 Hey everybody, tonight we're debating whether or not Christianity is intellectually respectable in We Are Starting right now. With Randall Rouser's opening statement, thanks so much for being with us. Dr. Randall Rouser is a professor of historical theology at Taylor Seminary in Edmonton, Alberta, and author or co-author of 14 books including Jesus Love's Canaanites and his most recent book, Progressive Christians Love Jesus 2. Thanks so much for being with us. Dr. Randall Rouser, the floor is all yours. Thanks James for inviting me and thanks Dan for agreeing to participate. So the question is, is Christianity intellectually respectable? I'm arguing the affirmative that it is. I'd like to begin by offering a distinction between type and token. So Christianity is a type of thing. It's a type of worldview or religion, but it also has many specific token expressions and I will concede at the outset that not every token expression of Christianity might be intellectually respectable. You might not think, for example, that Pentecostal Appalachian snake handlers are intellectually respectable, or maybe you don't think that North American Protestant fundamentalism is intellectually respectable. But even if one concedes, as I would, that not every expression of Christianity is intellectually respectable, that's not the issue of debate. I think the issue of debate is whether we can identify expressions of Christianity that are intellectually respectable or whether Christianity is simplicit or on the whole we can view as intellectually respectable. And I believe that we can. So to define Christianity in terms of Appalachian snake handlers or North American Protestant fundamentalism, I think would be an example of the strawman fallacy. So hopefully we can set that to one side. Now, the concept of intellectual respectability, it's important to define what we mean by that. So I take it at its core that this is a social concept. To be respectable is to be of good standing or to have a good reputation. We've qualified in this debate the question of whether Christianity has good standing or a good reputation intellectually and thus with respect to an intellectual qualifier from an intellectual perspective. Now, we have to be careful here because simply identifying that Christianity is popular within the general population or some group of people would not get what we're after. That would of course be the argumentum ad populum just because something is popular or widely accepted does not of itself make it true or intellectually respectable. Rather, what we want to do is define with respect to a relevant social class that with respect to this class, we could call them an intelligentsia class, that with respect to that class Christianity should be held as intellectually respectable. Think by analogy of climate change, right? Whether or not the general population accepts such a thing as human induced climate change, what's more important is whether the relevant intelligence experts, the relevant intelligentsia class, that is climatologists, whether they accept human induced climate change and if they do or if they consider it to be a very serious theory, then that would make it intellectually respectable. And that's the kind of question that we're after here. Can we view Christianity as intellectually respectable just not because it's widely held by many people, but with respect to a particular relevant social class of intelligentsia? Now, the next thing we want to ask that is, well, how do we go about identifying which relevant social class might be the one whose opinions we should consider with respect to answering the question? Today, many people hold science in high esteem, natural science, and rightly so. Science has given us much. The question is whether the opinions of scientists on the whole should be the relevant class of intelligentsia by which we would identify Christianity as intellectually respectable. And I would question that assumption that the group that we should go to would be scientists. For example, you might have a mineralogist who specializes in the chemical structure of amphiboles, and he might know a whole lot, much more certainly than I'll ever know about the chemical structure of amphiboles. It doesn't follow that he is particularly informed on the intellectual credibility of Christianity. So simply being a scientist, I don't think of itself would qualify one of us as being in the relevant social class to identify whether Christianity is intellectually respectable. Well, then we might think perhaps we should look at a subset of scientists, some particular group of scientists whose opinion is especially relevant. I'm not sure who that would be. Maybe physicists, astronomers, biologists, neuroscientists. I would be interested in hearing someone make and claim an argument that one of those groups or another group of scientists in particular should be particularly relevant in assessing the intellectual respectability of Christianity. But until we can identify what that group is, I'm going to set aside scientists as a group. Another interesting group might be philosophers. But philosophy is a field no less diverse than science. And just because you are a philosopher doesn't mean that you are informed in Christianity. For example, you might be a philosopher of language who knows a whole lot about illocutionary acts and the platonic theory of propositions, but you may know comparatively little about Christianity. Or you may be a philosopher of ancient Greece and you know a whole lot about the pre-socratic, but you know little about Christianity. So once again, I don't think that philosophers would be the relevant social group that we should go to in terms of identifying respectability with with respect to Christianity. We could go to a subset of philosophers, philosophers of religion, and that would be interesting because I do think that would be a group who is trained in the relevant subject matter. They spend all their time doing philosophy of religion, often touching upon matters of Christianity. And if you did consider the opinions of that group as being significant, I think you would get good evidence that Christianity is very much significant within that community and is taken to be intellectually serious. However, I'm not going to paint anything myself on identifying a particular group like philosophers to identify the question. Instead, I'm going to go broader. I'm going to identify the question like this or the concept of intellectual respectability like this. One can identify a belief system as intellectually respectable or a position if it is considered a live option, one which is seriously discussed, debated and defended within intelligentsia classes generally, including informal institutions such as public universities, academic journals, academic societies, etc. So I'm not going to specify any particular group such as scientists or philosophers. Rather, I believe we should just look at really smart people generally who have terminal degrees and relevant fields and are active contributors in those fields and are participating in the highest levels of their academic institutions, universities, academic societies, journals, and so on. Do they generally think Christianity is intellectually respectable? And to that question, I think the answer is yes. We can just give multiple ostensive examples of this. For example, Christianity is well represented in the world's leading universities like Oxford or Cambridge or Yale or Harvard, which employed tenured professors who are Christians who write on Christianity, who explore the integration of their disciplines with Christian belief and or who simply operate at the highest levels of their field as Christians. One can also identify academic societies that are related to Christianity and the integration of Christianity with various high-level knowledge discourses such as the American Scientific Affiliation or the Christian Association for Psychological Studies or the Center for Theology and Natural Science, and so on. And then there are also interdisciplinary societies in which Christian views are well represented such as the American Academy of Religion, the Society of Biblical Literature, the American Philosophical Society, and so on. And there are academic journals like Newvam Testamentum, Books and Culture, Religious Studies, Philosophy, et cetera. And then there are leading Christian scholars in the intelligentsia. I'll just give you a few examples. Right here in Edmonton, Alberta, where I live and teach, I knew a personal friend is Don Page. He's the Professor of Cosmology and Theoretical Gravitational Physics at the University of Alberta, former research assistant for Stephen Hawking, and he's a Christian and seeks actively to explore the integration of his Christian faith with his work in gravitational physics. Or consider Francis Collins, former head of the Human Genome Project, director of the National Institute of Health and former head of Biologos and Evangelical Christian Organization. He has spent as much of his career seeking to integrate his Christian faith with his science and his worldview. Or consider philosophers like Alvin Planiga or Charles Taylor, who likewise operated at the highest levels of their fields. To conclude, there is no question, I think, but that Christianity is a live option in the manner I've defined, one which is seriously discussed, debated and defended within formal institutions of the intelligentsia classes, including in public universities, academic journals and academic societies. And thus by the criterion I've presented, which I believe is the best way to get at the concept of intellectual respectability, I do believe that Christianity as a religion and as a worldview is without a question intellectually respectable, even if we have our questions about the Pentecostal Appalachian Snake Handlers. And with that, I will turn it back over to you, James. You got to thank you very much for that opening statement. And folks want to let you know if it's your first year at Modern Day 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 are from. And hey, a lot of upcoming debates, for example, Vaj and Alec Stein next week will be debating whether or not it is okay for kids to be at drag queen shows. You don't want to miss that one. It's going to be controversial, so hit that subscribe button and you won't miss it. And with that, we're going to kick it over to Dan Barker for his opening. We're thrilled to have you here with us, Dan, thanks so much for roughing it, given that you're going without electricity right now. But let me introduce you first. Dan Barker is an atheist author and is the co-president of the Freedom from Religion Foundation, as well as a former evangelical minister. So thanks again for being with us, Dan. The floor is all yours. Before you start the clock, let me just point out we've had a huge thunderstorm today. And we've been without power for many, many hours. So I've got some candles burning here and I'm using the battery on my laptop. And I'm hooking up through a hotspot on my iPhone, which is going through the phone service. And I think it looks pretty good and I think it sounds okay. It's almost a miracle, you know, I would think. But anyway, if the power does go on, you're going to see some bright lights come up. And if my laptop dies, I might have to call back in on the phone. But anyway, let's see what happens here. Okay, start the clock. So I think that word respectability is a weasel word because it could mean one thing to one person and one thing to another. What you might find respectable, I might not. Certainly there is a huge intellectual tradition in Islam of universities and scholars and books and research of people that are intellectually discussing Islam, which is on the table, as Randall points out. And yet I can admit, yep, there is a huge, long intellectual tradition of Islam being debated right now with all this literature by really smart people. But I do not find the teachings of Islam to be respectable myself. What is Christianity? Christianity is a religion that has followers who claim to be followers of Jesus. That's what Christianity is and that comes from the Bible. So are the teachings of Jesus himself actually intellectually respectable? You might think so. I don't. When Jesus said that certain men should castrate themselves, was that respectable? When Jesus said that you should hate your family, was that respectable? When Jesus said that he came to set family members fighting with each other, was that respectable? When Jesus said, don't think that I've come to bring peace on earth. I've not come to bring peace, but a sword. Was that respectable? You might think so. Certainly a lot of the rioters who stormed our capital on January 6th were Christians who were carrying the Christian flag. They thought it was respectable to commit violence in the name of their faith. When Jesus said that nonbelievers should be cast into the fire, was that respectable? When Jesus promoted the punishment of an eternal furnace of fire, was that respectable? Is it respectable to frighten young children with the teaching that they are born depraved and that their sins are going to send them to hell where they will burn forever? Is that a respectable teaching that we should be telling our children? When Jesus encouraged gouging out your eye and cutting off body parts to avoid going into that hell, and by the way, he said that in a sexual context, cutting off body parts, was that respectable? Do you admire that? Can I admire that intellectually or even not even intellectually? Is that a good teaching? When Jesus refused to condemn his genocidal father for ethnic cleansing and for rape, for boasting about rape, was that respectable? When Jesus endorsed scriptures that contained a talking snake, a talking donkey, a talking bush, a disembodied hand floating in the air and riding on a wall, the sun standing still in the sky, wizards, witches, demons, a seven-headed dragon, sticks turning into snakes, a river turning into blood, food falling from the sky, people walking on water and all sorts of magical, absurd and primitive stories, a book that Jesus endorsed and quoted from. Is that respectable? Maybe you think so, but some of us don't. Why did Jesus never denounce slavery? When Jesus said that you should beat your slaves, was that respectable? Of course, he qualified it by saying that the slaves who didn't know better should not be beaten as hard as the slaves who did know better. Is that respectability? Here is some advice that Jesus gave. And if you're a Christian, you are a follower of Jesus. This is from the New Testament. Tell me if you think this advice sounds respectable. Don't have sexual urges. If you do something wrong with your eye or your hand, pluck it out and cut it off. Even metaphorically, what a horrible thing to say. Marrying a divorced woman is committing adultery. Don't save money. Don't plan for the future. Don't become wealthy. Sell everything you have and give it to the poor. Don't work to obtain food. Act in such a way that people will want to persecute you. Take money from those who have no savings and give it to rich investors. If someone steals from you, don't try to get it back. If someone hits you, invite them to do it again. Turn the other cheek. If you lose a lawsuit, give more than the judgment, Jesus said. If somebody forces you to walk a mile, walk two miles. If someone asked you for anything, anything, give it to them without question. Is this good advice? Is this respectable advice? Anyone of us could have come up with a better system of human conduct than the teachings that Jesus gave. He did say a few nice things. Love your neighbor. Although the verse he was quoting, the word neighbor referred to your Hebrew neighbor, obviously not the neighboring nations around you whom the Israelites did not love or did not respect. Is it respectable to follow a religion that claims there is a God for which there is no coherent definition, no good evidence, no good argument, no agreement among its followers about the nature or the moral principles of that God, no good reply to the problem of evil, and for which there's no need. Tens of millions of good Americans and good Canadians lead happy, moral, productive, and meaningful lives without believing in God or Christianity or this book that has all of these mythology and legend and that most of us find absurd. Maybe you think everything I have just said about Jesus sounds intellectually respectable and you're free to think that, but respectability is a weasel word. To me, it doesn't sound that way. And I think Randall was correct to eliminate scientists because more than 90% of scientists in the American Academy of Science do not believe in a God. They are smart people. It's not just that they don't believe in Christianity. They don't even believe the concept that there is a God upon which this Christianity is based. Philosophers read religion. Philosophers read the Bible. So it sounds to me on its face that what Randall is doing is making an argument from authority. Here's a certain class of people that are qualified authorities who can make a decision about which the rest of us have to say, oh, well, then this is intellectually respectable. I think if there is a God and he's powerful and he cares about us, we've written a book in such a way that any one of us with our own mind, with our own idea of what is intellectually respectable, any one of us without some top-down authority telling us what's respectable or not, we should be able to make up our own mind and think for ourselves whether we think those teachings and many more from the Bible are respectable or not. To my mind, and what else am I going to use but my own mind, those teachings of Jesus, which is the core of what Christianity is, those teachings are not intellectually respectable. Thank you very much for that opening. We are going to kick it a new open conversation. With that, I want to say, folks, our guests are linked in the description, and that includes if you're listening via the podcast, we put our guests' links in the description box there as well. So thanks very much. Dan and Randall, the floor is all yours for open dialogue. So Randall, I know you tried, but could you repeat defining what is Christianity? What is Christianity? I would say the Apostles' Creed is a good summary of it. And could you remind a lot of our viewers may not know that. Could you remind them what that says? I believe in God, the maker, almighty creator of heaven and earth, Jesus Christ's only Son, our Lord who is conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried and rose from the dead. He ascended to the right hand of the Father. From thence he shall come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, and the life everlasting. So does that description of Christianity include the teachings of Jesus? It doesn't include particular interpretations of things such as the long list you went through. So for example, you made a big deal. Jesus said, hate your family. Later on, you kind of acknowledged that some of that language was actually hyperbole, which is quite different from taking it literally. And I know nobody who takes it literally. But I would say that when you get into interpreting particular precapies or teachings of Jesus, that there's a broad diversity among Christians as to how to interpret the various teachings of Jesus, such as the ones that you were quoting. Well, for example, do you think that earlier Christians might be better judges of what the Scriptures meant than modern Christians? Not necessarily. It depends. You'd have to evaluate the arguments. And I don't know what you mean by earlier Christians. You mean that. Well, so somebody like Christian, like like the church father, he read that verse in Luke and in Matthew about how Jesus was saying, there are eunuchs who have been so from birth. There are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others. And there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let anyone accept this who can origin and early Christian read that verse. And he took a knife to himself because Jesus told him to. Now, I hope that you, and certainly I would want to translate that verse and interpret it metaphorically, not literally. But many people have actually interpreted that verse literally because what is Jesus saying? There were entire monastic orders called the castrati who took that teaching. I hope, Dan, that you're not suggesting that origins interpretation in like the two thirties was somehow broadly representative of a patristic theology because it does sound to me like you're engaging in the fallacy of cherry picking that you're going to take origin's extreme example, which is clearly an outlier in the patristic era and suggest that was somehow broadly normative for how early Christians interpreted the words of Jesus in that verse. I'm not saying that at all. Okay. Well, then I don't know what the relevance of singling out origin as somehow a representative example is. It looks like your, I did not say he was a representative example. Okay. So I gave him, I gave him as an example of how some people might interpret a passage that looks pretty clear on its face. And I would, when I was a preacher, I would have said origin was wrong, just like you. I would have said he was failing to see the subtleties and the metaphors. But if you look at that verse, what it says, I mean, on its face, Jesus, Jesus said there are some eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. He didn't say all Christian men. He said, let anyone accept this who can. In other words, if you got the balls for it, you can accept this teaching. And some people have read that verse. And even if it was misinterpreted, isn't that a dangerous thing for a loving God to put into the Bible? A teaching like that that actually was interpreted in a dangerous way. I know you think you're smarter and more subtle and more sophisticated than origin was. And you certainly probably are. But this one verse and many, many others, as I read them with my own, what I consider to be intellectually respectable mind, I see the danger and the ugliness of some of these teachings of Jesus. Why don't you? So, yeah, I would just say Dan's approach in terms of rhetoric is to do what has been called the Gish Gallup, which was originally, Eugene Scott coined this as a term to describe the way that Dwayne Gish, who was a creationist, would debate neo-Darwinians by giving a number of examples that were allegedly problems for evolution and then challenge his debate partner to provide a response to every one of these. And I think Dan did something similar in his opening statement where he gives 30 different verses that are highly contested and debated among scholars, none of which goes to the heart of mere Christianity as I define it in the Apostles Creed. And all of which there is a live discussion about because Christianity is a large, diverse, intellectually rich living tradition. And so I think it's a rhetorical technique and not a particularly helpful one. We could get into the weeds debating the exegesis and hermeneutics of particular verses of the teachings of Jesus. But what we should recognize is that we are talking about the broader Christian tradition, which has always had a diversity of interpretations on this. Same when you reference things like eternal conscious torment, which Christians have a variety of views on, some accepted, some rejected, or the ethics of how you teach children or what you should teach children or how to understand the nature of the fall. You've made an interesting statement and I believe a misrepresentation about Jesus. Now you did say, well, Jesus did say some nice things, but then you suggested that he was simply, when he said, love the neighbor, he was teaching the love of insiders. But that is to ignore the broader sweep of the teaching of Jesus throughout the Gospels, where he is constantly revising who the insider outsiders are by challenging his followers to love the Samaritan, to love the leopard, to love the Gentiles, to love the tax collectors, to love the Romans, to love the Canaanites, all the people that you are inclined to hate or otherwise, Jesus is actually challenging them to love. And I think his teaching was much more radical of world changing than you seem willing to concede. Yeah, well, I mean, that's really what he said when that is admirable, but all religions have teaching in it like that. You just love the downcast and the poor. I mean, that's nice, but big deal. All religions talk about peace, all religions talk about love, and Jesus continued that tradition. But you said a moment ago that there's a broad variety of interpretations of these past. Some accept them and some reject them. And didn't Paul and 1 Corinthians tell believers, let there be no disagreement among you, you should all think with one mind. If the Bible is written in such a way that it is so fragile to interpretation that one group could read it this way and one group could read it another way, doesn't that make the author of that book inept? Doesn't that make him guilty of obfuscation? The fact that there are snake handlers, which I abhor just as much as you do. The fact that those people exist because of the last few verses of the book of Mark, which we know was a later interpolation. I mean, doesn't that make God a sloppy author that his verses could be so easily misunderstood? If you were God, wouldn't you want it to be more clear and less subject to the whims of interpretation? I don't abhor Appalachian snake handlers. I don't agree with their practice, but I don't abhor them. And I am cautious about using language of intent for other people. In terms of the issue that you raised, I think it's a perfectly legitimate issue. My second to most recent book, Jesus loves Canaanites, I have a chapter in there where I talk about the problem of ambiguity in the Bible and addressing that problem. I think it's a serious philosophical problem and an objection. And it's part of a long conversation within broader Christian discourse. It's one of many areas of discussion. But I don't think that that argument, such as you've raised it here, is something on which Christianity stands or falls. I mean, it's part of a much wider conversation. There is an interesting disagreement you and I have, or I would say perhaps divergence in interpreting what is at the issue at debate. You defined respectability as a weasel word. Well, I will just say I didn't select the word. So if anyone's weasel, maybe it's James. I don't know. It's not me. I thought this was your topic. No, I didn't suggest it. Let's see, that is interesting. So you did interpret it as me, which is, I think that's just to polemicize it unnecessarily and to project negative malevolent purposes to me that I don't think I have. I'm not attempting to be weasel, to obfuscate, to be evasive. I'm certainly trying to be as clear as possible as I am, as I can be in my assumptions. And we have had a different interpretation of the question. I will just say this and then toss it back to you. So you seem to interpret intellectual respectability as being something that one can only have if they quote unquote admire the position. You said that a few times. And so you don't admire Islam. And so I guess it's not intellectually respectable to you. To me, it's not about admiring something. So for example, I'm generally pro-life in terms of my ethics of abortion, although that isn't necessary. I mean, I think that there's room for not only for a therapeutic abortion, but for a conversation about elective abortion as well. I think it's an intellectually serious position in an intellect. It's one to be respected. So I don't demonize people that I disagree with. Judith Jarvis Thompson wrote one of the most influential essays defending the abortion position. I think in 1970 called a defensive abortion. I really don't like her argument, but I still think it's intellectually respectable. You've got to engage it. If you want to have a serious bio ethical discussion. So I think that you and I maybe have a, do have a significant disagreement about what it means to be intellectually respectable. You seem to think it means you have to admire the position and broadly agree with it. And I just don't. Well, so let me apologize. I thought this was your topic because you, you are the affirmative. So James, James was putting this topic to both of us. But now it's hard to see what I wrote down here with this candlelight going here. I do abhor the Appalachian snake counters because they are deliberately engaged in a knowingly dangerous practice, which is killing people. I abhor that. I think it is wrong. I think moral people should denounce that maybe in their personal lives. There are people that I might like, you know, in the, in the supermarket or something. I wouldn't. I don't believe in demons. So I wouldn't demonize you or anybody, you know, and I think, you know, saying that I'm demonizing is a bit of a strong word as well. But the word respectable itself, who's making the decision. You are suggesting that the decision should be made by a select group of people. And I point out whether there's a select group of people in the Islamic countries who have an intellectual discussions about the validity of the Quran and Islam and the Hadith and all that. I guess you're right in that one sense. I mean, if it's on the table, if it's being discussed in universities, then there's some intellectual component to it. But intellectual discussions don't always lead to truth. An intellectual discussion could lead to the fact that it's false. And I think the most important question we should ask about Christianity is, is it true? And when I went down my list of teachings of Jesus, I actually didn't say intellectually respectable. I asked, is that respectable? And I guess what I'm importing into this is a moral component as well. Is that morally respectable? And maybe James can tell us if I'm out of order by reinterpreting the word respectability in that way. I think you would agree that origin was morally reprehensible for taking a rusty knife to himself because of his teaching. He caused harm that was not necessary based on our scriptural teaching. I'll jump in just because I did look at the emails just now because I was thinking originally, I think that Randall, we had talked about a debate with Matt Dilla-Hunty. This is a long time ago. And I took that topic that we talked about as a possible debate with Matt Dilla-Hunty in the past. And I said, hey, would this work to you, Randall? And then you were like, yeah, that can work for me. And then I had gone to you, Dan. And I said, hey, you know, this is one that Randall would enjoy debating with you. And so just to clear the air there. So in other words, it's like in part, so yeah, you could say Randall agreed to it after I pitched it to him. And then I came to you, Dan. Although I don't even know if I would say, well, I don't want to take sides. So that's all I'll say. That's fine with me. Yeah, exactly. It's a launching point for a good civil discussion. So we interpreted. I thought it's the kind of question you can interpret differently. So I'm not surprised that we did. Yeah. Yeah, you used to term rusty knife with respect to origin. I don't know any evidence that that implement he used was rusty. I do know that as misguided as he was, what he was seeking to do among other things was remove any possibility of scandal for taking on female students. And so misguided though he may have been and an outlier though he may have been in the patristic era. And he at least maintained his, his moral respectability in a way that not all original leaders have to admire that. Well, can you at least admit that for origin. At minimum, that verse turned out to have drastic dangerous consequences that yeah, that would come back to that. I said earlier, I have a chapter in Jesus loves Canaanites on the problem of ambiguity in the Bible. I mean the origin that I mean the verse in Matthew 19, that's one thing about Unix for the sake of heaven. I think probably much stronger for your immediate case here. You and I debated it a year and a half ago, talking about biblical violence. And there you've got all sorts of violence, right? When it comes to genocide and things like that and the Torah, the violence of the biblical law. And so there's certainly you have no shortage of, of texts you could go to, to mount that a case for that kind of topic. I would note that I, that again, that's one among many issues of debate and discussion within Christianity. You said one thing I just like to latch onto. You said that my case was an appeal to authority, the authority of the intelligentsia. Well, I mean what I was doing was interpreting the fact that this was specifically described as respectability with respect, relative to intellectual properties. So where the intellectual properties of society to be found, while they are with respect to the intelligentsia, the educated classes. So it can sound elitist to a person if they don't understand that I respond to a specific question about intellectual respectability. I do think that Islam is intellectually respectable. It's a very serious major world religion and philosophical tradition and worldview. And it is one to be engaged with seriously and rigorously. You referenced atheism among scientists. This is just sort of a side, but I'll just throw this as well. I think you said it was like 80%. I know what a 2009 Pew survey atheism among scientists, or I should say theism was put at 33%. So much lower than the 83% average of the general population, but nonetheless much higher than 20% or lower, which would be implied by your statement, but you may have different survey data. I would say this though, again, I'm a meteorologist who is studying crystalline structures is not necessarily informed as to the arguments for theism. So the mere fact that scientists may have a statistically higher evidence of atheism within their population is not in and of itself of any particular interest for deciding the relative truth or evidence for theism or atheism. So my figure came not from scientists in general, but from the American Academy of Science. The members of the American Academy of Science, more than 90% of them are atheistic, but I'm sure that in the broader field that number is lower. So you are probably right. And just a parenthesis here, you were mentioning the evil actions of the God of the Bible. You know, I think we might have debated this, that I have a book that goes into great detail about that. It's called God, the Most Unpleasant Character in All Fiction that has more than 1500 passages of the Pestilential. Oh, there we go. Okay, good. By the way, that's out of print, but it's going to come back in a few months. So, and that was just a huge... Actually, it was a fun project, although I felt like washing my hands after reading some of these horrible things, especially that verse in Jeremiah where God boasts about raping women. I mean, that's just... I mean, I never preached a sermon about that. And I know, I know we can say, well, we can interpret that differently. That it was hyperbole or it was metaphorical, but it's still there. It'd be like somebody telling a bad joke, a bad racist joke or sexist joke, and you object to that, and then you say, well, it's just a joke. I mean, a joke isn't... Even if you're not meaning it to be literal, it's still a bad joke. And so, a lot of the Old Testament passages, you might say, oh, well, those are just the words those ancient Israelite patriarchs were using. But it's still a bad joke. On its face, the words they are using are still bad, horrible words that moral people should denounce. So, yeah. I mean, again, with those various verses, those are all issues that there are extended discussions, as in my book, about how to interpret what's going on there. Those are all issues of biblical exegesis and hermeneutics and theology. And that's part of a much larger conversation about Christianity. But if we frame this as the discussion and debate about whether Christianity on the whole is an intellectually respectable position, what that would mean, I think, by reasonable interpretation as this. Can a person be a Christian and adopt what is an intellectually serious position? Now, consider another area, QAnon theory, right? This is really popular these days among some in the... I think the conservative side of the American population, so where there's a belief that there's a worldwide satanic conspiracy, and Donald Trump is like a messianic figure, and this conspiracy involves Democrats and Hollywood elites and so on, and involves child sex trafficking and so on. I don't think QAnon is an intellectually respectable position. It is becoming distressingly more and more socially influential position. And it does get discussed among the intelligentsia for those reasons, because it is concerning as a conspiracy theory that is unmoored to evidence and could have some very negative antisocial impacts on the common wheel of society. That's very different from Christianity or Islam or atheistic naturalism, which are all intellectually serious positions that are debated and defended actively among the intelligentsia. And so that's why I think atheistic naturalism, along with Islam, along with Christianity are all intellectually serious positions. Well, that's good to hear. So I guess my leaning is more to the question, is it true? Just because something is intellectually respectable doesn't mean it's true. And I think that's a more important question. A better debate is, is Christianity true? That would be better. I think I'm more focused. But yeah, when I hear you explain intellectual respectability in that sense, well then, you know, if it is being discussed by intellectuals in some serious academic or, you know, well, then we could say it's intellectually respectable. It doesn't mean it's true. But I mean, I was going to ask you, but you already answered it, is atheism intellectually respectable? And you said, well, yes, it is. Well, I think so. There are expressions, there are token examples of atheism or atheistic naturalism, which really is a closer analog to Christianity because atheism is too minimal a claim. But if you have an atheistic naturalism, a person who believes everything is ultimately natural in some sense, such as explicable through a hypothetically completed natural science, there is an intellectually respectable version of that view. There's also intellectually problematic views that are expressions of that view, just like the Appalachian snake handlers. There are naturalists who have a lower level of ability to articulate their beliefs in a defensible way. So each one of these, right? You're going to get a diversity of views. I think one of the issues here for me is that the more that we can recognize that other positions with which we disagree are intellectually respectable or intellectually serious, is that it lowers our contempt for others. And it makes us more open to considering the arguments and evidence that they may have. Because I agree with you at the end of the day. The bigger issue is from respectability to, well, is it rational and ultimately, is it true? But this is part of that conversation because if I think QAnon is not even intellectually respectable, I'm not going to get around to considering whether it's true. Yeah. And you're right. Just like Christians disagree with each other and they fought wars over these disagreements, I know of a denomination that had a split over whether or not the communion cup should have a handle at your price. What a silly thing to fight over. And blood was spilled, of course, in Europe and over ideas of infant baptism or transubstantiation or so on. But just like Christians disagree with each other, atheists do too. Atheism is not an orthodoxy from some top down. Every atheist is a bottom-up thinker. And so it's fascinating. We have 37,000 members of our organization, and while we all agree on state-church separation, in fact, many Christians agree and join us with that as well. We have Calvin to join our lawsuits to keep state and church separate. And in fact, we just interviewed Amanda Tyler with the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty. We co-authored a report on the January 6th insurrection highlighting the fact that Christian nationalism was a background or a default assumption in that whole thing. So we do work with believers as well. But there are, philosophically, atheists don't agree on everything. There's a fierce, friendly, but very fierce fight among atheists about free will. But that's happening in every sphere. Theologians don't agree about free will. Calvin and Luther disagreed. Scientists don't agree about free will, although most scientists tend to be determinists. Philosophers don't agree on free will, and it's almost like a theological fight when you get into that. But one big difference, I think, between atheists, we thrive on it. We think it's healthy that we disagree, whereas many Christians, many pastors and denominations teach, like Paul said, let there be no divisions among you. Let there be no disagreements among you, Paul told believers. And so they're not comfortable. They're not comfortable with disagreement. That's true about some Christian communities and not true about others. Certainly, I often, I mean, I want to emphasize within Christian discourse that questioning and doubt should very much be part of a healthy Christian life. Christians were grafted in, we believe, to a tradition, the Jewish tradition. And of course, Israel, the name Israel was given to Jacob because he strived with God. And that becomes a metaphor for people who are willing to strive with truth and wrestle with truth. So that rather than thinking that piety or faithfulness is simply defined in terms of unanimous adherence to a certain set of dictates, there's also room to recognize that a morally mature community is also one that welcomes questioning and doubt. So yes, there should be unity in essentials, but in non-essentials there should be freedom. There should be liberty and in all things, as the same goes, there should be charity. Now, you talked about, okay, again, so we should ask about whether these things are true. Again, I agree absolutely. We're not going to settle that here as much as I love modern day debate. We're not going to settle it in the next 15 minutes as to the arguments respectively for and against Christianity, but simply recognizing that there is high-level arguments that are going on by people. I mentioned Don Page, for example, right? This physicist at the University of Alberta. He's developed a novel ontological argument for God's existence. And honestly, I have trouble even following the argument. What that does to me is gives me a certain epistemic humility to recognize, yeah, there's a lot going on here that I don't understand. And so that just for me feeds into my deference to recognize the prima facie respectability of various traditions, including ones I'm not a part of, because I see that they have a live, vibrant, intelligent, and intellectual discussion ongoing. Yeah. So what you said, some Christian traditions welcome questioning. So I have a question for you. You mentioned Jacob wrestling with God, Isra El, struggling with God. I assume you believe that that's a true story that actually happened. Jacob was wrestling with God. When Jacob was wrestling with God, was he wrestling with a body, a physical body? Was it some kind of an angelic body, or did he see this face of this creature as he was wrestling? I mean, what do you think was actually going on in the real world at the time Jacob was wrestling with God? Okay, you broke up a little bit, but I think I've gotten the gist of what you're saying. So for me, when I provide this framework for discussing this in Jesus loves Canaanites. So what I want to say is, if we want to talk about what is Christianity and what are the historical claims toward which Christianity is essentially committed, those are centered on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. And the historical documents that testified to that, which were written within decades, and within 1 Corinthians 15, you've got a creedal formula that goes back to within years, if not months of the life of Jesus. On historical grounds, that's extraordinarily intimate textual evidence. And on theological grounds, that's where everything really rests, which is why that's at the center of the Apostles Creed that I recited earlier. When you get into discussing content stories from the Deuteronomic narratives, I'm not sure about the historical correlation of the narrative. So for example, the narrative that you're referencing in Genesis, well, Genesis and the Deuteronomic history was likely compiled in the 600s BC, which would be 1,000 years after the events that you're referring to that they would have just described. So when you've got a gap of 1,000 years, not a few years, that right there would give us some caution in terms of being definitive as to, well, this is a historical narrative rather than interpreting it in some other way. And there's nothing theologically that is at stake in terms of interpreting the Joshua narrative historically in contrast to Jesus, where everything ultimately rests for a Christian. So I think your question is interesting. If it did happen and you were flying the wall, what would you have seen? But I don't know that I can answer that question with any confidence, because I don't place a high degree of importance on establishing that in fact that narrative occurred and thus that correlates to a past historical event and precisely the way that the text describes. So I no longer care if something is theologically relevant or theologically important. I mean, that's a theology is a theology, which is an umbrella over the text. You're bringing a theology to your text. But even if Jesus were historically probable, I mean, let's grant that for the argument. And you are certainly aware that there are many Christians who doubt much of the historicity of Jesus, not just us atheists and skeptics. True. Most atheists, the Jesus himself gave huge value to Old Testament scriptures. He quoted his father with approval. Whenever he quoted scripture, it was from those ancient, what we call Old Testament Jewish scriptures. And sometimes he paraphrased them. He didn't quote them exactly. And of course, the Septuagint was also interpreting and paraphrasing what the Hebrew scriptures were. So the writers in the New Testament were actually paraphrasing from a paraphrase or interpreting from an interpretation. But in any event, Jesus put value on those Old Testament teachings. And I think you agree with me that in the first century, Christians actually did believe that a man named Jacob wrestled with some kind of a physical creature. When Moses went to the mountain and God said, you can't see my face, but you can see my backside. I think most people in then and many Christians today believed Moses was actually looking at something physical, a God that has a backside, whatever that meant. So if that's just metaphor, if that's just a figure of speech that people of millennium later were just sort of reinterpreting, then what else in the Bible is just metaphor? Maybe Yahweh himself, maybe God himself is just one huge figure of speech. Maybe the Christians based their whole house, not on the rock, but they're building on the sand of a huge figure of speech that ancient Israelite... So you've got to give some credence to what those Israelite writers were saying. You can't just throw them all out. Otherwise we throw out the Ten Commandments as well. The way that you phrase it, I appreciate that, but it sounds to me a little bit like a fundamentalist response. I don't mean that in a pejorative way, but rather in a descriptive way that for a Christian fundamentalist approach to the Bible, there's a hermeneutic that is operative, which is interpret a text literally where possible. And the belief is that interpreting it literally for a 21st century reader is the neutral way to interpret the text. And that should be the default way. And then if you deviate from a literal interpretation, then you're somehow subverting the text or you're taking a low view of the authority of Scripture. And I think both of those are flawed. You're not taking a low view of the authority of Scripture if you simply have a different interpretation than another person. I accept that Scripture is plenarily inspired. It's all authoritative and inspired. It doesn't follow that I have a prescribed way to interpret various narratives. And yes, I do agree that things like the back of God and so on, that is what we would call anthropomorphic language and anthropopathic language. So descriptions of God in human form and with human emotions. And that's what we would call accommodation, that God comes down and meets human beings where they're at and comes to us as if he's a human or in the language of being human, because that's what makes sense to us. And that's how God establishes a relationship with us. And yes, some people, some Christians can make the mistake of interpreting that literally and forgetting that we're talking about the sovereign omnipresent omnipotent creator of the universe. But that's going to happen. That's just the reality of recognizing that textual interpretation can be a challenging affair. And so that's why we need to read in communities so that we can balance our interpretations against other people and they can offer their critiques. So the story is not true. Moses did not go up to a mountain and hear words spoken by God, God himself saying, you can't see my face, but you can see my backside. That story didn't happen. It's not a true story is what you're saying. So once again, that's a fundamentalist way of approaching it to say truth in a text only resides in whether the way that I'm interpreting it literally is the correct way. So that if anybody deviates from that literal correct way, then it's false. And I think that's what the Christians talk about Genesis one and say, if creation wasn't made in a literal six, 24 hour days, 10,000 years ago, then the text is false. Or if there wasn't a global flood, then the text is false. And I think those are just deeply flawed ways of approaching the Bible. And what they do is they set people up to have unnecessary crisis of faith. Well, it's either true or it isn't. And it's not an unnecessary crisis of faith. You realize that the teachings you've been believing for years are actually not true. It's actually not so much a crisis as a victory over faith when you realize if a Muslim rises above the Quran and says, oops, Allah, it's just a myth. We applaud that. So it's calling it a crisis of faith is not necessarily a bad thing. It can be a very good thing to have a crisis of faith. But it seems to me what you're saying is that those passages which were extremely important to the Jews, the story of Israel wrestling with God, the story of Abraham, the story of Moses going up to Mount Sinai, those were extremely important stories which I imagine, and I think you imagine too, those people back then interpreted as true stories and first century Christians as well. Today in the 21st century, of course, we are so much more sophisticated and more subtle in our ability to interpret, right? And we can do those kind of things. But to those people in that time, do you think that they were saying, oh yeah, of course the writer of the book of Genesis and the book of Exodus there, you know, we all know that it's a metaphor, wink, wink, wink. You know very well from the Scriptures that they believed those stories were true, whether you do or not, whether you have a sophisticated interpretation, those people believe those stories. They based a whole nation upon it. So again, there is actually, it's not as simple as you were suggesting here. So for example, when we're talking about, I wrote this book about biblical violence, Jesus loves Canaanites. When they're going in to destroy Canaan, right? You have this language in Deuteronomy 20, for example, to destroy everything within the land. If as is commonly believed among biblical scholars, those texts were written in or compiled in around the 600s. This is right at the time that Israel is going into occupation in Babylon. And within that context, suddenly they take on to the original readers a whole new resonance that they would do not have for the reader immediately today, which is this, that when you are in exile in a far off place and you are the vulnerable minority culture, maintain your distinctiveness. Because one of the core things Deuteronomy 7 and 20 are about is maintaining your distinctiveness in the land. And so when they read about that within the original land of Canaan, they now interpret that as they're going into exile in Babylon. That's what we have to do when we're doing biblical interpretation, is remember that there was an original audience to which this was written. And it is not the case that necessarily the way that you read the text today as a 21st century reader would have been the way that a person reading it 2,000 years ago would have read it or 3,000 years ago. To them, it may have been had very different significance because of the historical location and social location in which they were. And so that is just part of my caution, that it's not as simple as you're suggesting here. Well, then the Bible was not written for us then. It was written for them and we should discard it. We can look at it as an important piece of human literature, but it was not written for us then. Well, a way that we commonly put it is it was not written to us, that is correct, but it was written for us. In other words, we have to remember that there is an original audience to whom scripture was written. And so we have to understand the historical and social and cultural backdrop of that audience so that we're going to understand the text properly. And then there's the bigger question of, well, now what does it mean to us? And that's where you get into hermeneutics, right? You go from exegesis or interpretation of the text to the application of the text to the contemporary reader. It's not simple. I agree. It's complicated. Although I will say this just to swing back to the main topic of debate tonight, settling any one of those questions is not something on which the intellectual respectability of Christianity lies, because there are right now high level discussions among leading academics in multiple fields, academic institutions, which I reference journals, so on, academic conferences, and they're all discussing these issues, but at a higher level than I can grasp or that I'm just not aware of a lot of those discussions, but that's just part of the main point again, is we can recognize Christianity isn't intellectually respectable, even if we have a lot of outstanding questions about it. So was there a talking snake and a talking donkey? And was there a virgin birth? Did those things really happen? Two different things there. So first of all, again, theological difference and historical difference. So I don't have any theological stake and they're literally being a talking snake. I do think in terms of the interpretation, let's say of Genesis chapter three, that we really need to recognize that what we're dealing with here is a proto history and a cosmogony, or an etiology, a story of origins. And so you don't typically interpret those in a wooden literal fashion, so I would caution against that. When it comes to the virgin birth, we have a very different scenario here, because what we have in the Matthew and Luke narratives are two distinct independent witnesses to an event happening a few decades before. And right there, that is multiple attestation within decades. I mean, that is historically significant and it's much more significant evidence than for most of these things you'll find in the Old Testament. So it's a different issue. It's also theologically different. The virgin birth, as we just saw it, is in the Apostles Creed, a talking snake is not. So it's all about weighing those theological issues and deciding on what does your faith really rest, and it does not rest on a talking snake. But it does rest on Jesus bruising the head of that talking snake. So I think the story in Genesis 3 is probably the most pivotal moral tale in the entire Bible. Without it, there is no fall of the human race. That tale is theologically to Christians, as I used to preach, extremely important. Without that story, you don't even need Jesus, right? So the story of the first man and the first woman in a garden being told before they had the knowledge of good and evil that they shouldn't take from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And she was spoken to by Nahash. We don't know what that was, but we assume it was a snake. And by the way, Genesis doesn't say it was the devil, although later Christians did say that. They did interpret the serpent as the devil. So yeah, so now I forgot. I wrote something down here and I forgot what it was. My battery is about 7%, so I'm probably going to drop out on you here in a second. Yeah, I like that idea. It might be a good time to do an intermission, Dan, in terms of reconnecting with your phone and give everybody a chance in case the audience needs to use the restroom, anything like that, if that's okay with you. I might reconnect with just audio then if that's okay. Sure, that works. All right. In the meantime, folks, I want to remind you, both Dan and Randall are linked in the description box below. Highly encourage you. You can learn about their views, or you can just agree with them. At least you can understand their views well by checking out their views, by clicking on those links, and that includes if you're listening via the podcast. So hang with me, I'm going to re-scramble the boxes here in OBS. It'll take just a second. But I want to say, in other words or in other worlds, you could say we're excited about the political debate coming up between Alex Stein and, you guessed it, Vosch. Next, well, the exact date is TBD. So it's still to be determined, but Vosch and Alex have agreed to debate each other and whether or not it's okay for kids to go to drag queen shows. You don't want to miss that one. We might have one this Saturday between Leo and he jump, still waiting for confirmation on that, on Marxism. That should be another interesting one as well as, but before I go on about accompanying debates, I want to say Randall, how about you? Any debates coming up? For the audience to get to watch all of the guests on Monday debate, whether or not it's here or on other channels? I do have a debate. We're recording next week for unbelievable with Justin Brarley and that's with a philosopher named Doug Grotes and we're debating my new book, Progressive Christians Love Jesus 2. So I'm looking forward to that. Awesome. Oh, that's cool. Well, that's kind of the grandaddy of debate podcasts and stuff. Folks, if you have not already tried unbelievable, I highly encourage you. Justin Brarley does a fantastic job. The whole team, I imagine it's got to be a team effort because they are just a fantastic podcast. Folks, be sure to check out Randall's debate there. That'll be an exciting one. And yeah, well, that's cool. That's really cool. I met, yeah, I sometimes I like to brag. I met Justin Brarley once. It was the summer of 2018 and it was in London because I happened to be going to England at that time and I found out I was like, oh my gosh, the conference is at the same time the unbelievable conference. So I went to it and I met him and I don't think you'd remember me. He's probably met so many people at that conference, but it was really cool because I'd listen to a lot of debates on unbelievable and so that's really cool. Yeah, he's a granddaddy in this. And as you said, I mean, I mean, he's been doing it for 15 years or something. I would say my debates on that will probably be uploaded, I'm guessing, or go online in like July, I'm guessing. But yeah, for people who haven't watched it, it's a good, because they often have featured debates like this, right? So it's a good platform. Oh yeah, it's, man, it's a huge library of debates folks. I'm telling you folks, if you haven't seen it yet, it really is. They've had, I think it's hard to think of someone they haven't had. I think they've had, they must have had William Lane Craig at some point. Yes, yeah, for sure. Yeah, and that's right. I think it was they had William Lane Craig and James White, right? Was that on there? Probably. They've also had him on doing debating mathematics and other, other topics. And then he came over to England back in like 09 or 10, and with unbelievable, and they tried to set up a debate with Richard Dawkins and Dawkins declined to show up. And so they put an empty chair for Dawkins on the stage and Craig talked and, you know, kind of looking for a publicity there, I think. That's right. That's right. The Eastwood, like the Eastwood-ing as a verb. That was, I remember that. Yeah, that was, I remember, that was like maybe 2014. It was a while ago. I remember, and they had a trailer too that I had no joke. I would watch it for fun. The trailer, they had like kind of this like, you know, theatrical like pump up little video that was awesome for that conference, by the way, folks, let me see if I can find it because they had like Stephen Law and Peter, I think he's at Oxford. Hitchens? He's a brilliant atheist. I think it's Oxford, Peter. And? I can't remember. He's a professor there. He's a philosopher. Was it Peter? Peter Millican, I think it was. Is it Peter Millican? This has been a long time. And it's a former speaker of the House of Commons of Canada. It's got to be Peter. I could have sworn. Let me check. It sounds familiar. Oh, yeah. Okay. Peter Jeremy Roche Millican. Okay. Is Gilbert Ryle fellow and professor of philosophy yet? Oh, no, it's not Oxford. It's at Hurtford College University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. And primary interests of philosophy of David Hume, philosophy of religion. And yeah, it just made me think we've never, we've never had Tim McGrew on modern day debate. It just made me, for some reason, it made me think of Tim McGrew. It'd be really cool. He would be great. That's neat. But yeah. Get him on. Folks, if you're tuning in just now, this is a brief intermission. We want to give a huge thank you to Dan Barker as folks. Dan Barker, he's connecting with his phone because his battery on his laptop was running out and you're like, well, why doesn't he plug it in? Well, because he actually had a huge storm in his area today. So there's no power at his house for five now six hours. He has not had power at his house and he was still willing to go through with the debate with us. And so I just applaud him for that because that's a lot of people would have said, hey, could we do a reschedule? So I just really professional. And he used his phone as a Wi-Fi hotspot for his computer, which is something I could never figure out to do. So that's pretty cool. Absolutely. So Dan just tuned back in. So let me, we're going to let me readjust here and then we'll get back to the open dialogue. And let's see here. As mentioned, folks, both of our guests are linked in the description. And let's see here. Almost set. And yeah, by the way, folks, yeah, this is also exciting to have Dan Barker on as he has had literally hundreds of debates. And this is our first time we've had him on. Really exciting. And I think I'm back on now. Do you hear me? You bet. Oh, good. I'm on the iPhone only with no video. So no problem. And we're having a real problem here. We were having to get some ice because the refrigerator, there's no power in the house since, I don't know, since three o'clock. So that's right. Well, we appreciate it. Like I said, you've been roughing it, kind of going through with this. So we appreciate that. And we've got about five minutes for the open dialogue before we go into the Q&A. So about five minutes left. If you guys, if there are any kind of threads of the debate that you kind of want to draw together as we conclude, we've got about, like I said, five minutes. I do have a minor complaint about Randall. When I asked the question, is it true? Is something true? He tends to come back and accuse me of being fundamentalist. That's an ancient or simplistic, fundamentalist way of thinking. And of course, more informed, enlightened, sophisticated, more subtle theologians have a better way of looking at things. Well, maybe so, but what else is an atheist supposed to do? We're reading these texts. And isn't it an obvious question? When a person opens their drawer in their hotel room, and there's a Gideon Bible there that says, read this book for help for your life. They open the pages and they read it. There's no scholar sitting there. There's no experts next to them. There's just the so-called word of God by a loving deity who supposedly cares enough about his creatures that he wrote these words to be interpreted and understood by people who desperately need it or want to know what it says. Are you saying that they should close the Bible and call you up first before they interpret it? Is that the way God wrote his book in such a way that, to have a broad historical contextual understanding of the way the ancient Israelites in the early 6th century BC understood the text within their metaphorical and literary. Is that what you're telling me, that nobody really is qualified to interpret this word of God without some scholar sitting next to us coaching us about what it really means? That seems like it's not a very respectable book to me. Well, okay. So first of all, as a Protestant, I believe in what we call biblical perspicuity. What that means is that the Bible, the basic message of the Bible can be grasped by a reader. And that includes Jesus, right? That's at the heart, right? That God came in the world in Jesus and through Jesus, he's bringing a restoration to all things. And to be reconciled to God the Father, that comes through Jesus. That big picture, any reader can grasp. But the reality is indeed that the Bible is a library of ancient genre that were written in very distinct social and cultural contexts from our own, set against a different worldview backdrop and are translated to our own languages from languages that are alien to vast majority of people today, including ancient Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic. And yes, that means that there is room for people to misunderstand. And when a person approaches the biblical text with a default literal where possible interpretation and thinking what seems common sense to me as a contemporary 21st century lay reader is necessarily gonna be what the original text meant. I do have to point out that that assumption is in error, even if you wanna come back that that sounds elitist. It's an error. And so when you come to Genesis chapter one to assume it must be a literal six days, I think that is in error to come to Genesis six to nine and think it has to be a literal global flood and that's the center and heart of that narrative, I think is to miss the point. Genesis six to nine is what we call a chiasm. It's an elaborate poetic structure and the center of it, which is the main message is Genesis chapter eight one, which says God remembered Noah. And that's the main thing. If you wanna talk about truth that you're getting out of the text, that's the main thing. So I don't think it's being elitist. I think it is simply recognizing the text is complicated. I'll give my final statement before and turn it back to Dan and then open questions. And so my final statement is, I think that we do generally agree at the end of the day that Christianity is intellectually respectable with respect to the framework I gave that it is subject of live academic discussion and is a live option among those within the intelligentsia. Where Dan and I disagree is with his interpretation of Christianity as not being morally respectable, he does not find it to be so. And of course, I disagree on that. You got it. Just to be sure we still have you here, Dan. I'm here. I thought we're going to go into questions now. We can do that. Unless you have any final points that you'd like to make. Otherwise, we're good to go into those Q&A questions. I think we should go ahead. You got it. And thanks for your questions, folks. We're gonna read through these as fast as possible just to get through as many as possible. So thank you very much for the first one coming in from. Do appreciate your question. Okay. First of all, Christianity is not essentially connected to substance dualism of the human person. There are a lot of questions about that, but I think it's a little bit hard to interpret. Experiments in prebiotic chemistry says, it has already been established that substance dualism is false. Hooking a person up to an FMRI machine linked to a computer allows you to read their thoughts. This debunks the idea of a soul. Dualism is a false. The end. Randall. Okay. Okay. So there's a lot of questions about substance dualism of the human person. There are other views of the human person within Christian theological anthropology, including property dualisms and non-reductive physicalism. So that really under determines the truth of Christianity. I would also dispute the claim that the ability to quote, unquote, read thoughts. Is somehow in any way evidence against substance dualism, which substance dualism is a dualist interaction. That's the standard view. And that was certainly allowed for all sorts of the abilities and principle to access consciousness. So that I don't think that falsifies substance dualism at all. You've got it. And thank you very much for your question. This one coming in from Dharma defender saying. For Dr. Rouser. How do you believe that if you're eating a man who lived 2000 years ago, every Sunday, I think they mean, such as like formal communion under the appearance of wine or something like that. How can you think that this is intellectually respectable? First of all, I am not a Catholic. So what that person is referring to is transubstantiation. But the second thing I think we need to get into is a proper recognition of what we call plausibility frameworks. Different people have different plausibility frameworks by which they interpret reality. And part of the challenge of having respectable conversation with those with whom you disagree is coming to recognize that people can have different plausibility frameworks from yours and relative to their frameworks, certain beliefs and truth claims can seem very plausible when they do not seem so to yours. So for example, there are atheists I respect who are nihilists and believe there's no such thing as objective moral value and obligation in the world. I think that is a deeply flawed view. I find it, I'm utterly incredulous much like this questioner is of the Catholic view of transubstantiation. I think there's obviously, to my mind, objective moral value and obligation. But it doesn't follow that I'm going to reject that view and just say, well, they're absurd and ridiculous. I have to recognize I can still be an intellectually respectable position but with a different plausibility framework than mine. You got it, Anne. Thank you very much for your question. This one coming in from Zafaxi. Thanks for your support. Appreciate that. Anne, stupid whore energy as she goes by says, why do you think that intelligence and exposure to higher education reduce religiosity? Randall, I feel bad for Dan. I'm getting all the questions here. So I would say, first of all, there are all sorts of social dynamics involved in the higher education. So it depends what kind of higher education. But I would also say we'd have to define what religiosity is such that it declines. I do think this that generally education is very powerful for challenging the weaker forms of religious belief or religiosity, including many forms of fundamentalism across different religious traditions. And I suspect for the most part that that is what is at stake here rather than religiosity simplicator. You got it, Anne. This one coming in from in case you do have questions for Dan, we'll usher them to the front. We do have, I pulled it earlier, it's 62% Atheists and then it's kind of a scattered variety of all sorts of other different worldviews. So we do have, most questions are for you, Randall, but we will usher folks, if you have a question for Dan, we'll usher that to the front of the list. This one from known unknown says, Deuteronomy 32, 39, King James version 39 says, see now that I, even I am he and there is no God with me. I kill and I make alive. I wound and I heal. Neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand. I am Alpha and Omega. I'm not actually sure who that's for. They didn't say either of you have thoughts. Well, there's no question. There's not a question. There is there. So correct. Yeah. So let's see. Dharma defender says, I have to press you on the stand. Let's see. I don't know if Dan said that to be fair. Let's see. Marv, the Martian says, Randall, don't Christians normally pray to the HS for correct interpretation of the Bible and Holy Spirit? I think they mean. Why does God not give them consistent interpretations when they ask for this? I'm not aware of any normative practice across Christian traditions to explicitly pray to the Holy Spirit to interpret the Bible correctly. But I mean, putting that in there, I don't think really adds anything to Dan's point, which is that why would God give people a book as his revelation when it is subject to interpretation and misunderstanding? So whether that's the Holy Spirit or whether it's just the Bible, I think you replay that same question. Maybe I can jump in here with your permission. I think it's one thing that is really obvious here is you don't have to be an expert to notice that the experts disagree with each other. You can almost pick your expert. You can pick your Protestant experts and see if you like the kind of theology that matches your personality or whatever. You could pick a Pentecostal church in theology because you like speaking in tongues. But Randall is right. There are experts on all sides within Christianity. I mean, the Bible said, the New Testament said, God is not the author of confusion. But can you think of a book that's caused more confusion than the Bible? They're all fighting with each other. They all disagree. They all have, and Randall has what I'm sure each of them would profess to be an intellectually respectable point of view because they've studied, they've read, they understand, but they all say that. And you know, you've heard preachers. There are preachers all across America who are supposedly reading the same word of God that Randall reads who says, ask the Holy Spirit to tell you what the Bible means. That is a very common theme in my experience in Christianity. Maybe there's not some exact Bible verse or some exact theology in a particular denomination, but the Holy Spirit's got to be worth something, whatever the Holy Spirit is. So I guess my basic point is that when Paul told Christians, let there be no disagreement among you, that fell totally flat. And we're reduced to picking our expert, I suppose, picking the expert that you are most impressed with. I will just say that back in 2016, I published a book with an atheist, Justin Schieber called an atheist and a Christian to walk into a bar. And within that book, we devoted a chapter to this topic. And he argued against the truth of Christianity from what he called the problem of massive theological disagreement or MTD. And so then I offered a rebuttal to that arguing that I didn't think his arguments were of very great strength. And my response, my rebuttal consists of among other things pointing out that God could have all sorts of morally sufficient reasons, purposes to allow different degrees of theological dispute and disagreement that exist. And I give various analogies of that. But I agree, this is an interesting and important question and not one that Christians can just wipe away with a hand. I think sometimes Christians are a little too quick about pretending or not pretending, but about concluding that they can easily rebut various objections. And I think those objections continue time after time because they're significant and you have to take them seriously. And by the way, I'm sorry to interrupt you. I agree with you about nihilism or nihilism, however you want to say it. In my experience, and I know many, many, many thousands of atheists, it's a very tiny minority who would call themselves nihilists, people like Schopenhauer, I suppose, who said the only thing better than is never having been born in the first place. I don't know any atheists who live their daily lives with that type of... I might have missed you for the last several words, Dan, if you can still hear us. Let's see. I'm not sure if you're able to hear us, Dan. We can't hear you. Let's see. We're just barely not quite able to. Am I not now? Yep. Yes. And reception or whatever. Whatever the last point, I think we got to hear the very start of it, but then it started to fade out. And then we've got maybe just two more questions and then we'll wrap it up. So what we've got as far as you're talking about Schopenhauer and then it kind of cut out. Let's see. We might not... We'll see if it reconnects, but otherwise we might have to... might be wrapping up a little bit earlier than expected, folks. And as a side note, in terms of the screen that when Dan's picture disappeared and it brought up a different picture, it was just from a different web page that I had open that had nothing to do with the debate. So it was a soundboard, actually, from Jesse Lee Peterson. But anyway, that was random. So hopefully, well, I think we lost Dan, but... Oh, I think he's back in. Okay, great. And can you hear us, Dan? As I mentioned, folks, Dan had a major storm there today to where basically the connection has been a challenge today. And so we're just grateful that Dan was able to come and join us tonight at all. And so I think we'll probably get a connection in just a moment, but I think he's trying to basically connect when the effects of the storm are pretty long-lasting. As of now, Dan doesn't actually have power at his house, so we were just grateful that he was actually here. And I think, like I said, we'll get him back in just a moment where we'll be able to do those last questions and then wrap up. Close to Dan for debating by candlelight. That was impressive. That's true. Yeah, he literally has been debating by candlelight tonight. And so we really do appreciate that. And also want to say both of our guests are linked in the description. So if you'd like to learn more about Dan's views, you certainly can by clicking on those links down below. As we really do appreciate both of our guests, you can learn both about Dan's views as well as about Randall's views. And like I said, folks, there is a huge value to at least understanding and being able to, as they say, steal man and opponents' kind of idea, basically being able to represent it in the strongest way possible. There's a lot of virtue and kind of maturity, I think, academic growth and maturity that comes from that. And so like I said, if you're going to criticize something, the first step is at least understanding it. But let me just check my email in case we've lost Dan where he might not be able to reconnect. And do you want to mention though, folks, if you haven't yet, highly encourage you to share this video. If you have a friend who enjoys debates like these, it is a great way to enjoy them with somebody else by clicking on that share button down below and then you can click that link and put it into a Facebook message, text message, you name it. And let's see, no email yet from Dan, although the challenge is, like I said, I'm not sure what the battery on his phone was either, so we don't know for sure if we'll hear back from him. So bear with me, folks. And as mentioned, Dr. Randall Rouser will be debating on unbelievable next week, so you don't want to miss that. That should be a fun one. And like I said, if you have not heard of unbelievable, somehow, well, you're in for a treat. They have a library of some of the best debates, religion and atheism type stuff. You really have to check it out. It's a fantastic job that they've done for, yeah, it's been probably over 10 years, so let's see. So we just kind of take whatever we got left and wrap it up for... I think we might have to. Well, I'll give you a question that came in, a couple of questions, and while hopefully we might be able to hear back from Dan, this one for you, Randall. Coffee Mom, it said, is it not the case that the Bible allows homophobia? Well, we'd have to define what homophobia is, but this is one of those issues. So there are a set of texts, specifically, especially Romans 1 and 1 Corinthians 6, which appeared to prohibit same-sex relationships also in the Levitical law in Leviticus 18 and 20. And some Christians take what is called the traditional position and believe that those are prohibitions that are operative and relevant for same-sex relationships today so that anyone who is gay should remain celibate. There are other Christians who say, no, in fact, those are not applicable today. And so this is actually an issue of ongoing lab debate. Even the evangelical Christian publisher Zondervan a couple of years ago published a two-views book on gay marriage where they had four theologians in there to give differing perspectives on theology. So even if you believe that the traditional prohibition view is homophobic by some definition, it wouldn't follow that every view Christians take or defend is homophobic. So that is an ongoing and important issue of debate. You got it, Anne. Thank you very much. Factionalist Network Kaz, thanks so much for your support of modern day debate. He's a frequent guest moderator, folks. And he says, what is the scriptural basis for a non-literal interpretation of the Bible? Chapter inverse, please. Okay, so the way that we interpret any text is by considering what kind of genre of literature it is. That is as true of the Bible as it is of any other diverse literary collection. So in the Bible, for example, we've got poetic literature. We've got songs. We've got legal documents. We've got narrative. We've got very various literary constructions such as irony and metaphor and so on and so on and so on. And so just as you would interpret any text today by asking what kind of text am I reading? How should I interpret it? So it is with the Bible. It's a human collection of literary genres written in the ancient world. You have to heed what kind of literature you're reading because it's not the case that one interpretation is suitable for every text. Do you got it? This one coming in from... Do appreciate it. This is the last one that we have for you, Randall. And then I think we'll call it a night. There's one for Dan, but sorry to Shizu Haywajima. I don't know if we're going to get to your question just because I'm not sure if we're going to hear back from Dan. We certainly will if he tunes back in the next two minutes or so before we wrap up. We'll actually ask him that question. But like I said, Dan has gone by far the extra mile for us tonight in terms of connecting. And so like I'm sorry if we don't get to ask it. He's been a super trooper in terms of having no power and debating by candlelight. So this one from Leslie Flemmons. Thanks so much, says Randall. I'm a Christian. I have some of your works in my cart. I've checked your website and found that you've defended progressive Christianity. Can you explain why are you a progressive Christian? Progressive Christianity. So we have to define what we're talking about. It's a relative term. So what it means is it refers to the idea of a person growing in their theological understanding over time, moving away or deconstructing one theological paradigm in some respect and then adopting or revising or moving into another theological paradigm. And that is in fact something every Christian should be doing because as Paul says in 1st Corinthians 1312, we all see darkly as through a glass. And so we should always be open to moving forward and revising our theological understanding where relevant. And that's simply the basic concepts that I explore in that book. You got it. There's one last one. Eric Nelson squeezed it in and says, Dr. Rouser is being gay wrong. No, I don't believe being gay is wrong. What that refers to is being same sex attracted. I think someone to read on this would be Wesley Hill, who is a gay Christian himself. And he makes the distinction that sexual orientation is not in and of itself a sin. Sexual orientation is a disposition of attraction. And so that in and of itself is not quote unquote wrong. It's a non-moral thing. The whole question is with sexual attraction is what you do with it. You got it. And I want to say, folks, huge thank you to Dan Barker and Randall. It has been a true pleasure to host them tonight. I'm going to check my email one last time. I think as would be expected, you know, if Dan doesn't have a connection, he can't send an email. So I don't have an email, but we want to say we appreciate him. I'll send him an email of thanks. And I want to say you can learn more about Dan's views as well about Randall's views in the description box, including if you're listening via the podcast, all of our debates go on to the podcast within about 24 hours of it being live. And so you can listen there available at fine podcast apps everywhere, modern day debate. We do have all of our debates on there. We really encourage you to check it out. And like I said, check out those guest links if you're listening via the podcast. Randall, thanks so much for being with us. It's been a true pleasure. I thank you, James. And thanks to Dan, like you said, for persevering in the midst of great adversity and a good night to you all. 100%. Thanks, Dan. If you happen to hear this, we appreciate you. Thanks for sticking with us. And I'll be back in just a moment with a post credit scene. So stick around. I'll be back in just a moment. Thanks so much for being with us, folks. We really do appreciate all of your support of modern day debate, even by watching. You may not know it, but for real, just by watching modern day debate, it really does help. And here's why. Here I am. I'll tell you how. In particular, the algorithm does look at who's watching and it basically says, oh, okay, this type of person who likes this channel, maybe they see you watch other stuff such as intelligence squared debates. That's another YouTube channel that hosts debates. Or maybe they see you watching atheist experience. Whatever it is, they say, oh, well, this person who likes the atheist experience, it really loves modern day debate. And so what they do is they'll recommend modern day debate to other people who like the same content that you like. And so really, it really does help us a lot, as well as if you haven't hit that like button. We're at 132 likes. If you happen to hit that like button, that's another way of supporting the channel. And we really do appreciate your support as it does make a difference. That goes into the YouTube algorithm as well. And it helps in terms of our discoverability. So, namely, more people will have our debates recommended to them if we have more people hitting like on our videos as well as if people are leaving more comments, all sorts of things like that. So, we do appreciate all of your guys' support. I have got to run in just a bit, but I do want to say we do have some juicy upcoming debates. I'll give you a quick heads up about them. As I mentioned at the bottom right of your screen, it is going to be a juicy one to be sure. Vosh and Alec Stein collide for the first time. That's coming up in about a week. Probably late next week, so about 10 days away. We are originally going to do it tomorrow, but basically busy, busy guys. We had to reschedule that. And so, we highly encourage you. You don't want to miss that one. Hit that subscribe button if you haven't already, as it's going to be a lively one to say the least. As well as, let's see here, we've got potentially, we're working on some kind of bigger ones we're excited about. We might this Friday have potentially, I've got to still reach out, so I don't want to say who we might have on this Friday, but I will say it will be cool. We may have Leo vs. T-Jump on Marxism this Saturday. That should be a juicy one. You don't want to miss that as well. My hope is, Kaz, if you're listening, I actually am traveling on Saturday. So, Kaz, by the way, Factationalist Network, Kaz, if you happen to be out there, I'd be super grateful if you're able to host on Saturday. But, nonetheless, if you can't, don't worry, no problem. And I want to say thanks for your channel membership support to our channel members. Leslie Flemons, thanks for your support. Seriously, it means a lot, as well as Rick Silly Panda. Thanks very much for your channel membership support. And any other channel members, let me skim through, see if I missed anybody. Also, thank you to the mods. Perfect One is a mod. SciShow Nav is our head mod on YouTube. Thanks, Brooke Sparrow, for doing a fantastic job. Did you notice, Brooke, Brooke's kind of the main mod on Twitch, and I just finally were back on Twitch. I'm trying to, what was the last debate? We for sure couldn't have the last debate on Twitch. That was with Vosh, and that was on a topic that I thought, eh, it's a little bit too hot for Twitch. I don't think we'd get away with that. So, that was between Vosh and Dr. Borgardus on what, that was the second to last one. And so, anyway, long story short, we do want to say we've been thrilled and just thankful for everybody's support as the modern day debate has been. It's so exciting. You guys, we are thrilled about the future. Namely, we've got big stuff for planning. A lot of it takes time to kind of come together, and it's normal that, you know, new things take time. It's just kind of a matter of you're not as efficient. You haven't learned it yet. You haven't really gotten into a rhythm yet. So, we are working on some cool stuff, though. We're excited about that. And that's why, you know, we may have fewer debates. This week, we might even have as few as two debates. And Samar Rao says, James, I love you, but I hate the world goes wild song. That's funny. Good to know that. I appreciate you letting me know. It has to get old by now. If you've watched regularly, you've heard it like 12,000 times. A little too high. Thanks for being with us. I see you there in the old live chat. Nice girl. Thanks for being here. Eric Nelson, good to see you. Says, moderate of eight, moderation, a cut above. Thanks for your support. That means a lot. Try edge gaming. Good to see you there. I see you there in the old live chat. Proper FPV. Glad you were with us. Al Solmo. Happy to have you here. Doom Paul. Thanks for dropping in. Native Atheist. Good to see you again. Dave Garg. Good to see you again. Kata Jabril. Glad to see you again. See you there in the old live chat. And Marv of the Martian says, my scripture to Randall, please. I think I read it. Let me just double check. I hadn't. Then forgive me. Let me know. Shoot me an email at modern a debate at gmail.com. And what I can do in that case is I can send you your super chat back because. Oh, you're right. I did miss that. I'm really sorry about that, Marv. For real. No joke, Marv. If you, if you email me at modern a debate at gmail.com. And this same thing for Shazaw. Wajima. If you email me at modern a debate at gmail.com. I can send you that dollar amount back for your super chat. As you're right. I just completely missed that. So I am sorry about that. So. Yes, like I said, happy to make it up to you though. If you email me and. Also though, let's see here. Hey word at Jeb Loamy. Thanks for coming by. Hannah Anderson. Good to see you again as well as Nikki. Good to see you in the chat. Flooded area three, two, six, one and Richard. Amarik. Amarik. Am I saying it right, Richard? Let me know. F the fed main. Good to see you again. And let's see here. Maline. Glad to have you with us in chats. I've shown abs is huge. Thanks to Let's Farm for both moderating, making the modern a debate discord. Awesome. Yes, indeed. Thank you very much. Seriously, Larry. That means a lot. And that's a way kind of also like a training ground. If you're kind of new. And you're like, hi, I want to debate. That's a great way to get a start. Just get a little bit of experience debating in front of an audience. Highly encourage you to check out the modern day debate discord. It's a fun community. It's a fun and vibrant community. So we appreciate that. And Samarao says, you've been hitting. Hinting at some big things coming this summer for a while. Are you able to drop a hint at all? We are hoping to do our own style of middle ground debates that you've maybe seen from Jubilee. That's the big thing that we're working on right now. It's going to take a lot of time. And frankly, even getting the equipment has taken a lot of time for me. Seriously, no joke. Because you have to like to get all the equipment and knowing what goes with what has been a huge learning experience. So that's something we are. We think has some pretty big potential. And we'll see. I mean, there's only one way to know for sure. And we're going to try it. So we're excited about that. King Klebold says, hey, James, I saw you comment on an Ed Powell video. That is so me. I do. I'm always looking for people who are leaving lewd and lascivious messages on my phone. And Ed Powell is great at tracking it down. Goose are gone. Thanks for coming by. I'm glad to have you here. We're glad you're here. Jimmy Likari, good to have you here as well. So good evening, James. Hope all is well with you tonight. Thank you for that. And Chris, I saw you. Where did I see you, Chris? Thank you for your support, Chris. Good to see you. Chris G says, how do you do, James? I'm doing well. I appreciate that, my brother. And we're glad you're here. We're glad you made it. And Cairo, thanks for coming by. Let's see. I remember when mods were kids who wore suits back in the old days. That's right. I no longer, I like wearing blazers to be honest. Like no joke. I wear blazers. I used to wear them fear almost regularly. However, it gets so hot. It really does. It's like, I'm like, oh, man. But let's see. Swampy pubes. Good to see you again. Hey, James mods. Hope you've had a great day today. Great debate as always. Have a good night, everyone. Until next time. Thanks for your support. And GZPZ. Thank you for coming by. We're glad you were here. We see you there in the old live chat. I want to say thanks, guys, for all of your support. We love you. AirChurch says, why you hit no hit like? It's true. You can hit that like button. We're only eight away from the big 150. We are close to having 150 likes during the live stream. We are just eight away. And your support that way helps a lot. All over Catwell. Thanks for your channel membership support as well. Thanks for coming by, Oliver. It's good to see you. We hope you're doing well. And AirChurch, good to see you. Thanks for all of your support in the old live chat. Rembrandt972, good to see you again. I like Turtles and John Domen. Glad that you are with us. Axel Fully, good to see you again. And my dear friends, we are inspired, though. We're absolutely passionate about this vision, namely providing a neutral platform so that everybody can make their case on a level playing field. That's what we are determined to do. We are excited about the future as we keep working on ourselves growing. And hey, folks, you want an alternative to the mainstream media, because a lot of times the mainstream media really is. I mean, oftentimes they don't even discuss religion and atheism topics. And when it comes to politics, oftentimes they're very partisan, almost all of them. And it's two different degrees in each case. And I think all sides are guilty in terms of there are certain news networks that are clearly quite picky about what stories they'll even cover, because some stories may not look as good for their narrative that they tend to cultivate. And so, you guys deserve a better class of debate platform. And we're going to give it to you. And so, we want to be as neutral as possible when we're hosting political debates as well as religion debates. Science debates even too. We want to be as fair as possible and provide a neutral platform. And you might be thinking, James, how could you possibly, you're so small comparing yourself to the mainstream media. That's insane. Well, it took Joe Rogan 13 years to get where he is. We're only about three years old. Three years, about three years, six months, something like that. We have got big plans. We have got big things that we're excited about doing in the future. And so, we want to say thanks for all of your support. We are excited to make an impact by being YouTube's premier neutral platform for debates. And thank you guys for all of your support. FNFD Main says, James, my boy, keep going for the Bat Masters. It's the doctorate now. But thank you. I appreciate it. And I agree. And it's a challenge. It's a long uphill battle, but I love it. And so, thank you for your support. General Balzac says, great job to the debaters. James and the chat. I appreciate it. We appreciate it. We appreciate it. We're glad you're here. And I want to say thanks, everybody, though. We love you guys. You guys make this channel rockin' awesome. I am excited to see you guys. I hope you have a great rest of your night. And I'm excited for the next debates that we have coming up this weekend, as mentioned. And we'll see you then.