 everybody today we're debating whether or not cosmology points to God and we are starting right now with Dr. Jeff Zwering's opening statement but first I want to give him a proper introduction so let me introduce you to Dr. Zwering he is an astrophysicist and is a research scholar at reasons to believe he earned a PhD in astrophysics from Iowa State University his writing and speaking encouraged people to consider the connection between scriptures truth and scientific evidence he is the author of escaping the beginning is their life out there and who's afraid of the multiverse and co-author of the impact events student devotional series Jeff is also a project scientist at UCLA we're thrilled to have you with us Jeff the floor is all yours for your opening statement thanks James I appreciate the time to be here and you know one of the things that I think of when I think of science is that their idea people are putting explanations out there for what we see and how do we explain the world and one of the things that I find interesting is that there are two explanations for gravity at this point there's general relativity which says that space and time are this deformable substance that matter interacts with and energy interacts with and deforms and and that provides a great deal of explanation it can explain virtually all the data that we see out there to this point but then there's another way of looking at it that says that we need to modify Newtonian dynamics and here you've got an idea that the laws of physics or the mathematical description of the laws of physics changes as you go to smaller and larger distances and so you've got general relativity and mind both of which if you sit down and do all the calculations can account for all the data that's out there but one of the the questions that seems to drive a lot of cosmologists or end up pushing people in the sciences towards general relativity is that general relativity just has a more natural explanation for the stuff that we see it has a mechanism for explaining why gravity works the way it does why it's you know why black holes form why lenses happen all sorts of things it provides a physical mechanism and it just gives a bigger more natural explanation for the phenomenon we see even though both of them can adequately explain or explain a large section of data that we have and when I think of the question does does cosmology point to God that's kind of the context in which I think about it is there are cosmological facts that we must deal with there are you know galaxies the universe is expanding it was hotter in the past there are quasars there's a whole slew of data out there that we need to explain but then I think there's also to take a step back and say all right which explanation provides the best most expansive more natural explanation of everything that we see and the reason why I think God in particularly the christian god or christian theism explains that better is that uh when kind of three points one is that christian theism a lot or when you look at what scientific findings have found and the the heart of christianity where it talks about physical evidence those two things align well what we find scientifically what we find in scripture align especially when we're talking about the stuff that is important to the truth of christianity or the message of christianity we find that christian the jadeo-christian worldview provides the necessary philosophical preconditions for doing cosmology in the first place and I think christian theism just provides a more natural explanation for a lot of the things that people think are important in life and I'll just give a brief brief explanation of each of those three points when it comes to uh things where christian or the bible says yeah this is the way the world is one of the things that stands out is the idea that there's a beginning uh when you look at cosmology uh people or your cosmology for the last 100 years has been investigating this idea for a long time and continually proposing models where the universe doesn't have a beginning uh even starting in the 1900s the idea was that the universe was eternal and it existed forever didn't have a beginning einstein degenerates the theory of general relativity that points to a beginning he introduces a cosmological constant which would get rid of the beginning lo and behold the observations don't support that when hub hubbell found the expansion of the universe that shows okay that's not the right way of looking at it the beginning seems to be the better way whether you've got oscillating cosmologies where the universe expands and collapses again as people investigated this model that seemed to get rid of a beginning the universe seemed to say no the best explanations are the ones with the beginning you've got steady state cosmology where matters continually being created in an expanding universe so that you have an eternal universe and lo and behold as we look out and measure the universe we find that that explanation also doesn't align with what we see in the universe you've got the discovery of singularity theorems that say no our universe really does seem to have a beginning it or given these basic constraints or basic conditions then there are these singularity theorems that say there's a past boundary to the universe whether you throw in inflation and the multiverse even those seem to have a beginning and though we're in this era where we're trying to understand quantum gravity and that question is a little muddier the last 100 years seems to demonstrate that when we put forward explanations where there's no beginning the universe keeps pushing us back to a beginning and so that's kind of what I expect will happen given the history with our studies in quantum gravity so this idea of a beginning that God is outside the universe created the universe seems to align well both scientifically and that's a central part of what scripture has to say I also think that in terms of the philosophical preconditions you need to be able to study the cosmos one of the things that must be true is that what we do here on earth has to be the same as what's going on out there so the way gravity works here the way electromagnetic force works here those are the same throughout space throughout space the uniform has to be constant there's got to be regular order periodicity there the universe needs to be good so that we want to explore it but it can't be divine because if it's divine you don't study it you worship it and I think probably one of the most important things in there is that our minds must be able to comprehend the order and regularity so that we can understand it these are all things that are necessary preconditions for science to operate and they just naturally flow in fact if you just studied the scripture you would expect that to be true of the cosmos and so other you have to ask the question do other world views anchor those things that are essential for the operation of science and my contention is when you look at the necessary philosophical preconditions for science especially cosmology where we're studying what's going on out of the heavens that Christianity really is the world view the best anchors those things that need to be true for us to even embark on the study of cosmology and last and this is a little less cosmological related but I think Christianity not only does it explain well the scientific discoveries that have been made it explains well why we can do science in the first place but it has a good explanation for why we think there's meaning and purpose and identity and these things that we see that that virtually all of humanity tends to agree are important are well anchored in the Judeo-Christian worldview and so you know just kind of in summary I think the three reasons the three kind of main categories of why I think Christian or cosmology points of theism is that the what we find scientifically aligns with what we find when we study scripture especially when we're studying the important things not like did an axe head float but what are the things that if these were not true Christianity would really lose its coherence the necessary philosophical preconditions for science are well anchored and explained within a Judeo-Christian worldview and Christianity just does a good job of explaining not only science but also just the broad things of why it's even important to go out and look at the cosmos and try and understand it in the first place thank you very much for that opening Jeff and want to let you know folks if it's your first time here at modern a debate we are a neutral platform hosting debates on science religion and politics we hope you feel welcome no matter what walk of life you were from and special one today because a hundred percent of super chats that come in are going to be donated to worldwide orphans which is a reputable charity they are linked in the description as well as their charity watchdog rating and will also put post the receipt for that donation to the social tab here in youtube after the debate so next up dr goikovich is going to give his opening statement as well dr goikovich was born in chili but currently resides in Germany he obtained his phd in astrophysics in 2017 with a double degree from uc chili and university of heidelberg his expertise is in numerical simulations of gas dynamics around supermassive black holes after three years working as a postdoctoral researcher he decided to switch careers and now works in a software company as a developer in germany he's passionate about topics of science communication and critical thinking as he believes they are a cornerstone for having a healthy society so thanks very much philippe as you like to be called we are thrilled to have you here as well the floor is all yours for your opening thank you i'm glad to be here so first of all thank you james and what the debate for the invitation this is this type of discussions i really really enjoy even though i haven't had really the the opportunity to to participate in many of them um so to the topic at hand does has does astronomy point to god short answer no long answer no a little dead joke for you i'm sorry so let's get serious now so i would say it doesn't and it doesn't have to for me the answer to this question is rather clear since it falls it falls into the same category as does astronomy point to the meaning of life no it is not supposed to in order to have a meaningful discussion on this topic however we need to start by defining our terms we could probably agree that point normally refers to is there evidence right so we would want to establish what qualifies as evidence or very still good evidence in my view a very useful for definition for this is one that i don't write normally uses i read something like a body of objectively verifiable facts that are positively indicative of and or exclusively concordant with one available position over any other and for me that part is clear it's very key for this discussion one available position over over any other so if we are using this definition the evidence for the god you are presenting it's to lift him up from the gods from other religions uh since we want to um since we want our officer phenomena to point towards one favorable position so in my opinion this is not what we see today a quick google search it will show you a plethora of apologies claiming that a variety of scientific findings findings not only from astronomy perfectly with their preferred date furthermore we can think of at least if we if we can think of at least one naturalistic explanation of this for the same phenomena then god is relegated to at most an interesting proposition then i ask you how useful is your good idea if it cannot be really distinguished from any other potential explanations so with that point out of the way we can go further in today's topic which is astronomy or cosmology so in the in the simplest terms astronomy is the study of physics of the universe and physics as you know is the collection of descriptive laws that govern the govern matter motion and energy so the operative word that is descriptive as such by applying the scientific method to study the natural world we need to we have access to how things work we do this almost exclusively using mathematical models and we use math because we need to quantify measurements and predictions and this is the only tool that we have so normally questions such as why are excluded that's normally what we uh what we see with science now nevertheless using these descriptive models we sometimes can understand the underlying nature of the of serf phenomena however always keep in mind that because models are tentative in science the potential explanation of this underlying nature that we we ascribe to what we are observing this is also tentative so it is funny that doctors suiting the brap gravity because a great example of what i'm referring to this understanding the underlying nature of things is gravity so in the context of Newton's loss of motion we were measuring some acceleration of falling bodies so we were dropping an apple for example and we measured uh the acceleration and we could actually model that say okay is gravity has this equation the inverse of the square of the distance so and so forth uh so we uh understand gravity as a force this however changed completely with Einstein's general relativity we don't know we no longer view gravity as a force but as a geometrical effect now gravity we understand that as the movement of bodies in the in bent space time and this bending is produced by objects with mass and even gravity is something tentative because we even though general relativity is a great theory it has its problems since it cannot really explain all the observed phenomena and even cannot be really coupled with quantum mechanics so we know the general relativity is a great theory but it's not it's not necessarily wrong but it is not complete so why is all of this important if we want to explore the possibility of God's existence from the astronomical point of view we must then use its framework the scientific method so for that we will need to introduce the God hypothesis but hypothesis at least a good one cannot be any wild idea it must satisfy certain conditions one it must be based on observed phenomena it must be falsifiable and it must produce novel predictions only with this bare minimum criteria we can then go into the world and test our hypothesis up to this point in time any good idea I've come across focuses almost exclusively on the first point the universe has X property and this fits with the definition of the God that appears in my book fair enough we can even agree on something like that right but if we are really serious about it you would need to provide a descriptive and falsifiable physical model derived from this idea of God only then we can start exploring the actual possibility of its existence and maybe understanding its underlying nature and properties as we've been doing with gravity there is a way to visualize how science works and this I really like we tend to build knowledge bottom up we use a bottom up approach so we have a set of observations upon will upon which we build the models that we can we can use to push further knowledge and we continue building upon that foundation in contrast the way I see apologies I see apologies argue for their religion is more top down they start with the conclusion for example that the Bible is true and then they make it fit with what we observe that's all well and good but you cannot pretend that that's a meaningful meaningful way to obtain knowledge and it's certainly not really scientific I haven't really stumbled upon a robust a robust model for God yet so you still have a lot of work ahead of you put forward your hypothesis perform your experiments and try to falsify it write your publications for your models to be dissected by scientific community and but until then all the God's claims are either just assertions or post hoc and rationalizations of what you find in your holy scripture furthermore there is currently no accepted astrophysical theory that includes God's in its equations and that's all we understand of the universe today doesn't really require his presence or integration so it appears to be an uphill battle if you really want to use cosmology to prove God and there are no many more places left the way you can put him as a valuable explanation so in summary does astronomy point to God no and while God remains in the realm of the supernatural or metaphysical speculation he will never do thank you very much believe a for that opening statement as well and want to remind you folks have you haven't already hit that subscribe button as we have many more debates coming up in the future as well as our guests are linked in the description so if you'd like to hear more at any time during the debate you can go down and click on their links below that includes if you're listening to the podcast as we put our guest links in the description box there as well with that thanks so much gentlemen we'll kick it into open discussion for about 50 minutes the floor is all yours so I guess if you don't mind I'll start off I was just listening to what you have to say and you know that I'm sitting there listening and I largely agree with a lot of what you have to say you know the idea that when we're doing science what we're doing is we're looking for what are the observations and you know we're largely looking for how things work two things that I thought were interesting though that and I want to explore a little bit just to understand what you were saying one you said that if we find any naturalistic explanation then any sort of supernatural is just kind of relegated to an interesting idea and if I and your last description there was talking about in order to prove God you know if I got the sense of your point it was you have to put forth hey here's what it is and you have to distinguish it from the other ideas and if the way it sounded to me and I'm going to characterize it and if I'm wrong that's what I'm asking please correct my wrong characterization it sounded like you're saying well any sort of idea that there's a God exists you have to show me that that is true whereas the idea that God doesn't exist is the starting point is that kind of what you're saying not really what I'm really saying is that if you cannot really have a collection of observations of evidence sorry of evidence that we that you can use to actually distinguish from a naturalistic explanation or ordered gods or any other potential explanation then it's not really that it's not really evidence for that right I can say the universe has a beginning that's evidence of like bubble universes is the same as saying this is evidence for God is there in the same level I'm not saying one is favorable over the other I'm not saying that the naturalistic explanation is necessarily better I'm just saying that for me it's not really meaningful using God if you cannot really distinguish it from a naturalistic explanation or other gods that's what I was trying to say okay so so in a very real sense again I'm just trying to make sure I understand that you know we're going out and we're exploring scientific ideas and if you want to say hey God exists and you want to show that scientifically you need to show how God influences what we're going to measure and that same sort of standard would apply to whether no God exists how that impacts the standard and your contention is that science is one way of orbiting that but there is no preferred oh supernatural or natural or super or either God or no God is not a better explanation out prior correct yeah that's what I was saying okay okay so so I guess my question in that is um is this just something where we kind of pull in our preferences because in a very real sense you know so as a Christian when I go do science I'm not going and saying all right well God's going to work miraculous today and this is the miracle I expect him to work and so I'm going to do that I'm going to go in and say all right God set up the natural world I'm going to be looking for natural explanations given what I've understood so far which I would characterize is what I've understood from his revelation of himself and so you know so this is where I come to the description of you know general relativity and modified Newtonian dynamics how do I decide on those because both of them have the the similar sort of adequate mathematical explanatory power there's no phenomena that we measure that can't be accommodated in mind or general relativity excluding dealing with the quantum mechanics and I agree we need to deal with quantum mechanics later but let's exclude that area for now both of those have largely they can explain all the data how do we orbit between which of those is correct or which of those do we believe is it just a personal preference I would say it's like in case of in the case of monty particulates because it has more parameters basically it's the Occam's Occam's tracer the general relativity has less assumptions built into it so for month you need to actually have this mysterious acceleration that is produced a certain scales and things like that and you are multiplying then the number of assumptions assumptions that you need to that you need to have in order to to make it work as a potential explanation I would say that's the almost exclusive reason why we prefer general relativity over over month at least in the broader sense maybe we can even discuss things like that matter and things like that but yeah well no I would agree that's I mean I tend to think general relativity is correct and mom isn't you know there's this intuitive feel I have and I think it's largely that's an interesting debate it is no you're right that's kind of my contention is when you look at Chris or when you're when you're asking the question not so much why do why do planets orbit around stars you know that there is some mechanism we call gravity and we're trying to understand the explanation that's what mon and general relativity are getting at but when you ask the question why can we scientifically investigate things it seems like Christianity has less parameters that are put in because there's a reason why the laws of physics are the universe behaves so reliably is that in Christianity that that's anchored on God's character that God's upholds creation if you were to withdraw his hand it would simply tumble into non-existence so the reason why it's so regular is ultimately anchored in God's character so that's no longer a knob or a dial that I have to tune to make it that way whereas when I look at a naturalistic where there is no God I'm kind of just left with the universe just is that way you know it is the sense I have and maybe that's a wrong way to characterize it but then I ask you know why is it that the universe is so reliable and or regularly mathematical well again that flows out of God's the mind of God that's why our minds can understand it is because we're created in his image and so all of these things that are necessary for science to work seem to be specified and you know these are like central features of Christianity not kind of peripheral things so Christianity anchors why I can do science in the first place that's part of why I'm arguing that you know science in particular cosmology but I would say science in general points towards God because especially when it comes to cosmology we're relying on the fact that all this stuff out in the heavens that could behave very differently and not not at all relate to what's here on earth that's all well explained by Christianity and it isn't in my assessment by a no God world view or even a lot of the other of the other religions out there so I'm trying to think of a question rather than just a monologue there so how is how is I'm presuming you take a there isn't a God there there's no God or in your view what's the way to explain why we can do science in the first place in that world view so can can you rephrase the question because I don't I'm not sure I understood it so okay so yeah let me so I would argue that God explains why the God of Christianity specifically explains why the universe is orderly regular has a mathematical basis why our minds can understand it I have an explanation for that in your worldview how do you explain those features that are those features that are required for science to be able to operate in the first place simply I don't so I I don't really have an explanation so the simple the simple answer is I don't know and I don't really focus that much in the why like I said normally when we do science we deal at least if you do physics and astronomy is mostly descriptive so we don't really care about the why the philosophical why let's say doesn't really interest me in particular also it's not something that you can really access with observations right so if we are debating for evidence evidence means observations then it doesn't really come to that I would say um so let me ask you a question now um so you're saying that for you God your God in particular is the reason why so what kind of observations or evidence I anchor in astronomy because this is a topic today would distinguish it from other gods from the god of the Quran for example well I one I haven't studied other religious books extensively I've spent most of my life studying Christianity we can argue why that's a good if that's a good thing or a bad thing but what I do know is what Christianity has to say and so the reason why I would argue that Christianity points or yeah that provides the best explanation is that when I look in scripture um you know just starting in Genesis you know in the beginning God created the heavens in the earth so there's a beginning there when I look at the scientific record of how much the scientific community has pushed against the beginning and yet the beginning still seems to be the dominant idea that says okay yeah this thing that scripture says aligns with what we found scientifically um when I go look at the you know the next you know in the beginning God created the heavens the earth the earth was formless void darkness is on the surface of the deep spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters when I go look at what we find in the early earth that it was this kind of structuralist formless dark ball water covered in water again I find a similar description so the reason why I think Christianity is more favorable is that when the bible describes this universe what it says in ways in ways that we can go measure scientifically I find that they align very well um and and that's not as simplistic oh everything matches up I mean there's a lot of study that goes into that but you know honestly I find most things that we found scientifically required a lot of study so that's uh yeah just because it's hard to do doesn't mean it isn't but as we've understood what scripture says and as we've understood what how this create or this universe works I find that they just line up in those places where it's fairly clear uh you know and and that that kind of white word it glosses over that Christians argue a lot about what the bible means I mean yeah there's some who'd say the universe is 6 000 years old some say the universe is billions of years old you know so it glosses over a lot of that argument discussion but I see a lot of those same sort of arguments in the scientific community and so I at some point I've got to step back and say okay what does the the best evidence of what we know point to and I do that same thing with scripture and I find that in those things that tend to come to the surface of these are the things where there's pretty good consensus where we're pretty confident of those things tend to align between the two so that's why I advocate that christianity is a good explanation to me anybody else that wants to advocate for a good explanation has to do that same sort of thing so sure sure and so you count like points in favor of christianity things that aligned aligned with scientific findings what about the things that don't align do you count those as against christianity being true I do and what I try you know I said I glossed over a whole bunch of stuff and part of that discussion is it's not just well I found these three things that align therefore and there are these eight things that are wrong I do you know I think it's important to look at it in total of saying okay you know it if christianity says there's a beginning and we measure there's no beginning to the universe that would be a strong point in against christianity and you know honestly in terms of the scientific discussion you know the last hundred years has been pretty instructive but it's kind of interesting and one of the things that I wonder is like why did science or you know people are more than a hundred or before the 1900s not worry about science seeming to say that the universe was infinite or eternal so that's that's one of those questions that I have I think there's an explanation for it so yes I do think it's important to not just look at the points in favor I think it's important to look at as complete a picture as you can and that's part of my contention is that when you look at the complete picture of of everything that we can I think christianity does a better job of explaining all of that than any other world view in terms of whether god exists or not so whether there's no god or whether there's different gods I think christianity does a better job of explaining all of the important pieces of data or the bigger pieces of data maybe not important it's not the right way to say that so my question for you is how tentative it will be the god explanation for you like let's say put it in numbers from zero percent certain to a hundred percent certain where would you be on that scale well in my personal study I've I've investigated a number of areas where I thought there could have been a genuine conflict between what christianity said and and what our latest or what the best scientific evidence had to say and as you know I've you know investigated the multiverse I've investigated is there life out there is the universe designed is there really a beginning or not you know what about artificial intelligence what I found is that every time I've investigated that I have found that there is a very solid and coherent way that I'm not kind of trying to explain scripture away to make it fit but where it's like yeah this is the thrust of what we're finding scientifically and what we're finding through the bible I found a lot of that and so my you know that coupled with my personal history gives me great confidence that christianity is correct I'd put it somewhere more than 90 percent probably closer to 95 98 99 but if I'm honest there are times where I'm sitting a lot I do spend a fair bit of time it's like what if I'm just wrong what if I'm just this is what I've been taught and so I'm inclined to accept that and I found all the data I do wrestle with that question I just as I've wrestled with it though I have to go back and look at the data and the data where I've said oh maybe christianity is wrong I found this compelling area found consistent evidence that christianity of halt with uh stands up under that scrutiny and so I think that's a great question I you know I've actually kind of if you don't mind I don't know what I'll let you articulate what world do you think is best but uh how tentatively do you hold yours and what gives you readings yeah so I haven't told you what's my position yet exactly so I don't I don't believe God exists but it's not that I believe that God doesn't exist it's like for me he hasn't really like he hasn't met it's burden of proof so for me it falls into all other potential explanations of of how the universe came to be like multiverse or whatever is your your preferred explanation like I have no really horse this is on this race so I take like the coward position for me I'm just withholding judgment I'm agnostic in that in that sense until something brings forward something that elipsed the explanation over all all others so I don't release and for me that's as tentative as it can be right because I don't hold any like strong position for me I would say I would say it's more likely that it is something naturalistic like multiverse or the inflationary models that predict that you have universes popping in existence in this like larger universe and so on so by this as tentative as it can be because I don't really have a strong position okay okay so so you you I was trying to think how you said that you don't believe God exists but you don't say no God exists is that the way you said it exactly it's okay it's very important okay so that that that negation is important no I as I was important trying to understand what you were saying there um so in how does that what what weight then does science have in answering that question in your mind it it kind of and this is the flavor of my question there it kind of sounds like you're saying all right we can go out and explain you know describe how the world works and that's that's a really fun scientific game and I'm not minimizing that but that's just a fun scientific game does what we find scientifically weigh in on whether God exists or not and if so how I would say like so in order to access that we need a better theory right so our main problem right now is that we cannot access really the the singularity the beginning of the universe right because it's a general relativity as amazing as it is it's actually wrong it's incomplete um so we need a better I just I just like saying it because it bothers people yeah it's an amazing theory and with the observation of of gravitational waves it proved to once again that it's quite an amazing theory so yeah and I lost my train of thought I wanted to say that yeah that that would be the way for me to actually explore that right because that's how we do it in in astronomy in general we we have our our theory or our hypothesis we do our predictions and then we fall we try to falsify it and doing that we can access sometimes the nature of it so we can start saying okay this is what this is like right gravity gravity right now is this uh the formation of spacetime and so on and we can understand things further we we can access the nature of it so that that would be for me the way to actually reach that point the point of that we cannot access for with with our theories right now um so I would say it's really difficult to actually have an answer right now with the with the current state of things in the in astronomy and physics so if it sounds like in what you're describing that science is kind of this arena which we can go and play and explore the real world that if I got your position kind of the best way to approach whether god does or doesn't exist is to take a let's wait and see approach it may be that he doesn't it may be that he does um I may favor tend to lean one way or the other but science is not inept but very inadequate to address that question would that be an adequate way of characterization for sure for sure it has scientific method is amazing for a very narrow way of thinking it's at least with physics we are describing how things work and we are not and we are never never proving something we're just trying to falsify it and if we cannot do it then it means that it's strong and we continue moving forward so you know in your description or in your opening statement I remember you saying something to the effect of you know that there's all these different people arguing my god exists and that you just don't think there's the scientific evidence to support that um do you agree that there are people saying well the science points to there's no god existing and that that falls in that same category absolutely absolutely so if you make a claim like that you have to actually have evidence so if you say god did it you have to have evidence for especially for the particular god you are arguing for and if you say no god because that's something that we can we cannot really tell right and actually this is something I wanted to bring up because you say beginning right so if I understand correctly maybe I'm wrong you you can correct um for you that would be like the strongest point of towards your god like that we have a beginning of the universe right there is that would that be a fair assessment I don't know that it's the strongest point I think it's an example where science has pushed seems like science has pushed to get rid of the beginning and yet it seems to stand pretty strong I think there's strong evidence and support of a beginning and I think that's a very fundamental feature of Christianity that's that was why I will use that example but the thing is that and that this is the point I wanted to bring up is that we don't really know if that's actually the absolute beginning of the universe right because we cannot really really access that that's basically a little fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a second after the deep end right so that that that singularity um we cannot really access it so we cannot really say much about it we and in that sense we cannot really say that was the beginning of the universe because we because we cannot access that t equals zero so that's why and I I agree with your point and that's uh you know I mean if you part of the reason why I articulated the way I do is that I recognize uh you know if I if I'm honest and you know getting to the point you're making when Einstein proposed his theory of general relativity it entirely changed how that discussion happened of the beginning uh whether there was even a beginning wasn't a scientific question the the the theory shaped the way the question was answered because space and time are now these dynamic quantities which we can actually scientifically weigh in on whereas in Newtonian dynamics space and time are pretty much just these entities that exist that everything happens within and and are unchangeable and so it changed the nature of the discussion and part of what I I recognize and I'm and I'm tentative about the answer simply because I realize that if we get whatever that quantum theory of gravity has has the potential to change the way we talk about that change the way we have that discussion um what I find intriguing is that one there are people who will say and I and I don't it doesn't seem like you're in this class but people will say well we've got these explanations where there are no beginnings so we can't say whether there's a beginning or not there are some who will say well because I've got explanations where there's no beginning therefore I don't have to say there's a beginning I think that misses that there's this history that does seem to point to a beginning pretty strongly so it's not like we're coming into this and we have no idea what's going on there's been a lot of evidence pointing towards um but there's also this recognition that what we we don't know what's going to happen in that quantum gravity year and so we're all kind of speculating what the answer is going to be uh my speculations informed by I would say you know the universe keeps pushing us towards the beginning if I were to characterize the history of cosmology over the last 100 years but someone who comes and says hey I've got a few models where there's no beginning and so I don't have to believe in a beginning I'm like yeah fine you know as long as we're not trying to argue you're not coming in and saying hey quantum gravity says no god exists and I'm not coming in and saying hey quantum gravity says there's a beginning therefore god exists we're both saying hey quantum gravity we gotta this is going to be messy and muddled for a long time we don't know what's going on there so in a very real sense I would argue that's not useful for weighing in on that question just because there's so much up in the air with what's going to pan out about right now. Would you agree with that or not? Absolutely and it is probably the beginning of the universe but yeah my question would be again and I probably already asked this but how do you distinguish between in a realistic explanation for that beginning with god of Christianity for example? I think that's a fascinating question for this reason you know you ask scientifically speaking how do you say there's a beginning? Well I mean anything else I just go back and I measure before and after well fundamentally if we're talking about the kind of beginning described in the bible there is no before and there's no oh here's t equals zero and so it's just scientifically speaking it's been fascinating as I've thought about you know what have been the markers so you know you've got the Hawking-Penrose singularity theorems which say that you know the quantum trajectories cross and you get singularities that's a beginning well you know again that's not a measurement that's kind of an extra area it's a theoretical extrapolation of what we know you know and so even you know when you're talking about inflation there are other singularity theorems that say okay there's got to be a past boundary. Honestly I think it's just a fascinating question the idea that it even corresponds to Christianity at all or what the Bible has to say it is remarkable in my opinion because it could be so many different ways but you know I'm inclined to think we agree that there's a lot of data thus far that is pointed towards the beginning but the true answer to that question we need the quantum theory of gravity and we should be tentative in our conclusions until our tentative in our extrapolations until we get that quantum theory of gravity and can truly answer the question or maybe we want to even be able to answer it then. Sure but I'm not really convinced and this is where I show my colors I would say I'm not really convinced that the actual account of creation let's say from the Bible is really that accurate. For example like the the order of things that happen also the phrasing you can maybe argue it's a translation issue or so on but it doesn't really seem to fit to actually with the description of how the universe evolved from this beginning to where we are right now. Can you give any I mean can you give an example I mean like plants coming before animals? Yeah go ahead and give me can you just I'm just curious what you see as a discrepancy there? Yeah like plants coming before animals right that's even though it's not really astronomy but that's not so yeah I don't remember exactly which day of creation was the the plants were created and then the animals and so on. Yeah well yeah the plants come up on day three and the animals show up on day five so yeah so that's not really what we've found with how life evolved on Earth at least so that's fair. There is one aspect of that that you know the the phrasing there is a little bit odd in that it's not clear whether the plants showed up on day three or whether the plants that the land is the focus of day three and the land is what actually has the plants and so there's a little bit of you know this is a place where you can get in amongst the Christians and argue about what is it actually saying there and you know that's why I glossed over a lot of that. I find that same sort of challenge when you're dealing with the science as well as there's a lot of things that seem really fuzzy but that's why in my assessment part of what you have to look at is if if the plants showed up on day three or the plants are a foreshad or you know that the land is going to have the plants and so because the land shows up on day three that's when the plants are mentioned. Is that going to fundamentally change the way we think about Christianity and it turns out I would argue amongst those Christians who are arguing about it no so that's yeah I mean that's probably not a particularly satisfying answer but I don't I don't know that that's a fundamental contradiction I guess so no no I'm not saying contradiction with itself I'm just saying that you're saying that it aligns and I find some level of this alignment misalignment sorry my Spanish is coming through and that's why I'm not really convinced about the God of Christianity and we can argue about other gods and so on but um so I kind of I think I had another idea but I forgot but let's let's move forward the topic I actually have a question from before because you said that the beginning wasn't really your strongest piece of evidence so I ask you about your level of confidence it's quite high that's that's uh that's uh I'm glad you answered that thank you and so what would you take to bring down that level of confidence like what so in a sense of what could falsify your idea of God something that would really really shake it the absence of a beginning or something different well I mean I think when it comes down to it at its fundamental level there's one true thing that would falsify Christianity as if Christ didn't rise from the dead I mean that one singular event all of Christianity hinges upon if that doesn't happen you know I think the hard part about that is that's not something you know it's hard to go back and investigate that although I think there's a lot of people that have spent a lot of time addressing that and I think there's pretty strong evidence in favor of that um I just you know the things that need to show up I don't think there's a single thing outside of that I think uh there would need to be a growing body of evidence that um the the bible's description of events that have happened in history whether that be out in the cosmos or as the people that live a growing body of evidence that it just doesn't line up and that the bible was intending to describe historical events so if there was not an exodus if there was uh you know if there was never a nation of israel or david wasn't a king um you know these are things that are pretty key to the message of scripture um and where it's it gives things as though it's a historical account um where that the the weight of what we actually know argues that those things are not correct that would be a very troubling thing that would say I'm I'm much less confident than the truth of christianity um the hard part is most of that's most of what's been done right what's that that's really that's not really astronomy right so from from my astronomical point of view what would would be observations that will what would be the failsafe of your god hypothesis would it be the beginning would it be like the fight to an end so this is what I would say I'd say you know again my question would be okay what does the bible say about the heavens and what could I find that would show that incorrect I think if there was no true if there was no beginning in any sort of fashion I think that would be very problematic because the bible does talk about in the beginning you know that that's not a that that's said in genesis but it's said multiple places that ultimately there's something beyond this creation is what it's referring to um that uh if the if there was it's going to sound like retrospect if the if the heavens didn't behave reliably again because that's anchored in god's character if god's kind of flaky which would be you know that that would be a reflection that the god as revealed in scripture doesn't isn't behind the universe the problem is a lot of those things have pretty ample evidence in supporting them and so that the weight of that evidence would need to degrade that either uh that when we look out in the heavens that the laws of physics are not as reliable as we think they are or there isn't a beginning or there isn't some aspect where the universe looks designed for a purpose uh those are things that I think the bible's pretty clear on that uh we can weigh in scientifically and looking at things the problem is how that actually plays out and looks outside of the beginning it's not like here's here's the only way it plays out it's it's a stepping back from the science and then asking a philosophical question about them so yeah absolutely so you said some maybe I misunderstood but you said like the laws of physics are anchored in god's character yeah how would you know that well okay because that's what you're making a claim that that's what christianity in you when you ask the question how does excuse me what is the reality and why is creation here um you know there's there's uh my idea for a longest time was you know god just kind of created the universe and is sitting back watching it every now and again and I realized that in his historically as people have studied scripture and say who is god and how does he relate creation that uh one fundamental aspect is that creation is not independent of god it's uh intimately tied to his sustaining hand so he is upholding creation and that means that the reason why it behaves so regularly is ultimately anchored in his character and I would argue that's why the laws of physics look the way they do is because he upholds creation so reliably that we can talk about things like the laws of physics that there's a that there is a description of or things that happened yesterday are going to be the same the physics that was governing yesterday is the same as the physics today is the same as the physics in the future um I'm kind of mixing theological and scientific terms there but so if we found that as we're investigating the universe that uh things were radically different as we look throughout the universe not in terms of in terms of how the physics itself operates that would be a strong argument against the truth of Christianity because again the way creation looks is anchored in god's character in in in the Christian way of thinking but isn't that cheating a little bit because you are not there is no really way of knowing if this is the laws of physics are the way they are because this is something fundamental about let's say reality right or this is I like to say anchoring God's character so you because what I'm trying to say is that you're making a claim there but how would you know that what's the evidence for something like that because you are you are using something uh like we've established like or something that we use as an axiom at least like the laws of physics behave uniformly around the universe they observe our universe at least and that that is it seems consistent to what we actually observe everywhere but then you are borrowing that and saying this is because it's anchoring God's character how would you know that there is no way of knowing that right but what I would argue is that historically when you look at that you go back prior to Newton and the idea there were the way the heavens behave you know we might be able to make predictions but the laws that operated here on earth were very different than the laws out in the cosmos and part of what Newton you know Newton wrote more on theology than he did about science believe it or not as much as as much as he contributed to science and one of the reasons why he came up with his universal law of gravitation was the recognition that gravity works the same here as it does out in the cosmos and so that's a theologically driven idea that turned out to be correct so it looked today I'm you could argue that I'm cheating about it but historically the way it developed was Newton's recognition that God is operating and sustaining creation that's why an apple falls to earth is the same explanation as why the moon orbits around the earth because of ultimately the laws of physics out there are the same as what's here on earth prior to that you couldn't understand what was going on out of the heavens because it was different than what was going on here on earth so that was in some sense a prediction I think it's a little messier than just saying it was a prediction but it is something that the reason why we think things are so reliable out in heaven was ultimately anchored in theological ideas of how God upholds creation so that's why I think that so okay yeah but there is no real an observation that you can point to that actually would would leave that explanation like God is the anchor for the laws of physics well it would take a body of evidence you know and I could ask the same question you know what observation would say that would tell you that general relativity is wrong and the reality of it is there's not an observation there would be a growing body of evidence that general relativity can no longer explain what we're finding in the universe now the problem is explained though yeah there's this long history of it's done a good job of explaining that's what I would argue in terms of the cosmos christianity has a good job of explaining what we can measure it may well be that we've kind of exhausted what the bible says about creation that we can measure are you all about the cosmos in terms of astronomy that that's been a distinct possibility um and so you're kind of kind of smuggling the idea of so we are here we say lots of physics uphold here that's the same as outside in the universe and you're saying this is here so the because this works it means this works but there is only the way of knowing this and not the step the step that you're going forward right because you someone else can use this exactly the same arguments to say the god of the Quran is the one that is anchoring the laws of physics I assure you that there are people out there arguing exactly the same no I do and I think it's more complicated than what you know so if you're asking me what single thing could we do that would show Christianity is wrong or that convince me that Christianity is wrong at this point there probably isn't a single thing you can do because there's this great weight of evidence that I have seen that convinces me Christianity is right so if you ask me the question what what single measurement could you show that general relativity is wrong well I guarantee if that one measurement comes up people are going to say okay general relativity is right how do we explain that because there's this weight of evidence that points to general relativity being true you know I'm not going to be so bold as to claim well I'm better at observing these things and so my explanation is better I know people people would argue yeah the Quran's a better explanation people know naturalism's better explanation you know so there's all sorts of people doing that but I do think you know you asked me what what evidence would show me that Christianity is wrong well in that I have to put that new piece of evidence in with the existing body of evidence that I find strong evidence or that I find a strong evidence pointing to the truth of Christianity now a fascinating discussion is and I and I you know this probably this gets way outside of cosmology is why when you and I are largely looking at the same body of evidence why are you persuaded or tend to believe that there's no God and why am I persuaded or tend to believe that there is a God I think that would be a fascinating discussion but that's not a cosmology discussion that's a sure I would I can answer that actually because I like that question I would say this because most of the explanations that we have today are naturalistic explanations so based on that trend I would say that I'm more or less confident that God is actually losing ground in that sense of it what normally people refer to the God of the gaps right you put God with there are unknowns so I'm I subscribe to that to that line of thought like you are actually when you find explanation for things you don't need to put God in it so that I said in my opening statement there is no currently any scientific loss in physics or astronomy that require God's any God in their in its equations we can even describe a universe of one particle moving in alone with nothing else only using quantum mechanics and that doesn't need a God of course that is not the universe we live in today but we can actually use everything we've found today without the need of a God so I would actually say that that's the reason why I tend to think the explanation would be something naturalistic but isn't that I mean isn't that smuggling in a philosophical assumption about things in this sense that if I understood your statements earlier is that science is this how do we look how can we explain things and we're looking for we're largely looking I mean we're looking for natural explanations that's that's the I would argue that's basically the one of the not preconditions that's one of the functions of science how can we explain the natural world using natural explanations and we've got various natural tools that we can do to do or that we can do to utilize that my recollection from our earlier discussion was okay science is good at describing what's there then at some point you have to step outside and say okay let's look at what is science telling us in the bigger picture so that's a philosophical discussion not a scientific question correct yep okay so if you're going to step out and say well hey I can find a sign or I can find a a natural explanation for all the phenomena that I see in the world don't you also have to explain why do all the phenomena in the world work the way they do and don't you have to explain why my mind can comprehend the natural phenomena in the world and that that's because to me that's the place where where when you ask those sorts of questions why does science work in the first place Christianity has a good explanation for why science works I don't see where the naturalistic paradigm where there isn't a god how you get to the place where we can trust that our minds actually understand creation so well what will be the questions so the question I understood why why if there's no god why can our minds understand the way the universe works I don't have an answer for that so that would be I don't know so okay all right yeah that that's very more philosophical I would say that actually okay astronomical why if there's no god does does the universe behave so reliably regularly in orderly so my actual question would be I don't know and nobody really does but we we can say because it's just the way it is okay all right the laws of physics are the way they are and yeah so maybe maybe we got confused a little bit because I actually yes took this position of saying like yeah we don't really know right like we we we cannot really access more than what we we know now with the current theories but yeah it could be god right we can even try to describe its nature his nature or whatever with with a future theory that we find but when we so that would mean that that now god stops being in this supernatural world right because kind of the scientific method is rooted in the methodology method I cannot say today so and naturalism right so assuming that what we can access with what we measure is it's the natural world it's not saying that it's everything that it is only natural but at least in practice what we can measure what we can access is actually the natural world so if we can actually find that god is the explanation that means we do bring him right foot back to the to the natural world instead of now this it is now in the kind of supernatural right so that's why I think the discussion got a little bit muddled well okay so let me you know you made a mention of the more we find natural explanations the more we're relegating god to a small and smaller corner you're kind of the god of the gaps because I think I don't dispute that there are a lot of people Christians in particular who kind of think that way but that's never been the way Christianity as articulated in scripture has thought about that I mean you know fundamentally god is supernatural he's exist independent outside of creation but scripture also is very clear that he is eminent that he fills creation and so if I you know the natural extrapolation of that is that there's a regular in order there there's a the way creation looks reflects his nature in a lot of ways and so that's why there's an order and a regularity the reason why we can study and understand in fact god's command to Adam and Eve was to rule or rule or be fruitful multiply rule over the earth and subdue it well that rule over and subdueing has this connotation of understanding and fulfill you know that it kind of has the almost the seeds of scientific hey go explore understand how it works so that you can take care of it well but the fact that god is transcendent and eminent that he's outside of creation but also fills creation means that there's that that to me explains why we can actually describe how creation works that we can come up with the laws of physics describe why gravity works because it's a reflection who he is but there's also an aspect where he transcends so it's not an either or he's either naturalistic or supernaturalistic he's supernatural but also fills creation and so has that's what that's to me is what actually provides the philosophical preconditions for science to work it's orderly and regular we're created in his image there's ways that it could be other than the way it is so that's where the let's actually make measurements and figure out what's what's really going on not what could be just because it's logically possible doesn't mean it actually happens we got to figure out what's really going on and that's why our minds can understand it and so you know my my contention would be and then obviously we disagree or we wouldn't be having a debate is that in the same way general relativity has less parameters less things that need to be injected for it to work when you talk about not only you know okay so what are the explanations within science but why you know step outside and say okay what's the best explanation for why science works Christianity has less tunable parameters there it seems to make the most sense of why science works not that it works or as well as that it works so um you know and all that said I think there's obviously studied people have come to there you know people have studied this seriously and you know you've come to a different conclusion on that than I have I think it's a fascinating discussion as to what leads us to that uh is it is it strictly the evidence points to either God or not God or are there other things that play there I can give you a chance to respond Felipe otherwise you can go into the Q&A shortly or even right now but otherwise if you want a chance to respond before we do yeah just one I just wanted to say that um yeah because you you are making this claim that the things we can understand things because of Christianity and for me that doesn't seem really fair it's like uh you are you are doing a post hoc rationalization of what you already find in your in your bible right and that for me it doesn't really seem fair it doesn't seem like a novel prediction because you cannot really distinguish it from the universe it's the way it is because it is like we'll jump into the Q&A want to let you know folks if you'd like to hear Dr. Zwering's response on this particular question his link is in the description you can both listen to and read plenty of his comments as well as if you'd like to hear more from Dr. Gojkovic you can hear more from his link in the description box that includes in the podcast as we link our guests there as well we're gonna jump into the Q&A as a reminder thanks so much for your super chats 100% of which are going to orphans across the world who are in need and first question coming in from Mr. Monster says was it let's see so more of a biological design type argument or question but we'll we'll run through it anyway Jeff so they said was intelligent design was it intelligent design forgot to place my breathing hole and eating hole right next to each other given that there's a possibility that I might choke so a little bit off topic well humor them any thoughts Jeff so I will answer that question with an analogy that I have gotten into my house I do repair work on my house every now and again and you know the every now and again I'm getting in there and I'm like I'll run across something it's like this is stupid why is it this way because it gets in the way of what I want to do or what my immediate project and very often when I actually kind of keep working and it's like oh this is what that person was doing once I understood it had a purpose I'm looking it's like yes it accomplishes the purpose that it was designed for and so you know that my front one of those examples is my front light in order for my front light to be on I have to turn the front light on but I have to go to one of the bedrooms and turn the light switch on I'm like well that's kind of stupid I just want to be able to turn the light on and off but then I realized the person who lived here before me needed to turn the light off as they were going to bed so that they had light while they were getting through the house so what looked like this bad design from my perspective when I looked at it from the perspective of this other person is like oh yes that made sense all that to say is that when we look at biological designs and we say well what you eat and what you smell might cause you to choke we also have to ask the bigger question there's more to what God you know let's understand what God has done if you know if we're going to claim that God has done that let's actually understand everything and then ask the question is this the best design rather than trying to find this one little thing that seems hey this seems like a bad design let's make sure we understand the whole picture first and generally once we've done that we found that things that look like bad designs turned out to be very elegant designs you got it and this one coming in from contrary in 420 says would both guests agree this is something that I was hoping you guys might understand sometimes I don't get the question because I've been kind of sitting in idle mode rather than debating but they said would the guests agree that the menu is not the meal is namely that any measurement is not actually the thing being measured I'm not sure what type of analogy or figure of speech is being used here do you guys is that quick with you guys I I'm trying to wrestle with what that means now I would I would agree that it that it sounds like we say all right well I'm measuring an electron going across really what I'm measuring is if an electron is there we expect this sort of behavior and I will see an accumulation of charge which I measure by a deflection in a particular type of meter or you know a reading on a certain type of meter so when I look at the certain type of meter I'm not measuring an electron I'm measuring something that by extra or by my theory says that this was caused by an electron I don't know that that that seems kind of a statement of what's yeah well of course that's the way it is which so it makes me think I'm missing part of the question there but I don't know Felipe do you have any thoughts no I think they're just trying to say like when we observe light from the star we say this when we are serving the light of a star well maybe it's not the light of a star we are just actually measuring light right so the problem comes when you actually say when you try to go further not yeah but of course if you are not saying that if you're saying I'm measuring this I'm measuring light I'm measuring like the difference in charge or whatever there is no problem in that the problem not problem but the you have to be careful when you are actually going step further to to give explanations to things the difference difference between I can make an observation and my meter reads x y or z there's an inference of what that what caused that just distinguishing between observation and inference yeah now I would agree there you got it this one coming in from Mr. Monster says this is similar to a question that came up before so if that's the case let me know Jeff as I know you gave a response to one that's a lot like it they said the model of cosmology does not fit with the narrative that a sky could come before the land and sea how can the sky come before the land and the sea I'm not it so I I wonder if this is related to well in Genesis it says day one day two day three my position is that if you're going to look at you know if you're going to if you're going to look for the theological content you read through Genesis one according to the theological rules if you're going to compare it with what the scientific studies say you do what's you know you you follow good scientific thought in that and you know so one of the first things is establishing the frame of reference so Genesis one two puts the frame of reference which is the Holy Spirit on the surface of the waters and it's dark and it's formless and it's void and it's covered in water and so day one is where the light on day one where the light is separated from the darkness the sun already exists because that was created in the beginning this on day one you have a clearing of the atmosphere so the light from the sun can reach the surface of the earth like on a cloudy day day two is the separating of the waters above from the waters below that's a stable water cycle day three formation of land and the plants day four now you have a further clearing so you can see the objects in the heavens so there are ways to read Genesis one that are scientifically ludicrous but I think when you do a careful reading there's ways that are true to what we know about how to interpret scripture that align with what we find scientifically so I think it's important to put both our scientific understanding and our theological understanding or our understanding of scripture in the best possible light and say do they conflict or not and I've not found a genuine conflict when I've done that you got it a logical plausible probable thanks for your question this is for Felipe said quote you said the only things that are evidence must be observed do you therefore ignore inference for example to do you reject forensic science that uses inferences but you start from observations right so yeah that no I don't reject inference you make inferences based on what you observe and they're based on what you know from so from the going down this pyramid of knowledge so yeah I'm not rejecting inference whatsoever you got it and Jordan K asks is the claim quote God exists unquote falsifiable if so what would falsify it I think this is for you Jeff but maybe for both I don't know so I think if you're going to say does God exist you have to talk about which God and that that's why again I restrict myself to Christianity to say okay what I have to ask what does scripture say about that God and is there anything that would weigh in scientifically on whether that God exists I think if the resurrection didn't happen then yes God doesn't exist if there's no beginning I think that's a much that would go a long way towards saying God or at least the God of Christianity doesn't exist I do think we need to be careful though because when we talk about things being falsifiable the way we're headed in science right now is to talk about things in the context of a multiverse and so if we're talking about things in the context of a multiverse anything that could possibly happen can happen and if that's where we end up which seems to be the direction a lot of scientists are going this idea of falsifiability is going to go out the window because if it's logically possible you can no longer falsify it and God is certainly logically possible and in that sense would not be falsifiable I would say the God of the Bible is falsifiable because the Bible says makes certain claims about what happened and if we find that when we genuinely put scripture in the best light and what we find in scientific and those contradict that would say either science is wrong or God doesn't exist one of the two you got it and general b thanks for your super sticker in support of the cause as well as thanks for your question from jojo freelancer k up says what did God do though before he created the universe I mean all the time if God is eternal did God always create things or question mark I'm assuming that's for me well see time is a created quantity and so you know it went again this is a far more complex theological discussion that I'm going to give an answer but God exists in the eternal now there is so when we think of wow that'd be a long time for God to exist God is at the beginning the end he fills time he fills so he just simply exists and he chose to create this universe the fact that we can talk about time time is so fundamental to our existence we tend to think God is constrained or operates in the same way but God exists outside of the time spacetime reality of our universe and so it's not like God just sitting around for eternity thinking oh I hope it gets I can't wait till t equals zero so I can start the universe God just exists timelessly in his very fundamental essence and so it's again I love these questions because they force me to think theologically correctly about who God is and not apply things that I think are fundamental to me as though they apply to God you got it and thanks for your question Christos Vorellis this is very close to the ones before but in case you given us our last question we'll run through it they said does science show that animals appeared on earth before plants so a lot like two of the questions asked wondering the debate wondering the q&a but we'll give you a chance Jeff if you'd like to tackle it that requires more knowledge of bio or the the geological or biological history than I do than I know I know there are uh my understanding is that plants have been you know what I don't I don't have enough to weigh in on whether that's correct or not I'd have to go read about it more so that's something Felipe raised too so it gives me a challenge to go out and read a little more carefully about you got it but want to say folks our guests are linked in the description we highly encourage you to check out those links so that you can hear or read more from each of our guests and that includes at the podcast where we link our guests there in the description box as well want to say thank you very much Jeff and Felipe it has been a true pleasure to have you guys on with us today well thanks thanks a lot James I appreciate the interaction with Felipe and hope we can do something again yeah thank you it was very lovely lovely discussion the pleasure was all mine folks stick around I'll be back with a post credit scene updating you about upcoming debates so stick around for that and I'll be right back ladies and gentlemen thrilled to have you here hope you are doing well excited to say hello to you in the old chat as well as to say hey if you guys enjoyed this debate and you're like you know I was actually just talking to a friend of mine just recently and you're like yeah I think they might enjoy this I would highly encourage you even if you were talking about a related topic share this video with them as they might enjoy getting to hear both sides as well and that is so easy just below the video you see there's a share button that's one way that you can get the word out and that helps us grow as we are absolutely passionate about our vision of providing a neutral platform so that everybody can make their case on a level playing field my friends we want to give everybody a fair shot at making their case in debates whether it be Christians atheists Muslims you name it we are glad to host them and we're glad that you are here in chat as well want to encourage you as always striving to grow academically as we all are want to encourage you to attack the arguments instead of the person as we really do appreciate both Jeff and Felipe as an example so if you happen to leave comments want to let you know we do appreciate it when people attack the arguments instead of the person as you really do appreciate the guests they're the lifeblood of the channel you guys they make the channel fun and we really do appreciate them also thanks for your support of the cause today namely through the super chats that came in today 100% of them and you're like you mean 100% after youtube takes their cut no i mean 100% of them full 100% will be going to orphans worldwide which is an organization helping orphans throughout the planet people who are less fortunate than ourselves and that's something again i think we have though we may disagree on many things politics religion you name it we have things in common such as wanting to help those who are less fortunate which is something that's important to us at modern day debate as well as everybody i think wants a fair shot namely everybody wants it to be the case that there's a neutral platform so that everyone has their chance at making their case to the world where it's fair and on a level playing field so that's something i want to say thank you guys for your support of the channel and as i said if you want to click that share button down below you can share this channel as well as this debate with somebody that you are maybe discussing this with as of late and want to say thank you guys for all of your huge support of the channel though thanks for hitting that like button we just hit 100 likes thanks for that that really does mean a lot i seriously bet we could hit 110 if you haven't yet if you want to support the channel that's a way of free hey doesn't cost you a dime but helps us in the algorithm so that youtube will show this video to more people so especially if you're thinking man i really thought my side was more persuasive in this debate well that is the perfect reason to hit the like button because more people will see this debate when you do hit the like button and side show nav says want to be a moderator for modern day debate easy to do just contact me and discord side show nav and i'm going to pin this comment at the top of the chat and send and or you can send an email to moderated bait moderator at gmail.com and that's absolutely true we do appreciate all of the help from bob in getting the moderators on the same page as you do have rules we want to follow the terms of service with youtube because youtube helps us grow they support us by recommending our videos to people all the time i do also want to want to say thank you we have channel memberships and these are amazing level members don fulman ozzie and tux and scott michael thanks for your support of modern day debate through your channel memberships at the amazing third tier level we really do appreciate that now you might be wondering james like what do you mean what's with modern day debate here i've got to tell you we recognize and i really do believe this it is a sad state of the world that i would say mainstream media whether it be politically left or politically right there's a very clear skew or bias nobody can you know people used to that i'd say back in 2014 people used to use to say oh not my side though only the other side and i think now people are starting to kind of say yeah mainstream media very controlled one example being what stories or ideas they even want to allow on their news channel and so for us at modern day debate we are absolutely determined we want to give everybody a fair shot we want to be open to the most controversial of topics that youtube will allow us and we want to let the chips fall where they may we want to let it be such that it's authentic conversations it's not overly produced where we're trying to kind of like shape and kind of say like oh you you can't say that we do let the speakers know like hey you know people say whatever they want we let the chips fall where they may we let a thousand flowers bloom it's at least authentic it's raw it's unedited it's real and that's i think what people are actually wanting today is real discussion on the big questions of our day and it's something that frankly i don't think that the mainstream media is really delivering on and you might be thinking james come on you're 66 000 subscribers you're tiny or is it 67 000 really wow 67 000 subscribers you're tiny believe me joe rogan as an example it took him about 13 years to get where he is my dear friends it's going to take us some time but we're determined and with consistency and continually trying to self-improve changing modern day debate to fit what people are really looking for and tweaking kind of working on ourselves we absolutely believe with that personal growth and development as well as consistency we will be a force to be reckoned with it's happening my dear friends i'm gonna tell you we just actually hit 60 000 subs at the start of the year we are already at 67 000 and what is it 400 so we are absolutely absolutely thrilled for that support join us while we are small my dear friends i'm telling you someday we're gonna look back and we're gonna say wow you remember when we were at 67 000 and we were just kind of a small channel still believe me thanks for renewing your membership brian stevens we really do appreciate that has been a member for nine months we really do appreciate the support brian and i've got to tell you there are a lot of long time supporters here so brian stevens is one of them it's good to see you brian as always general balzac has been around for a long time as well and i got to tell you sycho nav has been around let's farm has been around for a long time and by the way let's farm has done a fantastic job of building up the discord for modern day debate that is linked in the description box here on youtube i highly encourage you check it out if you haven't already it's a great community it's growing fast and we really do appreciate let's farm for all of his work as well as the moderators that have been assisting him there and thanks to brook who is our main moderator over at twitch was a little bit more calm so if you like a little bit more slow of a live chat twitch is a little bit more peaceful that way and good to see you there in the old twitch chat i want to say hello let's farm shanti shed lianto as well as one is it one gigabyte one gigabyte canon let me know if i'm saying it right but we're glad you're here i see you there in the old twitch chat and in the old youtube chat thanks for your channel membership support support dan zamot good to have you with us jeremy nolyn as well as doorknob had a long time viewer factionalist network that's cas if you didn't know who is a guest moderator oftentimes along with any we're super thankful for our guest moderators as that helps me a ton as oftentimes i really need the help and they have honestly done a fantastic job i'm so thankful that they have jumped in and moderated and done a great job at that so illuminate happy to have you with us as well as absolute death don willis and ira taza rat hasala we are glad you were here as well as rebel nazarene glad to have you with us iron horse good to see you i hope you are doing well and tj 57 glad you are with us d ross good to see you long time viewer pro magnan i recognize that name another long time viewer thanks for being here d ross you're happy you were here and hot and hot thanks for coming by we hope you're doing well and perfect one good to see you a long time viewer as well i've got to tell you my dear friends we are excited that today's fundraiser will like i said 100 of the super chats will be going to orphans around the world thank you guys for supporting that cause with us that's important to us we want to make a difference and that's the thing folks i am i'm not going to challenge the people i want to challenge in particular there are some youtubers there are some twitch streamers and they may say i'm going to challenge them and maybe you know maybe they do maybe they do secretly give to causes that they care about i've got to give you i've got to give credit where it's due one example is regardless of what you think of his other stances because i'm not defending i i don't agree with everything that vosh says but i've got to tell you vosh has done more than one 24-hour charity stream for causes he's cared about such as children in ukraine or people in ukraine more generally as it's obviously being destroyed by war right now i've got to say regardless of what you think about his opinions on whatever other matter the fact that he's willing to do 24-hour streams and stay up all night and then in some of these cases raising 200 000 and then just giving it all away i've got to say vosh puts his money where his mouth is and there are a lot of streamers out there where i would say they talk the talk they might say like oh we're really we really care about this cause and i would say some of them they're doing very well for themselves in terms of you see the super chats or the you know the subscribers on twitch and things like that to where you can see that they're pulling in a lot of revenue in business speak but at the same time it's kind of like well i've got to say vosh really does beat out everybody in terms of raising funds for causes he cares about i've got to give credit where it's due regardless of whether or not i agree because there are plenty of things i disagree with wash frankly almost everything no offense to vosh but it's true we disagree a lot but i've got to tell you i do i recognize that the guy walks the walk when it comes to actually sacrificing and so that's something that there are a lot of youtube influencers out there that i will say they'll say oh we really care about this cause and you know they do videos on it and they'll do tweets where they're shaming people and say oh we care about it though not those people they don't care about it but they really don't put their money where their mouth is and i've got to say that's something for me i'm kind of wondering i'm like it's one thing to talk about it it's one thing to be about it and so thanks for helping us be about it at modern a debate by putting in those super chats today or i think it was a couple weeks ago we had a debate on the war in ukraine and that was a fundraiser as well so thanks for your support is we really want to take action and not just talk and that's one thing too i've got to tell you one thing that's a pet peeve of mine is so many people on twitter seem to think oh well i'm i am taking action i might not sacrifice any of my own funds like some of these other influencers but i i yell at people on twitter that's my moral good that i'm doing it's like well how does that practically speaking affect people throughout the world in terms of helping put food in their stomach or clothes on their bodies there are people that are in many cases just so less fortunate than us to which some people really think that they're doing oh i'm doing the lord's work by because i'm on twitter shaming people and it's like you are not doing anything you are just getting off you are just getting your uh jollies off of putting other people saying oh that side is bad and that person's bad blah blah blah and i would say actually take action that's something that's important to us but thanks joseph make nanny says love this channel thanks joseph that seriously means a lot we really do appreciate that and grim theorist glad to have you here says great job james thanks for that we really do appreciate that means a lot grim theorist and let's see here let me catch up with the old chat it's moving fast on me jojo freelancer k up says hi glad to have you with us jojo and amazing my dear friends we're excited about the future though and thank you guys illuminates this vashway is three hundred thousand dollars so a quarter or not a quarter over a quarter that's three hundred thousand dollars over a quarter of a million bucks and just gave it all away and people might say like oh well you know vash but he has so much money you know because he's got so many subscribers etc is that's true he has a lot of money but there are a lot of people a lot of influencers with the same amount of money and they're not giving anything at least not that what we can tell and they're certainly not doing all night long streams to do you know raise funds for that so i gotta tell you i don't agree with vash on everything either but i gotta tell you compared to a lot of streamers i care about action that's what we care about here at moderated debate not just talking about things let's see here but want to say thank you guys for being with us i am excited to see you at the next one which i anticipate let me just pull up the calendar because i did say i'll let you guys know about upcoming debates we haven't put it up yet but mr girl will be debating daniel hikachu on whether or not six sexual liberation is good you don't want to miss that one then next week we are possibly hosting a debate on whether or not there is evidence for god that one i'm that one would probably be put off i'm still kind of figuring that one out but let me see here we are excited as well we will be hosting a debate on whether or not islam is dangerous you don't want to miss that one that'll be juicy and controversial and want to say though thanks guys for all of your support of modern day debate we are excited about the future and believe me it is a bright future it is a big future we are working on making things better all the time thank you guys for all of your support thanks to absolute death says thank you mr james appreciate that absolute death that means a lot church of entropy says maybe the debate could be called should we believe in god thank you for that feedback and hi aris aris stasley's thanks for coming by we are glad you are here and thank you guys for all your support though well you're excited as we continue to pursue fulfilling the vision of providing a neutral platform so that everybody can make their case on a level playing field my friend so thanks for all of your guys's support we love having you here thanks guys i'm excited to see you in the next one and then of course this debate that you'd probably seen at the bottom right of your screen we are potentially hosting the return of flat earth next month so it is a while it's going to be a while yet before it comes back but you don't want to miss that one that's going to be a juicy one so thanks for your support everybody and we look forward to seeing you on the next one friday night