 Hey everybody, tonight we're debating whether or not God is immoral for predestining those who are going to hell and we are starting right now. Ladies and gentlemen, thrilled to have you here for another epic debate and want to let you know if it's your first time here at Modern Day Debate, we are a neutral platform hosting debates on science, religion and politics and also want to let you know as well, folks, no matter what walk of life you are from, Christian, atheist, you name it, we hope that you feel welcome, we're glad you're here. With that, want to let you know a couple of quick channel housekeeping type things. In particular, folks, we are pumped and you don't want to miss this one. Not far away, one week from today. Matt DeLahunty and Samuel Nassan will be debating whether or not Jesus fulfilled prophecy of the Old Testament. That's going to be a juicy one, folks. You don't want to miss it live. So hit that subscribe button and that notification bell so that you are getting all notifications and so you don't miss that epic debate coming up in a week. Also, folks, we are very excited to introduce our guest. So I'm going to do just that. Want to let you know their link in the description. As of now, William doesn't have a link. However, we are thrilled to have both of our guests. And so we're going to give first Randolph, president of Canadian Atheists, his chance to share about what you can expect to find at his link in the description. So Randolph, we're thrilled to have you. Thanks for being with us yet again. And what can people expect to find at your link in the description? Oh, thank you, James. And for those who are just listening and can't see the screen, the link is www.canadianatheists.ca. That's the website for the Canadian atheists, where one of our mandates is to normalize atheism in Canadian society and hope that catches on around the world. And also we're pushing back against attempts to vilify atheists. And so far, things seem to be going well in this regard. We've seen some uptake on the hashtag normalize atheism. So it's wonderful that we're seeing more and more support for this. And what we mean by that is if somebody were to say that they're religious, the usual reaction is to accept that without really any kind of a problem and or any kind of reaction that would seem unusual. But sometimes when people identify as an atheist for not believing in a deity or deities, they the reaction is sometimes from people's shock and surprise and concern that we're going to hell or something like this. And so, of course, what we're asking for to normalize atheism is that we receive the same treatment as religious people and not get that kind of reaction, but just be accepted as this is a normal thing. And we're saying it's normal to not believe things and that's why atheism is normal. So that's a campaign that we've been pushing fairly heavily on in the last year. And we're hoping that this will result in better quality of life for everybody in the long run. So thank you again for having us on your wonderful debate program. I'm looking forward to getting into this with William. Thank you very much, Randolph. And William, glad to have you here. Interesting story. Got in a little bit of a spat in the Q&A with Skyler Fiction the other night. We're glad you're here first time. And so, William, we are just glad to have you here. Thanks for being with us. Thank you very much for being here. Hopefully, I do justice to my position. And I hope that people enjoy the topic. And it's definitely a spicy one. Not only do a lot of atheists tend to have a difficult time with this proposition, but a lot of theists as well. So thanks for having me. Absolutely. And so, folks, I want to remind you that you could say that if you happen to be a Christian, the theology may differ. And so, let me just give you a preamble in terms of William happens to be a Calvinist. And so, he will be defending the Calvinist Christian perspective in regard to tonight's title. So with that, we are going to jump into the opening statements. So Randolph, thanks so much for being with us. The floor is all yours. Thank you very much. My concern with the proposition covering is God moral for creating those. He predestines for hell. The very first problem with this idea is that God has predestined some people for hell before they're born is what I assume that means. Otherwise, it wouldn't be a predestination, would it? So if somebody's going to design you to suffer in your life or suffer after your life, that seems to me to be a pretty horrible thing to do. It comes across to me as rather sadistic. When I hear people describe the God of the Christian Bible as a loving father, a caring father and whatnot, I find it strange that there is an omniscient, an omnipotent God who is predestining people to hell. Except for the chosen ones who are, I guess, the unconditionally elected ones who are somehow, as I understand it, exempt from this. But then there's people who can be born again, apparently, and also escape going to hell. The concept of hell introduced by Jesus Christ, as I understand it, brought in all this horrible punishment. I do think that an infinite punishment for a finite transgression is also, to me, something that I would not consider to be a moral choice. To me, it seems that the moral choice would be more to go along with a fundamental of justice that is fair and equitable to people and does bend out consequences and perhaps some punishments in certain cases that are fitting for the transgression or the crime that was committed. That works a lot better for people. So if somebody does something minor, a minor consequence makes sense. If it's something major, then a much more serious response is usually required, and that's how it's supposed to work. So I guess I'll leave it at that for now and pass it over to my interlocutor, William, who I look forward to hearing his opening statement. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Appreciate that, Randolph, and absolutely, we will kick it over to William. So floor is all yours, William. All right, thank you. Yeah, so in order for this debate to, I guess you could say, take place fairly, there are some questions that I have for one. If you were to make the claim that God's choice for predestination is immoral, you'd have to ask the question of who is the author of morality, right? So if you're, you'd have to ask that question. Then two, are we willing to have the thought experience that a God exists in order to determine if God is immoral, right? So God can't be immoral if he doesn't exist. And then the third point question that I would have is, are we willing then to apply the attributes of God that he gives himself, right? So are we going to judge that God based on the attributes that he's given himself? So that's really the only way to fairly debate the specific topic in a logical pattern, in my opinion. And then the second thing is, is this a theology that the Christian faith or the scripture actually promotes? And I don't want to bore the audience with reading the whole list of scriptures, but just to name a few, if people want to go back and watch this again and look, you would see Ephesians 111, Proverbs 16-4, 1 Peter 2-7, Jude 1-4, 2 Peter 2-3, Romans 9-7, Romans 9-22, right? So I think there's a fair bit of evidence that actually shows the doctrine of predestination is actually a right theological position. And really what it's tied into is the sovereignty of God, right? So Randolph had mentioned in his opening that necessarily does the crime fit the punishment, right? Or does the punishment fit the crime, rather? And that really comes down to as what is the point, right? What is the purpose of the Christian religion? Is it good works here on earth? Or is it to serve a sovereign and holy God throughout all of eternity? And the crime isn't whether necessarily you told a lie, but rather whether you are giving God his due worship, right? Because that's really, if you look at the Ten Commandments, that's what all of those, especially the first three, are focused on is God's sovereignty, right? So God's providence and God's sovereignty. And those are really, I think that's one thing too that's hard for a lot of theists with this particular topic is sometimes they try to defend against the accusation against God. Is he evil? Or does he partake in evil? Or does God do evil things? And scripture would say absolutely not. And the reason isn't because God hasn't ordained that evil to exist, but because he is above, I guess you could say the human plane, right? He's not part of our consciousness, right? So a lot of people like to say that we're image bearers of God, but what does that actually mean, right? An image bearer is the same difference between a photograph and the actual person of who the photograph is being taken of. So God has given us certain traits and qualities that reflect his own traits and qualities, but they're not equal. And so for us as humans to feel as though we are justified in judging the person who gave us those is, I think that would be blasphemy. That would be violating the commandment of putting other things before God or having other gods over God, making yourself, making your own judgment, making your own rational mind, the authority when the authority is God himself, right? So that's what the theology teaches. I'm willing to play thought experiments to entertain both sides. If a God exists or if a God does not exist, and how does this apply? And I think that the key point of, especially the Calvinistic point of view on this type of theology is really parallels. And I don't think from having researched Randolph a little bit and learning a little bit about some of his worldviews, and I hope to find out more about that as we discuss this over the next amount of time. But you could say that Sam Harris is the Calvinist atheist, right? So Sam Harris's philosophy on free will and how free will is the more ethical, the non-existence of free will is a more ethical way to go through life and to explain certain things. It's a more moral way. We too as Calvinists feel that their free will does not exist. So, and because of that, I think that it allows us as Christians, as those of the elect, to have empathy for those who aren't because we're equal, right? So especially for me, I feel as a Christian, it is not our place as Christians to legislate morality, right? Because I'm just as bad as every other person. My lie is equal to the murderer, right? In God's eyes, because we've both put our thoughts and our wants and our choices above the Son of God. And that's my open. You got it. Thanks very much. And what we were going to do, folks, is jump into the open conversation. So if you haven't have a question, feel free to fire it into the old live chat, tagging me with at Modern Day Debate. That way, it makes it easier for me to see every question and get it into that Q&A list, as the Q&A will follow immediately after the open discussion. And, folks, last thing, I am pumped about this. I have to share it. And so I hope it's useful to you that I am excited that we have been getting a lot of downloads on the Modern Day Debate podcast. So we have moved into the podcast realm where all of these debates end up on the podcast as well. And so we want to let you know, hey, if you've not checked it out yet, pull out your phone, open up your favorite podcast and find us. As like I said, I've been just super encouraged that people have apparently been finding it useful and want to let you know our guests are linked for every debate in the description of the podcast as well. So that way, if you're listening via podcast, you can find everything in the description box from YouTube in the podcast description box as well. And so with that, thanks, gentlemen. And the floor is all yours. Well, I will say that I did try to research William before the debate began, and I just couldn't find anything on him. So he's well hidden in preparation for this debate, joking aside. You did start off with three questions in your opening statement. You're asking about who is the author of morality? Are we willing to have a thought experiment if God exists? And are the willing to judge God based on the attributes he's given himself? These questions, you think that these questions make this debate fair? I noticed at the end of your opening statement, I couldn't help but notice you had pointed out that in God's eyes, a lie is equal to a murder or committing murder. Please tell me if I've misunderstood anything. And I think the third question I might have not made the note quite correctly there. Yeah, so as a Calvinist, we believe in total depravity, right? So we believe in the total depravity of all human beings, right? That all have sinned at fall short of glory to God and are deserving of the eternal fire in hell, right? So from a Calvinist theological position, that is our view, right? That regardless of the things that I think that I've done good in my life, I am deserving of judgment. Okay, and so to me, that seems that just judging everybody as assuming that everybody is sinned or is bad somehow, to me, sin is not a good meaning. It's a bad thing. And so that's the whole point of atonement is so that you can make a correction for that sin, for that bad thing, and make things right. To me, to just presume that everybody is bad by design seems to me that it's kind of like a setup. You're setting everybody up to fail by default. And then people have to do more to get away from that. To me, this doesn't seem consistent with reality because people are born. There's a Latin term tabula rasa. I'm sure I'm mispronouncing it, but it means blank slate. And the idea in philosophy, as I understand it, is that we're born without memories, without positions or beliefs, and we develop these as our brain develops, and we get more clear on these things as we get older and better educated on things. So to make that presumption doesn't seem to be consistent with the idea of the blank slate that we're born with. Sure. So first of all, I would like to say that it's not that we are bad by design. We are bad through voluntary human choice. If we're going to play the thought experiment that God exists and that it's the God of Christianity and that Scripture is a complete reflection of what God has decided to reveal himself to us through. And that's what the Christian faith is. That's the position that we have to take. Creation was created perfectly without sin. Adam and Eve were the first people and last people, besides Jesus Christ in Artheology, to be born or created without sin. So it wasn't until sin entered the world and that being that in the whole original sin that was created was that Adam and Eve chose to place themselves at an equal level of God. They rejected God's sovereignty. Does that make sense? Yeah. And you're being very clear. So that sounds to me like for what my ancestors did, I have to be responsible for that. I am held responsible and assumed to be sinful as well because of that. Sure. Well, it's not that necessarily you're born like a child. They are born into a sin ridden world, into a sinful environment. Is it to the point that they have actually committed to sin themselves? No. I mean, there's, even though it's not specifically laid out in Scripture, there is a strong theological viewpoint for the age of accountability. But the point is, especially if you look at the way, if you really look at the Ten Commandments themselves, they're really more of a thought experiment and they're really more especially the last group of them, the covet section of the Ten Commandments. And then also too, when Jesus came in and basically summed up the law, it's more of a thought experiment. So Jesus says, you can say that you've never murdered someone, but I say, even if you have hated a man, you've committed murder in your heart and you're therefore guilty. So there is no level, even the thought, according to Jesus, if you want to be honest to the text, to what the theology actually is there, even having hateful thoughts of another person makes you guilty of murder. So in God's eyes. I have a big problem with that because that becomes a thought crime and that that can create a lot of stress for people because a lot of time people can't control what they think, but most people can control our actions. So how we act and the things we do and the things we think about are two very different things. To me, I don't see that somebody who's contemplated murder has actually committed it because the person that they're considering contemplating murder on is still alive. They have not been killed. I have trouble with that because to me that doesn't seem to follow logically to say that they're the same thing because to me, truly they're not. Right, but the entire doctrine and theology of predestination, providence, sovereignty of God, election, which is the topic that we're debating here tonight, it's based off the assumption that God is all powerful, omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, all of those things and that he is outside of time as we know it. So he is seeing not creation as it unfolds, but he's seeing the beginning, the end, the middle, all at one time and able to interact at any specific point in time. It's the same way that a computer program can see his completely finished program, but yet also go into the code and interact with that specific line of code in that particular program. So God's not playing on the same conscious level that we are and the great thing about this particular doctrine and it's a hard concept to grasp and there's probably a good 50% of the Christian church doesn't necessarily accept this this theology as biblical for reasons I necessarily don't understand, but I think it has to do maybe. Well, I think they have a hard time letting go of their human aspect, right? They have a hard time letting go of the fact that they're not in control and so really the thought crime process and why I feel that it's a moral one and why I feel that it's Sam Harris does a lot better job, secularly explaining this of why the concept of no free will is a more ethical and moral position and for those who aren't necessarily theists they can go and listen to his hour long video that he has on this or books or however they want to get the information, but why it matters is because it allows us to let go of all judgmental aspects of our life, right? I'm no better than the theist is no better than the atheist simply because I've chosen to believe and you haven't, right? I'm just lucky you're not, right? And so what it does is and because you never know, right? So as a Catholic, we believe in preservation of the saints, which means that the elect will always be elect that if you are an elect, you can never not be elect because the person who's made you elect is God and God, you can't beat God, right? So, but we don't know if we're elect until our life here on earth ends, right? So that's why Paul says that we're supposed to work out our faith and fear and trembling, our fear and trembling. Every single day we need to be motivated by the fact that I'm a sinner deserving of hell, right? And if I'm not exercising my faith daily, right, then, you know, things will be lost. And a lot of people say, okay, then they get into fatalism and determinism, right? If you don't have a choice and whether you believe or not, why not just sit back and do nothing? Well, the thing is, because this type, this theological viewpoint, it's really the same viewpoint that Sam Harris has and how he backs up his atheistic version of Calvinism, I guess you could say, is that because you become a more empathetic person and you're free from the pride that's associated with you choosing to believe over this person who didn't, right? Because there's a bit of a, I'm better than you because I've made this choice and you haven't. You're free to be friends with homosexuals and transgenders and all of the things that textually, right, be finder, sinful. But you're just as, you're, you are just the same as them. You were no different. And so because you have that, that freedom of not of the loss of the judgmental attitude, you're able to really just express, just to have a personal relationship to that person and express the joys that you've experienced based on the things you have and pray for them in hopes that God decides to save them too, right? So. Well, I'm, to me, it sounds like there's, and you said a lot of very interesting things there and quite a bit of it, I agree with. The, I find that there's a big problem with the idea, again, I'm going back to this, but it, I'm just not satisfied with the idea that a thought crime is equivalent to actually committing the crime one is thinking about. And it seems to me that, that your God is committing the black and white fallacy by just all crimes, everyone burns forever in hell. Otherwise, you're, you're safe. Like to me, that's not the way it should be. You're asking who's the author of morality? Well, in the context of God, the according to the Holy Bible, God is, is the author of morality. And you seem to confirm that. So what I'm doing is I'm questioning this idea of God's morality. When I look at the story in the Bible of God flooding the entire planet and killing everybody by drowning, to me, that doesn't seem like a moral decision. Especially if when we're talking about, I guess, newborn babies, are they, are they sinners already? It kind of sounded correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounded like you're sort of alluding to the fact that there are some exemptions until exceptions there until people actually start making the choices. Because you sound like you're differentiating between being born in a sinful environment and actually being born in sin as a sinner. So, you know, if the innocent newborns are just getting drowned, like that doesn't seem like a very nice thing to do. Yeah, so I don't, I don't necessarily believe, I believe, I think scripture is very clear that God will never send someone to hell who doesn't deserve to be there. Yeah, but I'm asking about, I'm asking about drowning everybody, because that's an extremely painful way to die. I've drowned once. I was thrown in a pool by somebody, a drunk person when I was a little kid. He said, I'm going to learn you how to swim. Next thing I know, I'm in the water and I can't, I couldn't keep up and I blacked out just before I hit the bottom or when I did and woke up on a cot coughing out chlorine filled water. It was a very unpleasant experience to put it mildly. And so when I imagine what it must have been like to die in a flood, you know, that's pretty horrible. That's not a very nice way to go. It seems to me like your God has put a lot of extra effort and work into flooding the entire planet instead of just snapping his fingers, make everyone disappear painlessly. Why did he have to choose the more painful method to end everything if all he really wanted to do was start over? I don't necessarily know if I can answer the question as to why. I can answer to the question as to how God has shown to reveal himself to us in history. God has chosen for whatever reason that he is going to interact with his creation through his creation. And so the whole breadth of scripture shows that, right? So God could have appeared to, and it may be for a very merciful reason, right? Because it's hard for us if you were to use the analogy of, and I think this is a very, looking very kindly on human beings to use this type of analogy. But if you were to consider ants and humans, right? Because the analogy, I think it's slightly not as analogous, but close enough to the relationship between God and man. If when an ant sees us, does it realize the scope of what we are? So if God were to appear to us in his actual form, it may just drive the human mind to insanity, right? You may not be able to comprehend who and what God is, right? If he's an all-knowing, all-powerful, omnipresent being, right? So he has chosen to interact with us through creation. So I think as to the point is so that we can comprehend the lessons and the things that he's trying to teach us, right? So he appears to Moses in the burning bush, right? He appears, he comes to earth in order to complete salvation through Jesus Christ. He appears to Jacob as an angel, right? So I don't necessarily think that being the finite creation that we are, I mean a lot of the time, scripture, how scripture, the analogies that scripture used to describe the relationship between God and man is between human beings and inanimate objects, right? Pottery, play, wheat, right? So I just don't think that the reason why God is choosing that form is because that's just how he interacts with his creation is through his creation. Okay, well, when you say he's interacting through people, that sounds very nice, but that God didn't get people to flood the world. The story goes that God made that happen directly. But it wasn't that God made rain appear from nowhere. He didn't make people do that. He opened up the depths, right? And water came from the atmosphere and from the depths and flooded the world, right? It was a natural occurrence. He ordained, correct? Sure, he made that happen, but he's, again, that's not interacting with people through people. That's a direct interaction that he's making, even if he's making indirect events occur, like the flood. But that's not saying, okay, you don't flood the world. He's not doing that. That's not in the story. Yeah, not necessarily interacting people through people, but interacting through creation through creation is what I believe I said. Oh, is that what you mean? Okay. And then I think the comparison with the ants is certainly an interesting one, but it has a significant flaw in it because ants are not created by people, but apparently people are created by God. So God also created the ants. Right, and that's why I said that I felt that it was overly... Okay. Yeah, because the analogies that Scripture gives is fields planted by the farmer or pots made by the potter. Right. Those are the types of analogies. Yeah, and I do want to get into in a moment about, maybe delve into that a little bit, because the idea that the creator has the right to decide what happens to their creations. We see this in employment situations where somebody will work for an employer and their job is to create things, but they don't actually have any right to control what happens with those things. That is somebody else has that right. And so I'm curious before we get into that, the last thing I wanted to touch on was you had mentioned that God is trying to teach us things. What was God trying to teach all those people who died in the flood? What would be the value of even teaching them anything if they're going to die? I don't necessarily think he did it to teach those particular individuals, but humanity as a whole. I think that we look at the present at our current state with the importance that is giving us. So, for instance, if we were to look at the ants world, what is the importance of the ants environment to us? It's not very important. But we have a mission. We have what they call God's, God's, and I'm losing it now, but basically you have his will or what his plan is, right? And then you have the parts of that that necessarily don't follow. And God can have a plan. And so his goal is A to B. And there's a term for this, but I've lost it for some reason, to get from A to B. And there are things that necessarily may happen in that that he's not pleased with, right, that he's not happy about. And he may end up deciding to take a different road to get from A to B, but he has to get from A to B because that's his will. That's his desire. Do you think he could have chosen a different path instead of flooding the entire world to still teach humanity? Sure, and he does, right? Because he promised afterwards not to do that again, right? Why didn't he choose that the first time if he's omnipotent, omniscient? We can't know the works and the thoughts of God, right? I mean, that's just, honestly, that's where it comes to the sovereignty of God, where your typical Armenian position would say that God isn't involved in any evil or anything like that. But we believe that God doesn't commit any evil, but he has ordained it. Because if God is all powerful and omniscient, how can he not be responsible, right? And I think that's the thing that a lot of atheists try to play gotchas with, with people who necessarily don't have a Calvinistic worldview is because they really don't have a good answer for those questions, right? Whereas we say we do, right? According to the scripture, I think Paul gives the greatest explanation in Romans 9, 22 through 24, right? Where he's basically saying, who are we to question God, right? So, and that's really kind of my whole question of who's the author of morality. So, right, so from a secular point of view, from a necessarily, you know, I think you're more, you know, from your writings, you tend to be a more of a moral objectivist, right? No, I don't think that there is objective morality. But you mentioned that just, we'll get into that. I just had mentioned that one point that we can't know, I guess, the designs and thoughts of God. Is that right? Yeah. Only what he's shown us. Well, and then that makes it very difficult to judge whether his actions are moral. Wouldn't you agree? I agree. And not only that, but we're not in a place to judge, in my opinion, right? Oh, I think we are. I think because we're living this life, we should judge what's going on in our lives. We should try to determine what is right and wrong. We teach our kids this. Well, I, my wife and I teach our kids this is what I meant to say there, and to be thoughtful about what they're doing. And we don't use the harsh lessons of drowning them or more things like that to teach them. I think that when it comes to morality, like a really big one, too, is when somebody orders a parent to kill their own child. To me, that is extremely immoral. And I think this is you're familiar with the story of Abraham and Isaac, I'm sure. And to me, people turn around and say that's a teaching lesson. But you know, at the end of that story where Isaac didn't actually get killed, this is an example of a father who's doing more than just thinking about it. He's acting out the murder, attempting to actually do it and had to be forcibly stopped, intervened at the end. And it was to prevent it from happening because he was going to carry through with it. There doesn't seem to be reflection afterwards on the psychological ramifications of poor Isaac. Imagine if your child and your own parent attempts to kill you, to murder you. What kind of psychotherapy would the average child need to cope with that and kind of get past this big problem in their life and get back to being as normal as a child should be? None of that seems to be covered in the Bible. And I was thinking, you know, if God is omniscient, why didn't this get included in the Bible? Why is this not there? Again, this tells me that what he's doing in the commandment say they all shall not kill as an author of morality. And then turning around and ordering people to kill their own children. Like there's a serious double standard problem there. And to me, that seems immoral. And the lack of reflection just makes it even worse. These reasons like this are why I have a lot of problems with the idea of God being a moral example to the world. And I see that as highly immoral. And there's many others. I don't want to go through the whole list because I don't think it really changed much. Sure. And I would say, too, that you have to, this is something that I think you have to be really careful with, especially when you do, you have to look at the order, the sequence of events there, right? So you had your events backwards. God said that shall not kill after Adam, right? Or after Abraham, not before, right? So God set those rules on Mount Sinai with Moses, right? That's the first time that those laws were placed or given to man in that way. So secrets events is slightly different. And God eventually did not carry through with that. But even if he had, right? Here's the great part about the theology of the providence and sovereignty of God is, right? And the believing and having true, honest faith in the words of Paul when he says that all good, all things work to the good of those who love Christ, right? So what that means is, and it's the same with the story of Joseph, where Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers, right? Went through horrible things. God used that eventually to save his family and his countrymen from famine, right? By bringing broad into Egypt, which eventually turned into the whole nation of Egypt, or Israel becoming slaves to Egypt, right? But initially, it's knowing that, right? So if you could say, like the, I think the Calvinist has a calm and a peace about the suffering and the tragedy in the world, whereas people can say, and they look at, I think the big difference between people's, you know, non-theists or atheists, and even some theists is that they, their focus is on the present world now, right? Whereas a person who follows or necessarily entertains the, even the Christian faith in general, but also to a Calvinist viewpoint of that theology, is that their focus is on eternity, right? So it sounds, it sounds crazy to a person for Paul to say, right, that to die is gain. It is good to die, right? And to live is Christ. And what to live is Christ means is, this is the opportunity to show love to other people in the same way that Christ has shown love and patience and mercy to us as the elect. But the benefit is death, right? Death, the day you die is the best day of your life, right? According to, to Christianity. There go all of your responsibilities now. So, right. But I mean, but that's the thing is that when you have, when you're truly freed from the pride and the fear of the day to day life, when you're, when you're released from those chains, the same way that Sam Harris describes it, right? Is that you no longer are, I mean, he makes it very clear, like if you, when he, when he gets into fatalism and determinism and he talks about, there's the same Harris I'm talking about, you know, you can try to stay in bed all day and do nothing, right? But it's harder to do nothing than to not do something, right? And when you, when you're freed from the, the pride or the fear or the bigotry or the tribalism that envelops your everyday life, it, it allows you to operate and have more joy going out and living your life to the fullest regardless of, and Jesus plays out this theology in his life, right? He went there, he, he sat with the prostitute, he ate with the tax collector, he did all of these things. And the religious, right, the moral authority of, the cultural moral authority of the day, thought that he was a horrible, horrible human, right? So, but when you, when you really understand that everything that is done, right, is not only a voluntary choice of yourself, but has also been predestined by God, think of it, if your child were to die in a car wreck, I have three boys myself, it would crush me, but if I could truly and honestly feel that that was something that God will use to teach me something in my life, there is no PTSD, there is no remaining stress, if I truly and honestly have faith in that, right, that that, that this was done for my good, for my benefit. And even though I don't know why, I just have to trust God who's the most powerful thing in all of existence, that, that it'll work out that way, then there is no PTSD, right? There is no, there is really no suffering, it makes all suffering bearable. So I believe that works for you. And I think different people need different things. And, and there are plenty of people that that will work for, and there are plenty of people who it doesn't work for. And so part of life is figuring out what works well for us. So, you know, I don't fault you for that for sure. You mentioned, you did touch on slavery slightly and from what you were describing with Abraham and Isaac, I got the impression that what you were alluding to is that God learns from his past transgressions, I'll call them transgressions, I think you probably call it his decisions, his past decisions. And before you go forward, I'd like to clarify, I don't believe it God learns. But you're saying he promised he would never flood the world again, for example. He didn't learn from that. I don't think he necessarily thought it was wrong, right? He promised that he wouldn't do it in that way again. So with slavery, I noticed the Ten Commandments don't have any edict against slavery. There's other things. Do you think there will come a day when he will make an edict against slavery? Other than what he's already done in scripture, I would say no. And here's my question for you. Slavery is moral, according to God. God never necessarily positively expresses that slavery is moral, right? And this is what you have to look at at scripture for, right? So the point of the story of God and from his perspective and how he views scripture and how I get from his perspective, not that I know the mind of God better than anyone else. But it's what Jesus said, right? So Jesus says that you search the scriptures in vain, right? And what do you mean? Because in them, you think that you can find life, right? But if you were really reading the scriptures, you would know who I am, right? And the point of scripture isn't for God, isn't Deuteronomy, Leviticus, keeping the Sabbath, all of those things. The point of God is knowing that God is God, knowing the sovereignty and power of God, and being willing to, and joyfully, through a humbled and open heart, through the gift of faith that he's given you, right? Follow that in your life, in your daily life. That's what's important to God, right? Like Jesus said, it doesn't even a person who, if you lose your sheep on the Sabbath, you're going to go find it, right? If it falls into a pit, who's not going to pull it out, right? The point of the Sabbath, it's not for God, it's for men, right? Jesus makes that perfectly clear. So a lot of these attributes in the Old Testament, when it comes to, you know, all of the sins, the scripture lists, homosexuality, murder, the Sabbath, eating shellfish, or slavery, all of these things, those are for the benefit for the people here on earth to navigate in a positive, I think in a positive way. You get into like a whole Justin or Jordan Peterson type view of how that that's benefits society moving forward. But the main point that I want to express about slavery is, is that if you are following Christianity, and this is, this is the thing that is really big for me, if you're following the actual tenets of Christianity and theology that is, that is listed out in, in scripture, how would you treat someone that you owned? I wouldn't own a person because I'm an advocate for freedom. Right. I'm a libertarian myself. Right. That's immoral, to me that's immoral. But that's a modern philosophy, correct? No, I think if I was a thousand years ago, I wouldn't want to be a slave even then. Right, so like, so let me ask you personally, who's the author of your morality? I am. Right. So, and it's based off of who your parents were, right, and based off a number of things. The country that you were born in, the environment that you were around, the social norms of the time. The whole variety of things indeed, a variety of things go into it. A big part of it for me is the discovery of John Rawls' veil of ignorance in the theory of justice, which is actually intended for lawmakers. But I find it to be an extremely useful tool for helping me to determine moral decisions and moral outlooks on life and viewpoints. Sure. And that works, that works for you in your day-to-day walk of life, and that influenced the thoughts of what you find, think of as being more. And it works for the others who I interact with as well. And that's a very important consideration. Yes. And I'm sure that we would share very similar moral views, right? I get that. That's a need. Yeah. But what, but the difference is, is that if we were, you, it is impossible to say, and I think Sam Harris makes this fairly clear, it's impossible to say that if you were born 2000 years ago, what you would do, because you wouldn't be you, right? The, the cause and effect that led to who you are as a person would be different than what it is today. So there's, it would be impossible. It's logically irrational to think that you could have your same consciousness now that 2000 years ago, right? Well, yeah, I do think though that people didn't like the fact that there are rules talking about how long to keep your slaves and how to punish them and whatnot tells me that the disobedience factor probably leads to the idea that people don't want to be slaves. Even then, I don't think people were willingly going into it. I seriously doubt it. It's to me, it seems that being human, part of it is being free, working so that we can have certain freedoms in life and we can afford to do things and enjoy our life and be able to have our own time for things from what I see from the Bible. It doesn't look like that's really there and there's an awful lot of pressure for somebody who's received a wife from their slave holder to come back instead of abandoning their wife and kids and all sorts of things like that, which all seem very unfair and very nasty. Sure. And I agree with you in our modern lens, especially coming through. Well, I think the back of those times wouldn't, wouldn't like it either. And I wouldn't be surprised if some of the slaves, there's probably instances where slaves have retaliated against their masters to get themselves free, which I think indicates very clearly that people didn't want to be slaves. The fact that they had to buy them, capture them tells you that because if people voluntarily did it, why would anyone need to buy them? You know, I agree with you, but I don't necessarily think that that's God condoning slavery. I think it's God saying, if this, if this is happening, this is the way that you are to handle it, not, not also going against the other commandments that I've given you, right. So it's not an if and it's a both and right. So it's because God doesn't, isn't concerned about a human owning another human. That's not a concern to God. God is concerned with his own glory, right? Well, but then, then instead of making an edict, they also not have slaves. He creates, so that there's a whole, the Bible is kind of a manual for how to be a slave. So that to me, I don't think it is. It's not because Paul also says, right, if you're a slave, be good to your master. Why, why is it important for a slave to be good to his master? If you're Christian, if you believe in the faith of Christ, right, and knowing that what happens on this earth isn't important and that dying is a positive, right? That when you die, that is a good thing, right? And that we were to suffer as Christ suffered, right? Suffering to the Christian is a good thing. It's not a minus, right? It's a plus. I don't want to suffer as Christ suffered. I think he died in a very painful way. Sure. Yeah. Right. But I'm saying that for a Christian, that's an honor, right? That's an honor, right? So Paul, if you believe the way that Peter was crucified, why, if you believe that that story is true, which I don't necessarily think that there's a ton of evidence on that because the scripture doesn't necessarily narrate it, right? But if you were to just imagine that the historical view of how Peter died being, you know, saying that he was not worthy to die in the same manner as his Lord and that he wanted to be crucified upside down, right? That's the psychological viewpoint that people who truly follow the theology of Christ view the present world, right? The things that happen here and now today, tomorrow, whether my son dies in his sleep or whether I die in my sleep, aren't important. Those things are minuscule compared to eternity, right? Jesus makes that specifically clear when he says, do not lay for yourself riches on an earth, but build up for yourself riches in heaven, right? That's the most important part of Christianity, is that what happens here in this world is meaningless, pointless, worthless, like dirty rags and all righteousness, all the good things that Christians say that they do, all the positive things that people do in the world are as dirty rags in the sight of God. I think if Peter did die upside down in crucifix, I really hope he didn't have acid reflux. It's a common problem out there. It seems to me that the idea of God being moral or moral, like where you and I are at it seems that from the Christian or Calvinist perspective or both perhaps God is definitely moral and from my perspective as somebody who doesn't believe in deities as an atheist and from what I'm seeing and judging myself that I'm not convinced that he's moral. To me it seems he's quite immoral and so this is kind of where we're at is that we both have very different perspectives on this and I've given my reasons, you've given yours. I've asked most of the questions and I'm happy to answer whatever questions you have. You indicated earlier you'd like to get to know a little bit more about my thoughts on things and I think James, of course, let James know whatever he thinks he can go on to questions as well, so I'm happy to entertain that. Got maybe another 10 minutes or so if you guys want to but we don't have to force it either just in case you have any last points you want to discuss. I'm just afraid I don't want to be the one who's asking most of the questions. I want to make sure Jane William gets... You're being kind to me in my first debate here on modern day debates because it's much easier for me to answer than to prod and I appreciate that but I do have one question and it's more of a logical game really and that is really who's the author of your morality, right? So for you personally, yourself, God doesn't exist. We'll play this dog experience. God doesn't exist. I'll just clarify. I don't believe he exists but I'm not 100% convinced. Right. I believe you're in the neutral area. I've watched several parts and I'm okay with that position. I'm not going to, you know, darse. No, because I think it's important to be honest and so in all hypothesis is where I'm at. Yeah. I don't believe that there's not a God either, right? So I'm playing the same thought experiment with you, right? If I'm the author of my morality, right? If I'm the author of my morality, if through my experience in my life and the cause and effect that's gone on, I've built in my moral code, right? And to me, let's say that kicking puppies is moral, right? That's my author. Now if my son grows up and he came through that moral authority that I set in the house that kicking puppies. He very likely will have the same moral standard. Sure. He'll definitely have the same moral standard but if he didn't and he were to say, Dad, I think it's a moral for you to kick puppies. But I'm the moral authority. How can I be a moral if I'm the author of that morality? So this is something that I've actually brought to my children a similar kind of, similar kind of thought experiments because I encourage my children to question my authority and they've done that. And on a number of occasions, my wife and I, we've changed our decision on what's going to happen because they raised good points. So our goal with our children is to raise them to think for themselves and make these kind of determinations for themselves and to try to understand concepts like the veil of ignorance and other perspectives and whatnot so that they can do very well in society with others. And I think I would hope that if your kid was to approach you about kicking puppies to speak metaphorically, that as a father you, I would hope by my own standard that you would also be willing to take feedback from your son and possibly reconsider your position on that as well. And definitely. And if I was, if it came to a point that as my son was grown, and he realized that, man, I just don't know why, why my dad thinks kicking puppies is okay. And this is the thing, my oldest son, he's 13. He's an INTJ personality type. His favorite word is Y, right? Y. Oh, he's a natural philosopher. Excellent. Y dad, Y dad, Y dad, Y dad. My kids do this too when they're especially when they're younger. Yeah. 13, even if I tell him to put his socks on, why dad? Do I have to put them on that? And me being an ENTP type personality type, so I'm the debater, right? So we have a debater and a philosopher all in the household at the same time. It's a big, it's a big, it's a fun time. But to me, dad is very important. And he's able, but him being the philosopher type, he is able to understand it. If I lay it out for him, right? Whereas my youngest son, who's more of the entertainer and the, and the, and the personality types, he, he doesn't even question, right? If I say put your socks on, he's like, okay, dad, I'll put my socks on, right? He just, he just goes with the flow. That's just that he goes with the flow. Yeah. If I had a good reason, say that all of the puppies that live in our area carry to death, deathly bacteria. And the only way to keep them out of your house was to kick them, right? But I didn't necessarily share that secret will with my children. Yeah. Are they justified then in telling me that I'm immoral for kicking puppies? And that's why the dialogue is so important. Yeah. Of course. Yeah. That's for us. That's the Holy Spirit, right? So in our theology though, the Holy Spirit is that, that mediator, that, that conscious that, that tells us, you know, whether what we are doing now is okay or not. And in the, in the, you see the proof text for that would be scripture, right? So we receive communication through God, through the Holy Spirit, and that's verified to be true or false through scripture. That's the theological viewpoint of solar scripture. My expectation is to be able to get feedback from an authority and to like here in Canada, I've challenged laws. And I was with a group that we challenged an anti blasphemy law. And we succeeded and it got royal ascent and it got removed from our criminal code. And I agree with you. Yeah. And yeah, it's because it protects you criticizing other ideas as well and even different religions or even your own religion. And so thank you. For agreeing on that one. I appreciate it. One more point too that I'd like to talk about before we go into questions real quick. And it's maybe I just want to finish my thought. It's just to say that to me, if, if an authority is moral, they're open to judgment and scrutiny of their own actions and their own policies and their own approaches. That's my own standard. But it's one that I find a lot of people agree with me on. And I think it's very important that, that we have this. Otherwise it becomes a dictatorship. And that's to me, a dictatorship is not necessarily the best kind of environment to flourish in. So go ahead. I believe that to address that point quickly, I believe the scripture says that God is exactly that. Right. Jacob wrestled with God. God isn't afraid of, of us necessarily questioning him as to why, but it doesn't mean it's like for in the example of me and my kids and the puppies with parasites that the only way to get them out of your house is to kick them. Right. It doesn't, just because my son thinks that kicking puppies is immoral, doesn't mean I'm going to change my morality because of the reasons that I have. Right. I'm willing to entertain with him on those things. Right. That doesn't necessarily mean that I'm going to accept him rejecting my authority. Right. I think you're wise to choose puppies over cats, by the way, because cats will scratch back. But people tend to like puppies more than kittens. There you go. Well, then if you like puppies more than kittens, why did you choose puppies? For that example, now I'm just teasing you here. I want like the scripture is written in the past. It's not written for current times is often argued. If God really is an authority over me, then, you know, God can talk with me. I have some questions for God. And my mind is always open, as opposed to the door always being open, I guess. So far, nothing's happened. I've, so I'm still at the point where I just don't see any reason to believe that it exists. But you wanted to elaborate on something. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Yeah, sure. In this point is really more to, it's also slightly a logic game. And it has to do with, and you know, with us in our current state, especially in 2020 and 2021, when we're talking about chattel slavery, right? And the church's role in that atrocity. Oh, yeah. And this isn't, I have to be careful because I'm about to upset a whole lot of Christians. That's okay. That's what, that's what open conversations and debates are all about. Otherwise, how do we play progress? Yeah. I'm not, I'm not trying to play this as a game of, because of this reason, Calvinists is the only theology right now. I believe that God gives gifts. I think he gives different people with different personality types, the ability to understand different theological aspects in order to, to benefit the church. And that's, you know, the capital C, like the, the global church in different ways. But if you look, if you look at that period in time, it was Calvinists or people who, who, who at least followed the five tenets of the Calvinist faith that were abolitionists. It was these people that felt like I'm just as depraved as that black guy over there. And, and, and for anybody who's curious, and if you really want to dig deep into this topic, I've mentioned the book in the chat and I won't say the word, but if you look up the book by Alexander McLeod from 1802, and the title is not, is not kosher for YouTube. So, because it uses E-G-R-O within, with another letter in front of that. Yeah. Yeah. It's using racist terminology. Okay. Well, at that time, the, the, that was just the term that, that, that black people were called in English, right? So, yeah, the, there are other disparate of terms at that time rather than that one. That is a racist term today. Yes. Yeah. But it says the title of that is slavery unjustifiable, right? And Alexander McLeod not only says that it is unbiblical to hold slaves, he really goes into the detail about how the African American people were no more inferior to us, which is a concept that, that even secular philosophers did not hold at that time, right? They may have been against the principles of slavery, but they weren't, didn't necessarily take the tenet of them being equal to the all races being equal for and of. Are you saying all secularists are just some? Well, the primary ones of that time, right? In, in the US. In the US. Okay. Well, that, that just one subsection of the world. But okay. Yeah. I can agree with it. Yeah. I'm talking about paddle slaver in the United States, right? Yeah. And it was also reformed Protestants in England, who are the primary source of abolition in England. The political aspect of it was more the king sticking it to America, right? So, um, that was his, his reason for doing it. Um, spite versus fight and manpower versus, uh, you think you might have used God's example as an example of his inspiration? Well, it's the same king that was chopping off the heads of reformed Presbyterians, right? So, I mean, um, yeah. And I didn't know this until after the fact in my dad's not a Calvinist, um, but researching my, my heritage to find that if you go back to the 1800s, mid 1800s, that, um, that my grandfathers were reformed, Scott of Presbyterian ministers, and they actually wrote papers on, on this on abolitionism and the, the sin of that. And that you could not even, you could not even partake in communion with a slave owner if you're a part of, of their church, right? So you couldn't even be friends with a slave owner, basically. Um, so they were, they weren't just, I don't think they, they were very much, um, anti-slavery, right? And that's abolitionism. That's fantastic. There are so many different denominations. And so I'm not at all surprised, uh, because there are denominations of all sorts of different views. One thing I notice common with all, all of Christianity is that they, because I've asked different people, I'll just point, so that the belief in God is the thing that is consistent with all of them. And then other standards are all over the place. There's, there's even some denominations that don't believe Jesus was real. It's just, it's, it's amazing. It's everywhere. That, that's a tenet. You can't be a Christian if you don't believe Jesus is real. This is the thing and people disagree, right? But they believe Christianity, which is actually the, the original term that they called themselves in the first century church is the way or Christos. And also they're called Christians before, before Jesus came along. The followers of the way, right? So that was their, uh, you know, and the way was of Christ, right? If you don't believe in the deity of, of, of Jesus Christ, you can't technically call yourself a Christian. And that's exactly my point. And this is what it comes to. Is if, if, if I am, if my job is a, is a, is a, is a trash man, but I call myself an engineer. Am I an engineer? Yeah. So, well, in, in these modern times, uh, there are certain, uh, educational backgrounds you have to have for that. Right. And you could certainly be educated in it and not doing that with job. There are PhDs who are serving food to, because they couldn't find a job suitable for their degree. They're still PhDs. Sure. And they're, but I'm just saying, there are sanitary engineers, right? There are, but they, they deal with more of other types of things, but the guy who's picking up buckets and throwing them in the back of the truck, if I call myself a sanitary engineer in my sanitary engineer, unless I have learned, follow and understand the qualifications that it takes to actually be a sanitary station engineer. So my point, and I'm going to say this right now, is that every person who held slaves in Chateau slavery in that manner, we're not Christians. So I, I read a whole partly reject, right? Because that's a whole part of being elected and not elect and people coming in Christ even says himself, there will be many who come before me and say, Lord, right? I cast out demons in your name, right? And he'll say depart me for I never knew you, right? If you don't, if you don't check the boxes of being an elect according to Calvinist theology, you're, you're not a Christian, whether you go to church on Sunday, call yourself or not, right? It's not a matter, being elect is not a matter of checking boxes on a list. Okay, I've done this and I've done that. I've done this. Yeah. It's your, if you got, if you're chosen by God and only chosen by God, right? So, and this irritates a lot of Christians, because I would say right now, there is no way that you could, and that's why the Calvinist church, the reformed Presbyterian church of that age. And even a lot of the whole reason why the Presbyterian church in America split, a lot of it in the tenets that remained in the southern part of the United States was over, was over this issue. And this was way before the Civil War. We're talking late 1700s, all the way to the 1800s, right? So, they've split quite a few times over a lot of different issues. It's interesting. And it was so solely to the point that they held their, yeah, they held their topics. They held their foundation so strongly that they didn't get involved in American politics at all, right? They didn't vote. Yeah. Because they reveal that their focus is not necessarily on the here and now. And I don't necessarily agree with that politically. I'm more of a libertarian myself. So, I think you and I probably agree on quite a lot, like you were saying earlier. And I think it's absolutely ridiculous for, for any theist to legislate morality. I think that's absolutely wrong because personality shouldn't be legislated. I agree. There's an absolute, there's an absolute biblical principle to this as well. And Paul lays it out that, you know, as he says then, if you live by the law, if you get circumcised, you're putting Christ back up on that cross, right? You're nullifying what he did there in order to justify you for what you've done. Does anti-circumcision. Right. Yeah. He's anti-circumcision. Oh, refreshing. Because most of the Christians I've met are pro-circumcision. And most of them are pro-circumcision too, except they focus on the opposite sex. No, yeah. He says, Paul says in scripture that if you circumcise yourself, you're making yourself, you're putting yourself under the law. Oh, hang on. No, no. I was talking about inflicting circumcision non-therapeutically on infants and children. Yeah. That's what I wouldn't say. I wouldn't, I haven't circumcised any of my children. Excellent. Yeah. Neither have we. We're against it. I'm a victim of circumcision. I have phantom pain and scar tissue tearing problems. And it's some people have a lot worse. There's issues that go on. But yeah, I'm glad that, see, here's another point we agree on. It's great. Yeah. And so my point for the theists that are watching is that when you try to legislate to someone, whether it's abortion, you can be, I am morally and theologically against homosexuality, transgenderism, abortion, for myself. And what I know of my theology and what I believe that God's- And I disagree with your theology there. Sure. And that's absolutely fine. But the thing is, I don't believe that because, because I believe in the elect, right, that God chooses who believes and who doesn't. What right is it of me to tell someone else how to live their life? Because that's what God is supposed to do. I will say that I think those views are bigoted, by the way. Yeah. And I have a very strong view opposite of what you said, well, the theological point of view there. So I can't, but seriously, I can't be logically consistent to my theological viewpoint if I don't hold those that world. You're being honest. And I appreciate that honesty. And that is very important in these conversations. So thank you for that. Yeah. And my point is, is that it's not okay for us to impede that on people who aren't members of the elect, because they're not under that law, right? They weren't under that law under Judaism, right? Only Israel was under the law, right? Do you think Sam Harris checks a lot of those boxes in Calvinism? But you were talking metaphorically about the boxes, not like a proper list. But because you mentioned you're thinking that he's kind of a Calvinist as far as- This might be the last question before we go into Q&A. Actually, William had a lot of questions if he likes. This is a quick answer. And yeah, I think if Sam Harris was a Theist, he would be a Calvinist. There's no doubt. Okay. Okay. Did you have one last question you wanted to ask before we go to Q&A? No, I'm ready to go. Let's go. I'm sure there's a lot of questions popping up down there. So hopefully- Thank you very much for this wonderful conversation. Excellent. Thank you very much, gentlemen. And want to remind you folks that Randolph is linked in the description. And in the future, if William ever gets a, if he ever has a link that he'd like me to put in the description, I'll add it in there as well. We're going to jump into the Q&A. Thanks, everybody, for your questions. Magellan, thanks for your comments. I'm from Singapore. Thanks so much for watching from Singapore, friend. We hope you're doing well. I look forward to the reasonality today. Well, this is definitely, I think this is a very, I think this is one of our most civil and even on a hot button issue type of debate that we've ever had. So I loved it. And like I can tell you guys in the chat, people really enjoyed it and have said like, Hey, this is awesome. Do this again. Well, James, what I will say is that we haven't agreed on whether God is moral or immoral. But it was, I agree, a very, very helpful conversation, I think, too. It was very, yeah, it was very reasoned and calm. And we like that. And Genesis Undead says, if morality is given by God, why do we need to teach children right from wrong? I don't think that you do. I don't think that you do. I've never taught my children to lie, but they lie because they feel shame and guilt over something that they've done. Right. I don't believe that we have to teach children right from wrong. I believe that there are objective, natural, naturalistic moral values that are just innate in human values. It's the same way why animals, some animals will, you know, care for their young and some don't. Right. It's just, it's a instinctual thing that the prime tenements of morality are obvious. Gosh, and thank you for your question, Faris. One follow up on that. I just wanted to add a little bit. In the debate, William did say that he was talking about where I get my influence from morality from, is from all kinds of environmental things and things around me. And I do think that does factor in with children as well. And I hope William agrees with me on that point. As far as teaching morality goes, I will say that for myself, I think it's important to teach children to question what's moral and what's immoral. At least doing that is an important thing to do. Even with my own children, yes, do they believe in God because their dad, their entire lives has held that position, probably and most likely. But I, apologetics is my biggest thing with all of my children. I tell them to be apologists with what they hear at school, with what they, and that's why I entertain my son when he asks why, why, why, why all the time I have to explain why does he need to tie his shoelaces this way, and why does he need to sign that way? I have no problem explaining that, but yeah, apologetics is vital. Gotcha. Thank you very much. And one, I forgot, you guys, before we went into the Q&A, I wanted to say this. However, I just out of habit kept going. But this is something I was thinking about today, folks, want to let you know we have, and don't get me wrong, nothing against men. We have a lot of men debating and, you know, we're always, the door is always open to men. However, we want to let you know if it's not clear, just to be absolutely sure that it's clear. If you happen to be a female debater, you are more than welcome on modern day debate. We'd love to have you. And so want to let you know I am at moderndaydebate at gmail.com just because we don't want modern day debate to be like a good old boys club, but we really do want it to be a truly diverse mix of ideas, philosophies, people of different walks of life. And so want to let you know we absolutely do want female debaters. And like I said, I'm at moderndaydebate at gmail.com. I know if you, I'll let you know after the show and then you can, yeah. That'd be rad. Thanks. I totally appreciate Randolph. And that's another thing, folks, is that you might not, for maybe you're a guy and you're like, well, I, you know, I guess I don't fit what you're like looking for. We're always open to guys as well, but you might be like, well, hey, I'm a guy like Randolph just said, and you're like, I know a female debater who loves debating. She enjoys it. And so, okay, we'd love to have more female debaters on. And so just wanted to make that clear, folks, is we want to be, like I said, as well rounded as possible as a community and channel. And so thanks for your question as well. This one coming in from Farron Salas says, thanks debaters and James for your time this evening. It has been a true pleasure. And like I said, folks, or I should say welcome. I should say, like I said, Randolph. And like I said, William, people really enjoyed that. So thanks for that positive feedback Farron. And then Amy Newman is, I think it's linked at the top of the chat. Let me double check. But yes, absolutely. Right now I have linked Amy Newman's after show, folks, we will link any after show, Christian Atheist, Republican Democrat, you name it, we will link your after show if you have one. And so want to let you know her super chat also said after show at midnight. And it's in the, like I said, linked at the top of the chat for William. Let's see, they said for William quote deserving unquote or not, doesn't burning a person forever sound like he's a supervillain? It sort of does. I get why man, it to us it does, but right, but you have to understand that for my theological worldview, I can't question God's method of doing that. And I don't necessarily know if you'll be burnt forever. There is some theological debate about necessarily what hell is and how that works. But if let's just say that that is the case that hell is eternal fire and you feel burning the the rest of eternity. If you believe that that is not equal punishment for spitting in the face of a omniscient omnipresent God who is worthy and due of all of our praise, that I would just didn't have to disagree, right, because if God is that right, if you look, especially look at the book of revelations, if you want to look at it's not a when you actually see God who for who God is the only expression that they can make is to fall on their face and just scream out and and utter all right. And it's it's despite that God. Is that an unjust punishment? I don't I don't think it is. Gotcha. And want to jump into the next one. This one coming from zero off us. Hello gentlemen. Hope you're doing great and question for William. So thanks to your greetings, Rafa, they say for William, what does quote made in the image of God unquote mean specifically in the context of human morality? Well, I think that it means that God has given us reason. Right. So what separates humanity from the rest of creation? And that's the ability to reason. We have our reason isn't God's reason. Right. It's not a one for one transfer. It's an image of it's a reflection of right. It's an imitation of it's a shadow of God's reason. Right. So to use our limited reason and knowledge in order to judge God's infinite reason and knowledge, I don't think is analogous. Gotcha. And thank you very much for your question. This one coming in from. Sorry guys. It's like my it's okay. Foggy over here situation for you as a rabbi says William, did you say that God can quote choose to save one unquote? If conditional, do you lean toward our mean our menianism? If unconditional, how does what you said lean Calvinist? God chooses to save one. I'm confused on the question and how that's not choosing choosing to save some and not save all is Calvinism. The elected maybe talk about the elect a little bit so that people can understand. Yeah, so the so the elect is that that before before time began, right, so before creation, God had God being outside of time, right? God is not restrained by time. He's outside of time. He sees all things as they occur and also intervenes in individual things through time. He predestined some to be his elect and to be and to be given salvation, which implicitly implies that he didn't elect all, which means that he had predestined others to they called probate in Calvinist theology would be those who are not elect, right? And that's God's secret will, right? Why God chose to do that. He hasn't revealed to us, but it's clear in scripture that that's what he's chosen to do. Gosh, you have to throw out swaths of the Bible in order to say that that's not a theology that that the Bible teaches. You got it and thank you for your question. Mr. Lightning 20 says if you're a teacher, you want your students to succeed. If they fail next year, they have another chance to pass. But with God, if you fail and go to hell, there isn't another chance. God predicts this failure. That's kind of been my understanding from a lot of the things I've heard about eternal punishment and hell. Now, once you're there, you're there forever. Is that how it is in Calvinism? Oh, yeah, I mean, we believe in solo scripture, right? So whatever the theology of the text is, is what we follow. I just think that people are thinking of God's choices on our level. And I think that that's a fallacy. I think to assume that our reason and our mental capabilities are able to to rationalize the actions of a superior being beyond comprehension is it's in itself illogical and a fallacy, right? If it's beyond comprehension, how can we comprehend that? We can try and that's that's what debate and theology and that's why it's good if you're Christian to go out and to express the love that you have and to spread the gospel with those that you care about in hopes that God opens their hearts in their mind, right? That's the whole point. It's the hope, but I don't necessarily think that it's something that we can comprehend. Yeah, and I don't agree with that because I think if a thousand years ago compared to now, we look at how much we can comprehend about the universe as we know it and ideas of the the concepts of things like the whole cosmos or life on alien planets and trying to figure out what those life forms might be like and all kinds of interesting things, our ability to understand things and our knowledge seems to just be ever increasing over time. That's a purpose because scripture says that when we at the day of judgment and after we're in our glorified body, we will be able to understand, right? Well, the thing is there's been many times throughout history where that's it. We're at the limit. You can't understand anymore and what happens scientific inquiry and discovery shows us there's more to understand and there's people understanding it. Quantum physics is fairly new compared to what scientists a thousand years ago knew and before that happened, there could have been people saying it would not be contemplatable and here we are contemplating it nowadays as modern society. So to say that there is an arbitrary limit that we cannot understand something like this, I have a lot of trouble with that because the pattern throughout history seems to be showing a different wave. There has to be a limit because we're limited beings otherwise we'd be gods ourselves. I'll give you a quick chance to respond now Randolph because it already why does there have to be? I'm going to just leave it as a question that's unanswered. We'll give William a quick chance to respond because the Super Chat was originally targeting him and then we'll go to the next one. Oh, it was. Oh, okay. All right. I would just say that in my belief that the human comprehension has to be limited. Otherwise we are omniscient and if we are omniscient, then we are God and I don't believe that we're God. So that's me wondering how do we know God is omniscient? I think that omniscience and omnipotence is a paradox and so that's a different discussion. Next up, thank you very much for your question. This one coming in from pal Nordhall says, for William, did God create us exactly how he wanted us to be knowing that genocide was inevitable? Yes, creation was perfect before the fall. And this one coming in from good day to you, sir. Thanks for your Super Chat support. And then flum666 says, when did William stop beating his friend? I think they're saying like they're saying that you're asking a complex question. When did you stop beating your wife kind of thing? It's an unfair question. I don't think they're actually trying to accuse you of beating anyone though. I think that they're trying to accuse you of having used a complex question. I'm confused by it. I'm not sure. I don't remember using a complex question like that. Gotcha. And Jyuni, the apostate thinks your question said, if we're intelligently designed, why do we look so closely to other apes? Why not have a much more unique look beyond comparison to other primates? Like the cone heads? I'm a designer by trade. So that's what I do is I design things, products, designer, and all of my products have my fingerprint on them. All of them do. I do fishing tackle. So all of my product designs look, you can tell that they're designed by the same individual just like iPhones, right? There's a brand image that's placed on every product that comes from Apple. Without even seeing the Apple logo on it, you can tell it's an Apple product. I think God has his design signature. Gosh, yeah. And this one coming in, we appreciate your question. Jyuni the apostate says, that was the last one. Brandon Ardeline, thank you for your question said, how can someone hear that a few people get to enjoy eternal paradise and most people burn for eternity and not think this is absolutely stupid? They're free to think that it's absolutely stupid. And yes, they are. Yeah, I have no problem with that because they're they can't think it's not stupid unless God allows them to, right? Gotcha. And Wolf Von Hinslich, thank you for your super chat. I saw there wasn't a question if you wanted to attach a question to it, but something didn't make it through. Just put it as a normal chat and I'll read it as a super chat. So thank you for your support. And then this one coming in from Nick Bos menu. I hope I'm pronouncing it right, Nick. Let me know said he shouldn't have bothered getting up on the cross if there is such a thing as theological predetermination in Christianity. What does Matthew think? I mean, William, I'm so sorry, you guys. I'm a little bi-sleep. It's all a part of that, right? So in order for us to have a substitutionary atonement, right? That's another thing that's that's that's a principle of Calvinistic, the two of the five points. I just don't think that in order to save any, right, if we're all if we're totally depraved, if we're all deserving of death, then somebody had to be punished for that. Otherwise, God is unjust, right? If he is saving some without punishing all. So this is where I differ a little bit from some Calvinists. Some Calvinists do believe that the atonement was only for the elect. I believe that the atonement through scripture, the part that I get from scripture is that the atonement is capable of saving all, but it only it only benefits the elect. You got it. And thank you for your question. Ghostlight says question for Randolph. If hell was not eternal torture, but a temporary state, you can escape with this change your opinion. I think they mean like your opinion on the ethics of it. If we could escape, it kind of sounds like someone breaking the rule of confinement. No, that wouldn't change it because the intention would still be to keep people there. But if there was some kind of a way out where it was, you were only there for a certain period of time, and it was kind of intended to match the the the transgression. So it was a minor transgression and you're only there for a short time versus a major transgression there for much longer. And so you blew up a planet and you're there for even longer. Then, okay, I would say, yeah, this was a more nuanced approach that that God was using. And it certainly would have more sway with me. That doesn't necessarily tie into me believing or not believing it exists. But as far as something being consistent with the fundamentals of justice and fairness and whatnot, that would be certainly a lot better. I hope that answers the question. Gotcha. I appreciate that. And Wolf von Hinslich, appreciate your question, said if God has this divine plan, how exactly does free will in praying work with some plan? If there is a master plan and free will can break it, then the plan doesn't work. Well, there's, I don't know if they caught the same Harris equivalencies that I made, but Calvinists don't believe in free will. So it wouldn't. Gotcha. This ties into the paradox of omniscience and omnipotence. This question, by the way. Gotcha. And this only free will is actually a thing. If there is no free will, then there's no paradigm. Gotcha. Folly Knacks, thanks for your question, said question for William. What is the point of being Christian if all you have to do is accept Jesus into your heart before you die? So that you can live in eternity with him? That's the point. Gotcha. And that is, oh, there's Michael Dresden says, uh, for, and thanks for your first time serious questions. He's usually not serious, but I think this is serious. So they say for Randolph, is it wrong for a parent to punish a child for wrongdoing? Because that parent also knew when having a child that the child would necessarily be imperfect at some points. Some, well, punishments and consequences are a part of parenting. Unfortunately, it is something that does have to happen. Now, the severity of the punishment is a very important consideration for, for myself. Never had to severely punish my kids. I'm not a fan of the idea. I think that there's usually a much better way to handle things. If something goes wrong, you know, normally children are going to know that, oh, they, they've already made some kind of an error here. And if you've seen that, then I'm already feeling like, okay, this is something that we're going to be able to get resolved in a very kind and easy and straightforward way for the most part, and prevent it from happening again. If, uh, yeah, there, there are people who favor more harsh punishments like spankings and locking kids into rooms and with the lights off and things like that, which I am against. I do think that that becomes abuse. So I'm more focused on the punishment and kind of in the realm of kind of rehabilitative kind of thinking for the more severe stuff and not for the, the corporal punishment for sure. So, which I, this is a, this is a kind of, as a parent, a lot of the stuff is you have to deal with it on a case-by-case basis. But definitely I'm not into the abuse of punishment stuff at all, not at all. Got you, and Brandon Ardely, and thanks for your support of the channel, says in his super chat, prayer is the religious equivalent of change.org. William, do you agree, disagree? Well, I, I, I disagree. Um, I believe that, uh, that scripture is fairly clear that God answers prayer according to his will, not ours. Got you, and thank you. And Wolf von Hinslich, thank you for your follow-up question, said, for William, if it's the case regarding the, you know, remember when we talked about like free will in prayer and God's sovereign plan is in response, he said, I would like to add this question, how does praying fit into a plan or, or I'm sorry, given what you said, why pray then if there is already a plan such that it couldn't be changed? Um, because it's, it's beneficial to us to do so. I, I, it's the same reason that Sam Harris gives for, if, if, uh, the, the natural world and the biological chemistry of the neurons in our brains is preventing us from having free will, why get about, get up out of bed to do anything? Well, because when you actually realize that you're, you're actually free from a lot of inhibitions, um, shame, judgment, um, all kinds of things. And it really, it really opens up your perspective to that. And even if you're not a theist and I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm going to say it anyway, even if you're not a Christian and you don't believe in God, I would, I would really consider studying that topic of, of whether free will is exact, is, is in an actual thing and how that, that concept can be as liberating as it is. Gotcha. Thank you very much. And that is it for our questions. Want to say thank you everybody for your questions. We had, well, okay, one more. We'll read it because it just came into the chat. Handsome Rick says, William, if you were God, would you drown the world or snap your fingers in the Genesis story? I think they mean snap your fingers such that, uh, you know, uh, the effects of the flood would happen such that, you know, people would be wiped off the earth without all of the drowning. I think that a lot of, of, and I could be assuming far too much here, but I think that a lot of Christians would probably say I'm not God. So I wouldn't, I wouldn't make that, that, that judgment. I'm going to go the opposite way and say that if I was God, I would have made every choice that God made. Gotcha. Thank you very much. And with that, want to say thank you everybody for hanging out with us. Our guests are linked in the description and want to say as well, thank you to our guests. It has been a true pleasure. I can't say it enough. Thank you so much Randolph and thank you so much, William. People have really enjoyed this and we really appreciate you hanging out with us. Everybody had a good time. Thank you. I put a question in the private chat for you. You got it. And want to remind you folks, Amy is linked, Amy's linked after shows at the top of the chat, I think. And then thanks for your late last minute super chat says the only verse that matters, dinner 1930. And then let's see. Oh wait, I'm, wait, I did, Amy's link is no longer linked at the top of the chat because I linked a different one from peace and chaos program, but want to let you know that Amy's link is in the description box. And so really do want to encourage you. James, when I heard dinner 1930, I was immediately thinking flying spaghetti monster stuff there. You got it. And then that's sorry. I was like simultaneously trying to read your question in the chat. But let's see. Gotcha. And so we want to say thank you everybody for hanging out with us. And also folks, keep sifting out the reasonable from the unreasonable in one week from today, that Matt Dillahunty debate will be happening with Samuel's Nissan on whether or not Jesus fulfilled prophecy. So be sure to hit that subscribe button as you don't want to miss it. Folks is going to be epic. And so one last thank you though to our guests Randolph and William. It's been a true pleasure. Thank you guys. There's a pleasure to meet you, William. Thank you. It's frozen me too. And James, I hope I did all right tonight. It was a true joy. And I'll be back folks with that post credit scene in just a moment where I'll be sharing about upcoming debates. You don't want to miss it. So stick around. Thanks everybody. Folks, that was an epic one. I am so excited to see the positive feedback in the chat. Thanks everybody for your kindness and positivity and support of this debate. I was just encouraged that you guys enjoyed it as much as I did, that it was calm. It was peaceful. It was professional, civil class acts. We really do appreciate our guests. And so that was a blast. Great start to the weekend you guys. A fun Friday night. And yes, I am stoked to say hello to you in the chat. Thank you guys for being with us. Just hanging out with us. Joseph Rogers, as well as Leslie Flemons. Thanks for being with us. The friend zone. I'm glad you're here. Nicholas Kato Stroad, King 101, Amy Newman, Joseph Rogers. Oh yeah, yeah. Rat Prophet. Let me know if I pronounce. Sheik Abdul El Hasred. Muad Dib. Thank you for being with us. Appreciate it, friend. Kimo Maki. Thanks for being with us. Perfect one. And MikeQ922. Skillmaster, glad you're with us. Nicholas Kato Stroad. And then is it pronounced Sith or Scythe? S-Y-T-H. Glad you're here. And then Colin Lorenz, as well as Mashi M. Mark Reed. Good to see you. Larry Lats. Glad you're here, man. Thanks so much for your help with the Discord. By help, that's an understatement. Thank you for running the Discord because I don't know how to run a Discord. I'm still learning. It's been hard. But anyway, thank you, Larry. And James Bond, thanks for being with us. Fox Sushi. Like I said, you're right. You got to look out. A lot of fake sushi out there. We're glad you're with us. And Peace and Chaos Program. Good to see you. Clinton Roche. Thanks for being with us. Brandon Arlene. Good to see you. And then Get Real. Glad to see you again. God of Spaghetti. Glad you're here. Flum666. Is it Flum or Flume? Let me know. And, but yeah, we were pumped. Thank you guys for hanging out. Randolph Indochiat. Glad to see you, Randolph. Austin Smith. Glad you made it, man. Thanks for being with us. Says hello. Bee Bats. Am I pronouncing it? Is it Bee Bats or Bee Bats? Let me know. But we're glad you're here. And I just want to make sure I didn't miss anybody. I'm trying to say hi. I just appreciate you guys hanging out here. The more the merrier, you guys make it fun. So we really do appreciate you hanging out with us. I am excited for the future, you guys. We have got big stuff planned for the summer. Traveling and all sorts of like in-person epic debates. It's going to be really fun. I'm looking forward to it. And Doom Paul. Glad you were here, my friend. And let's see. My man. Get Real. Thanks for being with us. Top Hot 2. Thanks for your positive feedback. Says great, respectful debate. So glad you liked it. And yeah, I'm pumped though, you guys. That was a lot of fun. And that's right. Aftershow from Amy Newman. Linked in the description, folks. And so, want to say thank you for being here. Will Stewart in the live chat as well. Thanks, Will and Randolph again, you guys. It honestly was a pleasure to have you guys. Class acts. So professional. And just we appreciate you guys so much. And so, it's been fun, you guys. I just love doing this. Yeah. It just makes my life more fun. And sometimes, like, my days are pretty boring. But this channel turns things around. And I have fun in the evenings. And so, I do appreciate all of you just for being here and making it fun. Want to remind you, folks, whether you be Christian, atheist, Democrat, Republican, gay, straight, white, black, you know, everybody, we really do hope you feel welcome, folks. We really, really do. If we are going to be a channel that's all like, hey, we're all about, like, having everybody from all walks of life, well, we just want to let you know that just in case. Because, you know, I was, when I would teach my classes, I oftentimes never, I oftentimes like didn't say, you know, like, hey, we hope you're, you feel welcome, no matter what walk of life you are, you know, Republican, Democrat, atheist, Christian, you know, you name it. I used to not say it. But then I was like, you know what, just in case there's any doubt, we do hope you feel welcome. And so, thanks for being with us, no matter who you are. And so, Get Real says, thanks for your kind words, they say glad you're here, James, hell of a channel this has become. Thanks for that. That is super encouraging Get Real. And we are excited, we really are, we are excited about the future in terms of like upcoming epic stuff. For example, Farron Salas, thanks for your question says any more kick starters, I reached out and who knows if we like actually have it happen. I would be surprised if I didn't hear back from them. However, you never know. I mean, recently, I've had like a number of speakers that you know, I reached out to and then, you know, like, one example being, I reached out to Shmulee Botea, I think I'm pronouncing it right, let me know if I'm not, but he's a rabbi, an orthodox rabbi. And I haven't heard back from them, but you know, busy people and, you know, we're never entitled even to a response, much less a person coming on to debate. So, I'm not complaining, don't get me wrong. But I am saying, I can't guarantee it. But I did reach out to William Lynn Craig about a future Kickstarter event. So, we'll see. I don't know if that's going to happen, but I basically pitched the idea, I said, hey, we want to do this big epic event. We want it to be a Kickstarter backed event. And you know, that's how we would pay the honorariums for Dr. Richard Carrier and Dr. William Lynn Craig. That would be an epic debate. I would seriously be so excited. And so, you know, we'll see. I don't know. I mean, that's the other thing, too, is that like, maybe William Lynn Craig would say, ah, you know, I've debated Carrier enough because they've debated before. I don't know. But I'm working on it. So, thanks for asking. We are working on hopefully late April. The goal is late April that we could maybe have a Kickstarter event again, where we go like big time for a big event. And so, man, we'll play it by ear. We'll find out what we get. But James Bond says, looking forward to Matt Dillahunty on prophecies fulfilled. You mean this debate right here? The one on point. You guys, this is going to be epic. You don't want to miss it. So, make sure, in addition to hitting the subscribe button, that you also hit that little bell notification so it shows like the ringing. It like visually depicts the sound coming off the bell. Be sure that that is clicked, so you don't miss it live. You guys, it's going to be epic. I'm really excited about that. And Caleb, aka Caleb, says James is a furry. Like that? It's that easy? You just outed me in the chat like that? I am not actually a furry. Don't worry. Not that I have any judgment against those who like dressing up like animals. Is that, what's the furry philosophy? I don't know. Is it inherent? Like, are there furries that don't have relations with each other while they're dressed up as animals? I don't know. I don't know what the philosophy is, but, you know, either way, you're welcome at modern day debate. We're glad you're here. Brittle, good to see you. Said, how about inviting, how about Dr. Inviting Dr. Shabir Ali? Nizam44 said, we invited him in the past. And he, I think Samuel Nassan has a, Samuel Nassan, who's actually debating Matt next week, has been in touch with him. And so that's a possibility in the future. We're open to hosting it. And so, by the way, want to let you know, folks, we are looking for Muslim debaters. If you happen to be a Muslim and you were like, Hey, man, I love debating, please email me at moderndaydebateatgmail.com, which I'm putting in the chat right now, moderndaydebateatgmail.com is my email. We are looking for new Muslim debaters. We don't have a lot. I mean, like, two, I don't know. Pepsi Scrolls says, are you still a Christian, James? Yes. And thanks, Captain Bidkar for being here says, well, we, let's see, we're debating in the chat, but we're glad you're here. But yeah, you guys, I'm pumped about the future. We have this united vision, whether we be Christians, atheists, agnostics, you name it, we are all united in all wanting fair debates hosted in a way that is as neutral and fair as possible. So everybody has their chance to make their case on a level playing field. That's something we all believe in, whether we be Christian, atheist, agnostic, Democrat, Republican, gay, straight, black, white, you name it, everybody wants that folks, believe me, we all want fair debates and also very exciting, my friends, as we are excited that we all share this, you could say, common goal, this common value, we want to make the world a better place than if we were never here. That's a think everybody would agree with that, right? And so that's why we do our monthly charity stream, in which case, everybody from all these different walks of life, all of the super chats for those streams, go to a charity such as, for example, Save the Children, which is dedicated to helping feed starving children across the globe. And so we're really excited about those. And I think that, I think, yeah, we haven't done it in March yet, because we just started the month. So that's something that I'm planning for later this month. And so we're excited for that. And Squatch Talk says, let's see, Squatch Talk says, great debate tonight, I was persuaded and the speakers are both fair and civil. I loved it as well, my friend, and I agree, it was fair, it was civil. It was just congenial. That's good. And that's the thing, some people are like, modern day debate is like nothing but dumpster fires. No, we have a lot of different types of debates. That's the trick, folks, is that, you know, some of the people who criticize and go modern day debate, oh, like, you know, they're just dumpster fires. Like I said, we have variety folks, we have cordial debates. Yeah, once in a while, we have a dumpster fire, you know, but I hear from their subscribers, they're sleeping because a lot of these channels, it's just the exact, you know, it's so bland, the exact same thing every time. Hey, we have variety and we like that. And so we really do appreciate that it was a civil debate tonight. It was a little bit more fiery on Wednesday. I don't know if you guys saw that one that was with Skyler and CJ, but that was pretty calm too. You know, that wasn't, it certainly didn't go off the rails. We've had worse than that. I think what was it a week ago, we had like G-man and whoa, you guys, that one with G-man and Jim Majors, and it was like that one was boiling over. I was, for the first time in a long time, maybe uncomfortable in terms of that was just so heated where I was like, am I hopefully I'm not setting the world on fire by doing this? I just felt like I was like, I hope this ultimately brings about good because it got so fiery, but Pepsi scrolls as I was just curious because you're always there, but I feel like I don't know you. I am glad you're here, my friend, and I can tell you, I'll tell you guys some about my personal life. My life is during the day, pretty quiet. I'm reading and writing and meetings. They make me go to meetings all the time. So I feel bad for saying that out loud. I hope nobody from the university hears that, but basically yeah, I like what I do. So I'm working on my PhD and some days when I'm reading Bland, sometimes I got to read Bland material and sometimes it's rough. So this debate channel, modern day debate is so fun for me to just be here. But yeah, I don't have a lot of exciting stuff to share about my day. And let's see, I will let you guys in on something that's true. I'm really big on, I'm not really big on, but I'm like, some would say I'm big on it just because I do it pretty much every day. I'm big on intermittent fasting. So I drink seltzer water like pretty often, just because I don't think that like it's unhealthy to not intermittent fast or anything like that. I just do it because well, one, I put on so much holiday weight that I was like, holy smokes, I had to do something. That's one reason why I started doing it. But there are other reasons too. Intermittent fasting is, you know, there's, I can tell you, I whenever I do anything like this, I always look for the data. There are plenty of peer reviewed sources that talk about, oh, there's a plethora of benefits of intermittent fasting. It's a big one. I would say like, just like virtually everything, you're better off if you do intermittent fasting. And I only, I don't fast that long. It's like 16 hours at a time. So hey, you know, think about it, you might like it. I don't know. And this is, this is how I feel, feel full. I trick myself by drinking this carbonated water. But like I said, you know, hey, different strokes for different folks. I don't want to be preachy with it. So if you don't like it, I don't blame you. You know, it's not for everybody. If you don't like intermittent fasting, no judgment here. But yeah, peace and chaos programs. Anymore, woke war is coming soon. We might, there might be one that you could kind of consider a woke war. Brenton Langles trying to set up a debate with Sargon, and it might turn into a tag team. But I don't want to say too much about it because it's not yet confirmed. So I don't want, I don't want to spoil it, but it's hopefully going to happen. And then flum666 says, I like these specific debates, like how many of Paul's letters did he really write? Yeah, that's an interesting topic. I'm trying to remember what like the, the mainstream view is among scholars versus so sorry, I didn't get a ton of sleep last night. But 27 books in the New Testament, right? Books slash epistles, sources, or you could say like documents. And there's that like, is the debate, like whether or not Paul wrote, I think like is the conservative, like the conservative scholars and what most I think you can say maybe what conservative leaning or I don't know, maybe, I don't know, is it fair to say most Christians would say, I think they say 13 or 14 that Paul wrote. But then I think a number of scholars would say, I think it's like, is the popular view like 10 that they say? I can't remember. But anyway, that'd be an interesting debate. Jamie Russell says nephilim. What are you talking about, Jamie? Nephilim free? That's all I saw was you put nephilim. Amy Newman says, that's a good goal. Thank you, Amy Newman. I appreciate that. That means a lot. Appreciate your support. You always are super supportive and that means a lot. And oh, I'm like catching up on your chat. Sorry, I'm behind. Joe Evel Scizor says James Coons. Give it up, people. Thanks for your kind words. Appreciate that, buddy. And James Bond says the dumpster fires are good fun, James. And let's see. Yeah, we're not all dumpster fires. Jamie Russell is right. And then let's see, keeping up. Will Stewart says the dumpster fire has nothing to do with the channel, but the individual is debating you would see a slightly different will if the opposite opinion was more of a provocateur. That makes sense. Yeah, it's funny that you sometimes wonder if there's a debater who has a very poised, very calm demeanor. And there's another one that's usually fiery. We'll put it that way. You always kind of wonder like, well, who would win out in terms of like, who's, or maybe it'll be somewhere in the middle. But you might wonder, like, is it going to be the case that the fiery debaters are going to calm down for the other or the other is going to become more fiery? Yeah. So it's like, that's an interesting dynamic with when we set these up. Obviously, you know, someone like Darth Dawkins, very fiery and assertive. So it's always interesting seeing virtually anyone go against Darth. I think Darth is going to be the same no matter who it was. Larry Lett says, anything new behind the curtain? Let me show you, my friend. And Amy Newman says, taking a class on rubric making its top level excitement. That's funny. Let me ask you guys, two seconds. Clay Corbin says, what's your dissertation on? I'm not there yet, but it's probably going to be on leadership in like health, occupational health context. And so I can let you know, although I'm still, there's a lot of moving parts such that I don't know for sure. Matthew Steele, good to see you again, buddy. And Larry Lett says, my wife and I both do intermittent fasting and she is a vegetarian and I am not. That's cool, man. I've loved it so far for me. It's been awesome. Like, no joke. I'm serious. It's improved the quality of my life. Sometimes I like right now, I'm like, oh, I could go for like something sweet. I do like sweets. But none. And even though this is like outside of my eating window. So but I'm usually pretty good about just like, I'll just have some like sparkling water, you have some tea, I could have some decaf coffee, like, so overall, man, this is good. I'm holding onto it. I haven't stopped doing it yet. And I'm kind of thinking I'm probably going to just make this into like a maybe a good turn into like just a life long habit. But it's only been I think it's been about since January 20. So yeah, it's not even been two months. And that's why I'm kind of like, think it usually takes like two months or so, maybe three even before you can kind of be like, oh, yeah, that's probably a habit that you're gonna have for a long time. Perfect one says, now that you have decided to be fair and balanced, how long do you think will be before you stop being a blank and start being a blank? I don't exactly know what you mean. I don't know if my views are going to change much to be honest. They they vary in some of like the arguments for and against, but there's so many different arguments for and against that it's kind of like, and I know that, yeah, but yeah, long, long story short. I don't even know for sure if I got your question, but best top thanks for your saying hello. Glad you're here, buddy. And Randall Richardson says good night, everybody. Good night, Randall. We hope you rest well. Thanks. I appreciate you. Appreciate you, man. You and Will did a great job tonight. It was a blast. And let's see. Squatch Talk says a 16 hour fasting messes with people's moods a lot. Not recommended. I don't know. I don't know if it's messing with mine. Like I feel pretty good. But Jamie Russell says, oh, I see. They're saying Nephilim, you should say that you, you want, you welcome the Nephilim too. I hadn't even thought of it. Touche. And Amy Newman says, I debate Darth. Hey, we're open to it, Amy. Shoot me an email if you want to remind me. Squatch Talk says, I'll debate Nephilim. You mean Nephilim free? Your father? All right. But it's not really his dad. But James W. Good to see you talking about that soy. Man, James W. Is a huge soy fan. Like he's always talking about soy. But Colubbs is quick overview of intermittent fasting benefits. Yeah, let me like pull these up, man. I've got them written down. And I'm, I'm telling you, it's kind of nutty. Let me find these. Inter, intermittent. Let me see where I can find my list. I've got a list here. Immune. What? I might have to email you, man. Let me find this. Because we just can't find the note. I had a note where I wrote down. Oh no, it's on a Google doc. It's on a word doc on my on my other laptop. But I can let me know if you if you remind me via email, I can send it to you. There's a lot of benefits. But yeah, thanks for being here with me, you guys. You guys make it fun. And Manic Panda says it's a smart hobby. James fasting is good on the waist and the wallet. And it is true. My groceries now 40, I'd say the average 40 bucks a week, which is $30 lower than what I used to do. I used to do 30 bucks or not. 70 bucks was my pretty common, like 60 to 70, sometimes 80. Man, sometimes it was like 120 when I would like in the fall. Oh man, I some days I would just, I don't know. I think it was kind of a cope with the stress. I was like, in the fall that semester was insane. And so this semester is a little bit easier to do things like fast because it's just not as insane. But let's see. I love reading what you guys are saying in the chat. But you guys, let me tell you this. We're at 133 likes, which is epic. If we can get to 140, I will show you a new epic thing behind the curtain. This is a curtain. So smash that like button. Let me show you something cool behind the curtain. And let's see. Oh, I get what you mean. Perfect one. They're saying I was asking you a question because sometimes people poke fun or sometimes people ask questions that contain an underlying assumption. Like the idea that being fair on this show is in conflict with something else. Yeah, that's a good point. I know what you mean. Yeah, it's funny. I sometimes wonder if, I know this is like, yeah, we overall, I'm thankful for all the support. There are some haters, but I've got haters in every camp. Not trying to brag, but I do. So there are there are haters out there and it's usually at the extreme of like every view or position. I feel like that's where people that's where the haters usually reside. So like those NEO, NAZIS. I think that there are plenty of haters in that camp where they're like, oh, James, you don't like, you're, you're like, you're soft or whatever. You're not like, you need to be like, I guess like them, they think I don't know. And then there are also though, what some people would call the SJW types. And when you go to the extreme end, there are some people who are like, James, I don't think that you should host or platform people. If there are, you know, like whatever, whatever. And so sometimes those people don't like me. I'm okay with it, though. I mean, like the positive support I get makes up for it times 10. All the kind people, like you guys are super supportive. I appreciate you guys for being that way. Thank you guys so much for that big Don. Thanks for your support, man. Let me see if I've got something cool behind the curtain. But I do love showing this because it's like such a real look at my office like desk and all that. I'm trying to think, I think I told you guys about my thank you journal. I do have a journal that I write everything I'm thankful for. I only do it now. I mean, I used to do it every single day. And it's, you know, that's a good idea. But now it's like, maybe like once a week or so. That's kind of the average. I've shown you that before, though. Let me see if there's any books that you might get a kick out of. Oh, this is like a great book that I'd encourage and that I think anybody from any walk of life, I can't think of anything that is like explicitly what you would for sure disagree with if you were an atheist or a Christian or agnostic. I'm trying to remember, I know that the fellow himself, he doesn't like preach it, you could say. He doesn't like tell you to believe in it. But he himself, I think kind of leans Buddhist. But he's also, I think kind of secular, like maybe just, I don't know. I don't know if he'd just be like, I don't identify with anything. But don't sweat the small stuff has a lot of great ideas. I think I got this for like two bucks at a thrift store. And some of the examples being like, imagine, imagine being at your own funeral. So it's got like these, if it's 100 different things that you can just read through, you know, if you read through one a day. And it's like, imagine being at your funeral. And it's like, it kind of helps you put perspective and like think about life or you're like, Oh, yeah, like, what would I, you know, if people were worried about things at my funeral, like, they wouldn't be worrying about, you know, like, how much did you accomplish? Or did you get this task done today and all that? It's like deeper things. So it kind of helps put things in perspective where you kind of like have kind of like, you realize not to like worry about the small stuff. That's one thing. But thank you guys. Oh yeah, so that's hopefully that's interesting to you guys. Thanks for your huge support. Jamie Russell, among others saying hit that thumbs up. Thanks for that. Bestop says, what's the hardest topic to debate? Do you mean like moderate or to like actually debate? But the hardest topic to moderate, I don't, if that's what you're asking, I'm not sure. But but basically, man, like the race and brutality topics are definitely fiery. That is the kind of stuff where it's like, and then, yeah, it's, you know, you always, that's also more difficult to set up because those I'm more, I'm more, I go through more time in trouble to try to be sure that like, if I'm putting, if I'm platforming somebody who is arguably, you know, we've had people on like popular people, podcasters that are like, NEO, NAZIS, which to me, I'm like, okay, I want to take that seriously and make sure that we're putting someone against them. That's a strong debater. You know, it would be obviously a bad thing if we hosted somebody who was an NAZI and then they went against like somebody who's opposing them, but not a very good debater. It's like, well, you can't do that. That doesn't seem responsible. So proudly anti mask. Thanks for being with us as Bud Light or Miller Light. Ah, Bud Light. Thanks for asking. I'm not like, I'm not like, it's not like a hill that I'm focused on dying though. I'm like the least picky beer person. I'll have a beer once in a while. I don't, it's been a while now. I'm like, wow, how long has it been? Maybe since back in, maybe late December. I'm like the least picky person. So like natural light, I could be happy with. So, but yeah, thank you guys for hanging out with us. Thanks for being here. Thanks for your support of the channel. Thanks for your thumbs up. And yeah, you guys, I'm pumped about this debate. Boom, right there. Oh, but yeah, you guys, I am so encouraged. And I've seen also the amount of ratings on the podcast. Super encouraging. So thank you guys. Hold on. I'm going to do an ant man. Are you guys ready for this? You know, in the movie, when ant man becomes like really big. Here I am. I'm doing it. Okay, so see, I want to show you this basically right here. You can see it says subscribe because we are indeed on Twitch, which just reminded me now. I'm like, oh, sorry, Twitch chat. I've been like, sorry, I'm like, Superbind. Thank you, Brooks Sparrow. Oh, man, I'm so sorry I'm behind. Thanks for your kind words. Brooks says, we love what you do. Thank you for all your hard work. And also says I've been using your Amazon link. I'm trying to support what you do. However, I can keep up the great content. Thanks, Brooks. Seriously, that means a lot. I'm totally appreciate it. And I totally forgot. We, yeah, there's a lot of ways we appreciate all the ways you guys support the channel. And you guys do an amazing job. We thank you for that. Thank you for your help. And I've got to tell you one is yeah, we are on Twitch right there. And it says so Hey, if you want to check us out on Twitch, I am going to put that right into the old YouTube chat. And so that way, if it's useful to you, all of our debates while they're live on YouTube are also live on Twitch. And so want to encourage you to check that out. And then also you guys, yeah, so you'll see over here, I'm pointing to it right now. By the way, do you see my Thorin magnet right here? So Lord of the Rings? Yeah. And then here's another magnet. There's Gollum. Basically long story short, it says we're also on every podcast. I've been so encouraged and excited that people have been telling us like, yeah, like basically the podcast, I'm just encouraged that people have apparently found it useful that we've gotten a lot of positive ratings and thank you guys for having given the podcast ratings on your favorite podcast app. And so we are excited about that. Oh, and then I don't think I've ever really mentioned it. Our podcast is also, I mean, if you don't have a favorite podcast app already, we do have it linked in the description. So do want you to know about that. If that's useful to you, want to put that our podcast. Now that is in the chat. It always like, yeah, it slams like the links together though, doesn't look good. Let me see if I can do better. But yeah, basically, we just appreciate you guys supporting the podcast. Your ratings help a lot. That's encouraging. We appreciate that. So thank you for that. And yeah, Brooke is right. A couple of things. One, if you happen to be a subscriber on Twitch, I want to let you know. Really important, you guys, if you are using the Amazon Prime free Twitch subscription to help support modern day debate, which does help us. And so if you do have, I want to let you know if you happen to have Amazon Prime, that means a lot. We really do appreciate you guys supporting us. Want to let you know though, you have to renew that each month. And so if you were subscribed to us via your Amazon Prime free Twitch subscription, you already went through the trouble of enabling your Amazon Prime free Twitch sub. And so, hey, I like, you know, it's an easy thing if you go into Twitch and you just quick go in there and re-subscribe to us. And you just again, click on use my free Amazon Prime Twitch subscription. That helps support the channel. So I just want to let you know it's every 30 days that you have to renew that. Because otherwise it automatically for the Amazon Prime subscription in particular, it will unsub you every month. And so I just want to let you know you have to renew it. And maybe you're like, Hey, man, I don't know how to make it. I don't know how to use my Amazon Prime membership to get that free Twitch subscription out of it. Well, I just linked how to do it in the chat. And so I just want to let you know about that. If you want to learn how to do that, there's a link in the chat and it takes you to this web page that basically explains like how you can use your Amazon Prime subscription to help the channel and we appreciate that support. So thank you. Last appreciate you bringing it up, Brooke. Is that we do have in the description as well our Amazon affiliate link. So do we I think it's still there. Let me see. Oh yeah, here it is. So here's how this works guys, is that we have this Amazon portal link so that if you happen to click on our Amazon portal link, if you happen to click on it and then you buy something within, I think it's like after you click to go on Amazon and then you buy something within like, I can't remember the time, but basically if you buy something like 3% goes to moderate a debate, which we appreciate that support that helps a lot. And so our Amazon portal link, if you're ever going to make a big purchase on Amazon like, hey, please keep us in mind that you can click on that Amazon portal link, which is in our description boxes. And then if you just enter Amazon through that and then search for whatever you're searching for and if you buy it, that helps. We appreciate that support as well as yeah, like that adds up. So we appreciate you guys doing that. It means a lot in terms of your support of the channel. And it also shows all of the stuff that we have in terms of like products or devices that we use. So for example, this blue Yeti is in the list of our Amazon Prime or not Amazon Prime or Amazon portal link. You can see all the stuff we use. We don't keep it a secret. Zell Drizzo, good to see you says, Hey, James, thanks for the shout out last show request for debate on biblical inspiration and inerrancy. The live ended before I could say thanks. So thank you. Thanks so much. That means a lot friend. I appreciate that. We're glad you're here, man. And Endo XD glad to see you to glad to see you again, buddy. Thanks for coming by says, Did I miss the debate again? Yes, you did. But we'll be back tomorrow night and tomorrow night I think is going to be epic. You guys I'm really excited for that for that one too. So you don't want to miss it folks. Thanks for hanging out with us guys. Thanks for all of your support. We appreciate you. We hope you have a great rest of your night and we'll hopefully see you tomorrow. It's going to be a lot of fun. So keep sifting out the reasonable from the unreasonable everybody. And I just appreciate you guys. Love you. You make this fun. Take care and we will hopefully see you tomorrow for that epic debate on whether or not Krishna exists.