 Hello, welcome to Modern Day Debate. I'm very excited to have you here for this special edition, you might say. Basically, we're debating whether or not there's evidence for God today, or the Christian God in particular. And the reason is that it's a special edition in several ways. One is, I am thrilled to have our speakers here. We have two brand new speakers that we've never gotten to have before. It's going to be a blast to have them here. It's a topic we haven't done in a while. It's been so busy that with other topics like does God exist, or we're starting to go into politics now that we haven't gotten to do one on Christian evidence in particular. So thrilled to have today's debate. And if you're new here, consider hitting that subscribe button as we love trying to host. Ideally, you know, hold us accountable. We hope that these debates are fairly moderated. And also we do a monthly charity stream in which 100% of the super chats will go to a charity such as Save the Children, like Starving Children Around the World, or Breast Cancer Research. So we are excited to have that one coming up on July 20th. And let me know, we are, because we're traveling, and you could say that's another reason this stream is out of the ordinary is a couple of us are on the road. I'm not sure how well it will come through. My picture looks okay over here, but as I look at it through YouTube, I'm like, ooh, that looks pretty gritty. Can you, in the live chat, if you're able to let us know if it looks pretty bad or not, that's really helpful. And hopefully it's maybe just me that looks kind of gritty. But hopefully you can hear me. I'm just gonna quick check really quick to see how the audio's coming through. It looks pretty bad. I think we should be good. So with that, wanna introduce our speakers who will have their links in the description that you can check out. And we will go from left to right as I introduce our speakers. So for me, I've already introduced myself, I will introduce Misha next and give him a chance just to share about what he's been up to as of late as he is also on the road. And then if you wanna share anything that you've been doing at your channel or blog or just even anything that you've been researching, we're glad to have you here. Thanks for coming on, Misha. Hey, great to be here. And yeah, I've kind of backed out of all social media. I guess you call it a bit of a personal protest to the juggernaut of Facebook and everything. But I'm always happy to appear on any channel, any time. What I'm working on right now is I'm mainly focusing on Dr. E. Michael Jones's Culture Wars Magazine. I'm just writing articles for him. I used to write articles for a lot of daily newspapers and I worked in talk radio. That's all behind me now as I'm turning gray and becoming healthier and wiser in my old age. But yeah, mainly just Dr. E. Michael Jones's Culture Wars Magazine. And the latest thing I'm working on is an article about creation for Culture Wars. And then also one on a totally unrelated topic that might interest some people on why bear crop science paid $66 billion for Monsanto right in the middle of a class action lawsuit involving over 13,000 claimants. So that's totally unrelated, but that might interest some people. You got it. Well, thank you very much. We're glad to have you here, Misha. And he is in Cancun, by the way, and which is very exciting. We're happy for you. We hope you're enjoying it. We, it looks like your service is stronger there in Cancun than mine is here in, I'm in Malaysia right now. I'm really excited to be visiting Samuel Nassan, who is a friend of the channel. And he's come on to debate before he debated. Does anybody remember the debate between Samuel and Apologia? That was back in, I think it was September of last year. And then he debated JR just recently, a couple of months ago. So Samuel is doing well. And thanks for bearing with, as I know that I look like a giant pixel. It looks pretty rough, but hopefully the audio's coming through well. And Daniel Stoke to have you here. If you want to share about what you've been up to, thanks so much for coming on. We appreciate you spending your time with us. I appreciate it as well. So my name's Dan Ausche, and this is sort of out of my domain. I usually focus on evolutionary biology. That's my specialty, but I'm excited to debate it. I grew up as a Christian, slowly lost my faith because of textual inaccuracies and stuff like that. So I'm excited to have a debate sort of based off of the Christian God rather than just evolution versus whatever creation myth you would like to add in there. So very excited. You got it. Very excited to be here. And so with that, we will hand the discussion over to the speakers. So we appreciate your patience guys. We've been trying to schedule this one for a while. So I'm glad to be here and the floor is yours. Usually the affirmative would start speaking, but given that it's just a discussion, like it's really up to you guys. Oh, we're doing that 10 minutes, 10 minutes, and then discussion. Okay. So sorry about that. I have it mixed up with another. Oh, it's okay, it's okay. I was thinking about another one we have. I am starting the clock, we're setting the clock for 10 minutes, and I will start it on your first word. And is that me or Dan? You. Yes, I'm the affirmative. Yeah, thought so. Great. So proof that there is God, and specifically the Christian God or Jesus Christ. It begins, of course, before we meet Jesus, but we'll get to that here in my intro. And where it begins is that it was around early in the 20th century, the scientific community realized the universe had a beginning. And prior to that, of course, we had sort of the Aristotelian position, which even people like Sir Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein adhered to, which is that the universe just always existed. So, but the problem with that, they realized before they came up with some nuts and bolts evidence to the contrary, but the problem was a philosophical problem. If the universe always existed, that means it goes back infinitely in time. And if something's infinite, it has no end. So if the universe was infinite since its beginning or it had no beginning, in other words, then you'd never get to the present. So that's the philosophical problem that you run into with an always existing universe. And I know Daniel already agrees with that, that the universe had a beginning. So what happened was we think that was sort of a schism between science and religion, and it was nothing of the sort. The Pope at the time, I believe this is around in the 1930s, it's prior to the Second World War. The Pope said, great! You guys finally figured it out. Cause as far as the Pope is concerned, of course, God created the universe. But no, no, the scientists involved said, well, no, no, no, there was no God. It was a spontaneous event. And that's where we begin here. That's where I begin proving that, well, there has to be a God because it couldn't have been a spontaneous event. You could not have had nothing and from nothing everything came forth. That would be an infinite leap. And there are actually three infinite leaps that I wanna quickly cover here. That's just the first one. To go from nothing to something. So even before we get to the Big Bang, that this infinitely small dimensionless dot in space, which can't exist, before we get to that exploding into everything, and remember, it's not just creating all the matter in the universe, it's also all the energy. So all the heat of all the stars that exist today and have always existed, all that heat and matter has to be packed into this. It's not even a microscopic dot, as I'm sure you'll agree, it's a dimensionless dot. So that's impossible. But again, sticking to the philosophy, to go from nothing to something, just to one molecule, nevermind the entire universe with all the tables and chairs and houses and people and stars and planets, just to go from nothing to something, that is an infinite leap. As infinite, in fact, as a perpetual universe, which scientists agreed could not exist, they came to that realization. So that's the first infinite leap you have to make if there's no God, to go from nothing to something, just as I say, just one molecule. The next infinite leap is to go from inanimate matter to living, living organism. And funny enough, there's actually a scientist, I'm sorry, I don't have the reference, but I'm sort of throwing you one here, so maybe you'll accept it. There's actually a team of scientists working on trying to create a synthetic cell, a synthetic living cell. And I say it's ironic because I would have thought they'd start first by creating a synthetic molecule, or a synthetic atom. I mean, you have to go in order, right? I mean, God went in order, first he created the inanimate material universe, and then from that, he created life from within the existing material universe. So I would have thought scientists would first tackle the material problem of going from nothing to something, but they're gonna jump right ahead that this team of scientists, I don't know who's backing them, but it's insane, they're never gonna succeed. I guess I could be proven wrong before the end of this interview or tomorrow morning, but I kind of doubt it. And they're gonna try to create the first living synthetic cell. Well, that, as I predict, they will discover, is another infinite leap to go from inanimate matter to a living organism. And a lot of biologists have sort of discovered God, maybe not the Christian God, maybe not Jesus Christ, but they discovered after a decades-long career studying biology and the complexity of the living cell, they decided, you know, this is too complex. I mean, mathematically, the odds are just astronomical beyond what mathematicians consider possible that a living cell could just spontaneously be created from inanimate matter without a helping hand. Now, I promised three infinite leaps. The third one is admittedly theological, or perhaps you'll admit philosophical. And that's the leap to our salvation. So a loving God who is nice enough to create the material universe and then create life within it, he decided to provide us salvation. And that's the third infinite leap. Because if you look, you know, even before the mass genocides of the 20th century, human history is dripping with blood. And also with rape, kidnapping, I mean, God knows what, all 10 commandments have been broken routinely by human beings. Whether you think we evolved or not, I'm sure we can all agree on that. And through the success of Jesus Christ's ministry on earth, we now have grace. And so if you wanted to measure the, you know, the profundity or the depth of that grace, it again, I think you is infinite. So once something is infinite, there's no measuring it. So the first infinite leap was infinite to go from nothing to something. The next one to go from matter to living organisms, that was infinite. And the third one, which of course, if you're not religious, especially if you're an atheist, you're not gonna care about it as much. But again, I assure you, I underline it. It's again, infinite. So if it's infinite, it's infinite. There's no use saying, well, yeah, the third one is less important than the first two. If it, as I say, if it's infinite, it's infinite. And that's all there is to it. Now, am I okay for time to add one more point here? You got it, three minutes. Ah, three minutes, perfect. So now we get into the nitty gritty. Those are philosophical arguments, all three of them. Because indeed it could turn out that we're all wrong and the universe did always exist, even though that's impossible. There could be some explanation for that. But just going off work, current science stands, it really looks like you need the person of a God, an almighty God, to get all these three things in motion. The third one though is the nitty gritty evidence. And I'm gonna tonight, gonna stick with Flavius Josephus, a Jewish historian, of course, being Jesus Christ sort of really turned on the Jews. Of course, he saved many Jews, like all of his disciples, except for Luke. He himself was Jewish, born of Jewish parents. And he saved as many of them as he could before turning to save the Gentiles. And all the Jews who didn't wanna be saved, well, that they really turned on Jesus, which apparently was part of the plan from the start. But yes, Flavius Josephus writing soon after he died, he lived, Josephus is like the man just before Jesus was crucified. And from firsthand accounts, he writes, and I just wanna read this, that at the time there was a wise man called Jesus. Now remember, this is a Jew writing this and Flavius Josephus never converted to Christianity. His conduct was good and he was known to be virtuous. And many people from among the Jews and other nations became his disciples. They reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion and that he was indeed alive. Accordingly, he was perhaps the Messiah, concerning whom the prophets, the Jewish prophets I'll add, had recounted since from the Old Testament. Now, some people, we can get into it. Some people say, well, you can't trust Flavius Josephus because he was trying to save his skin after the Romans sacked Jerusalem. But he would have made no friendships with the Romans who could have killed him, they could have executed him. He would have made no friendship with them, no alliances by propping up this Jesus guide that the Romans just 40 years earlier had crucified. So it really seems to be like a reliable third party, disinterested support for the life and times of Jesus and most important fraction. You've got it. Thank you very much, Misha. We appreciate that opening statement. I just realized there might have been, forgive me, I appreciate your guys patience. I think you had said, Daniel, if you can help film me and I don't know if I had the other moderator send me the format for this debate. Is it 10 minutes, five minutes, and then? I think it was originally 10 minutes, five minutes discussion. I'm not sure if Misha wants to do the 10 minutes, five minutes discussion. I think that's what we originally agreed upon. Deal. Works for me, thanks for your patience on that. I can promise you that Hunter, the co-moderator, will be punished severely. He's a really nice guy, man. Yeah, he's awesome. So thanks so much for your patience. And with that, Daniel, thanks for being here as well. And the floor is yours. I am going to start the timer on your first word. All right, thank you very much. So he proposed three infinite leaps. I would like to propose one more between the evidence and his conclusion. So, everything he said in the beginning was arguing for the evidence of a God, right? But we need the evidence of Christ Jesus who died and was resurrected, right? So that's why he brought up Josephus in the end. His third giant leap, which was the leap of salvation, I don't agree upon. So that's not a leap that I take. So if you look at a majority of cultures around the world, they don't view a need for salvation. Like you would have to have evidence for the need of salvation before you can say there's a leap to salvation. So I'm going to go along with my opening statement. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, and if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. So basically what Paul is saying right here is the Christian faith rests on the resurrection and rests on the truth of resurrection. And I know Misha agrees with me upon that. So the resurrection of Jesus is the only truly necessary condition in Christianity. The Old Testament can be completely true. There could be a God. Jesus could have lived, he could have preached and he could have died. But if he wasn't resurrected, Christianity is false. So the truth of the resurrection, the truth of Christianity are wholly interchangeable. So he gave the evidence of Flavius Josephus, right? I'll get to that in the end why that doesn't actually count as evidence. Most believe that it was a scribal interpolation. They found a nucleus and they went with it. So, you know, I'm just gonna go straight to Josephus. So Flavius Josephus was born after Jesus' death. Flavius Josephus was born at 37 AD, right? He wrote the Testimonium Flavinium, which is what he referenced. And the Antiquities of the Jews. The Antiquities of the Jews was a history book that he wrote in 93 to 94 AD. So it is unanimously agreed upon by scholars that it is completely fabricated. So Flavius Josephus was a Jew. He did not believe in the resurrection of Christ. The Testimonium Flavinium claims that Christ was resurrected. I'm not sure what he was quoting, but that wasn't exactly what the Testimonium Flavinium says. The Testimonium Flavinium directly says that Jesus was resurrected. So you can't have that and a Judaic belief. You'll never have a Jew that believes in the resurrection of Christ. Because as we spoke about earlier, that's the necessary condition of Christianity. So the only other evidence is the Gospels. So let's look at the Gospels. When were they written? The first Gospel, Mark, was written in 70 AD. Matthew and Luke between 80 and 85 AD. And lastly, John was written between 90 and 110 AD. So the Gospels were written 40 or more years after Jesus' death. Who wrote them? It wasn't Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. They were written anonymously. They were attributed to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John centuries later. And a vast majority of New Testament scholars agree that they were not written by who they were ascribed to. Are they consistent? No, they contradict many times. They have contradictions in Jesus' timeline, his birth, his death, and his resurrection. Nearly every significant event recorded in the Gospels have a significant canonical contradiction. Are they historically accurate? No. There are many historical inaccuracies in the New Testament. From the false, ahistorical details of Jesus' birth to the false, ahistorical details of Jesus' death, the Gospel accounts are full of significant inaccuracies. So one of which being, according to Matthew, Jesus was born during the reign of Herod the Great. But according to Luke, Jesus was born during the first census of Israel when Quinarius was the governor of Syria. This is impossible because Herod died in 4 BC and Quinarius was the governor of Syria in 6 AD. So that's a 10-year gap in Jesus' birth laid out in Matthew and Luke. Also, the Gospel of Matthew claims that Herod slaughtered all the children under the age of two. We know this not to be true because the historian that he cited, Flavius Josephus, was, he was particularly antagonistic towards Herod. He wrote down that Herod killed his own son, he killed his wife, but he doesn't mention the slaughtering of an entire state's children. You know, that would have been an event that definitely would have landed the historical record. So, all right, let's go back to the Josephus thing. I can't wait to talk in the discussion about the Josephus thing because I feel like there's no way that you actually researched it deeper than just its surface because it's unanimous that it's a forgery. So, yeah, I guess I'll concede my time at that. I'm just ready to get to the discussion. Thank you so much. And next up, we'll go into the five-minute rebuttals. So, we can put that four minutes into the discussion, which I'm looking forward to as well, for the rebuttals, so it'll be five minutes and I will start the timer on your first word, Misha. Sure. Yeah, so we have to deal with the claim of forgeries and also the claim of that, well, the Gospels were written by people who maybe had a vested interest in perpetuating this story. But first to the issue of forgeries, yeah, anything from ancient text is potentially a forgery, but we have more information about the life and times of Jesus than we do say about Alexander the Great or about any Greek philosopher, Aristotle, Plato, Pythagoras, often what we're hearing about when we read about ancient Greek philosophers, we're reading about someone else writing about them or in the case of the most, the more famous of the Greek philosophers like Aristotle and Plato, we have fragments of their work and even within their work, they're referring to other work, which we don't have anymore, but we have them referring to their own work. But yeah, then when you get to secondary Greek philosophers, like I said, like Pythagoras or Heraklites, the Greek historian, often you're dealing with other people writing about them. So yeah, if you want, you could throw the whole of ancient history into question. I mean, it also mentioned that the disciples didn't write about Jesus until later. Well, that would make sense, you know, they're kind of scared for their lives, which helps prove the case here that they really had nothing to gain, but certainly they were scared for their lives. They thought they were next, but then they saw Jesus risen and it fortified their spirits, so they carried on. But far from writing, as you suggest, 70 or AD or later, a lot of scholars disagree because why? Because Jesus predicted in, I think in two of the four Gospels, he predicts the temple will be destroyed. So you'd think if they were writing after 70 AD, which is when we all agree that the Romans destroyed the temple of Vespasius, finally came in after two or three emperors failed and some generals were dragged back to Rome and scolded or executed. Finally, Vespasius sacks Jerusalem in 70 AD and everyone agrees on that. If you're writing a Gospel account, aren't you gonna say, aren't you gonna put the words in and Jesus was right when he predicted this? And now it's a missing argument, but I would suggest that as long as we're in the realm of suggesting that these guys were just editorializing, why wouldn't they have put that in? So a lot of scholars agree, no, no, they were all written, you're right, Dan, except for John, except for John who was away and probably didn't even know Jerusalem had been sacked. He's the only one who survives into old age. They tried Jews, tried killing him, boiling him in oil, but he survived and he ends up writing not only the book of John, as you know, but also Revelation, the book of Revelation in his old age on the Isle of Patmos. But I don't wanna occupy all the time, I know it's five minutes for discussion, but I think you said we'll do discussion, sorry, instead of just a rebuttal. But I do wanna point out that really, it looks to a lot of people, not just myself, that all the Gospels, except for John were written, and that Acts and Paul's letters, they were all written before 70 AD. A lot of people think that. Now back to Josephus, I know there are people who theorize that it was all made up, but again, I'll just go back to my first, what I said in the first point of my rebuttal here. Then you could say that about all ancient writings. And the difference, by the way, in who is emperor at the time of Jesus' birth, that's actually still being debated. I don't think it's really settled. You said a couple of times, scholars unanimously agree. Not really. And by the way, there was one thing, I think it's in the book of John, where he had a local governor. People thought he had it wrong, but it turns out the governor had a brother, and after that first governor left, his brother, there was a six-year gap, and then his brother took over from him, and people didn't realize that for like 1700 years, that wasn't discovered until the 1800s, that there was this other governor with the same name as his brother. In any case though, I just want to say it again, Dan. A lot of the argument that we can't trust the sources, that goes for then all ancient texts. Okay, thank you very much, Misha. Next up, we will go to Daniel for his five-minute rebuttal section, and Daniel, I will start the timer on your first word. Thanks so much. All right, you okay, Jeremy? Yes. All right, so he's saying we'd have to throw away the whole of ancient history. I'm not throwing away the whole of the gospels. I'm throwing away the miraculous claims, because with miraculous claims, it requires a little bit higher standard of evidence than normal claims. So if I told you my girlfriend was a school teacher, you'd probably take me on my word, but if I told you I was dating the queen of England, it would take nothing short of like a sex tape for you to believe me that I was actually dating her, and that's because we know intrinsically that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. And the gospels just do not rise to this standard of evidence. I'll get to that in a little bit, but I really wanna talk about the Josephus thing. So he's saying anything could have been forged, right? We know to a degree which ones were forged and which ones weren't. We can't be fully certain, but we have good reasons to believe, right? So we have plenty of documents that don't seem forged, and historians take them at their face value basically. But when it comes to the Testimonium Flavinium, there's all kinds of problems with it. So first off, the paragraph preceding the Testimonium Flavinium, and if you didn't catch that, the Testimonium Flavinium is the passage that referenced Jesus that he is citing. So the previous passage talks about how Pilate demolished an insurrection of Jews by ordering them all beat to death, right? So they had a little uprising of Jews, so Pilate got them beat to death, put them in check. So then the passage underneath the Testimonium Flavinium starts out with the sentence, and then another thing happened to put the Jews in check. I'm paraphrasing, I have it somewhere in my notes, but it basically says, all right, another sad thing that happened that put the Jews in check, like that Pilate did. So it's obviously referencing the passage that is above the Testimonium Flavinium. And the Testimonium Flavinium just does not flow with the reading of Josephus. Also, Josephus uses a lot of language that he has never used before in any of his writings. And he also uses the word Christ for the first time, Christos, and he does not back reference it or give a definition. So Josephus was a historian, a very respected historian. And whenever he introduced a concept that he thought was foreign to the Romans, he would introduce it and explain it. The concept of a messiah would have been completely foreign to his readership, you know? So those are a couple of reasons why we think that the Testimonium Flavinium was forged. Another reason is the earliest Christian historians, like one of which being origin of Alexandria, he scoured Josephus. He read all of Josephus trying to find Christian, like proof of the gospel accounts, right? So he tried to find things that cooperate with the gospel accounts. And he did not mention the Testimonium Flavinium. So we had a early historian that could not find it. And he was obsessed with Josephus. So that sort of shows that it was a, well, it doesn't show, but it leads to the conclusion that the Testimonium Flavinium was inserted into the text after origin, which was about 200, 230 AD. So the Testimonium Flavinium is widely thought to be bunk. You were saying that not all scholars agree. So from all the scholars that I've read, I read critical scholars, right? So critical scholars often, they insult the evangelical scholars. So you could have evangelical scholars who their entire mission is to vindicate the Bible rather than be historically accurate. And of course they're gonna agree with everything the Bible says. But when it comes to critical scholars, almost none of them believe that Mark was written before 60 AD. Like you cannot find any critical scholars that do that because it's a laughable assertion. And this isn't me saying this. This is pretty much every single book I've ever read on it. I don't really touch the evangelical books. So probably in evangelical books, they have that. But unless you're going into history with an already made conclusion, you do not come to the conclusion that the Gospels were written 10 years after Jesus' death or 15 years after Jesus' death. They were written long after. And it's funny, the example that you gave of the temple being destroyed is exactly one of the reasons why we date Mark after. Because not only do they reference that, but they reference multiple other things that happened in that time that did not happen during Jesus' time. 30 seconds. All right, we can talk about this in the discussion. You got it. Thank you so much, Daniel. And if you have any questions, feel free everybody to shoot them into the live chat. If you put an at modern day debate at the start of your question that you put in the live chat, that'll make it easier for me to see it and then ask those questions at the end during the Q&A. Thanks for your patience. I know it's, I appreciate it. I love that you guys are so, you guys just love the idea of this. Because I know that, let me know if it's buffering. For me, it's buffering, but I don't know if it's because of my internet. So I'm joy for me to get to be here. You're lagging a little bit. Or is it like on the YouTube output or within the Google Hangouts? Within the Google Hangout. So. Yeah, yeah, me too. Oh, okay. You got it. Good to know. Thank you guys. I will work on that. And we will now move into the open discussion. So for this, it's going to be, now we added on about 24 minutes. So we'll have about 34 minutes of open dialogue where our guests can just kind of speak on these issues in a more open format. So thanks for being here, gentlemen. And the floor is yours. Thank you. You might have asked you a question, Misha. Sure. And first Dan, I want to say you were right. I said, Josephus was born before Jesus was crucified but you're right, he was born just after. All right. But yeah, go ahead. That's a critical point, but yeah. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Do you believe that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence? So do you believe that there is a differential in the type of evidence required to claim a miracle happen rather than a run-of-the-mill historic event? Yeah, yeah. And so the evidence here is that these guys carried on. I mean, they all feared for their lives once Jesus was arrested. Of course, Peter denies Christ three times. We all know that story. But beyond that, in the book of Acts, even after Jesus is resurrected and returns to heaven in glory, they're still scared. I mean, they're scared for their lives. So the extraordinary evidence here is the fact that we know what Christianity is today, that we live with Christianity. And because there have been other examples where people tried to create the false Messiah and those examples, they fell flat. So these people, fearing for their lives with no backing from anyone, they start the world's greatest religion. I'd suggest to you that's worthy evidence, might not convince you, but you must admit that if you view that as extraordinary evidence, so you're taking the belief of them to vindicate their truth claims. So there's plenty of people that have had much stronger belief. So for instance, if you look at the Heaven's Gates cult, right, they literally killed themselves. Yeah. That takes absolute full belief. They had absolute full belief that their bodies would ascend onto a comet. That doesn't, that does not give evidence for their claim that they ascended into a comet, whatsoever. And I think you would agree upon that. And then if you look at a Saitisai Baba, he's an Indian guru, right? He has hundreds of thousands of followers around the world, right? They attest to his public miracles. He's a miracle worker. He died, I think in 2012. But he would go perform miracles in the street and thousands and thousands of people dropped everything that they had to follow this man in his aesthetic lifestyle, basic homelessness. So belief does not vindicate the truth of said belief. Because if you believe that, we have to believe pretty much every religion because the early adherents believed it. Yeah. The difference being that those followers of the crazy, the comet people, yeah, you're right. They were so deluded. They're willing to sacrifice their lives. And then the followers of that Indian guy, I believe you, I don't know who he is, but yeah, they're willing to sacrifice over earthly belonging, basically become homeless. But what we're missing is that they weren't fearful for their lives. To follow Jesus was a death sentence. And indeed, that was carried out with all of the disciples and the apostles, except for John. So yeah, that's what's missing in those two examples. I think you're giving a false distinction. So you're saying because they feared for their life rather than took their own life. Like, I don't think fearing for your life vindicates your belief more than taking your own life. Like the beliefs are definitely equally strong. If they were willing to take their own lives, then we're definitely willing to put themselves in circumstances where others would take their lives. Like, I don't think that's a prerequisite, Dan. So yeah, those Comet people were obviously fully committed. And by the way, they didn't, nothing sprang forth from that, except that we know the story. I do know that story. But yeah, there's no future followers of them that followed in their footsteps because they were inspired by their sacrifice such as it was basically suicide. But no, what I'm talking about is a prerequisite here. So yeah, those Comet people, they were just walking around, life was fine, and they started following this Guru or false messiah, whatever he was, just like the Indian people. And there was no punishment for doing so. They were free to do that. The disciples and the apostles feared for their lives. And everyone agrees on that. I mean, that was revolutionary at the time. I like to say to people, who's the... They're the followers of Charles Manson, right? So they believe that Charles Manson could perform supernatural miracles. They thought he was the reincarnation of Christ. Like they literally thought he was a messiah. And they followed him to murder people, lose their freedom, get jailed for the rest of their lives in pursuit of this man that they knew. So their belief was sufficient to face persecution and basically the ending of their freedom. So that is a more bold thing that many of the early Christians did. Many of the early Christians, they lived in hiding and they really didn't have many repercussions. Like in the very early days of Jesus, there was no repercussions. Maybe later on, there was heavily persecution. But there's no evidence that there was early, early persecution of the church. If you do have evidence. What do you mean? When his ministry began? When his ministry began and soon after. So within the 60 to 70 years, within the living range of Jesus' disciples, there is no evidence for heavy persecution. Oh yeah, there was for, it's in the Bible. If you Google the quote, for fear of the Jews. Even before Jesus is crucified, he cures a blind man. And then the Pharisees asked for parents. Was he really blind, insured? Is this some scam? And they're scared because the Pharisees have said, if anyone proclaims the same, Jesus is the Messiah. I'm sorry, you're lagging really hard a mile. Oh yeah, I'm sorry. Can you restate what you just said? Yeah, even before Jesus is crucified, there are examples in the Gospels. It's called the fear of the Jews. And to be fair, it's not the fear of all Jews. That would be anti-Semitic. It's fear of the Jewish leadership. But in order to be leaders, they have followers, they have a lot of, and yes, for fear of the Jews, the parents of the blind man that Jesus cured, he spits on the mud and puts it on his eyes, and then he can see. They don't want to answer when the Pharisees asked them, well, was your son always blind? You know, is this true? What just happened? They don't want to answer. You think whenever they said, for the fear of the Jews. For fear of the Jews. So when you say they said for the fear of the Jews, you think it was fear of death? So you think that the people whose child got healed, they thought the religious leaders in the area were going to murder them? Like that's definitely not a reasonable. Well, yeah, they would stone them. And we know they tried stoning Jesus a couple of times. So long before he's crucified. Wait, how do we know this? That you're saying we know this as if we have like historical documentation outside the Gospels. Like you're basing this partly on the Gospels like accounts. Yeah, it's all in the Gospels. But I would admit to you, you can't discount them using the Gospels then. I mean, then we're in no man's world. Oh, yeah, yeah. I would never have discounted the Gospels. So such as the- Like the account that you just gave with the Gospels. But I would discount the Gospels as a whole, as a source of historical evidence. Why though? Why? It's, I know now we might say, well, they have a vested interest. So sorry to interrupt. I'll give you guys the time. Misha. What? Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I was- Yeah. Misha. Yeah. Sorry to interrupt. Just wanted to see, I think there's a lot of lag. I think I might actually try it too. If you and I go to just audio, I think it might make the stream run smoother because I think that basically hangouts trying to pull in our video with our weak internet connections is making the stream choppy. Are you willing to try that with me where you and I turn our cameras off? I just turned the camera off. Eric, can you hear me? You got it. I will try it too. And then sorry to interrupt there. I can definitely hear you. I think your connection is a little bit stronger than Misha's in mind, just because we're on the road. Sorry about that. So, go ahead. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you, Misha. Yeah, yeah. I know the argument against using the Gospels is that, well, they're biased. They have a dog in the race, as the expression goes. But this goes back to your examples of Charles Manson, the crazy Comet people. Some of those people faced fear up to and including crucifixion, the worst way to die. None of them were prevented. I mean, no one stopped Manson's followers from going out and joining him in the commune out in the desert. They were perfectly free to do so. But here, the restriction on the disciples and the apostles is potential and indeed became a real death, except for John. So, what vested interest do they possibly have other than to tell the truth? Because they truly believe it. So, we know that people can believe things as if they were true when they are not true. So, I'm sure you believe that Islam is false, right? Well, that's a loaded question because yeah, I don't believe Muhammad was, I believe he may have been a prophet, but he was pretty bloodthirsty. And I believe there's truth. I don't mean to dice the answer here, Dan, but yeah, I don't believe he rose to heaven on a horse. Okay, well, let's change. Do you believe that the emperor of Japan around World War II was a descendant of the sun god? A good example. Yeah, I do not believe that. Not at all, yeah. But you might want people to believe that. His people believed it to the point of killing themselves for him. You can say that they didn't have societal pressure to not. They didn't have fear of jailing. Nobody was stopping them from doing it. But continuing to do something, even though somebody is preventing you from doing it, is a sign of dedication, right? That's what it is, a sign of dedication. And there is no greater sign of dedication than intentionally taking your own life in the pursuit of the thing. Like, no matter their level of dedication, their early apostles, no matter their level of dedication, that doesn't vindicate the truth claim that Jesus was resurrected from the dead. It just vindicates that they believed it. Yeah, yeah, let's start with that. And that belief was a death sentence. So, believing the emperor is the descendant of the Son of God, risk involved, just as joining Charlie Manson in the desert or the Comet people. Well, that was a death sentence. So ever, except as you say, yes, if you end up being a Kamikaze pilot, that could be considered risk. Well, the Comets was a death sentence as well as the Kamikaze. So those were both death sentences. You see that's different, because you're right, it ends up being a death sentence, but there's no threat that's preventing them from joining. Joining the Comet people is like joining the Rotary Club. I mean, once you get used to it, it's crazy, but nothing's... That's definitely a distinction without the difference, because what you're trying to prove whenever you say that they were willing to be persecuted is their level of dedication. And you're saying they wouldn't be that dedicated to a lie. Am I right? Is that the point you're trying to... So I am not saying that they were dedicated to a lie. I'm saying that they were dedicated to a mistruth. So sometimes people don't have to lie. They can believe false things, like the Comet. So the people that killed themselves because the Comet was about to pass by, they had an equivalent, if not greater amount of dedication to their cause, even though it was completely false, which proves you could have unending dedication to a false belief, right? And they were there, right? Like they knew personally the cult leader. They knew everything he said. They knew the claims that he made, they were false. They continued and persisted anyway. Yeah. So if your point is, is the amount of dedication they had proved that it actually happened because they wouldn't have based their entire life on a lie. That's the equivalent of me saying the people that killed themselves to fly up into the Comet were lying. You know, they weren't lying. They weren't based in their life on a lie. It was just a misunderstanding of reality. Like their mental map did not map on a reality. I'd say, Dan, you have to reverse it. If joining the Comet cult or joining Charlie Manson, if there was something preventing them from doing so up to an including death, then that would be remarkable that they would go ahead and do it anyway. The fact that the Charlie Manson people ended up. What about Hinduism? What about Hinduism in the middle of any, in the middle of past Islamic rule, right? So if you were a pagan under Islamic rule, that was a death sentence. You were going to be killed as commanded, right? So they persisted and they still won converts. So you have people converting to paganism under Islamic rule and guaranteed persecution and death. Does that guarantee the validity of paganism? Point, all sorts of challenges throughout history. You're absolutely right. But none of them caught on like Christianity. So now you're saying because it caught on, like saying that like because of how popular it is. Well, if you look at Islam, Islam is growing at a faster rate than Christianity. Does that guarantee its validity? The spreading of a religion has nothing to do with the truth of it. Because then you'd have to say each religion is a little bit true, but Christianity is the most true for now, you know? Yeah, but again, we've got the threat factor, call it death, the threat of death. We've got that backwards. So in certain parts of the world, if you're not Muslim, you die. With Christianity, it's the opposite. If you're Christian, you die. What about paganism though? What about my example of paganism and Islamic Ryan nations? Yeah, yeah, you're right. Because in that case, they're so upset with Islam, the invading force that they're willing to adhere to something that Muhammad or whoever it was at the time, I'm afraid I don't know the history of that, but whoever it was, warning them, hey, if you're pagan, we're gonna kill you. That is remarkable. But then paganism doesn't catch on. And yes, there is a popularity argument here to be made. And if I couldn't just briefly, it was after the sacking of Jerusalem, immediately the Jews decided, well, let's do exactly what proposing the Christians did. Let's go ahead and just create our own Messiah. And that was the Simon Bar-Kobka. There was another rebellion after the fall of Jerusalem. Or sorry, the Simon Bar-Kobka, that led to the fall of Jerusalem. Sorry. And then after him, there was another one, I forget his name. And yes, the Jews, so after they crucified Jesus, they try to do exactly what you're proposing. They say, well, let's just go ahead and say this Simon guy is the Messiah. And just like with Christianity, which was illegal, the Sanctis was death. And sure enough though, it was crushed and led to the crushing of it. Okay, so your argument for the spreading rate of Christianity, is that because of the truth of Christianity, that's why I was allowed to spread. Am I expressing your- Yeah, don't forget, I wouldn't hesitate to reject Islam because of that. Because I think Islam is totally misguided, but they do recognize Jesus as a prophet. So I think there's- All right, let me go into that example though real quick. So because of the spreading rate, right, it has to be truth. So do you know that whenever, like right after Jesus' death, the spreading rate of Christianity was about equivalent to that of Mormonism. Christianity didn't really pick up speed until the second and third centuries. You know, it's not like right after Jesus' death that was when the bloom of converts happened. If you imagine that there was a truth of a resurrection that occurred to hundreds and hundreds of people. And it was a well-known thing in Jerusalem that Jesus rose from the dead. You would expect it to be a real explosion. You'd expect it to be an explosion, but that's actually not what happened. So in the first century of Christianity, it grew at about the speed of Mormonism and obviously a ridiculous cult. So how would you, like, so you're saying that this spreading speed of it dictates its truth, but the spreading speed of Christianity was that of Mormonism. It just reached a critical mass in which it just increased exponentially long after Jesus' death. So that gives no validity to the truth claim of it. Well, yeah, except that Mormonism is being spread and what was it that, sorry, the 18th or 19th century, I'm sorry, I don't know which, but it's relatively modern times with modern communications. Whereas we're talking about... So what is that happening? Well, it's easier to spread something when the more modern, the era, the more, and of course, these guys are still being hunted down and killed, Paul and Barnabas, well, they're thrown out of some cities by the Jewish Pharisees and the Sadducees in those cities. And they're stoned and Paul is thrown off a wall. And again, according to the gospel, such as you may or may not believe it, it looks like he's dead and is actually raised from the dead. He's left for dead outside the city, whether he was dead or not. This shows the opposition. Now, you're right, Josiah Smith faced opposition, but nowhere near. I mean, he was run out of town, but wasn't stoned to death nor were his followers. And all they had to do to spread Mormonism was keep moving west. And they finally got, of course, to Salt Lake City, which became their Mecca. But so there's a huge difference. You're making a lot of distinctions without difference. So if your point is their level of dedication, their level of dedication vindicates the truth. And I give you an example of another person who had equivalent level of dedication to an erroneous truth claim. That's what matters if you're talking about the dedication. You're not talking about the means of dedication. You're talking about the dedication. So now if we're talking about the spread speed. The means, as you just said, the means were terrible in the first century. The mean by which Christianity was being spread. Not the first century. All the means were working against them, whereas the Mormons, yeah, they faced opposition. They were chased out of New York state, but nothing like what the Christians, I'm talking about the other example I gave you though. Which one's that? The paganism. The paganism? That totally doesn't matter. The paganism, it's because the spreading speed was slow. Sorry, what? So the paganism, the reason why you believe that it's not a good example is because secondarily, the spreading speed wasn't as fast as Christianity's. Oh yeah, I mean it doesn't exist, I would say. There's no paganism. There's no pagan temples in existence today, whereas there are Christian, and yes, Mormon. Yeah, I know, but so I just, so your premise is that because Christianity took over the world, it is true. Because Christianity spread in the face of fierce opposition, which I think is unprecedented. So again, the Muslim example, the fierceness is on the Muslim side. That's how it's spread by the sword, which is its downfall, I would say spiritually. But Christianity is facing that opposition, and no other, I mean Josiah Smith never faced that ferocity of life and limb to be crucified or boiled in oil as the disciples did. So basically the root of your argument, like if we really get down to it, is the amount that people believe it, and the quickness people are to believe it, and the dedication with which they believe it. That proves the truth of Christianity. The precedent, which is the opposition to the sword. Just the fact that it's superior. Wait, so your perception is that it's superior in dedication, and it's superior in belief. Like the people that believe it, believe it more seriously, and can spread that belief more effectively. So that makes it true. I would explain it like this, if you were living anywhere in the, around the Mediterranean, after the crucifixion of Jesus, you probably heard that it was a death sentence to become a Christian before you heard from one of the apostles or disciples. You would have heard from the authority in your community, whether it was the Jews or the Romans, two global empires. The Jews are still very powerful at that time. And you would have heard of the punishment you would face before you heard the good news. And so for anyone to hear the good news after that, and yeah, follow it. I'd say yes, that's a good thing. That makes it more sexy, honestly. So, oh no, no, no, death isn't sexy. Yes, it's not sexy unless you're looking for the ultimate truth. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, listen, listen. So if you're looking for the ultimate truth of Christianity, it makes it more sexy in hindsight. You're absolutely right. I just want to give, hold on, Misha, I just want to, Misha, I just want to give Daniel a chance. I think we'll come back to you. I just want to let Daniel clutch that one. I get what you're saying. But if you have a truth claim, and the truth of that claim, the truth that you're about to believe, is that if you believe this, no matter what they do to you, heaven or earth, if they kill you, if they stone you, if they crucify you, you spend eternity in heaven, right? You spend all your time in glory, right? That is a good exchange. That is a good exchange. So if I truly, like if I had somebody reputable, and I was a first century Palestinian, right? I was very gullible. And somebody told me, if I believe this man, they'll kill me, but I spend eternity in riches. And I would do it. That's a very reasonable thing to do. And the fact that they're being persecuted like it makes it more sexy. Like we know that cult leaders, the cult sticks to them closer, whenever you have outside persecution, whenever you have us versus them dynamic, it makes everybody else look like sinners and you look good. It makes you believe stronger. So the persecution might actually help a religion spread. It might help the strongest believers believe. Well, how many people are following David Koresh after Bill Clinton wiped them out? I mean, I'd say the opposite is the case. But again, Dan, Dan, you've got the cart before the horse. Before they hear about that you'll be rewarded with a life in heaven. Before they hear that, they're hearing that, hey, a disciple might come to town preaching something called the good news. If you follow him, you're dead. That's what they're hearing. Yeah, that's what they're hearing. And that's supposing that that happened. Like, I did not take that. I would like a historical example outside the gospel of that. Sure, how about Nero? How about Nero? When was that? Right after the crucifixion of Christ. He's before Vespasian, so he's before the fall of Jerusalem. And yeah, Nero is feeding Christians to the lions. So is that sexy to die a horrific death? Or to be... If you go in the heaven, yes. The other one they would do is they tie you to a bull and let the bull loose in the arena. And the bull would, you know, you see guys, men can't stay on a bull for nine seconds in the rodeo. Well, they would tie you to the bull so you couldn't get off. And the bull would just buck you to death. So it's not just that you'll die, Dan. It's how you'll die. Crucifixion, emulation or to be fed to lions. And listen, and they're hearing that before they hear the good news. How do you know that? You're asserting that without proof. And even if that was true, that does not vindicate belief. Do you agree that, like, okay, so individually, can people believe stuff that will have them killed when it's not true? Do you believe that to be true? I obviously believe that to be true. I need an example because the examples you gave. All the examples I gave. So if we're talking about in the Middle East, right? So if you convert to paganism, if you convert to paganism, you know you'll die by the sword, right? As commanded. Yeah, but the three examples. Why would one person convert to paganism? Well, I dealt with that. They were wrong because you can have false belief and false belief does not vindicate itself. No matter how many people believe something and no matter how strongly they believe it, that does not prove the truth of that claim. Oh, no, I totally agree. Yeah, I totally agree, but- So where is your truth coming from? So you're talking about the amount of people that could believe it strongly vindicates the truth of the claim? Yeah, well, I was gonna go for your examples one by one. The pagan example, and I'm sorry, I don't even know what century that was in when the Muslims warned, if you're pagan, we're gonna kill you. But I totally believe you. And yet they were pagan, but there is no pagan temple anywhere. There's no pagan worship. So I mean, that one, I guess we'd say, I guess the Muslims were successful, I guess. But the power of the Jewish power at the time and the Roman Empire was not able to snuff out Christianity. And yeah, because it's a truth. I believe it's a truth claim. And yes, it's a simple matter of headcount. You say it was slow taking off, but I mean, they're spreading the word by foot, literally by foot. One of Paul's travels, he goes up to Antioch. That's the 200 mile journey from Jerusalem. Now he may have ridden on a donkey road. I believe he was dedicated. I never said he wasn't dedicated. But before he's getting there, no, there's no internet. Don't you think the Sadducees and Pharisees can get word to the synagogues in Antioch before Paul and Barnabas get there? Of course they can. And they have their own little empire of all this interconnected temple, Jewish temples and synagogues in the Holy Land. And still it's... I agree with all that. I think where we're grinding our gears is you think that a certain level of belief and dedication by a certain amount of people vindicates a truth claim. I do not. If threat of believing it is death. So threat of believing it is death goes along with dedication. So it's the dedication and the belief, the dedication to the belief that vindicates the belief. No, no, you go to backwards again. The... No, no, I don't really want to say... Call it people. There's nothing stopping the Comet people from following that. That is not what I'm talking about. I'm just talking about the premise of your belief in the truth of the resurrection. So it's based off of the strength and the dedication of the belief by the people around Jesus. Yeah, put it this way. They must have seen something astonishing. Like you say, a miracle requires extraordinary efforts. They must have seen something astonishing to believe it with all their heart. Is that the claim you're making? Yes, yes. Especially when... Something astonishing to believe it with all their heart. Death, yes. We know that. We know that.