 All right, thanks so much, folks, for being with us. We're going to get into our main event debate for the night. Before we do, we're going to do something different. In particular, this conference has a sponsor, which is Manifold, who we really do appreciate. Manifold is the online play prediction market. So you don't use any real money. You don't have to risk any of your real money. It's just for fun like monopoly money. You can predict anything, including the debates we have for DebateCon this weekend. So what we're going to do is, in order to resolve who was more persuasive during the debate, is we're actually going to do a before and after poll raising your hands. You don't have to vote. But if you happen to lean one way or the other, namely, if you think that Christianity has a better foundation for ethics, even just a smidge, or if it's all the way, then at that point, you put your hand up. If you're like totally 50-50 or like, I really am truly 50, then don't put your hand up when we do the poll. And then if you lean towards secular humanism, even a smidge, or 100%, you'd want to put your hand up when we give that option. Does that make sense? So we're going to do a percentage basis. So percent at the start of the debate and then at the end. And then for our online audience, we highly encourage you to check out Manifold, which is linked in the description box. You can actually vote right now in terms of who you think will win. In other words, be more persuasive in this debate by clicking on that link right now in the description box. Thanks so much to Manifold for sponsoring our event. And by the way, last, if you want to vote in person via Manifold, you can actually use your phone camera and use the QR code and actually do that right here if you want to do that vote as well. So with that, I want to say we're going to have Matt going first, but before we do, we're going to do that quick hand vote. If you happen to lean, even like a smidge or all the way towards secular humanism, would you slip your hand up? And then we're going to give Chris a chance to vote or count them real quick. Cool. And then if you happen to lean a smidge or all the way, all the degrees in between for Christianity, if you'd slip your hand up. You got it. All right, great. So Chris has that recorded and then we'll resolve the market at the end of the debate. But with that, we're going to kick it over to Matt for his opening statement. Thanks so much for being with us and Matt, the floor is all yours for your opening. Thanks so much James and thanks Andrew for being here and all of you for showing up. Humanism has as its focus, the betterment of humanity in this life while Christianity has as its focus adherence to a God and the disposition of souls in an afterlife. Our best efforts in this life are according to the Bible like filthy rag. Our best attempts at righteousness and justice are portrayed as vile and disgusting when compared to a bumbling God constantly failing to get His creation to love and respect Him while also prescribing the death penalty for nearly everything, adultery, blasphemy, breaking the Sabbath, disobedient children, witchcraft, worshiping another God, not being a virgin on your wedding night. Which is better for society? Well, I'd say the one that has human society as its focus and isn't so intent on killing humans for not buying into a specific doctrine. Heaven and hell if they were to exist aren't human societies. What a God thinks is unknown and irrelevant. There's never been a secular humanist nation either in a governmental form which I'm not advocating for or in a primary philosophical view of the majority of the population which means we have to look at the ideals between these two positions. Secular humanism has been around for 90 years. 1933 the first secular humanist manifesto was published. It identified humanism as a religion with 15 points. It was updated 40 years later in 1973 with a lot more information and then it was incredibly shortened in 2003. In addition to the manifestos there are organizations like the Council for Secular Humanism, American Humanist, et cetera. In the first version of the manifesto it's presented as a religious view where it acknowledges there's no supernatural guarantee of human value. We advocate a heightened sense of personal life and a cooperative effort to promote social well-being. The goal of humanism is a free and universal society in which people voluntarily and intelligently cooperate for the common good. In the manifesto version two, 40 years later this includes a lot more information, short versions. They say to begin by saying those who sign this disclaim that they are setting forth a binding credo. This statement reaches for a vision in time that needs direction. We affirm a set of common principles that can serve as a basis for united action. This isn't a to-do list or thou shalt or thou shalt not list. We're fine with religion's inspiration but we're opposed to dogma and authoritarian views that place anything above human needs. Religions don't pass the test of scientific evidence. The promises of immortal salvation or eternal damnation are illusory and harmful. Ethics and moral values stem from human experience and situational ethics stem from the human need and human interest. Reason and intelligence are the most effective instruments we possess. We are not advocating for the use of scientific intelligence independent of or in opposition to emotion or we believe in the cultivation of feeling and love. Individuals are precious and their dignity is affirmed. This is important. Us human being affirming the value of individuals and human beings is more powerful than a God affirming it and it's infinitely more powerful than a human claiming a God affirms this which is all we appear to have. The third version of the Manage Vesto in a nutshell is so short. Whether God exists or not, we have problems to solve. We have to do this without appeals to the supernatural entities or intervention. We must utilize the best methods at our disposal. Reason and science seem to be the primary ones who assess reality and reach conclusion. Justice, fairness, equality and autonomy are the primary goals. This life, not a hypothetical afterlife is what we're trying to improve. So what happens when religions control societies and governments either legitimate or illegitimate? Well conflicts with other societies and other governments may not have any reason to diplomatic solution and you'd only look to Gaza. But that's Islam and Judaism. Here we have Christianity as a primary and Christian nationalist. Under secular humanism you get to be a Christian, a Jew, a Muslim, gay, straight, socialist, capitalist. You just don't get to impose those necessarily on others through acts of fiat. Not necessarily true with the religions in charge of the government. Mike Johnson's the new speaker of the house in the United States. He's homophobic because all get out. He's argued to criminalize homosexuality. Homosexuality is by the way our U.S. citizens with specific rights that he wants to take away. Moreover he advocates for gay conversion therapy which is unscientific and torturous because he thinks he can help them pray the gay away and the gay can be eliminated. He's not anti-gay, he just wants them to cease to exist as gay. They get to keep being human beings. He thinks there's no right to sodomy. Privacy laws don't protect everything and he thinks that what sort of sex do you have? It should be his to regulate. Sodomy by the way is anal or oral copulation which I have it on good authority, heterosexual folks engage in as well. 2022 he presented what was called the don't say gay bill outlawing any discussion of gender identity, sexual orientation or related subjects which was incredibly problematic because he ignored what the experts have to say about age appropriate content and how critical it is especially for kids under 10 which was his target to have correct language in order to better report on and about sexual abuse. His policy if it had been implemented would have made it more traumatic for kids and more difficult for them to out their abusers and easier for abusers to get away with it. Happily it failed. In 2015 he blamed abortions and the breakup of the nuclear family for school shootings. He also says the teaching of evolution is to blame for mass shootings because we've taught a whole generation of couple generations now of Americans that there's no right or wrong that it's about survival of the fittest and do you evolve from a primordial slime? What is that life of any sacred value? He wants student led prayer back in school. So speaker, are you okay with Islamic prayers, Satanic prayers or just particular Christian prayer? He's opposed to the separation of religion and government sometimes called the separation in church and state. He thinks that the founders only wanted to protect the church from the state and didn't want to protect the state from the church citing the notorious lying pseudo historian David Barton to support this view. He definitely seeks to impose his views on others. Now some of you were saying, hang on, he's the speaker of the house, he's not the speaker of Christianity or that's not my type of Christianity. Great, but what is your type? What's your type of Christianity like? Cause there's a lot of them. How is it better? And how can we make sure that we get your better version than the one that Mike Johnson wants? He thinks his version is correct. Go to you, countless denominations without consensus. He's already got more power than my opponent has right now. So I don't know Andrew at all. I don't know what version Christianity is advocating for. I didn't bother looking him up. We literally just met and said hello as I sat down here. Is his version Christianity better? I really hope so because it'd be hard to get a whole lot worse. But they point to the same book. They point to the same savior, the same history. Liberal and moderate Christians provide legitimacy and cover to hide the fundamentalists and to allow them to engage in Christian nationalism. Secular humanism allows you to be a Christian right up until you try to oppose it on others. And then you get to keep being a Christian. You just don't get to practice it in the way where you're imposing it on others. You can pray, you can go to church, you can tithe, you can worship, gather, share, discuss, convert, vote based on your values. You can vote against your own best interests. I see people going all the time. You can teach your kids your values under secular humanism. The foundational principles of secular humanism solve conflicts with data, debate, and discussion instead of coercion, conversion, or conquest. There is no secular humanist sect and no denomination of secular humanists that's ever required someone to believe something that is not empirically verifiable, that's ever ordered the death of another person, that's ever ordered or acted to act or destroy property of any person or government, that is ever overthrown a democracy to impose a secular humanist regime that's ever been connected with terrorist cells and activities, that's ever denied freedom of speech or expression, that's ever called for the deaths of people for criticizing secular humanism or any religious view, that is ever advocated for or inspired suicide bombers or terrorist attacks. Those things are simply not consistent in any way with the core values of secular humanism. There is no threat to Christians, Jews, Muslims, Scientologists from secular humanism. There might be from scientific skepticism and rationality if you're not able to actually demonstrate the truth of your claim. But life, freedom, and an equitable relationship are the foundation of secular humanism. There is no list of thou shalt not or thou shouts because we recognize that nearly every attempt at such a list fails at some point as we learn more about our world and about getting better at understanding the world better, about doing better and being better in this life. The goal of humanism is a free and universal society in which people voluntarily and intelligently cooperate for the common good. If you have an objection to that or a better goal, what is it? All right, thank you so much for your introductory statement. We're gonna hand it over to Andrew Wilson for 10 minutes. So thank you for being here, Andrew, and the floor is yours. You're welcome. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Andrew Wilson. I am the host of the one and only Crucible, the fastest growing debate channel on the internet, James. I just, just in case you didn't know. Appreciate that very much. Appreciate everybody being here. All of your way too stodgy in this room, very low energy. Just wanted to let all of you know that. Ladies and gentlemen of all pronouns, the Z's, the Zurs, the Hems and Hers, I would like to thank you for tuning in today for this exciting in-person conference on modern day debate. My name is Andrew Wilson. There's a few ways this debate can go. The topic is Christian ethics versus secular humanism, which has a better foundation. The funny thing is, I already won that topic because as Matt explained to Jay Dyer, he has no justification under the skeptical belief structure to give an accounting for any meta ethical presupposition he may have. He just kinda grants himself stuff. He grants himself logic, he grants himself reason, he grants himself an entire worldview, even though he's using an unjustified starting position for it. So, I'm not honestly all that interested in doing the God not real dough debate because one, it's boring and two, it's also really boring. It goes like this, I don't see enough evidence and remain unconvinced there's a God than I say but you use a theistic worldview of justification like there is a God to grant yourself logic and everything else. So instead of that, I'm just going to grant Matt's entire worldview. Two thirds or more of this entire planet are all operating inside of a shared delusion that they were created by a sky daddy who loves him some slavery and murderousness. He thinks it's funny to kind of cosmically with people that's his deal, kinda his whole thing. That's Matt's worldview. So now Matt's right and the question becomes, should we let them to continue to believe in this nonsensical stone age madness or do we stop them from engaging in it? My contention is even if God isn't real at all that people acting as though he is is still superior to whatever nonsensical egalitarian worldview Matt can come up with. See Matt also just acts as though the things he believes are true. He believes, he believes, he believes and therefore acts as though logic is real, math is real, everything is real based on his presuppositional belief that they are real. Is he human flourishing the cornerstone of Matt's ideology and that of secular humanism is totally meaningless. Flourishing by whose metric? From my perspective, for instance, attempting to lie to people who claim men can be women isn't human flourishing. From Matt's perspective, it is. Why? Why should the collective of humanity lie and say men can get pregnant? Why should they say that men can have periods? Things which are categorically and obviously false. That preserving homosexuality in society is good for human flourishing even though they are reproductive dead ends. And that Western society and egalitarianism is superior to those evil theist society even though the Western nations can't even reproduce their own populations but instead have to replace their population with foreigners from those theist nations that can reproduce. Let's start with a basic societal question recently asked of the West who has now embraced a scientific and non-theistic approach to governing. Super basic question every kindergartner knows. If you don't believe me, go watch kindergarten cop. The question posed to the Western nation is can a man be a woman? Right? To the question of if a man could be a woman, they say the answer is yes and the way we will decree they can be a woman is by simply saying that woman now means male. Problem solved. Thank you, secular humanists. Thank you so much. Nope, not kidding. Why you ask would people be this over the top stupid? Well, it's simple. The good is the good, man. We have to do what's good for human society and human flourishing. And if you don't call these strange lunatics something they obviously aren't, they might self terminate. So in order to avoid that, we need to make everybody on planet earth lie to them. This is human flourishing. Just redefine shit, pretend it's true. How laughably absurd this worldview is. Matt will often say, I remain unconvinced. Well, Matt, I'm also gonna use your standard. I need for you to 100% convince me beyond a shadow of a doubt that males can have babies. What's the answer gonna be? No, Andrew, you big stupid. Males can't have babies. Men can have babies. Because we just define man to include females, dummy. Well, Matt, I remain unconvinced. I'd like Matt to convince me that if you are a male and you are having sex with another male, which would not be allowed in my version of a secular humanist worldview, how is it that you're not just basically having sex with a guy with a wig on? I really wanna know the answer to that question. Not just me, but all rational people who aren't lunatics also wanna know why it's ma'am isn't a complete and total crock of garbage. Because I remain unconvinced that it isn't a total lie. And that these people don't just pervert the language to include their own perversions and then add human flourishing at the end. Matt has said he wouldn't make a law stopping nine-year-olds from having sex with each other. Not kidding. Now, I know this is gonna sound a little bit totalitarian, but I would in fact create laws that made it a crime for a nine-year-old to have sex with their nine-year-old. I would hold the parents criminally liable for allowing this to happen in my evil authoritarian society where I don't even let nine-year-olds have sex where the parents go straight to jail for negligence. Now, I think that's better for human flourishing. I think maybe parents would be far less likely to let their nine-year-olds do that if they went to jail. Stupid me. Next, I would in my authoritarian society decree that all simulated sex acts in public were criminal offenses and would make sure that all people went to prison for the crime of indecency, which doesn't assist with human flourishing. And I'd like to know why I'm wrong. Secular humanism can basically be whatever the hell you want it to be. It doesn't really need the principle of freedom or the starting axiom of freedom and peace in order to postulate whatever it wants. It's sloganeering. They're slogans. They don't mean anything. Okay, why do nine-year-olds need to be able to have sex in order to advance humanity? Why do we need to lie about a person's sex in order to advance humanity? Why are these things necessary for human flourishing? Why are decency laws bad? Why would Christian ethics stop flourishing when the theist mandate is to reproduce? Reproduce and the secular mandate is let's just all have sex and have fun, bro. That sounds way worse for human flourishing. In fact, I would say not reproducing is a worse possible thing for human flourishing because if there's no humans, how do you flourish? So I guess in essence, step one, I remain unconvinced. Step two, I need to be convinced so I'm no longer unconvinced. And step three, but God not real though doesn't matter here. I've already granted it to still demonstrate just how stupid this ideology actually is. With that, I'll yield my time and I'm happy to get into it. Hey James, I just sent you a message. All right, we are gonna kick it into an open discussion, so 50 minutes and let's kick it. No, I don't think so. I'm not gonna sit here and dignify the preparation that I went through and what people work here for. You're so indignant. Keep interrupting me. I am. You're so indignant. Would the moderator like to step in so that I can finish what I'm saying? Oh, please Matt, I'll tell you. How dare someone have an opposing worldview? I'm not gonna sit here and dignify what was supposed to be a debate about Christianity versus secular humanism which one's better for the world. Yes. With someone who clearly showed up with an agenda that has nothing to do with that. I just like- Someone who refers to trans people as deranged lunatics who will self-terminate if you dare to question them. How am I wrong, Matt? Someone who misrepresents a quote from a debate where I said I wouldn't make a law about nine-year-olds having sex being legal with respect to the nine-year-olds, not that I was in any way in favor of it and that I was actually opposed to it which I addressed during that debate. But moreover, this is not remotely an honest interaction on the front of whether or not secular humanism is valuable because this, when he presented his position here, has nothing to do with secular humanism. From the get-go, it's all about me. Matt thinks, Matt thinks, Matt thinks. I'm giving what Matt thinks, what Matt thinks, what Matt thinks, what Matt thinks. Matt's position, Matt's position. I came in with the secular humanist manifesto. I came in with position that aren't just my, that aren't merely my position. Oh, well, as long as multiple people hold the position- This guy's not serious and I'm leaving. James, if you wanna refund, you got me up. Well, good day, sir. And I'll cover your refund. Mr. Matt, he just said he'd cover my refund. I would cover his refund. And we'd cover it. No. No. No, I'm not gonna dignify a debate with someone who walked in to trash talk to you and be smug and all of the things that he's being right now. He's already said he will cover my expense. You don't have anything to worry about. This debate is over. Goodbye. Jackass. Did you call me a jackass, Matt? Well, you and your husband have a good day, Matt. Aw. Have a wonderful day, Matt. Yeah, yeah. No, that was fine. I mean, if you're gonna take a parting shot, I will too, Matt. Yeah, yeah. I think his parting shot's correct. No, your parting shot's correct. Oh, man, tough crowd. Tough crowd. No, you guys gotta cover your own costs. Sorry. So I agree that what Andrew said wasn't helpful in that. Well, hold on. Just let me actually talk. Like, I'm already addressing it, so you knew anyone around me still. Really? Yeah. Self-control, please. So, is Andrew, like, when you call people, who is it? Like, that does come off as... The presentation of a correct worldview. So, but I, at the same time, I can't help that Matt left. Like, I would like Matt to refute and explain to Andrew, like, hey, here's why calling people lunatics isn't an argument, and this is intellectually low-brow, but I can't help that Matt left. I'm sorry about that. So, if you wanna email me, I'm at moderndatabate at gmail.com. I can even give you my number if you wanna email me first and we can talk, but I think we'd agree that, you know, calling people names isn't an argument, and it's low-brow. I didn't call anybody eating it. At the same time, my preference would be that Matt would kind of explain that for the internet to see. Like, I think that's why we posted these debates, is that there are mad arguments that they'd be exposed to the world, like, rebutted and exposed to the world, but I can't help, I can't make Matt do something. So, I am sorry that we don't appear to have a headline debate tonight. You wanna ask Andrew questions, do you? If you guys would... In spirit of debate, you guys wanna ask questions. If you guys would like to engage with Andrew and challenge his calling people lunatics, I am open to that. If you guys would like to, go ahead and get it. Well, we do need to have you speak on the microphone. You guys can say we can have somebody speak on the mic, unless... All right, it's on you, buddy. So, it seems like you lost the debate. It seems like you didn't have an argument to begin with. I'd like to know... So, where's your... Because I fled the debate stage? Yeah, where's your degree in psychology to understand these concepts? Do you need a degree in psychology to know what a man and a woman are, sir? Well, apparently, you need to know what a man and a woman are, sir. Hold on. Just... Please, I'm serious, I'm gonna toss people if this gets out again. Seriously. Like, don't care. I will carry you over myself. Self-control. Okay. Andrew, you have to let them ask a question. Okay. Piss off everybody. Okay, fair enough. Including me, like... For what? You have to let them actually ask their question. Okay. Okay, fair. Go ahead. Probably being personal. So, I didn't hear an argument against secular humanism. I'm not necessarily on board with everything with the secular humanist manifesto. What specifically about the manifesto that he talked about do you find troubling? It's all lies. It's literally based on non-reality being subjectively interpreted as whatever you want. You can make bold claims. Specific, please. I'm giving you a specific one. If you, sir, believe that a man can be a woman and you can think that you can gaslight the entirety... Are you gonna let me answer the question or no? Go ahead. If you want to try to gaslight the entirety of humankind that this falsehood actually exists in descriptive reality and then say, well, that's science. If we rule with science, we rule with our mind. We rule with our brain. That's absurd. It's absurd. How in the world can you want a doctrine like that to run your life? How? Where is that in the secular humanist manifesto? There, he has no descriptor for what is true. He has no justification for truth. Because he has no justification for truth, they can make up whatever they want as being a truth claim. In this case, they make up what is a man and what is a woman. You understand? Yes, you're making the presuppositional argument that you have to ground all beliefs in your belief in God. Which I also made that argument. I conceded his entire worldview to ask him one descriptive claim about reality and he got so upset about the descriptive reality claim he fled the room. Like you're being personal about it, though. What was personal? When did I name anybody? Your closing statement as he walked out, I hope you and your husband have a good day. Oh, you mean after he called me a name? Which was very personal. When he called me a name first. Yeah, so you're insulting his partner along with him. No. If he's insulting you, why don't you just directly insult him? How can it be an insult if I'm giving you a descriptive real true statement? That's a real true statement. How could you be insulted unless you know it's a lie? How? All right, next one coming in. Good luck to you. Yeah. Hey Andrew, I'm pretty religious myself. I tend to keep to myself. But one thing that I've always been listening to or I can't really say the verse really well. I don't really remember it by heart but it's had something to do with the long lines of don't give pearls to swine because they wouldn't know what to do with it. Not to call anybody who doesn't believe in religion. I think you just call the whole audience swine. Yeah, sorry, not, that's just what the quote was. Basically saying don't push and try to convince someone if they're unbelievers or they don't believe. So what kind of gets you fired up and wanna try and tell them your position? So my position has a requirement in truth. It's one of the commandments of Christianity. It's one of the four things that we should focus on is what is true. And yet people make these descriptive, ridiculous descriptive claims and expect us, look at how pissed off some of these people are. Because I told the truth, what in the world did I say that was not true? Nothing, there was nothing I said, which is untrue. And yet they're still that upset over what? Because they don't have truth. There is no truth on their side. It's all a bunch of lies and a facade. And so when you tell them what's true, they malfunction. They go into NPC mode. I was told man can be woman, it's insane. They can't, it's nuts, it's nuts. Yeah, I just think that that cannot go hand in hand. Like religion and secular humanism can go hand in hand if you're not totally right, you're not totally wrong, but we're in America, you can live the way you want. I do have a personal problem when you try to force it, regardless if it's religion or secular humanism, when you try to force your beliefs and tell them, oh, you're a bigot if you don't believe this or you're delusional if you don't believe this and stuff, but it's just, let's all get together, be friends, you know? I'm not adverse to people having the most radical for me world views on planet Earth. I debate with them all the time professionally, okay? All the time professionally. Talk to them from all over the world. I don't run away from their views. I don't run away if they say they died by their mean. I tangle with them and their ideology and I destroy it because it's wrong. It's a wrong ideology. Matt knew what was coming. The next thing was just a simple question and it would have led unfortunately for him to a place that nobody likes to go because decidedly it's become uncomfortable to tell the truth and his ideology clearly promotes the discomfort in telling the truth. There is truth. There's objective truth. Like at what point are we gonna decide that a 400 pound guy is skinny because he says he's skinny? Like there's, come on. At some point we have to use what he calls rationality and reason, right? All right, next question. Hey Andrew, so you just mentioned truth 80 times. It's true, it's true, it's true. Can you describe to us your process for finding truth in this instance? Yeah, so the same is all Christian. We gain truth through divine revelation, the belief in God, church history. We have all sorts of different metrics that we can use which I'm happy to get into with somebody. During a debate you could have brought all those things up. I would have been happy to go through each one of them and absolutely we can use these descriptors for what is true. But even in the comments, I don't think you and I would disagree in just the way that we kind of look at things, what might be true or not true. I think we can both look at a tree for instance and say, you know what? That's a tree. The problem is when somebody goes, no it's not man, it's a rock. And I get, no wait, that's, no it's not. You know what I mean? And they try to gaslight you into believing that it is. That's insanity. To me that stuff is insane. It's just pure insanity. One of the ways that you mentioned that you find truth is through divine revelation. If two people have conflicting divine revelation, how would you find truth between them? Yeah, so that's a good question for Protestant. So Protestants for instance, I ask the Protestants the same exact question. If you're imbued with the Holy Spirit and you're imbued with the Holy Spirit and you're both reading the same passage and you come up with completely different answers to what that passage mean, how do you know who's telling the truth? How do you know which one of you is right? It's the same exact criticism that I have. Luckily for us, we have church history we have church history and apostolic succession. So we actually know what the Bible says right from the very beginning through apostolic succession. We don't have any disagreement because we yield to the authority of the church who's in universal agreement. Except based on interpretation. And you've got different sets. Based on interpretation. Yeah. Okay, so what is the interpretation that you think that my church holds that you disagree with? I don't know what specific beliefs. Well, then why would you even open your mouth about it? Makes no sense. I'm good. All right. Another question from Ozean. Come around. Just a final question. So is it true that the topic today was will secular humanism be Christianity or was it about transgender? No, the topic today was secular humanism versus Christian ethics. Christians have an ethical duty to tell the truth and they, the secular humanist does not, as I just demonstrated, live to everybody. They have no, absolutely no duty to tell anybody the truth about anything. None. I think everybody can see on screen what the debate topic is and what he said was not the truth. It says, no, no, no. That was not the debate topic even just an hour ago. Even just an hour ago that was not the debate topic. To be fair, that is a question, yeah, regarding to the debate, but yeah, we will carry on the questions there. Given that this clearly wasn't the topic and you've been bodied on the issue before, including by nominal Naomi a year ago, why not get to be on a new topic instead? Okay, so first of all, I literally went through and said, these people have no justification for their beliefs at all. I could have gone after that. I went on to further explain, here's how I can demonstrate that they have no justification for any of their claims. Here's how I can demonstrate they don't have truth on their side because I can show an example in real time of these people completely and totally lying to you, totally lying to you. And so many of you in the audience are like, how dare you? I'm not saying anything incorrect here. You're being lied to, I'm sorry. Yes it is. We have to make sure that you're speaking in the mic or otherwise the online audience can't hear you. Do you want to come back on up? That's not how myself or the commenters on those videos are. Well, nominal Naomi got obliterated on that topic and if you'd like the video evidence, I've got seven times the views that nominal Naomi had and nominal Naomi backed out of a second debate with me. Just letting you know. Just letting you know. Do we have any other questions from anybody in the chat or our audience here at the chat? See, I'm still in moderation mode. My brain's gotten fried from all the traveling and that just happened. So that's a little bit exciting, isn't it? Well, we are sorry, of course, that things didn't go to plan. Not sure if anybody's got some questions in the live chat or if anybody wants to come forward for more questions. But if not, then we'll wrap it up, I think, at this point, if you had anything else you want to say there, James. We think a bully in the poll. Well, you do have the poll. We do have the poll. That is correct. We can't take the poll. So go ahead Ryan. Okay, all right. So if you are no longer neutral, but you were earlier, but now you're like, why are you leading this way now? You can vote now if you didn't vote earlier because you were leading. Does that make sense? Okay, all right. All right, so show of hands. Who here has been swayed by the secular argument? Well, and what's secular coming in? Let's see those hands. We'll take the ones that were secular or if you changed your mind, leave it down. That's fine. If you changed your mind. That's fine. I thought we were gonna try to figure out who's actually swayed here, so we need everybody. If anybody hands go up, they didn't go up for the other side, last time, then we'll know. And have you been swayed by the arguments for Christianity? Let's see a show of hands. Okay, we got those results. And also, if you're watching online, you can vote on our poll there. You can see that it's shifting ever so back and forth as people are placing their bets and votes. So we're gonna close that out in a second and thanks everybody. One thing I do want to do is in case there are any online questions. People are interested in hearing any of that. Sure, did you guys want to, yeah, let's do that. Where is my phone? That's a good question. I need my device to pop these up, guys. There it is. Bear with me there, live audience. We've had a little mishap here. It's not going entirely to plan, but we're making it work, all right? Yeah, I got the fan chats, y'all. So just give me a second and we'll read some of those out. If it loads. But if I get out of the mic. Oh, you want the mic? No, so there you go. So I do think I mentioned, Andrew, that not only is it intellectually low-brow, but as a fellow Christian, calling people lunatics, it doesn't seem productive. So for me as a Christian, I have to say that I trusted you as a fellow Christian. And when you call people lunatics, you can see why I'm kind of like, okay, this is now, now, is it true that online? Sometimes there are, you could say, I don't want to paint with broad brushstrokes. There are some pockets of secular people that might say like, oh, Christians are delusional. And that's, I get how that's like basically them calling them lunatics. I'm not painting with broad brushstrokes. That's pockets of secular people. So, but in either case, I think we both agree, calling someone a lunatic or calling them delusional, whatever it is, whatever insult it is, like it's not fruitful. It's, you know what I mean? It's not edifying. It's not spiritually like encouraging someone or building them up. So for me as a Christian, I'm just like, why, Andrew? Because it's true, James. I can understand if you- That's why, like, because it's true. That's why. So, but like I said, in terms of the barbed approach though, is that there are some Christians that have conservative theology, including me, that will come on and, you know, they'll state what they believe, but they won't go further to offend. I mean, for example, like the gospel, like we know what that means, like this idea that Jesus died on the cross for people, that's already offensive. And so like, which I don't mind, you know, if people are offended by that, I don't mind- They can take all of our symbols, destroy them, take them out of everywhere. They can go online, they can deface our Lord. They can do any horrible thing to us that they can possibly imagine. But lo and behold, we tell the truth. Why allow us to do that? Why allow us to do that? That's where we should draw the line. I've said my piece. I'm gonna, you do have objections from online. So, some of these might be for Matt, in which case Matt obviously is not here to respond. So, I'm not gonna read if it's for Matt, cause I don't wanna read something you can't respond to. This one is from, let's see. Actually, a lot of these are, more of these are from Matt than I expected. Let's see. I'm an orthodox person. I don't think the questions that we have from online are substantive or related. So, if anyone has questions in the in-person audience, otherwise I think that's, go ahead. I know who to you. Do you think that Jesus Christ would be proud of your behavior tonight? I think that anybody, anybody who values truth at all of any kind would not have a single dispute with what I said, which is just objective reality. Descriptive objective, it's no different than me saying the paint's white. Like, do you think Jesus Christ would be okay with you saying the paint's white? Yeah, dude, it's just objectively true. But if you're like a prick about it, I mean. I started, so it started as me being the prick. I didn't call anybody a jackass, I didn't personally insult Dilla Huntie, didn't say a word about anything about Dilla Huntie related at all. There was nothing, nothing. Hi, Andrew. This is less of a question and more of a statement as a follow-up to what his question was. Make sure to have- It can't help. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. I'm trying to ask a question. Give me the most amount. Sorry, sorry. I'm trying to ask a question. Make sure it's seeds and drips. I do remember Jesus saying something like, the least you do to my people, you do to me. So the least, so I told him the truth then? That's what Jesus would be bad at. So I am curious on your perspective of how far is, is too far. Like for example, like I go to a lot of like comic conventions and stuff and all the time I always see like a group of Christians always saying you guys are worshiping idolatry, y'all are going to hell. And I myself am pretty religious, but I just go there for fun. Would you, I mean, they may or may not, by their perspective, they're telling the truth, but many others might not believe that, but I guess the question is how far is too far? Like would you go out of- Well, I think that was just walking over to them and saying, do you think a rock is a rock and a tree is a tree is too far? I don't think that's too far. I think that walking over to them may be in making threats or trying to do horrifying things to them. I think that's too far. But I think asking a basic question or saying something that's descriptively true like thing X is thing X and thing Y is not thing X. I think that's fine. Why would they even get upset about it? Yeah, but I mean, it's like going out of your way. I mean, for some people, it's just a hobby. You know, creating something and just enjoying the time and then having someone on a megaphone just saying you guys are all going to hell because y'all are dressing up. I mean, if that's the case, you know, everyone who dresses up for Halloween would go to hell. I mean, people who dress up as Santa Claus during Christmas time, they should go to hell. And the pretend inside your scenario for a second that you disagree with these people and so they get a representative for them. One of the best representatives for their ideology they possibly could. And then they set up some kind of like area where that representative and then a representative from the other belief were able to go. And there was like some guy who was like moderating it. And then both of them could hash it out and determine who was right. Like, what if we had that? What if we had a situation like that? But then still somebody could become so offended, right? Just by a claim against their truth value that they run off. Why would you believe them? Why would you believe them? Integrity. What about it is integrity to lie to people? What's integral about that? You just lied. About? He listed it right there, the nine-year-old thing that you commented on. Oh no, would you like to see the video? Yeah, I'd love to. I have it cued right here. I'm not seeing the video, you're wrong. Okay, what did he say? He made the argument that he would not be in support. Sorry. Come on, everybody. Come on, River. He very plainly stated, I think it was with Hikikachu, was that right? Yeah. He was in a discussion with Hikikachu where Hikikachu goes on as a, you said something that he clearly didn't say. He was making the claim that you have claimed that it's perfectly fine for nine-year-olds to hook up. This was not the case. No. Not even close. This was in the debate with Daniel where he got up and gotten Daniel's face or kind of did. Also, sorry to interrupt, but out of the two of them between Daniel and Dilla-Hunti, who do you reckon is more in favor of fucking kids? I have no idea. I don't pay attention to Daniel, but in the Daniel, in that particular debate to respond, here's what actually happened. And I'll bet you, I'll tell you what, if I'm wrong about this, I will personally send you $50. Personally. Here's what actually happened. What actually happened was he said yes or no, Matt. Yes or no, Matt. Is it okay? Or would you make laws? Sorry, he says, would you make laws? Would you make a law saying nine-year-olds couldn't have sex with each other? By the way, that's what I referenced in here too. Would you make a law saying nine-year-olds can't have sex with each other? And he said, if I have to do the yes or no thing, then no, I wouldn't make that law. That's what was referenced. That was what was referenced. And what was the follow-up? What was the follow-up? Tell me. He said that he didn't support nine-year-olds having sex. But even you said a similar thing when you were talking with Matt, you said you would hold the parents negligent. And the children. So you would put nine-year-olds in jail. Wouldn't put them in jail. Then you don't hold them criminally responsible with nine-year-olds. Listen. So you don't support criminal laws for nine-year-olds. What you're saying here is not whether or not. And by the way, you can have a criminal law when nobody goes to jail. What are you talking about? Do you think even under Christian ethics- No, no, no. Respond to my question. Stop. I've answered your questions. Answer one of mine. Do you have to go to jail when you're held criminally liable for something? We do not. No, you do not. No. No, you do not. No. We do not hold children criminally liable. Even under Christian ethics, I think it's 13-years-old. So it passes over to the parents. The parents go to prison for negligible. Okay. So even you agree with Matt that you would not hold the children themselves criminally liable if you would hold the parents. Well, if you could show me the clip of Matt saying the parents should go to jail for the kids having the sex, I'd love to hear- He was not asked that question. Yeah, but what do you think he would say if he was? I don't know. Right. Well, he's not asked that. He could have asked. He could have responded. He said he doesn't support it. He says, you took me out of context. Why didn't he contextualize it? We could have gone into it. And I may be, I may agree with you that maybe the parents should be held responsible for what the kids do. Why get Matt at me? I didn't leave the debate. Well, you do. Oh, I knew what I was doing. Audience wouldn't know what actually was said. It's the wrong audience. First of all, first of all, I was correct about what he said. I was correct about what he said. That's what he said in that exchange. Later, you say- You were correct. Yes, I was correct. They can't hear you, Mike. Yeah. So if we're gonna keep having back and forth, we're gonna have to come on up. We just had this discussion with you and you maintained that you're correct. Not only am I correct, but unabashedly I'm correct. Yes. And that it was a good idea to make that misrepresentation, not only in front of- It wasn't a misrepresentation. It wasn't a misrepresentation. That's his exact words. You say clarified later, but even the clarification does not get to the heart of what I responded to, which is the negligence that you would hold the parents to. If you wouldn't make a law saying, nine-year-olds can't do this. So if you and Dilahunty agree- How do you know we agree? It sounds like you do. Well, okay, tell me. Tell the audience how we agree. You just made the claim that the parent should be held accountable, right? Sure. Dilahunty would believe, I can only say- How do we know? He's not here. Just based on past comments. Oh, based on past comments. Based upon what was said at the time. I would suspect, can't speak on his behalf, but would suspect that he would make the claim that, yeah, parents should be held accountable if there's some sort of negligence. I can't argue with what you suspect, unfortunately. I could have argued with his actual position, but he left, no. What do you think his actual position was? I think that he would say no, that he would not actually criminalize the parents even for two consenting nine-year-olds to have sex. That's what I believe he would say. Okay. If two nine-year-olds, I think in his worldview, were to do that deed, I do not think that he would hold the parents criminally responsible for that. No, I don't think he would. Okay. I cannot possibly fathom why you would bring it up at all. Because he said it. If that was your contention, because that is so far from a big issue that might have to do with secular humans. Well, next time you can do the debate. Given that that seems to have some particulars around whether or not should the parents be held responsible to what extent were the parents involved and so forth because muddy. It's not muddy. I'm trying to figure out why exactly it is that you would bring it up at all except for the express purpose of misrepresentation. What did Christian nationalism have to do with the debate then? I'm sorry? What did Christian nationalism have to do with the debate then? Christian nationalism. Yeah, he brought up Christian nationalism and went off about a congressman, or I'm sorry, someone who's gonna be the speaker of the house, he went off on that for like, I don't know, five minutes. Yeah, because this is an ethic that's being brought forth by people who consider them to be Christians. I see. So if you have some different ethics from that, which I know that you don't, if you have some different ethics from that system, maybe you can present them to us. Like I just did, and they explained emphatically that we value truth and that I don't believe that under his system they do. He brought up as an example, an institution or the formings of an institution, Christian nationalism to criticize as an argument as an example of something he would be contrary against. I brought up similar examples the other direction. I didn't flee when he criticized Christian nationalism. I didn't run out of the room when he criticized my worldview. I didn't do any of those things. I'm trying to figure out how your idea of truth is different from your opinion backed up by an all-powerful friend who knows everything. I granted that even if my opinion was nothing more than me appealing to Sky Daddy, then it's just subjective relativism and it's every bit as valid as his. It's not just subjective relativism, your moral system isn't subjective, it is an objective, it is dependent upon command. Right, but let us assume for a second that I grant you that I'm just living under a delusion and the delusion is that I believe in a sky fairy and I'm totally delusional about the entire thing. If that's true, even if that's true, then still from a subjective relativist position, it's just as valid as their position. It's just as valid. So if it's just as valid and I just say something to him, like, well, I don't believe in that shit, just based on whatever my own opinion is, how's it less valid than his? Subjectivity and objectivity are not operating in the same way as taking divine command as the basis of your integration. Yeah, I granted that already. And moral system. Yeah, I granted it. I'm not sure how it is you can claim that there's some sort of... Let's pretend that I made up an entire ethical system and just said there was a God I didn't even believe in. Someone did. Let's just say that, okay? Let's just say that that's true. It's just as valid as whatever relativistic bullshit this guy comes up with, same. Just as valid. I'd like to see some evidence for you to back up that your system is just as valid as somebody who's basing their ethics or their information on objectivity or... Right, what kind of empirical evidence do you think we could demonstrate? I don't think you have any. Could we maybe measure the objective truth of things? Like, would we start there? Would we start with what we think might be true? We could. We could. You won't. I did. I don't think so. I did. I granted his worldview and acted as though I was a secular humanist who just decided that I believed in these views because I thought they made more sense. Beneficial versus valid? You're saying your view is valid, but is it beneficial? Is it useful? Of utility? Yes. I think it's maximum utility to not lie to people. I think that has the maximum utility. I think it has maximum utility not to hold people emotionally hostage and tell them that we will self-terminate if you don't validate an identity you know is a lie. That is the worst thing you can do. Yeah. Do you have positive relationships with your family members? Like, I'm just asking like, do you have people that love you in your life? I don't. It's a sad tale. Okay. Well, then I can understand your worldview better now. It's a sad tale. Wow. We got another. I just will note that when we took the second vote, at least one person that voted for the Christianity worldview did not vote the second time. Oh, well, then I guess in the opinion of the biased people in the room, then that means I lose then. Wow. I think so. Because I stormed out. I got up and ran out. I fled the debate. I was unwilling to engage. It was all me. It's all my fault. You lost without even having to. Right. What a bunch of cope. A bunch of cope. Hanging out. No. Anyone. All right, we're going to wrap it up there. James, did you want to make any other announcements, anything you want to say before we close off for the night? Of course. I think you guys know that it is daylight savings tonight. So if you are coming back tomorrow, do be sure to set your clocks or just have an idea of what time it is, that way you show up on time. If you are coming back tomorrow, our first debate, which will be at 1030 in the morning, Destiny and Leo, Leo right here. Thanks, Leo. And want to say thanks for coming out tonight. I wish it would have gone differently, but like I said, I can't force somebody to do something. So thank you guys for your support. Thanks for being here. Hope to see you tomorrow.