 Hey everybody, today we're debating whether or not God exists and we are starting right now. With Dr. Michael Brown's opening statement, I want to let you know folks Dr. Michael Brown is an American radio host, author, apologist, scholar, and proponent of Messianic Judaism. Thanks so much for being with us Dr. Brown and the floor is all yours. Hey thanks everyone for tuning in and thanks Apostate Prophet who henceforth will be AP for reaching out to do this debate. To be honest I don't do a lot of debates on the existence of God but what I found is when I have done them and I present it what I thought are really brilliant arguments, I'll look at some of the comments and responses from atheists and they think they're absurd and my points are absurd and then I'll hear the very best points the atheist makes and think you got to be kidding me that's an argument. So sometimes we're like ships passing in winds so my goal is that I present what I believe in why, why I'm 100% sure that God is real and then interact with AP's arguments against the existence of God and then you can sort these things out for yourself. So for me there are four main areas in terms of what I'm so sure about the existence of God. One is my own experiences as a follower of Jesus the last 50 years along with experiences of millions of believers will avoid many proof stories I know personally and then second the large prophetic truths of scripture laying out history in advance and then third nature of creation right down to our DNA and cells just following the evidence and fourth the existence of moral absolutes and our sense of destiny and purpose this is not necessarily to convince you but to explain why I'm sure so my own experience first is a 16 year old kid heavy drug user playing drums in a rock band with no interest in God and absolutely no desire to change and no belief in Jesus people in the little church started praying for me without even knowing it and kind of overnight instead of boasting about what I was doing being so proud of it I became embarrassed I felt wrong about it it was the strangest turnaround the bible calls it the conviction of sin but it was the Holy Spirit beginning to work in my life when I had no interest in God and then when I began to believe and realize that Jesus had died for me and rose from the dead and open my heart to God I had a radical dramatic wonderful conversion experience in here I've been shooting heroin and doing these other drugs I was set free instantly you know those things make an impression on you and then right on that same time I got a bad case of hives and I had this terrible blotches all over my skin and I had to take medicine over a course of a week to get rid of it and I got off the medicine came back brutally one day I prayed with some friends and then within two minutes was healed that gets your attention but then it's been 50 years of really having a relationship with God I mean times that I'll feel that the once requires a certain thing of me and I do it privately without anyone else knowing all these doors that are supposed to open that open court I mean I've had hundreds of times where I go to speak and feel led to change subjects and go on this obscure verse with the obscure topic only to find out that's the very thing that the church was dealing with or in prayer one day get a sense you're going to hear from a particular country you haven't been to in years and years and they're going to invite you to speak and you're going to get the call tomorrow and the call comes tomorrow to that country in the most random way connected to me when it was 50 years of that I would have to deny reality to deny that that God is active the work in my life and then you know documented healings you know I'm thinking about a woman named Barbara degenerating with MS 16 years hospitalized loses control of her bodily functions has to live with canisters of oxygen being pumped into her into her lungs she went legally blind feeding tube inserted into her stomach I mean just in a fetal position muscles thatcher feed can't walk male clinic said the only hope is to pray for Mary she's on hospice care at home there was massive prayer for her she hears a voice distinctly say to her my child get up and walk she this is documented the doctors wrote through the story she she hears that voice calls her family into her room gets up walking completely healed I mean vision back muscles before these crazy stories like that man Brazil blind over 50 years because it's a five-year-old he actually still very attic acid into his eyes and they're just coated over the scar tissue completely healed and seeing a Randy Clark's doctoral thesis a study of the effects of Christian prayer on pain and mobility restricting restrictions from surgery involving implanted materials studying 795 cases from 2012 or this article published in the Southern Medical Journal study of the therapeutic effects of proximal intercessory prayer on auditory invisible impairments in rural Mozambique where they went in with doctors and checked and measured these kinds of things make an impression we know that most of the people we pray for that a sick will be healed we know there's suffering and pain in this world but then God is working in ways that are undeniably him that have no other logical explanation and then scripture when the word of God lays out the destiny of the Jewish people the people of Israel centuries in advance when it speaks of them being scattered to other nations and nations to which they're scattered will be no more like the Babylonian empire and the Syrian empire and that they will be few in number reduced to few never but they will be preserved and they will be brought back to the land and that this will happen with Jerusalem as the the city of controversy of the whole world this is not just guesswork there is no people ever in history have been scattered from their homeland over a period of centuries who then retain their their identity and and then return back to the land of their homeland it's never happened but God laid it out the word that it would happen or even talking about this obscure carpenter from Nazareth Jesus who would who would reportedly die and rise from the dead be rejected by his own people become a light to the world and the nations would receive him it's written out in advance it happens so that that's an evidence to me of the Bible being God's word so I'm I'm not a scientist but I can read evidence I can I can listen to other scientists and I don't believe in what you call the God of the gaps but rather following the evidence so the origin of the universe the origin of life human DNA the cell mathematical fine tuning of the universe I agree with former atheist Anthony flu who said I now believe that the universe was brought into existence by an infinite intelligence and I believe that this universe is intricate laws manifest what scientists have called the mind of God he said what I think the DNA material is done is that it is shown by the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce life that intelligence must have been involved in getting these extraordinary diverse elements to work together or William Dempsky the fundamental claim of intelligent design is straightforward and easily intelligible namely there are natural systems that cannot be adequately explained in terms of undirected natural forces that exhibit features which in any other circumstance we attribute to intelligence so you know if we have an entire transcript of this debate printed out and then hundreds of comments of people interacting obviously that didn't just happen in a random way there was thought involved there was planning involved there was intelligent interaction involved and yet you know that's a fraction of the design of the universe a fraction of a fraction of design of of human beings you know a worm is more complex than an iPhone and yet we've never doubt in a million years that that people put the iPhone together and research and technology built into it so when when we understand that that the universe operates on mathematical principles and just a slight switch one way or another we wouldn't even be here that that again reaffirms to me this is not my primary argument but it reaffirms the reality of this god that I know and walk with Edward Robert Harrison astronomer and cosmologist said take your choice blind chance that requires multitudes of universes or design that requires only one many scientists when they admit their views inclined toward the teleological or design argument and it still comes back to the idea of nothing creating everything still comes down to the idea of DNA which is extraordinarily complex if we if we read one letter of the DNA code per second it would take some like 96 years to to read it out and we're coded with that basically with conception with the two cells coming together it's it's an extraordinary detailed system that God set up and then when we factor in the biblical narrative human sin the fall why things are the way they are then it makes sense this glorious order and yet imperfect in so many ways and then just human nature when it comes to morality and destiny our hatred of injustice or rejection of the idea of survival of the fittest which is the very fundamental reality of evolution the whole discussion will have on the problem of evil there is no problem of evil if there is no god there is no concept of evil of ultimate morality if there is no god I'm not saying an atheist can't be a kind person or a caring person I'm simply saying that there are no moral absolutes there are no human inalienable rights unless there's a god who created us the human conscience goes beyond just evolutionary principle and even the sense that we have a destiny and purpose to me again is further indication of the existence of God look Adolf Hitler said today war is nothing but a struggle for the riches of nature by virtue of an inherent law these riches belong to him who conquers them that's in accordance with the laws of nature by means of the struggle the elites are continually renewed the law of selection justifies this incessant struggle by allowing the survival of the fittest we reject that we're we find that morally repugnant why based on what Darwin said according to the laws of natural selection the european race will emerge as the distinct species homo sapiens and all the transitional forms the gorilla the chimpanzee the negro and the australian aborigine will be extinguished in the struggle why do we find that so morally repugnant why does so many of us struggle with what Richard Dawkins said this is one of the hardest lessons for humans to learn we cannot admit that things might be neither good nor evil neither cruel nor kind but simply callous indifferent to all suffering lacking all purpose something inside of us says no that's not right there is purpose there is such a thing as justice and injustice the idea that human beings are somehow nothing but a machine like Rodney Brooks roboticist said a human being is nothing but a machine or a big bag of skin full of biomolecules interacting by the laws of physics and chemistry i understand by my very being of my existence by my consciousness that that's not true and most would agree with that to me a consistent atheist would have to agree with atheist philosopher steven cave that our ability to choose our fate is not free but free will is is just a myth and an appearance that it doesn't really exist so my own experience with god transforming my life 50 years ago and my walk with him over these 50 years my living in community with other believers in american around the world and seeing people go through great pain suffering and yet come out better for it closer to god his miraculous hand involved in so many ways that to me are undeniably god the the evidence of scripture and then the evidence of science the evidence of human nature these things confirm to me the existence of god the eternal existence of god the goodness of god and i'm as sure as his existence as i have of the fact that i'm sitting here so my opening comments again i understand i'm simply sharing my perspective with you as opposed to thinking that this will necessarily convince you but that's my goal to be here as a witness thank you thank you very much dr brown for that opening statement and want to let you know folks if it's your first time here at moderna debate we are a neutral platform hosting debates on science religion and politics and we hope you feel welcome no matter what walk of life you were from christian atheist gay straight black white republican democrat you name it we're glad you're here and with that we are going to kick it over to apostate prophet for his opening statement as well the floor is all yours thank you so much thanks for this debate thank you dr brown for agreeing to this thank you james for arranging it i just want to say quickly i speak german turkish and english english is my third language so occasionally i might make mistakes and stumble upon strange words it's it's because it's my third language i just want to say this in advance so that i can lower the expectations and then just kidding so today i want to argue that god does not exist that there is no god and to be very honest i have a different approach when i when i look at debates on whether god exists or not and i look at how these usually revolve around things like cosmological arguments and all the other classical discussions that you see i think they're a giant waste of time and usually play into the hands of proponents of theism who want to circle around those arguments i don't want to approach the matter from that angle at all what i want to do today is i want to talk about three perspectives three points one is what is god the second is the injustice and absurdity of god and the third one is the lack of functionality of god now first of what is god when we were arranging this debate i believe it was dr brown wanted to define what god is and the definition that he went for was that god is an eternal uncreated being who is also omnipotent omniscient and omnibenevolent so almighty all knowing and ultimately good or the highest good the issue is that this is not really a universal definition of god that's not really true this is this is dr brown's definition of god or the definition of god that certain people abiding by certain religions hold the universal definition of god does not exist and has never existed when we look at human history we see that we can track certain signs that imply religion back about 100 000 years what we see is that there are some almost clear signs of religion about 30 000 years ago but when we look at the growth and the evolution of religion what we see is that people initially only used depictions of animals for example or had certain a certain sense of worship of nature of trees or animals and things like that that developed into pantheism and nature religions over time polytheism was established the idea that there are many gods and many gods have different functions than a hinu theism was established which is that among those many gods only one superior god should be worshipped dualism came into existence which is that the universe or everything cosmology is between a higher good light and a lower evil or darkness this is a very prominent idea that was that that dominated zoroastrianism for example or manicaism which was a religion that was around when christianity was just coming into existence or growing in the roman empire monotheism as dr brown sees it came into existence very recently in human history in fact when you look at history the first monotheistic practices are not attributed to the biblical god but rather to egypt for example the first signs of monotheism are thought to be coming from egypt from akhenaten who established a religion that is known as atonism where everybody is meant to worship one superior god among many and this is then called monotheism in history biblical religion is only seen to have come into existence about 1000 bc that's where we have the oldest remnants the oldest evidence of the worship of the one god as we know him and that this god is eternal uncreated omnipotent omniscient omnipinevolent was also not an idea that necessarily came into existence at that time but only developed over the last few thousand years so what we see is that we have a very long history of humanity well over a hundred of over a hundred thousand years where we can look at religious development but this god which we define as omnipotent omnip omniscient and omnipinevolent is only a few thousand years old now does it really make sense that in this long history only this god is true that this god is the god that we are talking about that this is what god means why do we trust this why don't we trust all the others but we trust this one i want to go ahead and come to uh what the existence of this god implies and i want to talk about justice life sin justice afterlife hell and about how unjust this actually is what we see with this god that we are talking about with this biblical monotheistic god we see that this god knows everything supposedly is all powerful and he is the absolute absolute good but think about it this god that we are talking about creates a vast universe so so vast such an expanse that we don't even properly see within the universe we only see a specific observable area within the universe and just in this observable area we see myriads of different objects that are completely meaningless to our eyes we see different stars and planets and rocks and everything and among all of that after 10 billion years a tiny planet comes into existence and exists for over four billion years and on this tiny little planet in all that mess we humans come into existence and we claim that all of that only took place because this god this almighty uncreated god just wanted to create us and wanted us to enjoy things and we were then supposed to live a short lives on this planet be held accountable for how we lived our lives and what we believed in and after we die we will we will be rewarded or punished and the dark side of this is that this all-knowing almighty eternally good god creates us and then holds us accountable through our life without properly communicating with us he communicates through some ambiguous sources and ambiguous people in history we are supposed to trust those people somehow and believe in that god and then go to heaven otherwise we will go to hell and burn there forever or be punished in some hell how does that really make sense and is that really just is that really a realistic expectation it is it is very odd isn't it and what's funny is that proponents of god present this false scenario that we are between believing and going to heaven or disbelieving and going to hell but that's not really the case what we what we have in reality is that we are supposed to believe one certain religion among so many different religions because that one certain religion is supposed to save us from the punishment in the afterlife that all the others will take us to if we trust them and not this one religion now can you really expect a muslim for if christianity is true can you really expect the average muslim to be confronted with christianity and to accept christianity the average muslim will not accept christianity because they were brought up with ideas that are completely different completely in rejection of christianity they will not even think about whether christianity makes sense or not they will simply reject it if islam is true the average christian will most obviously reject islam i am here confronted with god and i most definitely reject it not because i know that it is true and i reject it because i want to reject it but rather because i don't believe that it makes sense can i be blamed for that and if hell does not exist if we will not be held accountable then why in the world would all of this exist why would god exist why would he be omnipresent omniscient omnibenevolent and why would he do all of this without showing anything this is where i want to come to the next point which is about the lack of functionality and the uselessness of god i'm not a classical regular atheist i only use the term atheist to describe that i don't believe in god but i don't really identify with that i usually describe myself as a post-theist i think that god served a purpose in history such as upholding certain morals or the fabric of a society or providing certain explanations to all the things that happen in our nature but god has now lost this purpose god has become obsolete and there is no longer any need for god because there is no reason to believe in him and he doesn't really do us any any good we don't need him we have we are we are very well off without him if we look at history we see that god was used to explain certain things that happen such as lightning or earthquakes even christians themselves did that early christians wrote about how things happen to them even st augustin of hippo for example who wrote his his masterpiece the city of god wrote wrote about how it was not christianity which brought you know unfortunate things to the roman empire but rather it was the lack of christianity which made them fall apart for example or the bible for example explains earthquakes or and and lightnings as the doing of god as a punishment or as a warning all the religions different religions attributed these functions to different gods but what we see in reality is that over history nothing that we attributed to god nothing that we explained with god turned out to be the work of god if we look at a at a list of statistics of things that we attributed to god we see that zero out of all those zero percent brought us to god everything had a different explanation besides god different cultures in history the mongols the native americans greeks romans manikans polytheists the chinese who were completely unaffected by god had their own explanations and we when we see that god was just one explanation and it is not really needed anymore there is nothing in our world that needs god in order to fill the gap we have explanations for everything without god to certain things we don't have explanations but we try to find out the true explanations to them instead of trusting in god which doesn't lead us to any solutions it just gives us an illusion which does not satisfy us it only helps us for the moment it doesn't really solve our problems of finding out proper answers as i see it uh when we speak about god and when we uh when we say that we need god in order to be good that is uh false there are people in the world who have many different ways to find uh purpose in life to find meaning in life and to turn their lives around god is only one of those options i'm not saying god is not helpful at all i'm saying god is only one of those options and we don't really need just god what i see is that uh when people claim that god exists they are making a certain claim asserting that they know that god exists because that's what their religion tells them to believe in it is much easier for me much better much more relieving to me to accept the idea that i simply do not know certain things because then i'm being honest to myself i'm being more truthful instead of saying yes i know god did this and god that that therefore i believe that god is only uh part of a long line of things that humans made up because they didn't know better and it is time to move on from that thank you very much thank you very much apostate prophet for that opening statement and what we're going to do now folks is jump into the rebuttal sections now these are going to be a bit shorter so it's going to be eight minute rebuttals one from each side and then we'll jump into the open dialogue for about 30 minutes and then q and a for about 30 minutes so if you happen to have a question feel free to fire it into the live chat and want to remind you our guests are linked in the description and we'd highly encourage you you can check out those links right now and that includes if you're listening via the modern day debate podcast as we link our guests there as well with that dr brown thanks so much the floor is all yours right hey thank you so much ap first to clarify the definition of god that that was not the definition i came up with i simply asked because i was asked by you to debate the existence of god i said what do you mean by that james sent me where he thought was a working definition i thought that came from you i just said let's add eternal uncreated but either way i'm happy with that definition i just want to say that i was asked to debate the issue i said okay what are we debating just wanted to be clear on that um here's where i reject each of your points and i appreciate the spirit in which you made them but here's where i reject each each of the points of course my own experience in god stands for what it is and has no logical explanation and what it's multiplied by millions and millions of other people with other situations that are all not logically explained in any other way i have no reason to question any of what i believe but to respond to each point um when you go back a hundred thousand years thirty thousand years we have no literary evidence you're you're talking about even if those dates are accurate trying to interpret a painting on a wall once we get to literary evidence there's pretty much universal belief in in a god or gods or something like that and as to biblical literature it does predate akhenaten just just for the record so so you can have strong evidences of monotheism going back four thousand years but either case the biblical narrative is you read at romans one that the human race cast off the knowledge of the one true god and became idolatrous so it'd be no surprise when when we read ancient egyptian literature ancient samaritan literature ancient cation literature whatever it is it's no surprise that it's full of polytheism the mystery is is how the monotheism of scripture emerges you read genesis one the creation account and you compare it to the other ancient creation accounts renuma ailish or different ones like that and you you're comparing light to darkness you think where'd this come from even akhenaten was considered himself to be a god so that was not a true monotheistic movement in in that regard so scripture stands out in such amazing ways when you read the words of a prophet like isaiah and you compare it to other ancient literature and its polytheism it stands out it makes you wonder what was the inspiration behind this where did they get these ideas and why we should trust the god of the bible is because the god of the bible is different because the god of the bible does lay out human history in advance because the god of the bible does say if we seek him earnestly we'll find him that's one reason why so many muslims and others are coming to faith because god is revealing himself in ways that it's jarring people's lives i mean i know so many first-hand accounts from our friends that are in the middle east and other parts of the world jarring shocking accounts when it's the very last thing that the muslim person was thinking about but they were earnestly seeking god as they understood him and he reveals himself he reveals himself through his son jesus as to why such a vast universe first it's a testimony to the majesty of god second there are writings are read by astronomers and other scientists who say that the whole fine tuning of the universe was in order to have one planet where life could exist that it takes all of this that that's why there are skeptics that talk about multiverses because there must be many other universes out there because 14 billion years wasn't enough time by chance to come up with an earth or the human race so rather than posit unknown multiverses i said no what the bible says is true that an intelligent creator designed all of this and he designed for us and it's for us to wonder and be amazed and then probably forever and ever get to explore why did he create us it's all by his own choice but it's to have a people who would freely choose him love him and be with him forever so he put us in an environment where we could make choices there'd be consequences of those choices which are painful negative but what do we prize most our existence and our freedom so with self-determination and freedom there will be negative consequences and then in the midst of it we can grow we uh john hicks refers to this as soul making we can grow as human beings we can grow in our relationship with god we can become better people by persevering through hardship trial suffering growing through it and then be with him and enjoy him forever you say yeah but what about those who don't believe they all just burn in hell listen i'm jewish i've interacted with the jewish community for decades i have friends who are religious jews rabbi so yeah very very serious question is that the way god made it he created the whole world billions of people uh he doesn't reveal himself in a face to face way to most all of them many never hear the message and then he just cast him off to hell to fry him forever i don't believe that i believe that god's justice will be perfect and that on that day when he sorts everything out it'll make sense it'll make sense for james for you for me and that none of us on that day will be able to accuse god of of injustice and my experience with him all these years and seeing his incredible long-suffering patience and then the fullest revelation we get is at the cross where jesus dies for our sins that's that's god entering into our world and saying i'm going to suffer on your behalf there are different views even among christians on the subject of hell is it just a cessation of existence what someone call annihilation so that you forfeit eternal life and that's it there are early christians that held to some type of universal reconciliation i don't but there are some who did that said ultimately that everyone makes them eternally i would rather be confident in the goodness and justice of god and the truth of scripture and let him sort out these other things how everything works out then reject the whole idea of a god based on this um as to god being used to explain certain things yeah there of course is superstition there's superstition to this day when i was in china a few years ago i was amazed at all the superstitions of the of the atheist uh tour guide yeah human beings are superstitious but miraculous healings that have no possible explanation that doctors say has to be a miracle when it's in direct answer to prayer a transformation of lives when people have no interest in him i i've read of one atheist family two brothers and a sister living in different parts of england all staunch atheists all independently getting the same revelation of god and being terrified to tell the other because they were staunch and such staunch atheists only to find that all three experienced that together god does move in ways where the only logical explanation is the deity even human dna just an example the only logical explanation in my mind is intelligent design behind it uh and the idea that we don't need god to be good yes as i said in the opening statement there can be caring atheists and moral atheists and people of different religions non-religions we know that there's barbaric cruelty that's taking place in the name of religion and barbaric cruelty that's taking place with atheism but my question is can you have moral absolutes without god i say no can you have objective morality without god no can you have a concept of injustice or in alienable human rights without god no because ultimately we are the random products of a freak evolutionary unguided process which is driven by the survival of the fittest so even the concept of evil even the the things ap that drive you that cause you to question god to me are the very evidence of the nature of god in you that says there must be justice there must be fairness there must be goodness even that these concepts exist so that's why with all due respect to your sincerity uh i i don't see any substance to these arguments whatsoever and of course look forward now to your rebuttal to my comments thank you very much dr brown and we will indeed kick it over to ap for his rebuttal and want to let you know folks if you have not heard we are thrilled about this upcoming debate this month as dr kenny roth christian apologists and scholar will be taking on juggernaut of debate matt dillahunty that is going to be an epic one so hey if you haven't yet hit that subscribe button and that notification bell so you don't miss out on that epic debate and with that ap thanks so much the floor is all yours thank you so much dr brown for that well i have an objection i mean with all due respect i really respect your work and your degree and all that but what what i've heard from your opening statement i know you said that this is not meant to serve to to convince people but when we are sitting here and talking about whether god exists or not all that i've heard from your side is that uh is that there are certain things that are happening in the world and i don't know how else this could possibly work without god i don't see a proper line that leads us to god i don't see a proper collection of evidences that brings us to god all i see is well this and this is going on so must be god that's all i see and and and this is not something especially weird this is just what i see in general in arguments for god's existence i want to address your your points one by one i made a lot of notes that's why i was looking down all the time i'm making these notes here but you described that you believe in god due to experience due to dramatic changes that happened in your life you had a very bad life a very terrible life your life turned around suddenly you rose from that from that deep bad place and your life became much better and that can only happen with god i failed to see why that would be a sign that god exists i mean i know certain people who had their life completely turned around and they didn't need god for that or they needed a different religion for that they did that by a completely different religion which is in complete contradiction to the fundamental tenets of your religion and they will say the same things they will say that this religion saved them and they are now living a great life because of this religion which according to you is completely false there are many people who find who find safety and greatness and who regain their lives by joining buddhism for example which is a fundamentally non-theistic religion which does not rely on god but which rather focuses on how to make yourself better not how to serve god there are people who join cults very crazy cults and turn their lives around and live now a fantastic life and are so happy they don't want you to pull to pull them out of that so experience is simply to me and i think in general a very weak sign a very a very weak reason to believe in god you can you can present experiences or coincidences for to make a point for pretty much anything in life not just for god for the most absurd things in life to be very honest healings i don't see that there are any healings going on when i listen to examples of healings i usually just hear examples where somebody reported having a certain experience i don't see that there are serious scientific journals or serious research is peer reviewed which admits by the scientific community the community of doctors that something happened something extraordinary happened and there is no explanation to this at all within the scientific world and that and that this must be from something else there is almost always a possible explanation in scientific terms that are completely reasonable i don't see any evidence of anything really really strange happening i think evidence for something strange happening that only leaves god as an explanation would be that somebody loses loses their leg like a man who loses his leg in a war then he prays and suddenly a leg grows back or suddenly a leg comes down descended from the sky and and is attached to him but that usually doesn't happen the examples that we have are so ambiguous so vague that somebody who is who was blinded can somehow see again which is by no means something that science doesn't have an explanation for on the contrary it is very well known that blindness can be content that can be temporary that blindness can have different reasons can go away that people might see again under different circumstances so experience i think is simply a very weak hill to die on to be very honest scripture when we look at scripture you talked about or dr. brown talked about the scattering of the jews and their preservation was very much foretold and that this couldn't have been foretold but this is not something very special the bible also makes a lot of claims about things that will happen in the world which remotely did not happen the new testament makes a lot of predictions of revelations in the future which did not come true islam makes many prophecies muslims generally say how could this little arabian guy have predicted that he that that that muslims would go out and conquer the entire world and they would enter Jerusalem nobody would have possibly made that prediction and it would have come true well they make that same claim many other cultures many other religions in history have made extraordinary claims they have not come true so there is not really a point in taking this one example where things seem to have come true a certain way and to say well it is true because certain predictions and prophecies have come true let's not forget about the fact that jews were mostly preserved because they were seen as chosen people of god in a mostly christian world appealing to few few creationists who agree that the universe must have a creator will not establish the truth that the universe has been created well if we want to look at science if we want to look at scientists and what scientists tell us we see that science overwhelmingly gives us explanations of the world of how the world came into existence of how it expanded and of how animals developed scientists overwhelmingly give explanations that are completely contrary to god we want to challenge evolution when it comes to evolution there are over 500 000 peer reviewed research papers in existence right now which directly or indirectly reference evolution as a fact so if you want to appeal to authority which i don't do then you you lose by default there is simply no way that you that you can possibly win with that if we want to look at evidence i simply don't see any evidence that would lead us to god i mean we have certain things that are happening you say that the universe seems to function in a certain way and that things seem to have been nicely designed in such a way that it makes it possible for us to live that's not entirely true that is a claim that is often made that the universe is fine tuned and that if things were slightly off everything would you know erupt in chaos that's not really true i mean our earth is orbiting the sun in a completely infrequent strange way not in a perfect orbit there is a large room of distance that we could float within which would keep our earth completely well and alive it doesn't depend on a certain specific orbit the world is full of chaos things are exploding burning around us all the time there is no reason for us to assume that things seem to work very well which is why we come to god i want to leave the morality part to our oncoming discussion because i don't have enough time left i only have like 15 seconds left or so i believe but i assure you that morality definitely does not depend on god and i assure you that my appeal to morality and my convictions of morality don't need god we don't need god for morality at all and we also don't need objective morals by the way thank you thank you very much apace profit and with that we are going to jump into open conversation folks so this would be about 30 minutes friendly reminder our guests are linked in the description check those links out and also want to let you know folks always want to encourage you to attack the arguments not the person as we really do appreciate our guests being here with us and so with that gentlemen thanks so much on the floor is all yours so maybe i could ask you an opening question i do want to clarify i didn't think i was leading a bad life and i wasn't looking to change i was quite happy with my partying lifestyle and god intervened when i wasn't looking for him but what i'm trying to understand is what would actually constitute a proof for you because i there are documented healings peer reviewed i'll give you references if you like whole books where you can get reference after reference after reference it's quite staggering and amazing actually but couldn't you just explain that away you know the amputee and you pray and a you know leg comes down from the sky you'd still come up with some explanation as to why it doesn't actually constitute proof so you know listening to you that and again i said the experience i'm explaining for me right i was very clear on that uh fully understanding how that would sound to someone who doesn't believe it and i'm quite sure if you had the same experience you'd be in my shoes as well but it my my feeling is that you just explain away whatever it is and say well that doesn't constitute proof and i don't think anything could constitute proof you could say well our senses are wrong our perceptions are wrong so respond to that i completely disagree with that i mean when people say that i could explain anything away i just don't accept evidence that is not really true it just means the evidence is not really strong the evidence is non-existent to be very honest i mean i give the example of a leg suddenly forming or falling down from the sky i'm not i'm not just giving this example as a joke when i think about people who propose that god exists we see that people are making a very extraordinary claim and when we look at the history of religions when we look at scriptures we see that miracles are usually described as very extraordinary things i don't know mountains moving things appearing in the sky moving around flying around and all those things why do we have to rely on evidences that are so ambiguous so vague why can't these extraordinary claims be uh proven with extraordinary amazing evidences if i saw that a giant face appears in the sky that it grabs things from the earth and says i am god believe in me i have enough of you then i will be like okay that we seem to have no proper explanation for this i guess there is a god or if one of someone else said isn't that just a mass hallucination no i wouldn't what a mass hallucination would be if something appears in the sky and dances around and it has no impact that could be a mass hallucination but if something comes down and actually crushes the earth and you know destroys things with its hand and we all see that then we can't say that's a mass hallucination science in hologram maybe well maybe another explanation we just don't have it in other words here i i guarantee you that there are documented miracles that are extraordinary mind-boggling that they're that the doctors themselves write them up and say we can only call this a miracle but then what if it doesn't reach your particular threshold i mean who gives you the right to set the threshold and and there are read craig keener's two volume book miracles craig keener's two volumes miracles or randy clark i witnessed two miracles and i referenced his doctoral thesis and you know there are cases for example where out of the 795 they prayed for in 2012 with metal implants that some actually had the metal implant disappear and it's it's documented um and this is all in a doctoral thesis i would have to see that when i i'm i'm really open-minded when it comes to this i don't ever claim that i know the truth about this i would completely look into every evidence and go for it if there's really seems to be something to it the issue is that what people generally call evidence is not proper evidence when i see when i look at healings for example which people call extraordinary i don't ever i have never seen and i am willing to look into it again i have never seen that there was a major consensus or that's a a magazine like the scientific american or i don't know any other organization a collective of scientists came together and said okay well this one case there really is no explanation to it what i see is that certain individuals individual doctors or individual scientists occasionally make claims and they are a tiny minority but i don't see that there is a proper consensus among serious people more people who show that there is actually something really strange going on whenever we have an extraordinary healing so-called healing it can usually be explained by by by by by by a regular natural scientific means i have to yet see i'm saying i have to yet see the evidence you have to see an example of something that that really cannot be explained by any proper known scientific means yeah well i'm thrilled to hear your openness because they do exist and listen i've been in in the christian world and charismatic christian world for decades so i've seen all kinds of flaky things i i fully understand reasons for skepticism and you know the pain leaves today and comes back tomorrow or their their psychosomatic explanations and also i i understand the reason for skepticism but i'm thrilled that you speak of being open-minded you know the study i mentioned that was published in the southern medical journal in 2010 study of the therapeutic effects of proximal intercessory prayer on auditory and visual impairments in rural Mozambique by one two three four five different four different doctors they they discussed with with other scholars and scientists what would constitute a right test that could be done because of all these reported healings with the ministry in in Mozambique so they went there and for vision it was simply using eye charts and then they had hearing equipment to test whether people could hear and they prayed i don't know how many people in the study blind partially blind deaf partially deaf but they they documented the results so uh if if and then an experiential question just couple for you and then you can turn and question me if if um if you say after this debate had had a dream and in the dream you know you you you saw someone you had never seen before and they met you at a certain place and said sir you should read the bible and then the next day that dream exactly happens and then you know you have five straight days with a dream and then the thing actually happens and then when you read the bible next in the word start burning in your heart and you become very conscious of a of a divine being that you didn't believe in before is there any kind of experience that you would have that would make you question or wonder you know other than the face appearing in the sky in that certain example if i had a dream the same dream for let's say five days i have a dream where i see a very specific person who comes to me at a specific place sits down and says i want you to go and read the bible and believe in it if i had that dream for five nights for example and if after those five nights i went outside and that really happened just as i dreamt it i would think i i guess i am wrong i guess i'm wrong i would say i guess i'm wrong and i guess there is something more to this than i don't know and maybe god is maybe god does exist the issue is that this does not happen and even if that that did happen it would only be a personal experience to me which i cannot in any way ever prove the problem with such experiences is that these these evidences these experiences are usually mostly or almost exclusively just that experiences that we can never prove that we can never show to somebody else that we can only self report and how can you trust anybody to self report something that is true why do we rely on people's uh self claimed experiences why do you trust me why would i trust you why do we have to trust each other if our mission is universally to believe in god such a thing if it did happen to me i would probably believe that i'm wrong and i would probably try but believe in god again while trying to bury all my doubts or trying to find answers to them unfortunately i did ask for that a lot back when i was trying to be religious again it never happened i doubt that it will happen in the future but i have i have a question here which is uh which is it is rather strange to me i think it's a very obvious objection but um when we talk about miracles and signs that god exists we're talking about certain things like uh healing uh which as i said can be very vague and people can make a lot of speculations about it well we talk about specific personal experiences which no one can explain why does it have to be like this why is the evidence always something that is uh vague something that relies on a specific individual something that cannot be proven true and even if it were true that there's something strange going on and some strange miraculous healings happen how can we possibly conclude that therefore god must exist or therefore this must be the work of god there could be so many different explanations to that yeah so uh the answer is simply this that the ones that came with a message to me came with a message about the god of the bible and then i had these radical experiences i wasn't looking for that dramatically changed my life then when i prayed to that god and sought him earnestly i began to see answers to prayer that were undeniable you know it would be like tremendously burdened one day to pray for a certain person in another country and praying and then and then not knowing why only to find that a week later that at that moment they were going through a certain thing and there was sudden intervention and look we live in this world we don't see miracles all the time we like i said most of the people i pray for not going to be healed uh i've i've i've prayed for a number of people with cancer virtually all of them died so i'm not just claiming that i flow through life here you know that's why i mentioned suffering right in the opening comments but to me it was a matter of putting two and two together that the the god of the bible has made himself known and as i begin to relate to him seek him i find wow he really is the way he's described here and he really does honor what's written here and then the other things are secondary to me you know the evidence of science and other things like that so you know just like in in your own life sir the the lack of experience was a major factor and and you you said if you did experience certain things you would you would question and you would you would probably believe again ultimately it's going to come down to a personal thing right ultimately we have to make our own life decisions and i have a question here sorry go ahead no just this last thing so when when someone preaches publicly in the name of jesus and maybe there's one miracle that takes place you know someone healed and everyone knows this person's a cripple from birth and they're healed so that gets them wow could this be true and then they cry out to that god and he makes himself real personally ultimately it has to be that in your own heart you know him and believe it can't simply be the evidence of something else external to you so i have three objections uh to all of this uh i won't ask them all at once it would be kind of i would be kind of bombarding you here with that but uh just a second yeah so um one of the objections is you talk about how um you know you ask for things to happen or you pray things happen and and all that and uh this could be a sign from from god uh i'm i'm really oversimplifying it i'm i understand but basically uh the issue is again how do we exactly come to god how do we exactly come to the one god i simply don't see it i don't see the way the path leading to that i'm sure you're aware that uh i mentioned it earlier but at the time that uh christianity was becoming relevant in the roman empire there was a religion going around that started very successfully it was growing very rapidly which was called uh manicheism uh by its founder mani who was basically preaching that certain people before him were uh prophets and he himself was also a prophet but what he preached was not a uh the concept of the almighty all powerful benevolent god who's above and who just wants our prayers what he preached was more that the world is between uh a good presence and an evil presence or light and darkness and we just have to not repent and be safe but we just have to break through our illusions and see the truth and be with the light so that we can ascend to him but this is a very uh a belief that seems very uh that doesn't really seem unacceptable to to to to christianity or to abrahamic monotheistic beliefs because it also challenges the idea that god is almighty and all knowing and all powerful why can't we say uh when we look for truth when we look for healing when we look for a blessing it is that guy's light above that guy's good god above why do we say it is the christian god why why do we say it is yaoi why don't we say it is uh the islamic understanding of god why don't we say it is the buddhist connection to the universe why don't we say it is the daoist connection to the the the the dao which is the essence of everything why exactly do we say it is god because you said that we pray and we get responses but everybody claims the same thing buddhist thing hinders claim the same thing wasn't the same thing yeah yeah so right so this is there's several levels so the one answering the prayer has certain power the one answering the prayer has certain knowledge the one that chased me down when i wasn't looking for him was responding to the prayers of of others the same one who has miraculously healed these others is demonstrating certain power the one who is i've watched work in my life in the lives of others for 50 years has supernatural wisdom and ability to to turn things upside down i'm gonna give you example after example after example that they just become mind-boggling stories one after another so you say okay but how do i know what being that is maybe he's one of many he or she or it one of many supernatural beings or the how do i know i have the right being okay so first we agree that there is this supernatural being uh that's acting in ways that are above and beyond anything we could humanly concoct we start there then when i go to scripture i see that this god contrary to caron contrary to these other religions has laid out major aspects of world history that cannot be easily explained away i mean you dismiss the the history of the jewish people laid out in advance in the centrality of jews and laid out in advance i i say that's highly highly significant it's highly highly significant then out of the ashes of the holocaust the modern state of israel's birth just like the dry bones vision in in ezekiel i don't take these things lightly but i i see messianic prophecy the the death and resurrection of jesus that had to take place before the second temple was destroyed and then the message going out around the world so i see that this book describes things accurately this book speaks of this god and then these other things secondarily science would indicate an intelligent designer and and other things like that so that's how i come to these conclusions so the the first thing is the reality in the existence of this being and then the second thing is identifying which being this is and the supernatural testimonies i've had of this being revealing himself to muslims to hindus to atheists to dowers to confucians buddhist etc all points in the same direction and bring confirmation to it well the issue is um you know i'm a former muslim i used to be a muslim i was among muslims all the time i also did work for islam and tried to spread it and tried to you know analyze it and teach it to others the issue is that muslims basically make the same argument i mean everything that you just told me muslims basically say the same thing everything that you said about the bible muslims say the same thing i just had a had a discussion with a muslim apologist very recently and his argument is that contrary to the bible and contrary to other religious books the quran is the only book that is unfalsifiable that that can never be falsified that makes predictions about the future which come true that has the only realistic only true description of the past the present and the future and that there is no single flaw in the quran and i know you will say well they are wrong because i can show that i am right about the bible but the thing is they will say the same thing they will say well the bible is clearly wrong i am clearly right because i can prove that the quran is the only book that has these qualities so and that would come down to a right i'm very happy to refer people to apologetic debates between christians and muslims and to see whose truth claims are accurate that that does not deny the existence of god it could be who has a right view of god it could be you could argue that each has a partial view of god and none of those would argue against the existence of god they would point to a strong belief in the existence of god and then we get into the internal apologetic arguments which which i'm very happy to do and i think we kind of just just find in in that regard on every level what's interesting though is is that out of all the muslims i've spoken to not one of them has experienced forgiveness of sins and relationship with god the same way your average christian does i'm not talking about your super devoted super saint christian that you know as a muslim that there's no assurance that there's no knowing a lot as father out of the out of the many names of god uh none of them as father that you just relate to him as a servant etc so i would say even in terms of a transformation of life we're not just talking about starting to live a moral life i'm sure there are many people who are living immoral lives that are now living living very moral lives as muslims but in terms of that experience of god they don't have it i've dealt with the jewish community all these decades and it's the same thing so there still comes down to a difference in experience but but either way i think you would agree that different religions arguing about exactly which interpretation of god is right does not deny the existence of god if you just point to human frailty and knowing him properly i think it does uh what one issue is that um when you say that christians have a certain experience that uh more that muslims don't have or the jews don't have you are actually presupposing that this is how it is supposed to function or this is how god is supposed to work muslims don't believe that that is how god is supposed to uh interact with humans or that that is how god works they don't believe that this is his nature what they what muslims believe is not that you that you rely on a a certain personal experience and the relationship with god but rather that you must simply submit to god and follow his commandments in order to then go to the good place and not to be burned so it is the christian expectation that god would reveal himself to you and have this interaction with you is then natural that christians would make the claim that this happened to them and muslims would not make that same claim although many muslims do report that they had this overwhelming experience and uh personally i myself did believe that i that i uh was affected directly by by god by allah when i was a muslim and i thought i was i was being guided by him and i really believed that yeah my point was simply to say that we don't want to compare them as if it's apples to apples okay yeah that was the that was the key point that i was the issue is not that the claim of an experience means the experience is true i have an objection here though so we're talking about i could go a lot into whether these scriptures are true or not and i have a lot of objections to the things that the bible says but you see my whole objection and also in my opening statement is that we are uh that you that it is your expectation or the expectation of these religions that i am or that humans are supposed to trust these scriptures and therefore believe in god and if they fail to do that they will be punished but that's a very cruel and a very unrealistic expectation no matter how accurate these scriptures or inaccurate they are you can't simply expect people to believe in this specific scripture and then to follow it most people will not believe right which is why i i trust in god's perfect justice and in other words we know clearly that those that sin against the light will be punished accordingly those that reject truth revealed in front of their eyes will be punished accordingly that jesus says to whom much is given much is required and scripture makes clear that that god is compassionate long suffering the whole message of the cross is how deeply god reaches out to us to save us so if you say well what about you know this very devout muslim that grows up only exposed to koran and tries to live a god-fearing life we're a religious jew that only knows about church persecution and that's only jesus they know or you know a very kindly tribal person you know praying to his ancestors and somewhere in a jungle in africa god will deal with each of them fairly i'm not here to make a pronouncement i'm simply here to say this is this is who he is this is what he's done through his son now it's up to you to respond and he he knows each of us when i met my wife nancy we were both 19 and she was she'd become an atheist at the age of eight though it'd be wonderful if there was such a thing as god it's a shame there isn't and then became some well really i guess you would say hostile mocker you know that religious people were weak and and unrealistic so he had no interest in god and and no desire to change when god began to work in her life and in such a way that it was sufficient for her to know but she said up until that time she never once really heard the gospel ever 19 years old grew up in america never heard it so she is we let god deal with accountability and and all of that i'm not painting a picture of of you know everybody on this chat if they don't quote get saved tonight they're they're going to be frying in hell tomorrow you know that god sort of all that out can i can i ask you a series of questions is it okay with you if i just uh go ahead and ask yeah i did have a couple questions for you but you you keep going please sorry so uh that's fine what do you believe happens to people i mean do you believe that people who ultimately reject god and don't believe in god do you think that they will be eternally punished i i believe they will be cut off from from life in other words that they will forfeit eternal life they will forfeit life in the world to come or do you think they will be punished they will be there will be a punishment yeah that's the punishment that they they will be forever destroyed you it you could argue that that it is a eternal conscious punishment but the scripture speaks of people being destroyed it's a life in resurrection for the animation very very uh very clearly in fact i believe i remember one section which it says that uh humans will be uh just to be sure that doctor he did interrupt but just to be sure that dr brown got finished i wasn't sure if you're done with that sentence they're still going no no that that's that's okay it's fine thanks gotcha yeah so so actually there are only three passages in the new testament that would potentially speak of eternal conscious torment matthew 2546 which says eternal punishment and then two passages in the book of revelation and primarily speaking of of satan and others tormented day and night forever and ever and that that's in the apocalyptic book of revelation that's that's in a book that is is filled with with a visionary imagery uh the bible speaks of you know john 316 whoever doesn't believe will perish jesus will punish those whether he returns with eternal destruction those the wicked will be punished i'm 100 sure that gobble and act perfect justice if that perfect justice entails eternal conscious torment which seems unimaginable to many it will make perfect sense on that day but you could make a strong argument for the fact that you forfeit life that if you reject god if you choose not to follow him if you sin against the light that was revealed then then you forfeit life beyond the grave you forfeit eternal life well i'm pretty sure that the scripture talks about a lake of fire isn't that true yeah it's it's in the it also talks about beasts coming out of pits with seven heads it's it's it's a it's a and what happens what does fire do fire burns things up okay these are these are images of of destruction but what you need to do is look at the overall testimony of the mercy of god the grace of god the goodness of god offered to us freely through the cross and then here's the other thing you know human beings commit atrocities all the time human beings are guilty of terrible evil if there's only justice in this world if there's no payback in in the world beyond if there is no setting things right then then things make very little sense i understand that much but yeah let me just yeah let me just finish i i believe in a god who will make everything right and and who will set the record straight and who will ultimately punish the wicked as they should be punished and that the ultimate punishment is forfeiting eternal life and if you study scripture you'll find about 99 percent of the references are to people being cut off destroyed as opposed to an eternal conscious torment which you find explicitly only in two verses in the book of revelation in the in the midst of all types of apocalyptic imagery well the issue is that you're making assertions about what god will do and you're making assumptions and predictions about what god will do and uh what but aren't you aren't you asking me no who are you asking me what i believe no i am of course i am but you're making assertions about who you think god is and what you think god is who you think uh how you think god will work but these are merely assumptions i mean you you don't really know god i do know it's written in the word i'm i'm sure the scriptures are true but that you don't believe or question doesn't doesn't change my view what do you think at all do you think do you think i will be punished if i uh today or in my entire life i am confronted with this belief and i don't believe and i die as somebody who explicitly rejects this belief as untrue or as nonsensical do you believe it is uh i will i will i will be punished for that is that your belief yes so let me let me answer it on three levels number one you'll you'll get what you're asked for you don't believe in this god you don't believe there's anything uh to to go to you so you will not enjoy him and be with him forever that's the first thing the second thing is as to your non-belief that's a matter of culpability if with everything in you with all sincerity you said god if you're really there i want to know you with with humility and brokenness and somehow he didn't reveal himself to you he did not keep his promise well he's not going to punish you for unbelief if there's culpability in it if there is guilt in it presumption pride then then you should be judged accordingly thirdly it's your whole life it's not just the faith issue are there things you've done that deserve punishment are there things that you've done that have been harmful to others or the other things that you've done that have abused the the body that god gave you so we're all going to be judged before him and when we stand before him we're going to find out we're not as righteous and perfect as we think if i wonder if we just took your thought life for the last week and put it up on the screen if you'd say okay i'm proud of that or if there'd be things that are they're embarrassing the same same for others so god knows every secret thought and he's the only one that's going to come out perfect but this is what i i do not believe i do not believe that if someone sincerely sought the truth about god with a humble and honest heart and did not come to believe as i believe that as a consequence of that god will eternally torture that person i don't believe that then there is no need for us to believe 60 seconds i'll give you a chance of apostate if you want to respond to give you 60 seconds and then we've got to wrap up oh really that that was short one that was quick well uh and then i send it just to come back with one with one or two questions for for ap i mean you can respond to me but can we extend it i'll go a little longer for the q and a if he's willing because i did have just a couple of quick questions i wanted to ask you and i'll settle for real short responses without rebuttal okay is that all right so yeah okay so is there anything in human dna in in any aspects of creation that make you wonder about intelligent design uh i have thought about it before i thought about i mean i occasionally think things seem to originate from a specific place everything is gigantic very complex uh maybe it does make sense that there is a designer behind this but i simply don't do not see that there is a better explanation to everything and everything seems to be quite random to be very honest uh if all humans were identical if they weren't all a giant mess with a billion flaws then i would think okay there must be a designer behind this but even when i look at humans i see that uh we don't we don't look like we were properly designed we are pretty much random okay so all right like i said i wasn't going to respond i just wanted to of course i have responses but when we didn't get to the morality discussion so yeah is there such a thing as ap moral objectivity is there such a thing as injustice can we even define the concept of morality without god uh i do think that morality is merely an uh i don't think that objective morality exists i don't think it can exist it's not possible for it to exist i also don't think that subjectively uh we can refer to morality as a truth i think that morality is merely um rules that people establish for completely functional purposes and an expression of people's emotions and when people express their feelings about something that is wrong then they simply express emotions which uh are based on certain rules and certain things that humans learn from former generations that were brought through to them over generations by their families their cultures or their religions which is why they see them as as absolute rules or as higher rules the proof to that is that morality has changed in every culture including among christians over history so then just in some just tell me if i'm accurate that you you are open to evidence about miracles you just haven't seen anything compelling yet but you're you're always open to look into it i'm pretty sure that it will never come but oh sorry i thought it was done no no oh that's okay um but i'll keep you giving you references as long as you're willing to check them out but you did say you were open minded i thought you said that yeah i'm completely open minded okay yeah all right you're predisposed to say it's not going to be but i'll open mind it that secondly you did see god for certain things experiences you never had them but if you did have those types of experiences it would make you question things was i correct in understanding that uh depends on how you define experiences the dream thing all that you said that that would get you wondering yeah that never happened i was i'm really curious what happened to you for example i'm pretty sure that didn't happen to you okay and that intelligence design you've wondered about but there there are other reasons against it but that is something that you just keep looking at evidence and science your in all honesty it was something that brought me closer to the to the question of whether there is design but uh looking at it i don't think that there is intelligent design i don't think that there is design i don't think that there are any signs to intelligent design i think the universe is full of chaos full of randomness and full of development that that doesn't have any design behind it got it okay and then there is no such thing as objective morality that i understood you correct it was not too great hey to all the the fellow believers that are out here ap this is a great guy to pray for i i'm very interested to see what the future holds and uh anyway yeah thank you so much i appreciate it oh yeah and and thank you for for the interaction and for the challenges thank you thank you so much i really thank thanks james for the platform and letting us flex a little here that was a quick half hour wasn't it man that was really i thought word we weren't even halfway through it but yeah i'm getting just that you know super enjoyable both the chat as well as i personally i was really enjoying it i was like this is flowing really well so people really enjoyed this and hey want to remind you folks our guests are linked in the description as always and i have been to both of their channels i've watched content on both of their channels i can tell you lots of interesting and kind of diverse set of ideas there and so hey what are you waiting for this q and a should be good as we got a lot of great questions folks all of the questions related to the debate i will read during the q and a given that we have enough time and want to let you know any other questions that are unrelated or super stickers stuff like that just to save time and condense the q and a so that we get the very best questions i will read those others in the post credit scene at the very end of the stream and say thank you to those people as well but silent zero thanks for your first question coming in saying now some of these are comments as well as super chats we allow comments so they say the mere fact that you name things and explain how they work ap doesn't subtract from the fact that they can be creations of god we give you a chance to respond ap i entirely agree the issue is that uh there is no reason for us to unfair god in that so why would we do that you got it and mark read thanks for your questions says dr brown why are we unable to replicate these miraculous healings under test conditions why do doctors work in hospitals rather than faith healers right so miracles are exceptions to the rule so miracles are not something things that happen every day of the week you have people in the bible who are sick people in the bible who die so the whole thing of a miracle is it's something exceptional and it does get our attention and the fact that we have doctors the bible even talks about about healing aspects of you know plants and things in nature even talks about doctors so we're all on the same side in other words we're working together recognizing that sickness in itself is is destructive and negative and and that we all stand together for healing etc christians are constantly in hospitals praying and and there are there are miracles there are times when god does these things and they have been tested the the two studies that i mentioned which if you get uh randy clark's eyewitness to miracles he'll reference his doctoral dissertation with the breakdown of the 795 people that they prayed for with metal implants and surgical problems in 2012 with the three different tests that they did of pain and other motion issues and then the the one in mozambique where there's all this talk of healing so four doctors went over there with equipment and said okay let's let's do that so that that has happened there even been double blind studies where names were given out to prayer teams to pray for people in in a hospital and and neither per the people do not know who's being prayed for who's not and then much better recovery rights of those being prayed for so it does it does happen in that way but last thing is is most of this is relational in other words god working people's lives the the vast majority of healings i've heard about are not on tv they're not on youtube when i'll ask you know someone on my facebook page i'm asked dr brown on facebook page if you've had a miracle this healing please post it i've been stunned by things i've read they said oh yeah doctors reports and evidence but most of it's just in people's lives and then again this is not something we just push your button and get a miracle all the time you got it and thank you very much for your question hydropax says why ap do you think that you can fool god into revealing itself because he won't talk to us god won't break his rules to prove you wrong um well my question is why this would be the way that god communicates if he does really want us to believe in him i mean my my point there is that humans make a lot of claims about god and and that he exists and what he wants from us they claim to understand god they act like they know what god wants and how he how he works the issue is that these are simply all humans telling us these things humans that we are supposed to trust when we can't even trust our neighbors when we can't even trust the people that we uh work with when we can't even trust our own families very often uh we rely on ancient people who are supposed to have given us the message of god we are supposed to trust what they think or what they say god said why is it not much simpler than that there is no reason for god to hide himself for thousands of years if we are supposed to believe i could be i genuinely want to believe i believe that everyone would want to believe in god if god did really exist and god could simply show himself god could simply talk god could simply come out of his hiddenness and people would believe unfortunately it doesn't happen that way all the miracles are simply uh a vague none of them is extraordinary gotcha and this one coming in from band for life says dr brown why would a god miraculously hear your hives a condition they put in parentheses a condition with a viable treatment while allowing millions of innocent children children's cancer to progress unchecked yeah thanks thanks for asking that number one this was just a sign to me as a brand new believer it's that simple of course a trillion times to one i'd rather see these children healed and it breaks my heart as well that that's the state of things um but it was just a sign it was i i had the treatment i i got in the highs before i was a believer and spread all over my body of course you know it's miserable it's not like cancer but it's it's miserable up all night itching and calamine lotion baths and all this stuff and then uh got a course of medicine it took 24 hours for any effect and then after about seven days the hives were finally cured by by medicine so i stopped taking the medicine and was on my way to school as a brand new believer and next thing it broke out all over my body and i was in panic because i'm at school and i've got no medicine and even if i had it's going to take a day to take effect and just sat with a friend who was also a new believer and we prayed in less than two minutes i mean everything disappeared up my arms and body and never came back so that was just a sign uh i've had other conditions that i prayed for that haven't been been healed and i was clear that most uh i've seen some healings with cancer but the people i've been close to the people i've known that i prayed for over a period of years we lost them to cancer it's a fallen world it's a messed up world what's interesting is is that scripture indicates that god is not happy with this either that god grieves over these things as well there's even a text in mark one that the probably the best reading is that jesus was was angered by by the condition of a man who is suffering from severe debilitating skin condition that we call leprosy now in our translations and that he heals him because of that that these are disfiguring things that god himself grieves over that somehow in the world to come things will be set right but but i agree there's much pain there's much suffering if we could just push a button make things happen a certain way we would which is all the more reason that that we want to see the lord return and put an end to this suffering gotcha and thank you very much for your question joe let me know if i pronounce it right joachim west joa joachim i can't let me know thank you for your question says i remember when you dr brown went on benny hens show and then they ask is benny hens alleged supernatural acts fake and your alleged supernatural experience is real i can't comment on testimonies with benny hen whatsoever i i went on the broadcast knowing it would be controversial because i wanted to reach his audience to straighten out a wrong teaching that was out there so because he had the platform to that audience i accepted his invitation to go on the air and unfortunately the show that that we recorded that i addressed that major error that was out there never aired so i can't attest to that i don't know him it's the only time i ever met him or spent any time with him i've never been in one of his audiences to to verify or did medical follow-up so i have i have no idea whatsoever i know he's controversial and has a bad reputation in many circles but i'm not healing is not a thing a major thing i focused on have simply provided documented evidence and it's out there again craig keener's two-volume study miracles massive documentation in that as well as dealing with philosophical issues rendy clark's eyewitness to miracles these strobels the case for miracles you'll find documented stories in detail there but i'm i'm not to be perfectly clear i'm not expecting anyone to believe my my story i'm simply explaining why i i know these things to be true and it's perfectly fine if you're skeptical or mistrust me and i'm simply explaining why i believe and know these things to be true gosh i think you're very much and then hydrox says ap where do you get your morals from and if he says his parents where did they get it from what his parents parent like your uh your mom and dad oh my pair okay i didn't get that part where do i take my morals from well it's a complicated uh thing it's kind of um i'm more morals usually when people ask about morals especially from a religious perspective they usually imply that that's we're talking about objective morals i don't believe that such morals exist when i talk about morals when i talk about things that are right or wrong or good or bad i'm usually talking from a rather utilitarian perspective also from a compassion based perspective also from a perspective that is based on what is good for the individual not not good for the majority but good for the human individual where i take this from is that uh i go through life i see that uh for example i see that people are suffering i see that somebody is in pain next to me and something lights up in my brain which makes me feel that pain that the other person feels that can even be scientifically traced and shown my brain literally mirrors that what this other person goes through if they have their if the other person is kicked in their testicles my brain emulates that which is why i feel the urge to hold myself there so i have this uh this this empathy this uh empathy this connection and this mirroring of what what happens to other people that is uh directly here in my system which as far as we see humans have developed for functional purposes other other animals uh have different versions of that or less developed versions of that we have a very advanced version of that based on the ability to have that connection to have the empathy and that compassion i uh feel compassion for other people i see their suffering and i want to prevent their suffering i put myself in their position when somebody suffers and i can come and prevent their suffering it makes me feel good i feel i think about how i would like it how i would feel better if somebody else came and helped me out of my misery uh gotcha so there is no need to somehow uh take you know morals from some strange certain place it is all functional and all part of my nature we'll jump into the next one captain v thanks for your question ask dr brown how can you differentiate a miracle from something that we just don't understand yet if we don't know why call it a miracle so if we have something that happens in a very specific way in specific answer to prayer to this god who promised to do a particular thing then the logical conclusion would be to go with the evidence that this was an answer to prayer and hence miraculous generally speaking when a medical doctor will say this is a miracle we have no medical explanation that that's what they're saying we have no medical scientific rational explanation for this we can only say it's miraculous now you you could simply make the concept of miraculous impossible to simply say well no matter what happens it's just something that we can't explain but one day we will explain it well that to me is is a leap of faith in another direction that's a leap of faith that denies evidence in front of your eyes that that's why i asked ap earlier you know what would be provable you know so that we could have that that very discussion so some of the cases that i mentioned you know someone with scar tissue covering their eyes for for over 50 years uh to to be healed and be able to see someone that is in hospice care with bodily functions shutting down muscles atrophy we have all the evidence against that happening for it to happen in specific answer to prayer when when someone hears a voice god is saying my child get up and walk and then everything reverses itself instantly the only logical thing to conclude is okay this was an answer to prayer and when it happens repeatedly in similar circumstances then the only logical rational thing would be to say okay this is god doing it otherwise if no matter what happens you say well we just don't have an explanation for it then that to me is taking a leap of faith in another irrational direction you bet and then this question comes in from andrea mellow thank you very much says i am from a libertarian background i don't have problems with atheism my problem is 98 percent of atheists are communists i don't know if that's true but they say if they are libertarian it would be better ap will give you a chance to defend your people the atheist community is it really 98 percent communist i think it really it depends very much on what country what place we're talking about in certain environments certain cultures many atheists are communists in other cultures they uh most of them are definitely not communists i would say that most atheists in america are definitely not communists they're not even socialists let alone communists uh might be a huge exaggeration might be interesting you bring up a good point though which i hadn't thought of namely that there are huge swaths or huge gigantic proportions of atheists spread around the globe and that united states atheists for example are a small proportion but nonetheless we'll jump to the next one jerry poppington if i can add i know for a fact that uh many atheists in turkey are for example um communists that is a very popular atheistic position in turkey the same cannot be said for atheists in the west they don't like communism as much got you on this one coming in from jerry buffington says if a doctor does indeed claim a miracle has happened how do we know that god had performed this miracle how does that determine the god jehovah is real right so again let's take a situation like this woman barbara and just to just read the the details here um okay so degenerating with ms over 16 year period she spent months in hospitals often from pneumonia one diaphragm was paralyzed rendering a lung non-functional the other on what lung operated less than 50 percent uh tracheostomy tube was inserted into her neck with oxygen pumped from canisters in her garage she lost control of her urination in vows catheter was inserted into a bladder the ostomy was performed with a bag attached for bodily waste she went legally blind feeding tube was inserted in her stomach her doctor said her abdomen was so swollen grotesque because the muscles of her intestine did not work she now needed continuous oxygen her muscle joints and muscle and joints were becoming contracted and deformed because she could not move or exercise them she hadn't been able to walk for seven years she was confined to bed her body twisted like a pretzel into a fetal position hands were permanently flexed to the point that her fingers nearly touched her wrist her feet were locked in a downward position uh she was in a home hospice care with less than six months to live there was an outpouring of prayer for her christian radio station got reported this and asked for prayer for her by name shortly after that she heard a voice say to her my child get up and walk she called in her family so they could witness the miracle and they came in she's standing on legs that had not supported her for years she was breathing normally with her lungs her vision was back she was no longer short of breath etc her contractions were gone so christians that believe in the scott of the bible prayed she hears a voice my child that's god speaking to her get up and walk and this miracle takes place and two doctors wrote wrote books about the healing when this happens in place after place in case after case around the world not all on that level but all prayer to the god of the bible in jesus name then you would say okay that god is really there answering it's just it's one part of the evidence and for sure if it happened to you you'd believe that way you bet in this one coming in from hyderpx says ap if god did come to you in a dream and told you things would you keep searching for answers or would you just keep going back to god i would probably think wow that was a weird dream and i don't know what i would do afterwards i would probably just go on and think about what that dream meant to me but i don't think it would really change very much about how i think about god at all as said in the uh in an early example given by dr brown if i had the same exact dream for five consecutive nights and then the following day it actually happens exactly the same way as i dreamt it then i would probably think okay okay there's something really wrong about this i must inspect that further but i assure you i can almost definitely say that that's never happened to anybody and i i hope it would happen to me i really hope it would happen to me but i don't think it will god jen let night hvac says if god just made himself known people wouldn't appreciate his grace and they would take him for granted like humans do read john 20 27 through 29 get each of your thoughts if each of you'd like to respond to that yeah well obviously just just like a woman who's respectable you know maybe she's 20 years old and marriageable uh and respectable woman she just doesn't give herself to any guy that glances at her you know trust has to be earned and love has to be proven and things like that so there are aspects to us seeking god to what's made of us through this to the growth that comes through it uh that yes god is not just our celestial buddy we don't just push a button and get miracles you know lay in bed in the morning god send in all the money i need send in all the food i need we know anything in life that's just to be challenged in order for there to be growth so of course it's not just going to be some unfettered vision of god okay ap wants it like this mic brown wants it like this this guy wants it like that she wants like this so yes we we do learn in these ways but i would say very clearly that he does reveal himself if we truly seek him and humble ourselves and many times it's a process of years so as i hear ap i hear a man on a journey that's that's what i hear and i'm very hopeful because again we just met tonight i didn't know really anything about his background until just moments before the show so when i hear your tone even though you're skeptical and and are sure x y z hasn't happened i don't hear an outright hostility in you and a mockery of those who would believe in a disdain of yet no way this could ever happen so i look at you as on a journey and when you reach the destination my as i hope then you'll say hey now i understand the process and it made sense thank you so much uh what was the question again james sorry i i heard no problem they said if god just made himself known people wouldn't appreciate his grace and they would take him for granted like humans do read then they say gospel of john 20 27 through 29 well i would say that that that that that is kind of just a um an excuse to be very honest i simply do not see any reason for uh god not to reveal himself i'm pretty sure that uh so many more people would believe than disbelief in a god if the god if god did indeed reveal himself most people who disbelief including myself and including every atheist that i have encountered every ex muslim that i've encountered and many of the ex christian atheists that i've seen every single one of these atheists that i have encountered uh they disbelieve because they don't believe they are not convinced they are unconvinced they don't disbelieve because uh they know that it's true and they simply just don't want to that's a uh misconception that some people actually hold that people simply refuse to believe that's not true i mean i cannot imagine anyone actually doing that people are simply not convinced which is why they do not believe if i was convinced if i did see the evidence i would definitely believe but i'm not convinced and i think the excuse that people would simply not appreciate god if it did show himself is rather just an excuse if there is a god and if we are to believe in him he should he would make it much easier i'm not judging god i'm simply saying that this is uh to me this is inconsistent with the logic and the morality the self uh proclaimed morality of god and of these religions especially if this god is supposed to be uh forgiving and loving i think i know many people including myself and i don't like to boast but i just i'm saying this i know many people who are more loving and more forgiving than this proposed god and i don't see this out of hostility i just think that's a huge problem to the logic of god next one from david bowers ox thanks so much says most cordial theistic debate must have a round two and i've got to tell you for real i think this is one of our highest quality debates we've ever had i it's really been a super joy to have you guys and so this next question from duke of sahib and then folks will be in less than 10 minutes will be done with the q and a we want to get our guests out of here uh i think they're already in overtime so we appreciate them being so gracious with their time and so we cannot take any more new questions but duke of sahib thank you for your question said dr b there have been over 60 physician reviewed miracles in lords france would you consider that evidence for the catholic church being true and the papacy being legitimate ah another great question um i'd have to look at those i've heard the reports i have to look at them obviously i'm not catholic so that's that's a great question there's even an argument that the the protestant reformation some of the early founders of it pulled away from the miraculous because of the catholic arguments on that behalf uh if in fact there were miracles that are documented that took place i would not reject them as miracles if they were documented i would not reject them as miracles then the question would be okay are these demonic counterfeits because of a counterfeit faith in mary or the papacy or are these things that god did through jesus graciously despite spiritual ignorance the latter would be my likely conclusion that there are people ultimately praying to to god believing in jesus and obviously thinking there was an apparition of of mary but if if the miracles were documented i would have the same standard in other words i wouldn't throw them out because it varies with my theology but i wouldn't take that as verification of every aspect of of doctrine uh because ultimately i'm going to go to the one thing that we agree on which the is the authority of scripture so that's that's another excellent question though that should be explored in more depth which is uh what can we deduce from miracles what can we deduce doctrinally from miracles what does the bible tell us about that but the bible does tell us is that ultimately everything must be tested by scripture and the bible does even say during the 13th that if someone works a miracle and then says follow the gods god's actually testing you so there could be that aspect of god testing to see if we'll follow the miracles only or if the miracles will point us back to him and i know this is not the time for back and forth but i do just want to say ap that there are plenty of people who reject god because they don't want god because they they want to run their own lives and they don't want to be accountable to anyone so when you think everyone would believe if he was revealed i wish that was the case i wish that was the case anyway i violated the rule there by referring to a previous comment but i've been i've been meaning to say that for a bit can i add a quick comment to what to your answer to the question it's like one sentence okay okay one sentence uh you know everyone can claim that the miracles of others are simply a test for them it's very simple we'll jump into this next one andrea mello thank you very much says why of this back to the uh communists they said why most part of atheists are communists and have as a religion the state said look if the atheists are libertarian atheists it'd be great for everyone gotcha you got it so definitely pushing the uh politics into like a fun intersection any responses otherwise we'll jump to the next one that's what i mean uh communism is simply an ideology that kind of requires uh atheism to be more precise state atheism because uh one of the one of the major founders of the idea of communism directly ruled out religion as an an illusion that is meant to give humans pleasure and meaning in life but that it's a false and detrimental solution of course communism itself came up with an alternative to to religion that is just as bad as as this supposed detriment of religion or maybe even arguably worse so um yeah i don't i don't want to get political but yeah that's that's my view on that no problem and and abu his op thanks for your questions that dr brown want to let you know that zekir hassein is a muslim that would love to debate you so juicy and kyle mayer thanks for your question said to ap at what point is the evidence enough to convince you and are you allowing the evidence to convince you well i said um as said uh i'm completely open to evidence but uh to me evidence would be something that i i don't think that there is any evidence i don't think evidence exists when we talk about scientific evidence it doesn't exist uh there is no bridge of evidence is leading to god when we talk about uh miracles as evidence i always thought that miracles are a very weak path to god even when i was a believer in islam i thought that same thing ironically but uh i think to such an extraordinary claim the evidence should be very extraordinary it shouldn't rely on things like i don't know people healing or people having a dream or people walking or having a coincidence or praying for certain people the evidence should be mind-blowing undeniable such as as said that a leg grows back or descends from the sky why can't it just happen why do we have to rely on such and such vague things and by the way just the zekir who's saying thing uh yes we we dialogged and we were supposed to debate in england the last couple of years uh a joint debate with dr james white and i with zekir and a colleague and then one or two debates just with the two of us not focusing on on islamic texts but but areas where where we can interact on on mutual expertise so those those just never happened there was an inability to get campuses set up by the the islamic organizer and then kovat took things out but be very happy to do it we did extend an invitation to him to join me on a new tv show that's about to launch on the awakening network called that's debatable uh but he uh instead recommended um another muslim debater who uh he and i debated is the koran versus scripture is the word of god so zekir had that recent opportunity thought this other gentleman would be a better candidate and then subjects ended up switching but yeah by all means i hope we have the opportunity to do that you bet and this one from blue herein says dr brown they're asking if they think that uh the quote the alleged quote from darwin they say they think that it's from the architects of the culture of death by marco and wiker okay actually i i got that a book i was reading recently by believe richard simons reflections on the existence of god uh he seems to have been very accurate and meticulous in his quoting of sources and i i just grabbed that and and put those uh put some of those notes together uh last night earlier today and i said to myself i should verify that quote to see that it's it's actually from darwin because of the the source in which it was quoted i i took for granted it was accurate but the the scholar in me said better check on that so i will absolutely do that if if i in any way attributed something false to darwin uh i apologize i have enough profound differences without that but the point i was making stands that we all reject that we are all repulsed by that that concept why because of the the moral law that god put in our hearts because of human consciousness because of the the recognition of such a thing as justice and injustice but i will definitely check on that uh to verify it and it's something i would normally have done and and want to do earlier just just neglected to so uh any lack there i apologize for if it's accurate it's accurate but either way the point i was making wasn't even that darwin said it the point i was making is we are universally repulsed by the very concept but but we'll we'll both dig and we'll we'll come to the actual route on the accuracy of that quote thanks you got it thanks for your humility and thank you captain v says where is the faith in saying i don't know i'm not sure what their point was next one snake was right says why would god wait for humans to ask for his healing will to be done why not just do that will who's that for that's a good question i would think it's for you dr um but i'm not certain i also know that they're an athya so that's why i'm thinking so well okay number one i do believe god expects us to do his will but if we don't know he's there we don't know that he's real why would someone do it in other words let's say you're raised in a non-religious home and you're confronted with as long as this and christianity says this and judaism says this and this philosophical system says that then you'd want to okay is there really a god did he put me here am i accountable if so who is the real god and then um then you could determine whether to act on it uh as far as as healing uh paul recommends to timothy to drink a little wine which is used medicinally because it was constant stomach ailments and you know the bible speaks of the bomb of gilead that was just like a healing bomb so um i'm all for medical practice when when someone is sick you know what one of my friends says that his policy is if if someone collapses you know it's emergency call one call nine one one and then pray so you do what you know how to do and then you ask god to intervene to do what only he can do but by all means if we don't take care of our bodies if we don't eat right if we don't live right we have no reason to expect that god will constantly bail us out for destroying our health can i can i give a response to that too quickly super quick one yeah um so so what i would think is that um as long as you want to believe that a certain thing is uh related to a certain pray that you just did you can find a way to believe that if you want to believe a certain thing to be true you can find a way to believe that there are many cases in the world where uh seemingly inexplicable strange things happen in medicine or in science that are completely unrelated to any prayers or any religions things happen in china in india in other cultures and in those other cultures people also usually attribute them to their own religion as being true hindu's believe many i've seen many hindu examples where they believe that sticking around with certain saints is the reason why they they suddenly healed i want to apply occumus razor here which is that uh you would always go with that explanation which requires the fewest assumptions and assuming that it happened because of god is one that has the largest amount of assumptions with no evidence so why would you go with that yeah by by the way just just doing an internet search while listening to everywhere that ap just said what i'm seeing is referring to darn's the origin of species by means of natural selection or the preservation of favored races in the struggle for life that was the full title of it so this allegedly is dharm but anyway well i'll keep digging to be sure gotcha want to let you know folks we really do appreciate our guests we want to respect their time as they are already here beyond the time that they had promised so we really do want to encourage you to check out their links folks if you are here this long into the debate first i understand because it was a great one but also it makes sense you'd probably enjoy these guys's content so you can click on those links in the description box and that includes if you're listening via podcast so the modern day debate channel does have a podcast and so you can find our guest links in the description box for this episode and with that want to say thank you so much dr michael brown as well as apostate prophet it has been a true pleasure to host you guys thank you so much i really really enjoyed this dr brown i think it was amazing to have this connection this conversation thank you so much oh and yeah thanks for reaching out to me to do it and james for hosting it it's a delight and and hopefully we can get to know each other off the air as well so god bless and thank you for doing this thank you thank you guys and folks we will be right back with a post credit scene in just a moment so stick around for that as we will talk about upcoming debates for example including the one that you see here on the bottom right of your screen that you don't want to miss so stick around and we'll be right back or i'll be right back in just a moment