking about christianity is a way of trying to make it look foolish in the same way that a christian might say Do you know that naturalists believe the universe popped out and nothing how ridiculous and they believe that a human being came from a monkey Which came from goo and that would just be a way of straw manning Naturalism you got to take it seriously and you got to try to give it the strongest presentation, which is called steel manning That's what that rationality looks like So let's take a look at paul the apostle paul Do you concede that the apostle paul wrote at least seven of his epistles which is the vast majority consensus of new testament scholarship? Yes Yeah, okay, so so let's look at two of those epistles Uh in collage in first chrintians 15 Verse three in following now. Do you do agree that first chrintians is likely dated from the year 54? Or do you have a reason for dating it somewhere else? No, that's pretty close. Yeah Okay, that's that seems that seems to be the consensus of the um Of the of the scholars. So yeah, I'm fine with that Okay, so so in first chrintians chapter 15 Paul's writing back to this church that he had earlier visited in corinth in about the year 51 He says what I believe or what I received I passed on to you as the first importance That's official rabbinic language for the passing on of tradition When you receive tradition from a rabbi you faithfully pass on that tradition So what paul is noting there is he had earlier received a teaching within the church And he received that and then in about the year 51. He taught that to the chrintians And then he goes on and he says that jesus died That he died for our sins. He was buried. He was raised again And then he was seen by keyfist, which is the name for peter And james the brother of jesus and then he adds said that appears most scholars believe that that's the original cretiform And then paul also adds 500 other brothers and then he says last of all to me as to one of normally born So then the next question is when did paul received that teaching Well, in one of his other letters galatians is commonly dated to around the year 49 paul says in galatians 118 That after his own conversion to christianity He traveled up to jerusalem three years later to meet with peter and he met with peter for two weeks And he also met with james and he stayed with them to ensure that what he was teaching was the same thing as what they were teaching Consequently most new testament scholars and people have to understand that new testament scholarship is not a pietistic endeavor includes atheists and good skeptics in atheists like gerrit ludemann or you know a drastic like bart airman So most scholars believe that paul likely by that point would have received this cretiform in first chrintians 15 From peter if not before that means that it was already circulating in the area in jerusalem in around the year 37 So even a scholar like james dun who is not by any means a conservative christian scholar In his in his book jesus jesus raised he dates that cretiform to approximately the year 33 34 within months of the death of jesus So what do you think of that because the question we have to ask answer as historians Is where did the belief First of all in the atoning death of jesus come from because that's an extraordinary revelation Or a revolution in jewish thinking Because jews believed in deuteronomy anyone who dies on a tree is cursed jesus was cursed but was died on a tree He was crucified That was considered the most ignominious form of death in the roman empire And yet they suddenly began to believe that jesus was raised again So what changed their belief that the person who had died cursed was in fact messiah? Well paul gives it to us right there He says that he was seen by peter and james another thing we have to recognize is that james because there are so many Forgive me. I hate to interrupt randall just because there are so many ideas to kind of keep track of Is that if we're able to Summarize and then kick it over to david and then we'll give david roughly a four minute response Yeah, okay, I appreciate that you know the tough thing is that when somebody says what's the evidence for this? I mean i can go on for a long time right because i've i teach this stuff Right, so um, so it places me at a disadvantage that people raise an extreme skeptical claim and then I don't have the the appropriate space to respond to but I appreciate that Well, I just want to know that's why I let people talk way more than I do on my own podcast because I realize these questions Have a long explanation and my atheist listeners get frustrated for me just sitting there and listening to the christian talk But to be fair The the short questions I ask do often have long answers So i'm not offended at all that you take more time to answer well Yeah, I I also recognize that the respect the form of the parody of our conversation that we do have to be approximately equal So I mean i'll just kind of to end with this so The evidence in the gospels Is that the brothers of jesus were skeptics of his ministry during his life? There's something historians call the criterion of embarrassment that you don't include details That are embarrassing your cause unless they're true So john chapter seven for example refers to the brothers of jesus to being skeptics likewise in the synoptics matthew mark and luke Of the family of jesus is skeptical of his claims and yet james is described as becoming one of the disciples In fact, josephus the jewish historian Describes james is having been martyred in jewsland in the year 62 for his christian faith He became the leader of the church in jewsland So we have to explain what changed james's mind And then another huge question is what changed paul because there is not a Notable historian who denies that paul began as a persecutor of the christians and then was converted to their cause So what explains that it's only when you begin to look at that data and then look at the resurrection as a hypothesis to explain the data Can you begin to appreciate the case? okay, so Really what's at the core of all of this is he said he said he said he said he said And he really believed it and he really believed it and he really believed it What we're talking about at the apostles creed we're talking about this passed down Sort of chant or or poem or I don't know how you would refer to it This this this memorized story that was passed down through rabbinical tradition now We've all played the game of telephone. I know you've heard that argument a million times when you pass things down things can change and Do you believe that islam is a true religion? Do you believe mohammed is the one true prophet of ala? Uh, no, you're a christian. You you don't believe that yet If people being convinced by something is evidence for it being true Islam is more true than christianity because islam is more popular than christianity So if your take is a lot of people believe that and a lot of people change their minds That that that doesn't mean that thing is true because a lot of people have converted to islam And there are powerful things like like family structure And I know tons of atheists who go to church who say they believe and really don't For external reasons family. They don't want to disappoint their grandma or whatever it is They don't want to fight with their brother or their boss is a christian and that's how you get promotions Like it just it just depends so a lot of people believing something is Is is not evidence that it's true a guy writing it down is not evidence of it being true People passing it down by memory is not evidence of it being true It's evidence of it being successfully passed down But it's very possible that these were fictional stories and that jesus was deified over time in fact if you read The gospels in the order starting with mark seeing that it's the oldest You'll see that he gets more deified as it goes and by john he is absolutely god And it's this really powerful moment, but in mark jesus is like why do you call me good? Nobody's good except god alone He doesn't really claim necessarily to be so holy early on So it's almost as if The author of matthew read mark and added a little bit to the story and then luke read matthew and add a little bit to the story and then john Kind of went haywire with it and made him completely deified So people passing down information is not a way to determine whether or not it's true We have old wives tales that we hear all the time Like you can't go swimming for an hour after you eat We've passed that down for years And everybody's heard it multiple people have heard it other people have said Yeah, that's what my mom believed and and my dad believed and my grandma always told me that when I went to my friend's house His mom told me the same thing. We it's not true You're you're not going to get a cramp in your stomach and die and drown because you went in after having a hot dog But we passed down wrong information all the time So you can live in the south for 10 minutes and see that so i'm i'm not still convinced that He said this thing and he passed it down and a lot of other people believe that in people change their minds That is not evidence that a dead man came back to life and floated to heaven and disintegrated to a spiritual world You need much more extraordinary evidence for such an extraordinary claim Okay, you you reference the beginning the apostles creed. I didn't reference the apostles creed The apostles creed didn't come in its earliest form until the mid-2nd century. I was quoting 1st crinthians 15 Which is an early creedal form You talked about the telephone game The telephone game here does not apply as I pointed out a couple things first of all Paul's using formal rabbinic language here again The these were serious scholars In in an oral culture They did just not make up stuff as they went along They carefully ensured that what they were passing on was as they had received it. How do you know? Well, for example, you can take a look at the Dead Sea Scrolls. So the fact that When the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in 1947 Then we now had a copy of the book of Isaiah, which is more than a thousand years earlier than the previously accessed oldest copy And there were only minor grammatical differences between them That's how you get stability of tradition because these people didn't just make up stuff as they went along Now another thing Another thing I wanted to point out is that the creed in 1st crinthians 15 is dated to the 30s and it's dated to Jerusalem So this isn't something where there was time for a legend to develop We have to look and explain through Possible serious explanations As to what explained the origin that jesus this crucified individual was in fact messiah Which revolutionized the jewish understanding of messiahship because jews believe the messiah would either be a conqueror of the romans And or a great priest Not that he would die on a cross the only category they have for dying on a cross Was a cursed huckster So the moment that jesus died on a cross They would have been out of there unless there was some catalyst for them to change their belief And so you have to look seriously what that catalyst is Now even someone like garip luderman who is an atheist and a new testament scholar He admits as most new testament scholars do there is actually a consensus in the scholarship on this and it isn't any field A consensus doesn't automatically make it right, but you do have to take it seriously and look at why there is a consensus There is a consensus that the disciples saw some That they became convinced that jesus had indeed risen from the dead Now the way luderman explains it is he says well peter must have really felt bad That he had betrayed jesus that he had denied him as we have reported in the gospels and so he projected this greek hallucination And then became convinced that that greek hallucination had indeed raised from the dead And to me that's an extraordinary claim Um greek hallucinations people when they have a greek hallucination They don't reason that that person is resurrected because greek hallucinations do occur Um, it also doesn't explain how james changes mind. It doesn't explain what happened at all And it also doesn't explain the evidence for an empty tomb Which is certainly implied in first chrintins 15 when it talks in the greek agarro To be raised again and a stations be to resurrect This the whole implication here is of a bodily corporeal resurrection by implication an empty tomb If the body was still in the tomb the romans would have been able to produce it and shut the whole thing down Could know it exploded throughout the roman empire from that point Now it seems to me that aprioride You're just not open to considering a possibility that something far outside of your plausibility structure has occurred But i don't think that that in itself is indicative of rationality I think that's indicative of closed-mindedness Because the world may be very different than you or i currently believe and you have okay, let me let me answer Let me answer because there's so much you've covered and now we're getting accusatory. So let me chime in and tell you I'm definitely not closed-minded I am open to the most Rational response to each thing that you're talking about when we say that this person really believes it Is it rational that a dead guy came back to life and floated to a spiritual realm and disintegrated? Or is it rational that he was convinced by someone else to believe that? Okay, way more rational to believe he was convinced than a dead Jew came back to life and floated to heaven. So I'm not closed-minded. I'm just leaning toward the most rational Answer for these things. The same is true for it being passed down for years and years I've already addressed that we constantly passed down misinformation and there were several more things I was going to respond to but There was just so much there I forgot but I'm sure if you reiterate some of your arguments I'll be able to respond but I I'm definitely not closed-minded to this and Honestly, it sounds like what you're reiterating is Other people really believe it. So it must be true and I just Randall, I don't know how that can be taken seriously at all If other people strongly believe it and they pass it down You don't know if they were lying. You don't know if they were changing I know if you've done your research, which you obviously have you're familiar with the story of of Jesus saying he who is without sin cast the first stone Most Christians are Christians talk about that all the time And you probably know just like I do that was not in the original that was added many years later And many people call it a forgery, right? So and then and then super devout Christians will say no no no If it's in the scripture, then god, you know approved it. It's got god stamp of approval It's still god's word. So is all scripture god god breathed as peter wrote or to timothy or is it Is it that you can add stuff later and And then it's just accepted as god's word because it made it into the bible There are definitely things in the bible that we're missing. There are things where we only have Something the size of a credit card on the page and then an unknown scribe Filled in the rest based on what they think the person was trying to get it at There is tons of research on holes in scripture things missing about scripture And I think it's irrational to believe that these random unknown scribes Are speaking for god, especially when this book was written over 1600 years by 43 different people in three different languages So I still haven't heard other than other people really believe it I still have not heard your rational defense For a dead person coming back to life floating to heaven and disintegrating to a spiritual world somebody else believing it's not good enough for me Yeah, I Don't I that's us. Okay. That's a straw man I my argument has not and never been a lot of people believe it so it must be true No, in fact what I've done is no what I did is I first of all Rebudded your claim about the telephone game or the possibility of legendary change By giving immediate temporal proximity and geographic proximity to the events in the 30s That's where the creator rose I pointed out that there is a rabbinic context of the passing on of tradition that they did not willy-nilly Innovate other people believe it and other people said it. That's what you're saying passed on what they received I pointed out that this was a revolution in the way Jews thought That you have to explain how they completely the early Christians changed their understanding Of the messiah so that a crucified person which was traditionally considered to be a cursed person And crucifixion being the most horrific way and shameful way to die in the ancient world That that person in fact was messiah you have to explain that You talked about how well in the gospels the idea of of jesus is being divine this high view of jesus Evolved gradually. Well, you know what? I cited first chrintians 15, right also in first chrintians chapter 8 verse 6 Paul says For us, there is what one god the father and one lord jesus christ What he is doing there is he's taking the jewish shema Hero israel the lord that god the lord is one and he's now inserting jesus within that confession Uses the greek word kurios for lord, which was in the greek translation of the old testament the septuagint That was the word commonly used to apply to god And he includes that to use it for jesus and puts it into the shema Showing that the early christians like paul were now at the point of equating jesus on the level of god the father These were the most rigorous devout monotheists in the ancient world And one of them who initially was persecuting christians Had an experience and he completely changed his mind and believed that jesus was raised from the dead and 20 years later He's describing jesus as divine in first chrintians chapter 8 For that kind of data you don't just wave your hand and says well you just believe a lot of people believe it so Must be true. No, you actually have to roll up your sleeves look at the evidence and look at all the possible hypotheses Oh the evidence the data that you're talking about is people saying they believe it It's a fancy way for you to say a lot of people believed it and wrote it down 3500 years ago or 2000 years ago and now I believe it too. That's just not good enough for me randall I I don't that doesn't make someone dead for three days coming back to life Suddenly a rational belief because other people wrote it down It doesn't matter if there were four or 40 or 400 that believed it There were 918 people that believed jim jones was the messiah enough to kill themselves by drinking the kool aid So a lot a lot of people believing something irrational happens all the time with humans I'm I'm not convinced that it's suddenly Rational to believe in the christian god because people a long time ago believed it and wrote it down I'm just that's not convincing to me and this is and that's just the new testament stuff What about the old testament? What about this idea that god loves humanity? but was sending plagues down and and You know hardened the pharaoh's heart in exodus 9 and then later when the so that he wouldn't listen to to moses and erin And then later when he wouldn't listen god and his infinite wisdom Decided to start killing the first born of everybody in the pharaoh's village In order to convince the pharaoh to let the people go when god hardened his heart in the first place How was this a god of love doing this to people and sending plagues and treating people like this and you know burning sodom and gemora and calling lot A man of god when he offered his two daughters up to be raped by the villagers to save angels I mean so much about I don't mean to gish gallop. I'm gonna let you respond, but so much about this is irrational That's it's not just the new testament other people believed it and wrote it down So I believe that it's also the very concept as dan barker calls it a married bachelor Is god loving or is god a torturous maniac who is setting cities on fire? He and himself contradicts his own his own properties. He has mutually Exclusive properties that are all attached to him that also make him unbelievable and irrational to believe it That was a gish gallop, but I've done my own galloping this evening. So I'll let it slide Now I said in my opening statement that To defend the rationality of christianity is not to defend any particular interpretation And and so that would certainly apply to some of the debates. Let's say about how to understand the old testament So for example the book I mentioned at the beginning conversations with my inter atheist There's a chapter in there on how do you understand? biblical violence in terms particularly I focus there on Torah violence I'll there's also a chapter on how do you understand natural disasters There's god punitively interact with people punishing people through natural disasters And I take some critical perspectives on that that are different from many other christians So I think we would definitely be down a rabbit hole if we got into some of those topics because those are Intramural christian debates, but we've been talking about you know, the resurrection of jesus is right at the heart of christianity And that's what makes it especially relevant um, okay, so Let me ask real quick. Was the debate topic christianity or was it the christian god james? Can you confirm that christian belief more broadly? okay Like I think in one of my the opening email I had that it was is the belief in the christian god rational But I just interpret that as belief in christianity being rational. So I think I think so so a lot of times christians will challenge me to say, you know, you're you know What what posit like you can't prove god doesn't exist. That's an old. I don't know you don't say that but One of the comments I make back to that is well the more specific about you get the sorry The more specific you get about your god the more attributes you you align um The more confidently I can say with positivity that that's impossible for that god to exist So I don't know what brand of god you believe in I don't know if you're if you're christian But you're more like well, there are a lot of mistakes in the old testament. I don't really believe god did all those things I think the new testament is word for word, but the old testament isn't I hear from all different kinds of christians on my show So I don't really know where your branding is but I think that if you believe every word in the bible literally It is impossible that that god exists and that would be a positive claim Because of the contradicting principles, right? But you're right. We don't need to go down that rabbit hole But I think that the bible the bible is a diverse library of genre of literature to talk about A single hermeneutic a single mode of interpreting everything literally is just absurdity No, I agree. I agree. I mean it is absurdity that you will find that sometimes among christian fundamentalists Which is why I wanted to be clear at the outset. We're not talking about that right like genesis genesis alone reads very much like poetry There's no way that was being literal to say this happened this happened this happened It's clearly poetry. It's like, you know on day one when I met you the stars, you know entered my heart It's it's supposed to be poetic and the original language if you if you even just look at it and can't read it You'll see that it's very much structured as poetry But there are people who you know fight to the death defending that every literal word is the word of god and yeah, yeah genesis one is is uh It's poetry in the sense of structured language. It's a cosmogonic creation narrative There's there's a clear structure there should not be interpreted literally there First three days are three days of structure and creation the next three or three days of filling So, yeah, that's a just a anachronism to read it in terms of modern newspaper account Do you think that naturalism can be rational I think it's the most rational position because I I I can't I can't Listen, I want to be clear that I'm not some absolutist that says like I consider myself an agnostic atheist I'm always open to evidence So me saying that it's the only position that it will ever be true is dogmatic And so that's not my position my position is with with the evidence I have This is the most reasonable thing to believe for example I have a friend in north carolina worth millions and millions of dollars. He's a donor. He's an executive Producer for movies. He's a very wealthy man. If he were to call me and say hey, man, I just bought a new ferrari You should come check it out He could be lying, but it's rational to believe him, right? But if my mother who is a retired woman at you know in her sixties Who is who just barely paid her house off so she could have some some relaxation in retirement Were to call me and say hey, I just bought a ferrari It would not be rational to believe her. She could be telling the truth She could have gotten a great deal. She could have taken out a massive loan She could have won the lottery and I didn't know about it But it would be rational for me to believe my rich friend and irrational for me to believe my mother Would you agree with all of that? Well, let me just focus on the naturalism question Without wanting to just I was going to finish that I just want to know would you agree with that? Well, there can be defeaters to a claim about you know warning a particular kind of car on that, which is why Rationality is always a contextualized judgment as I said in my opening statement But but but simply put wouldn't it be more rational? Would it be rational to believe the rich guy and not rational to believe the elderly woman who just retired? I mean, I think it's a pretty clear cut. Yes. I don't sure all things being equal. Yeah Okay. All right. So my all I'm saying is When we go back into time And think about who wrote those scriptures We don't know If they were the rich guy or the recently retired woman We don't know I guess I just had on my my podcast the other day John Gary talked about a situation where he saw in a Pentecostal church Someone in his family Um Write down ahead of time what she was going to say in tongues and then write down ahead of time What that translation was going to be and then the following day he saw her perform it in church And I said, what did that make you feel? How did you think about it? He's like what I thought about how she lived her life and how she was being incredulous to the faith and all this other stuff and I said well, hold on And here's the same question I have for you. We know that people abuse the faith We know that people lie about being about god talking to them and them saying god said this and we can't prove it How do we know Who was writing this stuff down? Were they people were they were they people like his relative? Were they people making claims that weren't true at all? Did they have political genders to control women? Like paul clearly did And control populations women aren't allowed to speak in church It is shameful for women to speak if a woman is to talk she's the woman has questions She should go home and ask her husband. All this is in the same book of of of corinthians that you're talking about here first corinthians I think 14 33 and 34 and then first timothy 211 and 12 I'll rig by paul where he's very demeaning to us and first corinthians 14. Are you familiar with the context of that? I am I am I am I am my point is paul clearly had a had an agenda All of the other people just really quick. Let's let's have a david finishes point here and then uh, dr Rouser, you can respond. Yeah, just say just call me randall. Okay. Yeah, thanks Yeah, every doctor I've ever met hates being called doctor. So I always just refer to them by their first name Which is why I'm doing that for randall today. Um, but uh, I'll say that um Basically what I'm getting at is when we look into we know paul had an agenda We know that some people could have an agenda. We know paul did have one And we don't know about the other authors So we don't know if they were credible We don't know if they were the dr Fauci of their time or if they were the crazy guy screaming nonsense on the corner that we completely ignore Because a lot of the things that are in the book a lot of the things that preachers say in churches If he was standing on a street corner screaming it a dead guy just woke up. You need to worship him We would walk past that guy and just not make eye contact, right? But because it was written down in a book 2000 years ago It becomes more solidified and then we believe it but at the end of the day There's no evidence to support it other than other people wrote it down and really believed it And that's just not good enough for me to suddenly mean So suddenly believe that it's now considered rational and that's my position in this debate It is still irrational even though other people believed it We're going to this might be a good time. I'm sorry I know that randall that you've got another round in the chamber ready to fire But uh, just because don't do that to him. Oh no, but just because we we had uh randall start will Switch over now into the q&a want to say thanks so much for your questions folks Both of our guests are linked in the description folks. So you're listening and you're like, hey, I want to hear more You can hear more. That's why I put those links down there just for you And what i'm going to do is i'm sending over the first half of the questions to Carissa right now and what I will do is as she is reading those I will also be kind of wrangling in the other questions I'm having some challenges with the copy and paste with uh over here for some reason, but I will read the first one So Carissa, I just sent those over to you and I'll read the first question This one comes in from michael the canadian atheist. Thanks for your question. Michael says How do you reconcile the errors in the bible i.e. global flood people made from dirt or a resurrection? How did you go about? rationalizing quote unquote the things we We know can't happen I think that's for you randall Okay, well in terms of resurrection. I've certainly provided arguments Initial preliminary arguments as to the historical evidence that there would be for a resurrection in terms of So people coming from dirt or something. Well, I think that genesis two should not be understood as a newspaper account I think that it's it is as david use a language poetic. I think that's that's fair So it's described in the human beings are emerging from the earth In fact, many theistic evolutionists are christians who believe that god created its revolution believe that's a good metaphor for the origin of human beings Likewise when it comes to genesis six to nine, which is the flood narrative I think the the the casual reader will often miss some of the bigger picture of the flood narrative I don't think you should interpret that the certainly genesis one to eleven is often considered what we would sort of call a prehistory It's an etiology which is laying down sort of foundations of the origins of things and I think the primary focus Of of the global flood story of noah Is that we have to understand it's what we call a chiasm now in in hebuah chiasm There's a literary structure which kind of goes a b c b a and so then c at the center Is the one idea at the center? That's the main point and in Genesis chapter eight verse one It says god remembered noah and that is the center of a vast three chapter chiasm and that's overall message Not to get hung up on trying to read this literally as the blood literally inundating the earth Because it is written against the backdrop of ancient Near Eastern Hebrew cosmology, which we don't accept today David alluded earlier to something called the rakia a hard dome that holds the waters above the ocean The notion of the sky Up above the earth and that is what floods in the narrative let's understand that's written within the context of an ancient Near Eastern understanding of science So you have to have the proper understanding of the text But if you do that, I think you find that there's a lot more going on than people initially You bet. Thank you David, did you want to add anything to that or or uh, I just I just want to thank the the the person for uh for For asking that question. I think it just points out that um For most atheists the bible becomes less credible And those things like that like saying that the sun froze in the sky or that you know, there was a That there were even three evenings and mornings before there was ever a moon and a sun Like these little things that many christians will go. Well, it's the context or well It's poetry or well, it's this or that All of those things while even like what color was the robe jesus was wearing some say purple some say scarlet like You may roll your eyes and go. That's not a big deal Like who knows but all of these things do add up for atheists and at some point we go This book is making an extraordinary claim But it's wrong or argues with itself on so many other points I probably wouldn't believe it even if it was right about everything else But it's wrong about so many things including You know talking animals like a donkey in the llama had a conversation on the road to Damascus or the talking serpent So when the bible does make these little errors or contradictions that chips away at how credible The book is to believe especially when it makes a claim like a dead man woke up and floated Thank you so much, david. Um the next question we have our comment is from jmd apologetics Be sure not to miss my after show. So be sure to check that out Tom's chair is the next comment. He says If god shows up, it's game over no more debates It's um, it is not more rational to believe that theists knows no things Um, and they keep us chasing the string question mark If you have any I love that you said I love that you said the question mark My favorite part about that whole thing Just to clarify it's a question if if you can tell me it sounds like it's it's sounds like an atheist making the argument of divine Hiddenness, which is probably for a Randall's while let him respond I think he's saying like if god If god just showed up it would be over there'd be no more debate So why doesn't he do it and whatever it is that would convince me god knows what it is Why doesn't he just Make it obvious like he did you know with with doubting thomas and that whole thing So I I think that was my interpretation that it was probably a divine hiddenness argument if randall wants to respond Okay, well divine hidden s so that was a an argument originally developed by john l shellenberg a canadian philosopher And i'm actually he gave an endorsement to one of my books as well And um, he wrote a little book if you're interested in the hiddenness argument called the hiddenness argument Which I would recommend and I've actually got it, you know a review of that book in which I offer rebuttal of the central claim The basic idea I mean it would take us a little far afield here, but I would just say that Um, god can have sufficient reasons for revealing himself gradually within creation Just like let's say a parent can have gradual sufficient reasons for gradually revealing themselves to specific That'd be a really quick Thank you randall. Um next question we have is from rib if I have kids i'll tell them What I believe and what other theists believe what's wrong with that if i'm not persuading them either way Well, I think as a as a parent regardless of your worldview Your responsibility is to lead your child down the best path that you see Right, so when christians take their kids to church and say I believe in god, I think they're probably Doing what they think is best for their child and I've I've Helped many atheists sort of let go of their anger for their parents because the atheists would write me and say I'm so mad at my mom and dad for lying to me all these years And I would say look they were doing the best for you that they thought they could with the knowledge they had Um, and I think all of us as parents. That's our responsibility and that's our job So so teaching your kids what you think is best is one thing The thing that sets us apart is atheists often or many humanists often Encourage their children to challenge authority Challenge it fact check it look it up. What do you think and we sort of get them started at an early age on being rational Debating having little worldview discussions and arguments about the existence of certain things and the existence of different gods As to where in the christian bubble um Challenging authority is a huge no no the preacher is you're not going to raise your hand and challenge him or ask questions Um, oftentimes it's whatever, you know, you did something you need to go. Why because I said so I was raised in that christian household and I it's not just anecdotal and the many emails that I've received from my atheist listeners have confirmed that Um, so I think that's a that's a pretty spot on question, but I agree. There's nothing wrong with Teaching your child what you think is best Just be sure for the sake of humanity Remember that your job is to teach your child how to live without you, right? That's ultimately what you want It's a productive human that you leave behind when you're gone. You don't want that person Quite, you know, just believing blindly whatever someone with authority tells them You want to teach them how to think not what to think so allow them to challenge you respectfully That's my plea for that gosh We do have to I I can jump in because I've got the questions What we'll probably do is unless absolutely necessary We can like have some exceptions if someone wants to give kind of a counter response to a question We can do that Otherwise, what we'll probably do is just have one person per question on each one But Randall I have a feeling you might have had a a response to that last one I might be reading you're wrong though. Let me know if I am I always have a response No, I would I would just say that like I wrote a book called you're not as crazy as I think in which I outlined What proper education looks like in contrast to indoctrination and I've sought to implement those principles within my household And in that book I when I outlined the main hallmarks of indoctrination I've point out that a lot of indoctrination does occur within the secular community in particular With new atheists people like Richard Dawkins As opposed to someone like my friend J.L. Schellenberg the divine hiddeness guy So I think that these are problems that occur in every doxastic or belief community And what we need to be really careful of is is having always think about the other guy and you know Their community is indoctrinated because that can blind us to the indoctrination in our own community And I know that David's had and other people have had experiences with churches that were insular And almost maybe even cultic in their orientation That was not my experience and that's not the experience of many other people Certainly not essential to Christianity Gotcha and literally If I if I could just say real quick any questions that you don't have time to get to I just want to throw this out there publicly If you have more questions then you can get to feel free to send them to me I'll be happy to have randall on my podcast and we can use those questions as a jumping point for a conversation Absolutely for sure and we will definitely pull a plug that for you folks So next question this one comes in from michael who says they're coming at you hard david They said what study do you have that shows indoctrination is more common among christians? Do you prefer this is sassy? They say do you prefer science over confirmation bias influenced anecdotes? That's a fair point. There is no study about as far as I know of on indoctrination What I can tell you is And I've been an activist in the atheist community since around 2008 I started my started writing my book in The end of 2007 or so and actually came public Finished the book in 2010 and published it and around 2009 I became the editor of american atheist magazine was editor of secular world magazine And I've been involved on some level speaking doing podcast videos whatever for that that 10 to 12 year mark I can tell you that I have literally heard From hundreds if not thousands of atheists Who say I am terrified to tell my mom I don't believe I am if I tell my mom, I'm gonna my college funding is going to get cut off Gay kids 17 16 17 18 years old Being forced to go to gay repair to therapy Which the apa has absolutely condemned and said it's horrific and harmful That's been enforced by fundamental christian households Um They're not allowed to be their own person and they reach out to me and say Help me I'm proud to say that my show has had a massive impact on several people's lives Because they they it empowers them To be their own person to finally speak up to their father mother grandparent or whomever And say this is how I believe or this is how I don't believe And I'm okay with who I am. I'm okay with being gay I'm okay with being a woman who wants to be a preacher I've heard from female christians who say my show has empowered them To become a pastor or a preacher even though their their their church wouldn't allow it Gotcha. I have yet I have yet to hear let me finish this real quick. I promise The concept of an atheist saying Or a a a a christian saying i'm so terrified that my dad's a skeptic and I can't tell him I went to church with my boyfriend It might happen. It might be out there. I've literally never heard of that So uh for me and I suppose it's anecdotal But over a 12 year span speaking with hundreds and thousands of atheists and hearing their their heartfelt stories Of being kicked out of their homes of being beaten over this stuff over being uh, you know Forced to do things they didn't want to do and having their funds Christian parents taking christian grandparents taking the children of atheists and baptizing them behind their backs. There's at least 400 of those stories in my history and then fights and being kicked out of things not being allowed to come to christmas not being allowed to come I I I can't even imagine an atheist having a party for a holiday and not allowing someone to come because they are a christian It just doesn't seem to happen in the reverse I would be happy to do a study. I would be happy to be a part of the story the world I live in It's completely slanted in one direction Gotcha. So sorry. We we've got it just because I'm so sorry that the the location that I'm streaming at I've got a we've got to maybe uh kind of run through these questions that we have as fast as possible Uh, go ahead carissa. Okay. Um sunflower says david. I didn't hear a coherent response on the rationality of moral Realism you seem heavily flustered and frantic. Is moral realism irrational? Oh, no, there's nothing frantic or frustrated about that or flustered I guess it was mostly that it was completely off topic from the purpose of the discussion And as a host of my own show, I know what the host of this show We're probably thinking when the conversation takes a right turn somewhere And so I wanted to get us back on the topic I'll be happy to have randall along and talk about moral realism and and um Even objective morality because I'm one of the few atheists who is completely fine with saying there is There are certain things that are objectively morally true And a lot of atheists are not willing to take that position So I may not be the right person that you think I am to discuss moral realism Because I'm not the standard in the standard atheist mindset when it comes to that In fact, I've had debates on my show with other atheists on on subjective morality versus objective morality and moral realism So, uh, this debate just wasn't set up for that. So that's not the part of the topic So I'll be happy to have randall on my show and talk about it on my podcast Thank you Thank you and then rib. Thanks for your question who said to randall How do you know anything in the bible actually happened? I understand that you believe it But how do you know it happened exactly how it stated? Hey, uh, I'm gonna Do something a little bit cheeky and then answer that so I will just know that If you want to look at a sociological study of atheists in america with respect to rationality and so on There are a couple sociologists david williamson and george jancey that publish a book called there is no god atheists in america And they do actual statistical Study and a lot of interviews and they provide a lot of evidence through a sociological framework for indoctrination Um, and you know less than paradigmatic rationality will say now in terms of this person's question I think that that we need to keep the main thing the main thing so I've been here discussing I mean what the main topic we had in terms of the truth that christian claims in the bible is the death and resurrection of jesus You see that's the whole ball game In first chrinceans 1514 paul says that if christ has not been raised Then your faith is in vain Um, so that that's what we really need to focus on and in terms of how can you be historically justified in believing that jesus died and rose again. I mean I offered a very quick argument to that effect Based upon first chrinceans 15 and galatians chapter one And I do think that if you look at the evidence for all the data I laid out and look at all the alternative hypotheses Then you will not find a hypothesis That is as strong as the one that god raised jesus from the dead But i'm not even arguing that here all i'm arguing is that you could at least rationally believe that which i certainly think you can Thank you so much. Um j shy david. Do you honestly think it's rational to compare pagan myths To a historical person and do you not think Aquinas used reasoning? I don't know that We can prove that jesus was a historical person There are a growing number of mythicists who are not in the majority But do have interesting evidence in that realm So um you have Yes, yes, I think it's rational to compare the two because they're both based on faith. They just are at the end of the day Randall has is very educated. He's a very smart guy. I would love to have him on my podcast But he has very fancy ways of saying I believe it because a lot of other people believed it and wrote it down And since these different people wrote things down that all that coincide with each other that makes it more true And it just Doesn't and you don't have to be able to defend Methodological naturalism or moral realism and all of these traps that they set for you in order to know that it's irrational To believe that a dead guy came back to life and floated to a spiritual realm That that those things don't even play into that argument. So yes The the reason it seems more rational to think that a virgin gave birth And then that baby grew up to then be killed and then wake up and float um That seems more rational because likely you were taught that at a very very young age So you believe that because that's a part of your core belief system From when you were in that sponge-like state when your brain was absorbing everything as fact And then you get 27 years old and you hear about the Mormons And that god has his own planet colob and you go that's insane Well, what's different about that than a virgin giving birth and a guy being dead and coming back to life and floating The difference is the time at which you were taught it So yes, if you can pull yourself out of your own bias for a moment and realize that these are all different religious beliefs That people are taught from a young age You'll start to see that these myths show a pattern of things that are impossible to happen Yet many people believe they did so I think it's perfectly on board to compare those different myths James you said I can we can possibly squeak in a response. I just want to squeak in a little response here. Yeah, go ahead Okay, uh, so david said well, there are jesus mythicists and so that's sufficient reason to doubt maybe that jesus even existed 99 plus Of new testament scholars of classic scholars of ancient historians believe jesus existed. It's an overwhelming consensus In terms of mythicists You have richard carrier and rafael lataster are the only two individuals who have ever published even a peer-reviewed book On the topic robber price is also jesus mythicist and then there are a few other popular ones like david fifth gerald And then a lot of atheist youtubers Every one of those individuals is an atheist activist. They all do public debates. They speak out in favor of atheism If that less than 1 percent of atheist activists is a sufficient reason to doubt that jesus even existed I think that's a good example of david's confirmation bias Okay, I have I have a response to that very briefly So the 99.9 percent argument is used quite often And I just want to say that the vast majority of new testament scholars Work at christian universities and those christian universities Require these scholars to sign statements of faith in order to be hired and in order to keep their jobs So if a person starts to doubt their belief or then comes out and says they no longer believe the bible is true They could literally lose their job for it. I'm not saying most of them don't believe it But when we throw out statistics like 99.9 percent First of all, I'd love to see that study And secondly, we have to acknowledge that they are forced to sign statement of faiths in order to keep their jobs So that's a little different than just discounting this as some weird youtube theory I said, I don't know if jesus existed or not. I said, I don't know I doubt it That's a conspiracy I do I hate to interrupt But I do want to give david the last word just because uh that the super chat if I remember right was originally challenging david We do have another one and I'm so sorry guys, but I promise if you guys do do another discussion on david's Podcast or anywhere else we will seriously plug it so our audience can hear it because I know that we are I hate doing that to you guys where we're you know Kind of cutting it short. So j shy has the next question who says people have not Witnessed miracles in islam people didn't perform miracles and islam contradicts the early church fathers and the bible I'm not sure. Oh, there are no, no, no, there are I think I think rando will agree. There are muslims who Us claim to have seen miracles. So I mean, there are muslims who are willing to fly airplanes and to build things for their belief I mean if you're talking about a strong conviction of belief they literally Some of the extremists will be willing to blow themselves up and kill themselves For their belief So if you talk about people being willing to die for their belief in the bible, this is an extreme version I mean, I that's why I don't consider that evidence because most of the arguments That Other than separate corroborating texts or like the apostles creed most of the evidence that rando brought up today That same argument could be used by a muslim and an atheist debate to say A lot of people really believe it a lot of people are willing to die for it Therefore it's more likely true and it's rational to believe it And I just don't think that's that's sufficient evidence to evidence to consider it rational Gotcha and go ahead chris. So sorry Yeah, no you're good Michael says david quote a guy just writing or saying things is no evidence and quote without realizing That his very statement is just something a guy said Yeah, but that's again that goes back to the the What's at stake, right? I mean Again, it's back to the ferrari analogy. Yeah, that's my opinion But if you don't believe my opinion, I'm not going to throw you into a lake of fire You're going to be fine. You cannot believe me. You can disagree with me. It's okay I'm not going to threaten you under the under the threat of duress That if if you don't believe me terrible things are going to happen to you for eternity But if you want me to believe that your god Created all of this died for my sins so that I won't be thrown into a lake of fire You should have extreme evidence for your extreme accusation And then gotcha. Thanks so much. Chris. Can you read the next one? I've got a for some reason. I'm not plugged in Thanks for your help. Yeah, yeah, of course Next one is from stupid horror energy for randall doesn't Isiah 53 Mention a servant who will suffer and then see the light of light. So the jews did expect a dying messiah No So isiah 53 was interpreted by jews The suffering servant as referring to israel Not to a specific messiah of the revolution of identifying that passage With a suffering messiah comes with the time of jesus and the early christians prior to that isiah 52 53 was understood to apply to israel Gotcha. Thank you for your last question. This comes in. I think this last one We did have I think it was kirby said hi carissa saying hello to you out there and then We have one. This is michael says This is another one of those like quote and then quote michael says David says I don't believe it just because a lot of people claim it And then says also david I believe christianity is more dogmatic because a lot of people email me and claim it Yeah, that's true. Um, so that's a fair point. I mean, that's my actual life experience like I literally have the emails From hundreds of people that I've saved over the years Who have said these things to me? I have raised money on my show as a fundraiser To help a gay 18 year old man Move out of his home because they're trying to force him to go to gay reparative therapy against his will Again, he'd already been before and they thought they fixed his gayness Um, I've helped people actively overcome the abuse of religion. There is an organization out there called recovering from religion I I strongly suggest you look them up recovering from religion dot org they help people Come out of the abusive Mindset that religious people often go through now. That's not to say every religious household is abusive But it is to say that there is a lot of trauma that is Whether it's to do with sexual identity shame modesty Um, you know, you're you're considered a whore if you if you wear a skirt Different levels right different schisms within christian are going to be more strict But there are entire organizations dedicated to helping people overcome the abuse. They've suffered at religion I've yet to see one Because of the abuse suffered at the hands of atheism So when you're talking about my experiences right now in life Helping people overcome Religion having a negative impact in their life That is undeniably true. You can come with me. We can experience it together The evidence the data is in the inbox the the evidence and data is in thousands of hours of recordings Of people who have been on my show who have confirmed this and you can hear it for yourself right now That is in no way comparable To a text written down 2,000 years ago by anonymous people who we have no idea what their scope or purpose was Or even if the people they were talking about really existed The same is happening with moses now More and more rabbinical scholars are saying moses didn't really exist as a real person You want to talk about religious scholars coming to consensus on something more and more people are saying moses was More and more rabbinical scholars are now saying moses was likely a figure Um a fictional character to to to to drive a point home. Well, well, okay, that's nowhere near What's actually happening in real life that we have data for right now that you can experience So the two aren't even close to being comparable Gotcha. Thank you very much. I want to say folks remember each of our speakers are linked in the description We really appreciate both of these guys coming on they so please I want to remind you folks in the Comments afterwards we had some debates last week that were they were pretty abrasive and sometimes the comments were abrasive And so we want to remind you by all means attack the arguments and attack the ideas we want to encourage you though to please Consider just attacking the arguments the ideas and not the person because we really appreciate That david and randall have come on. It's been a true pleasure. So I do want to say one final Thank you to david and randall. Thank you very much. We've really enjoyed having you on Thank you for having me and thank you to randall as well. Yeah, that was a lot of fun. Thank you And thank you carissa for helping out tonight. It's been a total help means a lot and like I said folks She has also been a debater on here. And so you can check that out. I think it was just last week You had the one with cj. So Absolutely, so by the way, and I will I will link carissa in the description as well So folks, thanks for that and uh, we hope you guys keep sifting out the reasonable from the unreasonable and have a great rest of your night All right, we're