1 Atheist vs 25 Christians (feat. Alex O'Connor) | Surrounded

but when a child dies of leukemia could there be a purpose to it did God command the ethnic cleansing of the land of Israel I'm not saying the Scribe made something up I'm saying the Scribe has a command so where did they get that command from from God I had Jesus appeared to Me 3 years ago I don't know what's happening there I have to suspect it's some kind of psychological phenomenon hi my name is Alex o Conor I'm an atheist and host of the within reason podcast and today I'm surrounded by 25 Christians who

God willing might be able to change my mind my first claim is that suffering makes God's EX distance unlikely good work heex how's it going how's it going nice to meet you Sage why don't you just begin why why is uh suffering or evil make God's existence unlikely I think we're confronted with two hypotheses so atheism naturalism or theism we should ask what we expect would occur under either hypothesis and then we look at the world and we see what does actually occur and what do we find we find I think most relevant here a

system of natural selection the mechanism by which God apparently chose to bring animals and ultimately human beings into existence a system which is defined by suffering survival of the fittest is the same thing as the death and suffering and destruction of the unfit I'm told the very mechanism that God chose to bring about the human species as the ultimate end of his creation was one that is imbued with suffering such that 99.9% of all the species let alone animals that have ever existed on planet Earth have been brutally wiped from existence into exension and I

think that that's less likely on theism if you assume atheism or materialism not only do you explain this you also come to expect it what is your I guess epistemology how would you how do you know that this is the case that it's less likely and that you know an atheist worldview naturalistic worldview would look like the way it is today of course we don't know but that's why I use the phraseology of unlikely I think that if you were to tell somebody who was sort of in some um you know rulian state of nature

hadn't seen the world and you said that the world has been created by an omni benevolent all powerful God what kind of world would that person be imagining and if you dropped them into the world if you if you were given the opportunity to become a wild animal like in 2 seconds I was just going to turn you into a random wild animal somewhere on planet Earth I think I like being a guy I think you probably kill yourself before I had the opportunity because you know that the life of these animals is almost defined

in terms of their suffering I guess I just don't really see how you can justify that claim per se um what I would say is that if we actually take into account the holistic view of the scriptures which I do think that you have to do we see that it's actually much more coherent once you acknowledge that evil itself doesn't have on ology evil is not a thing you don't look under a rock and say there's the evil right so I'm not really talking about evil here because that's of course a moral term I'm talking

about suffering you can you distinct IE suffering and evil so evil is a moral term evil means that something is bad it's immoral you need to have a moral ontology for that suffering is just any experience that's not wanted when experienced right and so even if you don't have a moral objectivism you can still say that suffering exists so here's a question a deer gets its leg caught under the branch of a tree that's fallen over in the world and it starves to death in confused Agony why does God oversees this and why does God

set the natural world up such that events like this occur well because the ultimate view here is that okay pause nice to meet good work how my Manet okay so my first question to start out with is what exactly about suffering makes this unlikely on the condition that God exists I think that if God is all loving then he probably wouldn't want his creatures to suffer and so I think that the fact that they do suffer makes his existence less likely okay perfect and is there some specific aspect of suffering that you're particularly honing in

on horrendous or whatever in particular nonhuman animal suffering because I think that the Christianity has a celebrated tradition of theodes trying to explain why suffering exists human free will the development of the Soul higher order goods all of this kind of stuff none of which apply to the suffering of non-human animals have you heard of the axiological expectation mismatch problem I have not okay so philosophers of religion have started to understand that the thing that actually generates a problem between God and suffering is actually the value system you attach to the very attribute of perfect

lovingness because the problem of evil is an internal critique you have to look at a very specific version of theism and how it defines perfect lovingness I want to present to you a version where my version of perfect lovingness does not actually constitute a problem and a misalignment that mismatch between the suffering of animals just to say the profusion of suffering of animals and existence of god so let's hear what what kind of God are we imagining that would allow and oversee and do nothing to prevent billions of years of Untold animal suffering right so

you're talking about non- prevention or or setting up the system that is natural selection such that that it relies upon things like predation disease well the first part is I don't agree with the whole setting up the system part so I'm not one of those theists that believes that God does this select and pick idea of creating worlds I don't think that God actually creates worlds I think that God lets worlds develop according in a certain way but because God can oversee an overarching narrative he knows exactly how he can redeem anything so the first

sorry go ahead could God have made it such that animals were all herbivores instead of uh carnivores and omnivores yes he could totally do that okay so so had he done that here's an instant way to to reduce by orders of magnitude the amount of suffering that exists but hold on that's particularly assuming a value Theory already that I haven't told you I'm adopting that has a problem with the evil so I have to give you my value Theory first for you to show that misalignment let's let's hear perfect okay so my value Theory says

that it's not the most important thing about a sentient creature is not what merely happens to them it's about the total timeline of their life and how and where their life permanently ends meaning if you were to judge an author of a narrative and the first few chapters let's say there's a lot of bad things happening but the end ends with this Crescendo where there's Victorious there's Redemption there's Beauty and everyone in the story actually endorses their entire existence that they live they can look at their whole they can look at the total timeline and

they actually each subjectively come to the conclusion I'm glad I was made and I totally see what my suffering was for that's the particular I'm I'm using with so we have to judge hold on we like John hick says we have to judge the very nature of God's lovingness by what he does in the end not these few time slices that we observe right now for you to show that there's a problem you have to show to me that the suffering of animals cannot be transformed are intrinsically cut off from being transformed into a life

that they will endorse there's a couple thesis on the table but sure go ahead okay so so are you talking about the end of their life is in their end of life on Earth or you talking about the afterlife I'm I'm anorm postmortem okay because if you're just talking about life on Earth then I would say that if you were if you had an author writing a book and a character if we were trying to figure out the relationship between that author and the person in the book and that person in the book shows up

for 5 seconds in the first chapter and is a child who almost immediately dies of cancer in an incredibly painful way and there's no development there's no there's no sort of bringing back to life and suddenly everyone's grateful for it is just this miserable tragic experience and I asked well what did the author not wants do for the story of the book but wants to do for that character I think it would be pretty damning and and also when it comes to animals we're talking about animals who who are predated on from the moment that

they begin existence they sort of have disease you know zebras when they're killed by lions are often too big to be killed instantly so they die over minutes with their wind pipes caught in the jaws of a lion how can this be developing a zebra which by the way probably doesn't even have the same kind of first person conscious experience that humans do in order to sort of rationalize and abstract and learn from their their sort of past and morally develop in that way they just suffer and and and what kind of God could oversee

this okay so there's there's a lot of assumptions on the table again again you're assuming a particular value system that I'm not I'll tell you what I'm assuming here what I'm assuming here is that God would a good God would not allow unnecessary suffering to obtain okay gotcha so we can talk age we can talk about unnecessary suffering we're talking about the just the justifying norms for suffering you're saying it has to be in terms of necessity which is an evil is only authoriz by God if it's in connection to a greater good or prevention

of a greater evil correct if there's some kind of justification for allowing that but you're saying it's a necessary connection why you what's the term of necessity so so perhaps I should say unjustified instead of unnecessary okay so we both agree I do not believe that God can authorize justifi unjustified suffering tell tell me how that example that I gave you the deer with his leg starving is Justified because it's intrinsically redeemable and my the Norms I'm working with is not this NE this not this necessity condition that you're working with mine is about redeemable

suffering redeemability or we call De feasability if that suffering can be defeated within the creatur's life and I'll Define what I mean by defeat which is that they can retroactively look back at what they went through and integrate it into your life history where they look at their life I have to interrupt because the example I gave you is one where the deer dies yes the deer dies but here's the thing what you're you're probably talking about this postmortem example I'm going to put one thesis on the table there's two philosophers that defend exactly what

this goes through one one defends that animals will be given a martyrdom status well God will be able to present them himself in a way to animals in the afterlife such that in the same way you could give praise to a dog and the dog emotionally recognizes that he's loved and that his life is worth living right to these animals that suffered like that there's one view on the table which is that God will give them a praiseworthy status where they will be able to to actually see can we talk about that claim because these

animals are suffering for what I mean God God might cause them to suffer me end God might cause them to suffer a bunch and then essentially redeem them in the after like but what for like why do this if if I were to punch you in the face and then give you $20,000 afterwards you might be grateful for the $20,000 but why couldn't I just give you the $20,000 well see so so that's assuming so I saw your debate with Trent you've been voted out by the majority your seat good stuff so close hey nice

to meet you Hayden how are you Hayden nice to me would you say that theism or atheism better account for the idea that suffering exists and a purpose for it depends exactly what you mean uh because of course you might say that the world itself is more expected on theism and since suffering you know needs the existence of the world that it's theism but granted the existence of a material world let's say I think atheism okay why does suffering exist at all uh like in an atheistic worldview what is the cause of suffering oh well

because however life began it developed through a series of natural selection which requires animals to develop senses that they wish to avoid in order to be more likely to survive and that's why pain receptors evolve in a world where not all of these pains are actually going to kill us we're left with situations in which we're in a lot of pain but don't end up dying for it would you agree that Consciousness is necessary for suffering uh I would say probably yeah does atheism account for Consciousness yes that's what I was talking about a moment

ago perhaps not maybe theism accounts better for Consciousness than atheism does so if there is no consciousness there is no suffering is that right that's probably true yeah so if atheism cannot account for Consciousness then it cannot account for suffering would you agree with that I I so I think what doing here is we're sort of slightly Shifting the goalposts um if if you don't want to Grant the existence of the material world before we start talking about this we can do an argument from Consciousness but then we need to debate whether Consciousness is more

is explicable on atheism what I'm going to say is this what I'm going to say is this Consciousness may seem to imply the existence of a conscious creator of the universe we're here talking about I suppose we're talking about Christianity the claim was about God but the god that you believe in let's say uh if we grant that there is a Creator deity who sort of brings about the universe of conscious creatures have you ever heard of the evil God hypo that Steven La popularized or came with so the idea is that like imagine that

there's a God who brings about the world and creates the world but does it maliciously because he wants human beings to suffering uh to suffer he brings about a world in order so that human beings will suffer right that seems like a plausible hypothesis and even if you think that Consciousness points towards God the kind of God that that a lot of Christians think is a sort of necessary quality of God which is to be all loving might not have to apply here can I ask a question yes if Christianity were true is it plausible

that suffering is necessary Neary for God's purpose for if Christianity is true then I think it must be necessary because there be no other expl okay so we're not talking about whether or not Christianity is true but if you're asking me if it's plausible that Christianity is true and therefore suffering is necessary I would say probably not because I don't think suffering could should be necessary or could be necessary in an atheistic world view I would agree with you it makes no sense at all but okay I would ask this question so so can I

ask you why why then if God exists and wants to come to know everybody and wants to love everybody and does so for the sake of human beings why he chose to imbue the world with so much suffering that is at least seemingly completely inexplicable are you a father no I'm a father mhm I want my son to become just like I am better than I am I should say I want him to become the best that he can be is it possible for him to become to reach his potential without suffering in his life

perhaps not but there's two there so suffering is necessary there are a few things I want to say here firstly that kind of moral development doesn't apply to non-human animals as I've already said right that does not account for that does not account for the brutal death of animals in the also if I don't want to talk about your son because it's tragic to think about but somebody else's son has suffered and died immediately as a result of that suffering they don't get to develop in the same way I would agree that on a micro

level it's very hard to justify and we can ask the question why doesn't God intervene on all you might be able to justify an amount of suffering right but the fact that there's so much gratuitous suffering in the world is what I think makes God's existence unlikely there are some instances where maybe a certain amount of suffering brings about a certain amount of good in a situation that by the way would coun as ajus ification but when a child dies of Leukemia and they're dead could there be a purpose to it what if what if

the death of the child brings their parents to God then perh then then the parents should be grateful that their child got leukemia because it's doing the will of the Lord necessar that seems to me please return to your seat you're so cool hey hey how's it going I'm awesome I would love to pull back a little bit sure and ask you what are your values kind of rooted in and grounded in where would we start with ah so I'm an ethical emotivist which is a form of ethical non-cognitivism I don't think that ethical claims

have truth value I think they're expressions of emotion if we're pulling back a little bit I remember reading at the end of Richard Dawkins book The The God Delusion that we can't trust our senses because Evolution doesn't really care about making truth claims it cares about surviving I I don't agre that I don't think Dawkins actually endorsed that argument but but it's a good argument CS Lewis Alin planting the argument from reason sure but would you agree or disagree with that well I mean I I remain agnostic on what reason is but I think it's

a powerful argument when it comes to determining if suffering is wrong or right so okay so crucially I'm not saying that suffering is morally wrong outside of the senses that I as an emotivist will just Express an emotion towards it that I don't like it I'm not claiming that it's immoral that it's objectively bad what I'm claiming is that suffering is unexpected on theism it's an internal critique right Lincoln said of slavery if this is not wrong then nothing is wrong you don't have to believe that something's wrong but if there is such a thing

as objective morality I don't think that it would consist in a God who oversees the amount of suffering that we have on planet Earth uh Timothy Keller does the story about NOS have have you heard of the no story no yeah so he says if if you have a tent and you look in there and you say hey I think I have some dogs on the tent maybe like for example I have golden doodle he's a killer that was just a joke but we can move on and if I said hey I have a golden

doodle inside the tent you would expect to see one but if I said hey there's some no seum the these little knots are so tiny they actually go through the screen sure he says there's some no seum in the tent you might look in there and go I don't see any no CMS mhm but of course you don't see no CMS because nobody can see them okay so just because there's maybe not a reason that we can identify does it mean that there can't be a reason now it's kind of cold comfort that doesn't get

us 100% of the way there but it it gets us part of the way there that's true so so the existence of evil is not logically or suffering is not logically incompatible with God's existence but it's a bit like if somebody came up to to me right now and stole my friend's wallet in front of me and shot him dead and ran away and I was grieving and somebody said to me well hey man you don't know that person might have worked for the CIA and your your friend might have secretly been harboring the nuclear

codes and killing him might have been good for the country and he stole the wallet because that's where the codes were and I would say well what evidence do you have for that and you say well look just because I don't have evidence for it doesn't mean that there might not be some evidence that I don't know about I would say until I see why I should think that's the case I'm not going to believe it and I'm certainly not going to be less upset in my grieving over my friend because of the possibility that

there could be an expl an explanation for it there's so much suffering imbued in The Human Experience that if somebody says well look there could be an explanation it's like okay fine but let me know when you know what it is is I think the right pause you've been voted out by the majority please return to your seats all right thank you good fun hello hey nice to meet you meet you good repeat your claim one more time that suffering is unexpected if a good God exists unexpected So when you say unexpected like you're caught

off guard by it or you're expecting like all good things to happen over time that if I assume that there is a good god supervising and vigila the universe that I would not expect to see so much suffering right so much gratuitous seemingly unnecessary suffering right and you know the most beautiful thing is that our God is Not unfamiliar with suffering as he suffered himself so would you say that there is like some beauty in suffering in some way uh I would say that there there can be sort of poetically you can look at suffering

and think that's a beautiful story but I don't think that the person suffering especially if they die as a direct result might think that also I think that if if I knew someone whose child died of Leukemia and suffered for it right and I went to them and said but hey there's some beauty in the suffering isn't there I think I'd be kicked out of the funeral right well I would say like the same thing for a woman giving birth right it's suffering like it sucks it hurts sure but imagine you could have the giving

birth without the pain of giving birth would you prefer that of course yeah you will prefer that so then if God can bring about the good stuff without the bad stuff then there's no reason to bring about the bad stuff so what we have to show is why the bad stuff is necessary to bring about the good stuff otherwise it's not just right well could you say that the result of why we suffer is because of fall of Man I would say not cuz I don't believe in the fall of Man um but I also

don't think that that explains non-human animal suffering the big thing that I want to keep pressing is that the theodes that we talk about Free Will full of man all of this kind of stuff I don't think applies to that deer with its leg caught under the branch that's dying in confused Agony what's this for so what what is it about animals that seem so like more important than a human it's not that they're more important it's that as you say like it seems plausible at least that a human can suffer and then be sort

of better off for it or that they can enjoy poetry of suff the Poetry of suffering animals can't do that animals can't enjoy the Poetry of suffering well I mean I wouldn't know I never like talked to an animal and said like hey I I have they just haven't they just haven't talked back is the problem but I I just don't see why we would expect that God would oversee this system of natural selection billions of animals suffering and d and dying predation disease eating each other alive leaving each other to bleed out on the

floor and this is being supervised by an all loving God well do you think that's God's intention from the very beginning of creation of all things I think that God oversees the mechanism MH God could have made it for example one example that I've already given is that God could have made anal herbivores which just eliminates the problem of predation I mean there are some animals there are there are but he could have made more of them he could have made all animals herbivores thereby eliminating the suffering of predation so the issue of them eating

each other that's one issue that's one way that God could have sort of I think quite trivially reduced the amount of suffering David atra once said of his documentaries people who complain that we put too much violence in the documentaries should see what we leave in The Cutting Room floor the animal world is just filled with unimaginable suffering just predation is there's also things about like you know otter holding hands so they don't swim away without suffering that's the question thanks so much fun that conversation was so interesting it reminds me of that unfortunate time

that Billy R his unicycle to an open pothole yeah didn't he like dislocate both his arms and break his leg and even lose a tooth yeah I'm so glad he recovered from that he went through such a treacherous process trying to Sue and he barely even got compensated it must have taken him like 3 to four months to get a lawyer it was it was horrible yeah the sad part was his legal feeds were comparable to compensation I mean I'm sure there's a firm out there that does online appointments and all the paperwork for you

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and Morgan for sponsoring this portion of this episode could we please get back to the video my next claim is that God commands genocide in the Bible hey how's it going nice to meet you right this is a bummer of a claim right like when you look at scripture right I agree there is a myriad of problematic things we see in scripture from genocide to misogyny to slavery right and I would say that we find genocide in scripture I would argue though do you agree with my claim yeah I think it's in scripture yeah I

mean I think it's in there okay well thanks for watching everyone yeah this is good yeah good stuff so I mean but here's what I would say I ought to do with this claim as a Christian if you're okay with entertaining that idea right so we see mass murder in scripture right and so one of my greatest friends Rabbi Josh Stanton he's a rabbi the Hebrew scriptures are his that's where we're finding these genocides right yeah so so to spell it out we've got I think the two most problematic in 1 Samuel 15 the destruction

of AMC and in the Book of Joshua the destruction of Jericho and the destruction of I so for the sake of the audience who might not know about this in 1 Samuel for example the amalekites are a Canaanite tribe they're in the land that's been promised to Israel Israel are instructed through the prophet Samuel King Saul is told to completely destroy the amalekites leave nothing alive that breathes kill man and woman child and infant cattle and sheep and in fact when Israel does us there instructed they destroy AMC uh except Saul decides to keep the

King as a captive and he also saves the best of the animals the prophet Samuel comes to him and says what have you done and he says well we we kept the best of the of the animals in order to sacrifice to the Lord and it says twice that God regrets that he made Saul King why does he regret that he made Saul King because Saul didn't follow his commandment to completely destroy the amalekites by keeping the king alive and by keeping the best of the livestock Saul says we kept the livestock alive to burn

as a sacrifice to the Lord and Samuel says what pleases the Lord more burnt offerings or the following of his commands sure and so we know that we're talking about what I would Define here as a genocide yeah so it's in there right and I would say this is a great place where things like Progressive Christianity serve us quite well not in the idea that God is progressing but humanity is progressing further to a greater understanding of God's ethic and Justice I would also say when I look at scripture I would actually be opposite for

most of my contemporaries here I don't read it as 100% literal like I don't need Scripture to be a history book a literal book so I look and I have to say well what is this telling me and it's a awful story might I say a story for us to have to go through and navate G right and I would go back to my friend again who was a rabbi who we had this conversation just in Friendship about how he reconciles to the Holocaust I haven't been a part of this genocide but he's talking about

the one you're referencing in scripture right I wasn't around for it but this is one that is in relatable human history that we can have family members that were a part of right and for my friend who has had this not compromise his faith that was the question I asked him right like this is a genocide that was against your people and your religion and and for people that really loved God on a deep and a profound level like how is this not shaking your faith and for him and for me and for many others

as you look at scripture I mean I think that God is ultimately always pulling us toward greater levels of justice and when we look into this story in history like I think people are recording a potentially historic genocide that they are trying to make sense of in their religious worldview and so they're super impoving language for God do you think that God commanded this to happen I am not super interested in that conversation but I would say potentially okay because for me the problem is that if you have God explicit L commanding this to happen

Okay pause I think you're asking the Bible to do what it wasn't intended to do is what I would say sure than you've been voted out please return to your seat I'm sitting okay if he touched it first if he touched it first then yes I need to get down the adrenaline just a little bit after that run um yeah I think um what you bring is interesting like I think you know if we were to look at the literal definition of Bible I think we can see that God commanded a person to commit genocide

so I think we're aligned there you mean the definition of genocide yes yeah so with that being said though I I think when we look at Christian theology in the full when Adam and Eve decide to disobey god um technically we're all you know subjected to death subjected to the wages of sin the penalty of sin I'm not a perfect person I deserve the worst right and that's because and the only reason why I'm happily breathing is because you know Jesus saved me right and so when we look at this pretense like because we fell

um you know I know this is a very unpopular thing God can do whatever he wants right whether it's you know genocide putting us to death you know we've talked about suffering and all these things so can I ask you a question then yes suppose that you woke up tomorrow and you've been sort of transported into Canaan you wake up and you're a Canaanite and you think you haven't done anything particularly wrong but you're a bad person you're a sinner right and then the Israelites come knocking at the door and you know that they've been

sent by God and they come to your door and you say to yourself well I know that this is the will of God even though it's really horrible God can do whatever he likes so you say please don't kill me Mr Israelite instead let me first betray my family to you because I know the will of the Lord would you allow that to happen I will contest it with this right we are all we all fall short of the glory of God it says that in Romans right so like whatever I'm subjected to I'm not

entitled to a good life like I think even me living is a gift from God the fact that I can talk to you is a gift do you think that applies to like infants yes unfortunately yes I know it's an unpopular opinion so you think infants are deserving of the treatment they're given in Samuel I think because we all fell yes I'm sorry you've been voted out please return to your seat that was so good to meet you hey how's it going nice to meet you okay uh I disagree I'd love to look at the

case of the uh the amalekites in 1 Samuel 15 sure so 1 Samuel 15 it says he uses that phrase every man woman child and then the lists off the animals right so we presume that by the end of that if only AAG and the animal comes comes back that they're all dead and then they show up right later chapter 27 and in Chapter 30 uh even King AAG his descendants come up in the Book of Esther yes that's right so like if we if we're if we're saying just for example we have verification that

there are children related to amalekites who must have been there because it's aag's children where else would they be and they're alive because his descendants go on through hmon which comes up in Esther so yeah how do you there are a few things to say firstly one of the points where uh some of the amalekites uh come up again it's explicitly said that these are who escaped these are people who escaped and so it's possible that God commanded that all of AMC was destroyed and the word heram there means utterly destroy that might also involve

a driving out of the land so it's possible that some of them escaped and that's where we get the descendants from that that seems totally plausible to me the question is did God command a genocide by the way genocide includes forcible expulsion from somebody's land in a case of ethnic cleansing what I'm looking at here is did God command the ethnic cleansing of the land of Israel from people like the amalekites people like I people like Jericho and I think the answer is clearly yes like for example do you think that any innocent children maybe

let's not use the word innocent for theological reasons but do you think that any infants were killed in the destruction of AMC I have no idea I don't think that it's recorded okay but you think that God definitely commanded the the killing of no I don't think I think that's I think that's hyperbolic phrasing and I and I know I've heard you say it before I heard you talk about this you know you've heard that before that it's hyperbole but I think you can demonstrate it in Babylonian Sumerian writings very similar there's even there's an

Egyptian Steely which says that Israel was wiped out and their seed was utterly removed it was gone and so we've got like comparable phrases used in other ancient near Eastern communities uh in their historical texts that talk very similarly but like we know that the Jews persisted to exist in Israel even though the Egyptians said that they were no more and they that text explicitly says man woman and child that's hyperbolic language that even we used today like for example in World War II there those huge posters that were put up every man woman and

child is needed you know like that's I can read that and go sure sure but so imagine for example I mean there's a there's a discussion at the moment about whether Israel is committing a genocide in Palestine today now suppose a lot of people said but you're killing children and Israel said yeah but that's just product of War imagine if we discovered that behind the scenes prime minister of Israel had said leave alive nothing that breathes kill everyone kill man kill woman kill child and infant kill the animals kill the donkeys don't leave anything alive

that breathes even if he was trying to sort of make a hyperbolic point the fact that children are then dying as a result I think that we could lay some blame At His Feet here we have God saying that th those are the words that are recorded also on the point of hyperbole when we get into the Book of Joshua and the destruction of the nation of I it's explicitly said that 12,000 people died that day all the people of I it's says it does imply that some people ran away because it says I have

it here in uh in Joshua chapter 8 when Israel had finished killing all of the men of eye in the fields and the Wilderness where they had chased them and by the way earlier it says not a man remained in I or bethl who did not go after Israel because Israel sort of draw them out of the city and they'd pretend to run away and I runs after them it says not a man remained in I it then says when Israel had finished killing all of the men in the fields in the wilderness where they

chased them and when every one of them been put to the sword the Israelites turned around returned to I and killed everyone who was left if there was not a man who was left in I who hadn't run out and been killed in the wilderness when they turn around and kill everyone who's left who is it that they're killing it's the women it's the children we're then told that 12,000 people fell that day all the people of I and it says 12,000 men and women so we know that women who were non-combatants were also killed

even if there's hyperbolic language being used here we know that we're being told that specifically 12,000 people died including non-combatant women uh okay so I think for the example in 1 Samuel 15 these are ancient texts you know it's literature so we don't like go over and above like how interpreting literature works so even though the text can saying this is what God said well it's it's still in a literary form do you think God said that do you think it's accur well I mean I wasn't there I didn't hear it I think that the

Old Testament scripture is inspired and I think that it doesn't fail in its representation of revealing God like for example like we talked about the New Testament right um John Chapter 2 he puts the the the temple expulsion moment at the beginning of his gospel do I think that John is actually concerned with the chronology there no I don't think that I think it's a literary tool so and I think the Bible is full of that they're literary text and they're assembled in a certain way so I don't think that uh necessarily that means that

God was the one using the hyperbole but describe recording the events and sort of summarizing what happened says okay so God commands to attack the amalekites but that does that mean that God is the one who did the hyperbolizing I don't think think it be problematic you mentioned the cleansing of the temple and you said that even though the chronology is off the the point is recorded if we had a story of the cleansing of the temple if we discovered some early manuscript some some version of John where Jesus goes into the temple he starts

cleansing the temple flipping over tables and then he starts beating up children just starts punching them because he's so angry right what would you think of that you'd probably think either it didn't happen or if you could prove that it diden happen that Jesus was less moral than you thought he was or if for some reason people believe that that's what he did I think it' be a problem for you and I think that if you're looking at a good God here the fact that even this is reported as something that he said and this

is part of the Jewish tradition that basically nobody disputes is at least theologically accurate but you to demonst children being killed in the Old Testament you you haven't actually shown that so yes I would find that to be problematic but you haven't shown innocent children being killed in the old there's the command to kill children right I just we just W talked through all of that so so you think God was hyperbolizing I think scri is hyperbolizing I think the Scribe izing God's command okay fine so you think that the Scribe has inaccurately recorded the

command of God therefore the Old Testament is so like that's not the same thing though I'm like I'm not saying the Scribe made something up I'm saying the Scribe has a command so where did they get that command from from God delivered through a prophet so but did did did God say to the prophet Samuel leave Al nothing that breathes kill every man and woman I don't I don't necess know that I would I would think that because if if he did then we've got the command to kill innocent children if he didn't then we've

got a problem of of the accuracy of the old test no I I don't agree with that at all like I said it's literature right so God can say something and the recording of the event can employ literary devices like hyper which what I think is happening I want to go to to Jericho what you're talking about there because you talked about that a lot more uh I think for example like with with uh Jericho we have all the reason to believe that Jericho is a military stronghold um I think that's the case I think

that's historically accurate and so we're not like just looking at Israel going in and you know just uh just sort like killing for no reason right it's it's a it's a military conquest I I think you'd be hard pressed to find a single nation in all of human history that was founded without violence I agree right that's never happened I understand why you would say it's problematic that God is instructing that which which I get God would not instruct that I mean you know my country is thought of as beginning in 1066 with the Norman

Invasion right and like it may be I can imagine there was some report that that said that you know that King was shouting you know kill them and then go and kill their wives and then go and kill their children leave like show no mercy I can totally see someone saying that and in them not being taken literally but if God says that this is still part of the Eternal scripture of God that people have in their pews that's in the hotel room I don't know so much anymore in secular America do you open it

up to a random page especially given the undertones of what's happening in the world right now honestly I'm not like if I'm going to be completely honest I think uh in the Book of Genesis when God leads Abraham to the promised land he says to them I'll bring you back here in several Generations when the Amorite sin is is filled up like that language when the bucket is all the way filled sinful people right so I and I understand why that can be problematic but I when I when I read the text I believe that

that God is allowed to judge people being that he created everything and he's allowed to use human beings to do that including human being okay pause you've been voted out by the majority please your seat all right really quick before we begin the discussion I'm going to give you this gift and also use my point for the topic of genocide because you're saying that God commands genocide correct so you're making this God sound like a very hating God that like hateful just genocidal like genocidal okay so here's this personal gift I would like to to

give to you it says cast your anxieties because he cares for you the way how you're portraying this God when you say that very broad statement of God commanding genocide I disagree because in the beginning of the Bible God is love at the end of the Bible God is love our fellow peer he stated that our God is a very just God so can we argue that or say that even though this God perhaps like in the beginning of the Old Testament that's where the genocide occurs a lot we can also say that so do

you think genocide does occur if it did say that in the Bible I just want to say that like these people also went to heaven it's not like they're getting like killed and punished in that moment he's also taking these Souls of the woman and children and taking them with him if that's the case but the whole argument is about God like okay I I have a question then do you think it's okay to kill people because they'll eventually just go to heaven anyway after you kill them it's not about killing it's just like people

who get abortions doing their unborn children a favor by killing them in the womb therefore giving them a fast track to heav this is a different approach to genocide but I just want to say like I don't think you get to inflict a side and then sort of just make up for it with the fact that you send them to Heaven afterwards I maybe you do but the problem is that the Israelites are also sinful people and when the Israelites are sinful they get the prophet of God with literal stone tablets telling them how to

correct their path the Canaanites are sinful people and when they're sinful people they get the Israelites coming in and wiping but our God is a just God and I feel like even sinful people pause you've been voted out your chair hello hello hi Alex nice to meet you so you you pointed out several passages but the prophets through and through condemn Israel in much harsher terms and in fact God dispersed them in much greater judgments because they were and in fact in Ezekiel it says that because you were supposed to be the light of the

world you are judged all the more strictly and are more responsible so God was just with Israel in fact he placed more of a burden and a mantle and a responsibility on them and judge them for it than he did the Nations and case in point what's already brought up was the the the number Generations that passed before the amalekites were judged and the Canaanites were judged y but we can come back to that point okay can I ask you then yes how do you define genocide right if I may I actually have a question

I wanted to ask you first I think it's important to know what we're talking about what is a genocide based on the word genome obviously emically we understand that it's you're taking it as a tribal seed line which is fair be tribe religion I can I can understand and we're talking about the destruction or attempted destruction Orion People based on characteristics here's the problem genocide uh the way it's especially the way it's used today implies that it's based on the race and that is categorically against the command of God to conquer the Canaanites it had

nothing to do with their race it had to do with their sin and in fact this is so you know that when when AMC is attacked right uh Israel first warns another tribe that they're coming yes and says get out of here CU cuz you were good to us when we came out of Egypt AMC battled them when they came out of Egypt he say to this other tribe you guys get out of here they warn them right right they don't say Hey you get to stay here they say you've got to go but we're

going to warn you first that we don't totally destroy you that's right in other words it does seem to be I mean why is it why is it that Israel are going into this land the nation why are they going into this land because it was the land promised to them by God why does it need to be cleansed because there are people in that land to beuy chap 7 chapter 9 he says do not think that it is because of your righteousness or because of anything has to do with you that I brought you

into the sign but it was because of the sins of the Nations that I gave it gave it to you this is Deuteronomy chapter 9 so it's not it's not because he promised them based on some sort of ethnic requisite he in fact the whole premise behind the destruction was the Prototype of Sodom and Gomorrah so yeah so so so then a question which iype because Noah was a question which I think I'll know the answer to then do you think there was not one sort of good person no exactly and that's the point and

if that's the cas that's why brought let me ask you a second question well on let me let me answer your question a little bit more fully there any good people in Israel in the nation of Israel right so let me answer your question if the answer is that there were bad people in Israel too why is it that they don't get killed as well well the slaughter of the children has the slaughter of the children has the same problem because it has to do with innocence okay so let me address that that problem no

no nobody's Innocent but my my my specific question is no but you're saying the children in the in the land of Canaan are are innocent and they're being slaughtered no I'm not that's not what I'm saying right now what I'm saying is what I'm saying is that I I retracted the word innocent because I know it can be a bit tricky um but what I'm saying specifically here is that if the reason why Canan is destroyed is because they're immoral there's all kinds of immorality happening within the Israelite hold on hold on happening within the

Israelite Nation as well if it's not about Nation if it's not about tribe then why is it that Israel aren't told to kill the immoral people in their tribe but only people in the other tribe no no they are and in fact that's what they do and in fact the entire generation that was promised the promised land died out without seeing the promised land because of their sin but not but not at the hands of the Israelites okay fine but but the Israelites are not told to expunge their own nation of theill their children and

killing their animals give you a yeah perfect I'll give you a thought experiment let's suppose let's suppose that tomorrow we find out that the uh pedophilia rings that conspiracy theory is somehow true like just imagine like uh you know V Vendetta style like imagine like hackers just broadcast everything that was was going on the the all the all the blackmail tapes the Diddy files the whatever okay you get the point so you have you have this sudden revelation of this Grand conspiracy and it's and it's on a scale that no one ever imagined okay would

you say that there is Justice in bringing those people obviously no one would disagree in fact the public opinion on execution might change at that point and even the guillotine might come back who knows if if but I wouldn't kill that children no right okay so I'm getting there so we'll get there step by step let's start with the men and the women so let's suppose this in this example the conspiracy theory is true and everybody finds out and then everybody agrees that the men and the women that were involved in this pedophilia ring let's

say uh need to be judged okay someone has to do it we have no problem executing them we have the benefit of technology that gives us a bit of IND indirectness but if you didn't have that you would have to either do it yourself or have your execution we're talking here about military execution of non combatants which is a war crime right so no no no it's a war crime by quoting yeah but let me but you've been voted out by the majority it's [Music] okay it's great to see you let's hear it one more

time well okay one thing when it comes to ex Jesus and actually try to understand what scripture is saying I feel like we're playing an impossible game right now one of my friends Elijah is bringing up these great points about how there's intermarriage you know talked about not to do that after we're driving out people so crucially on that point sure it it says totally destroy them do not inter Mar with them do not and and I can totally people say well why would they be told not to intermar if they were told to destroy

them because you can imagine that there's a bunch of people like who want to invade a land and take their daughters as wives and God says no no no destroy them completely don't marry them don't interbreed with them don't don't take them as captives kill them all entirely this is not inconsistent with with the command of heram of utter destruction my my point is though we're playing an impossible game because we're reading this or at least we're talking about it right now like modern readers and not like ancient readers I mean it's almost like if

somebody were to pull out the Book of Revelation right now and say hey look the Bible says that he's going to pull people from all four corners of the earth that must mean that the earth I mean I would just be going that's not that's not exactly how we interpret scripture all right that's time I'm sorry really oh I'm sorry sorry man I'm sorry we didn't time sorry man thank you my next claim is is that there is insufficient evidence to believe in the resurrection okay okay nice to meet you how's it going this is

a really interdisciplinary question for the resurrection of Jesus and in my experience it kind of boils down into two categories M the prior probability of the resurrection of Jesus and the data itself so what I'm really interested in is the historical case of the resurrection of Jesus okay I want to ask a clarifying question because I I would love to talk about data but if I were to give you a model of the gospels that I would call like the historical reportage model which would says something along the lines of the authors of the gospels

were close to the times and places of the historical Jesus they rooted their historical work in eyewitness testimony and did not feel the freedom to make up historical facts because of that we can extract all the testimonies from these gospels and we have access to what the original eyewitnesses actually said and did okay so who do you think of the eyewitnesses that the testimony is being based on so this is where I'm not a walking encyclopedia but I would say if you you looked at all the testimonies we have 21 unique testimonies that are going

to be polymodal in nature they're going to have semblances of Independence and interdependence and some dependence because of the synoptic problem all that stuff if we were to get there would that be enough for you to say the probability that the resurrection happened relative to any other countering theory is higher uh no I don't think so so that tells me then that one it could be the prior probability still though that's an issue mhm cuz if that's not enough evidence it's not that I think that the authors of the gospels specifically on the resurrection can't

be trusted to be giving an accurate account of what happened yeah that's why I'm asking if we had this historical reportage model and that was true if it were true that they were reporting historical events then it would be a historical event yeah so let me clarify I don't think that they are yeah I got where let me clarify one thing here the historical reportage model does not entail what the reporting actually happened all I'm saying is that we can extract from there is that these were the actual eyewitness testimonies to the Risen Jesus okay

so I have a question for you do you think that Jesus is the only person outside of the people that Jesus and the apostles Rose in the dead do you think that he's the only person in human history that's risen from the dead yes okay so Matthew's gospel in Matthew chapter 27 says that at the time of the death of Jesus the graves of Jerusalem opened and the holy ones got out of their graves and then interestingly says then after the resurrection appeared to many many of them walked around appearing to many do you think

that that happened so I would just say that if the historical report model is true then yes so think but hold on the problem there is those are also talking about resuscitations most likely not resurrections yeah but what we're talking about here is is the graves of Jerusalem opening and many people getting out of their graves walking around Jerusalem and appearing to many I say yes what's at if this happened this would be the most extraordinary event that's ever happened in human history and yet and then you're going to make an argument from Silence from

there some arguments from Silence do work it is but then that's only one piece of EV anywhere it's not reported of theels it's not in Josephus it's so but let me finish this because this is important a lot of most Christian uh Scholars I think so people like Dale Allison for example believe that this didn't actually happen well I'm not interested when Allison is going to say the door that this opens what I'm interested in is what the data says so if we have the historical reportage model right but you keep saying we have this

model like that's fine let me give you some let me give you some evidence for the historical reportage model if this model is true one of the things I would expect to see be things like undesigned coincidences within the gospels tiny little in for the sake of time I I I understand what you're saying so so I think that a lot in the gospels is historically reliable and a lot is not things like undesigned coincidences you taking a paropy by paropy approach to this or how is like what methodology taking a story by story I

don't think that the I think that's the I don't think that's a good methodolog I don't think that the graves of Jerusalem were opened I don't think that there were people around understand where com if that's the case and that means that at least the author of Matthew is willing to invent stories of Resurrection in order to makeig difference there right because I know I know you like to for instance you like to talk about the flight to Egypt and you like to say that Matthew invented the flight to Egypt L um no Luke does

Luke's the one that doesn't mention it Matthew's the one that mentions it sorry sorry Matthew sorry yeah Matthew and then typically the way you run this argument is Matthew invented the flight to Egypt Luke doesn't mention it the reason why Luke doesn't mention it is because it didn't happen Matthew mentions it and he tells us why to put Jesus into prophecy here's a counter hypothesis what if it's just the case that Matthew is not making up historical facts and he's doing some sort of midrash and what I mean by this is that he's looking at

this historical thing that happened the flight to Egypt and taking this Hosea passage which by the way would be kind of a clunky passage to use if you wanted to make up a historical fact for prophecy because that Hosea passage is not inherently I think we might I have to be allowed to speak here I think we had been slightly off topic the problem with the birth narrative story is not just that a story is being invented to fulfill prophecy although we're told that that's why it's done the problem is that it contradicts the other

account that I'm totally fine with that so if you look at the birth narratives Al together I think there's room for one discrepancy and that is that Luke doesn't mention it l Luke says that they go to the temple what Luke says that they go to the temple yeah so so hold on let me finish it Luke says that the family go to the temple and present Jesus in Jerusalem Matthew says that they go to Egypt they're very far away from each other and we're told that they stay in Egypt until after the death of

Herod this is a contradiction no I I so again I okay pause you've been voted out by the majority please return to your seat [Music] good good to see again good to see you okay so historical case for the resurrection well before we get there I actually my main contention had to do with the example that was just brought up about the flight to Egypt I mean we can talk about it but what I really want to know here is how we know that the the resurrection of Jesus historically so so can I start with

a question for you for example do you believe that the graves opened and that the holy ones were walking around the city of Jerusalem appearing why reped other gospels anywhere this is the extraordinary that's ever happed in history right so the also sorry I don't mean to interrupt but also crucially Matthew says at the time of Jesus's death there was a huge earthquake the second earthquake the graves opened and that then the holy ones appeared to people after the resurrection to many so there's this very very strange passage which seems strange on the surface but

also says that the the graves opened at the time of the crucifixion but they weren't walking around and appearing to people until after the resurrection it seems conf it seems contrived unless they were like hanging out dead in open Graves for like 3 days until they got up or something it's a very very strange passage which I think has no hyic behind sure but that's not the same as the claim you originally brought up which is the resurrection of Christ himself yeah so what I'm trying to say is if that's un so if I were

I understand so if I were to connect the two what I would say what I would say is the the the historicity for the resurrection of Christ um has the same type of data that the historicity of the resurrection of these holy ones in end of Matthew because uh the appearances of these holy ones and the appearances of Christ correlate they correspond and so the reports of their appearances is just as likely uh like for example uh you're aware of the passage in first obviously Corinthians 15 which is one of the earliest attestations of the

uh you know the formal uh traditional Creed that states about uh the U the resurrection of Christ and and the appearance to 500 and this States within the first five within five years of of Christ's Resurrection so arguably yeah I mean it's unclear I mean are you as I understand you do grant that possibility I grant the pool's very early I don't know about 5 years sure but well the the tradition on which it's based because he's quoting a very specific midrashic formula I agree Paul inserts himself into that formula he says finally appear to

me so at some point the formula stops and Paul's own words actually that that demonstrates the proof of the formula rather than rather than uh subverts it so I I don't know where the formula ends that's fine my point my point is to say that there are early attestations that are no different in nature than the attestations of the uh the holy ones that Rose from the from the so crucially so if you don't if you if you reject the resurrection of Christ based on the data of eyewitness testimony then of course you're going to

reject the resurrection or the rest resuscitation let's say either one of the Holy ones uh based on the eyewitness testimony F if you believe that I just know that a lot of Christians don't so I establish that first otherwise it's irrelevant let's forget about so we did your passage can we do mine yeah sure we can forget about the the graves opening thing sounds good so let's go toose if you don't if you don't mind so in Hosea you have actually a fantastic example of how the uh the Prophecies of Christ are being fulfilled at

deeper multivalent levels right it's a metalepsis of prophetic fulfillment so to answer the discrepancy between Luke and Matthew first of all you have the time of the uh purification right for the the mother it lasts 33 days after the circumcision of the infant and therefore it's a 40-day period before they're presented at the temple this takes place before they flee to Egypt now I understand the difficulty in in the verse right after Luke's paropy about the uh presentation of the temple with Zachariah because it says that they returned to Nazareth yes he says afterward they

returned to Nazareth maybe they went to Egypt in between right exactly that's what I'm trying to say Can Can I can I just say that that may be the case I I think that's an unnatural reading of the of the case but I'll just grant you for a moment let's say that the birth narratives don't contradict each other that's fine let's say that the birth narratives are not historically unreliable for that reason evidence of the Resurrection I'm looking for right now sure I understand that but I get where you want add but there are contradictions

in the gospels that's a whole another so sorry you been voted out by the majority [Music] okay so there's one point you kind of keep going back to is the opening of the graves and you're saying we're not seeing that anywhere in history and I kind of agree with what than was saying is this is an argument of Silence so we don't see anywhere in history the destruction of Pompei being written down through vus this is a huge event sure why don't we see that but if we had accounts describing Pompei around the time that

happened and they just didn't mention it you don't think that would be a bit suspect well we don't we don't see anything talking about the destruction of pompe sure but if if we had accounts that were written about Pompei at the time of the destruction and they didn't mention it do you think that would be weird yeah I do think that would be a little we have accounts written about Jesus in Jerusalem at the time that this extraordinary event was supposed to take place and they didn't even think to mention it so can I tell

you why I think the story is in there because Jesus is supposed to be the firstborn of the dead and and Jesus is an apocalyptic prophet in the synoptic gospels predicting that the end of the world is going to come soon the general resurrection of the dead and Jesus Jesus is going to be the firstborn of the dead so I think Matthew invents this story so that these people rise from their grave but they don't start appearing to people till after the resurrection because Jesus is the firstborn of the dead and this is the general

Resurrection the reason it's invented is because of course after Jesus dies there is no end of the world there is no apocalypse and so Matthew invents the story in order to fulfill that I think that's you know that's one hypothesis but I think when we're looking at the gospels we have another hypothesis we have this fact that you know we mentioned the undesigned coincidences you're familiar with that right we have the fact that they go through lot of historical information so they get geography right you agree with this yeah so would you say that we

have authors that are located within this area during this time period uh I don't know if I can say that with confidence and I think it depends on which gospel you're talking about well let's just go like the synoptics the synoptics so who do you think is the author of say the gospel of Mark I would say it's Mark that was John Mark the the author of yeah now why do you think that well I think you're just kind of brushing off my question though do you think the authors were in that time period during

that in that location even if that's the case I think that the events were written down decades after they happened okay but we are saying but I'm happy to let's say let's say that I granted it okay so so these accounts are at least based in iwitness testimony fine so what well if we have people who are recording true information off eyewitness testimony and why does that true information often contradict itself in what way does it contradict itself what's the date of Jesus's death the synoptics say that it was on the Passover John has it

before the pass so there's there's a long convoluted answer to that uh it's how they use idioms in the language I don't want to get into that what time did Jesus die so I Mark says that it's 9 in the morning John explicitly tells us that he's still standing before pilot at midday so here's the thing I'm going to Grant you contradictions mhm is that not what we would expect to see from people recording real events not on these matters I think why not I I've made this I've made this argument myself it's like okay

yeah maybe we'd expect people to sort of misunderstand the points but if it's clear that the reason why John is putting the death of Jesus before the Passover is to present him as the Passover Lamb then I think we have reason to suspect that it's been done on purpose in other words if we can explain why these contradict each other because the auth have different intentions I think that proposes a better hypothesis is why they contradict so specifically on Jesus's day I don't have off the top my head I know there's an explanation for that

maybe we could talk later and I can show it to you but I don't have the top of my head okay when when Jesus is on the cross there are two thieves next to him right what do they say uh one says uh I will one condemns him and one says don't condemn him that's what happens in the Gospel of Luke in the gospel of Mark and the gospel of Matthew which are earlier both of them mock him on the cross yeah I don't see that being an issue you don't see that as being an

issue why would that be an issue because because this is quite an important theological point being made Jesus is forgiving his enemies right before his death this seems to me if the earlier gospels Mark and Matthew say that this didn't happen that and explicitly says that the people who were on the cross next to him were mocking him this is a story that Luke has invented why would Luke invent a story like that to make a theological point which tells us that the gospel writers are willing to invent things in order to make a theological

point I think you're just assuming invention pause you've been voted out by the majority please return to your seat sorry we don't have more time in the resurrection as you know is the single most important issue in Christianity if it doesn't happen as Paul would say then none of this matters if it did happen then everything matters and everything becomes much more important do you believe that the Disciples of Christ Paul as well and others believed that Christ rose from the dead I think that's probably the case okay so you believe that they truly believe

not that they just made it up but can I ask why you believe that they believed it sure well I wait I would say they believed it because it happened that's okay fine but how do you know that they actually believed it how do I know that they believed it how do you know that how do you know that they weren't lying for example because they were executed for it so for how were they executed um some of them were executed by being sought in half some of them were executed by being beheaded how do

you know that well through the obviously the tradition and the historicity of the church well those are two things there's tradition and there's historicity well no so the tradition of the church the idea is that when you say Church tradition or holy tradition it's not just this idea that oh we're just saying things and making things that are in line with Christianity but it's actually this idea that we are following the trail and the lineage of Christianity what I'm looking for is evidence of the Apostles martyrdom for their claim that Jesus had risen from the

dead only two disciples deaths are recorded in the gospels it's Judas who hangs himself or there's another contradiction he either hangs himself in Matthew or in the book of Acts he's described as falling over in a field with his head and his guts his guts spilling out right it seems to be a difference so Judas also uh is the brother of John who's beheaded by Herod we're not told precisely why every single other death of the Apostles relies solely solely on Church tradition there is no historical evidence that they were martyred and certainly not that

they were martyred for their belief that Jesus was resurrected in fact even according to church tradition the only person the only disciple the only apostle that was not marted for his faith do you know who it was John John the one who makes the most theologically Fantastical claims of all of the Apostles but obviously we know that also by the tradition that they tried to kill John by oing him in I don't I don't see any evidence that this actually happened outside of church tradition and I don't trust that church what so for instance what

type of evidence would you be expecting to hear by people who do not care about those Christians so for instance the people EMP power in Rome why would they be writing some you know incredible long tales about we are going to kill the Christians because of this this and this so that we this goes both ways right why would the enemies like report this these marm stories I could say you know why wouldn't Christian writers be motivated to make such stories up what I'm saying is that goes both ways we don't know what actually happened

all we have is a tradition a bias tradition that seeks to establish their martydom that tells us that that's what's happened we can know that they wouldn't want to just make this up because some of them also were killed and when we now track that time later there are Saints in the 200s 300s 400s that are killed for having this but crucially they're not the eyewitnesses they're not the people who supposedly saw this happen so they could easily just be mistaken agreed but what I am saying is that if those people in the 200s 3

300s 400s are saying that the eyewitnesses were killed and they are holding to this same faith and they are willing also to be killed do you not think that this says something if indeed that is what happened it means that they heard that the disciples died for their beliefs that's all we can know we don't know whether that's true we don't know whether that's by the way I'm not saying I'm not saying that they didn't I'm just saying that we don't know in other words I'm happy to just grant that the disciples did believe in

the resurrection of Jesus and that they died for their beliefs what I'm saying is that when people throw this out as if it's a historically attested fact it's simply not so what happened on Easter morning I don't know there's only one other option other than obviously that Christ rose from the dead I would ascertain and you can disagree if you feel free it would be that his disciples people who truly loved him stole his body and somehow disposed of it it could have been somebody else who stole the body and and dispo who but what

motivation would they have to steal the body and dispose of it so grave robbing was quite popular in that time they were guards remember and well there are guards that are only reported in Matthew and what does Matthew say about the guards he's the only person that reports the guards and what do the gods do they say that Jesus has has disappeared and the high priests pay the gods to tell people that the body has been stolen now what does Matthew say he says and this is a rumor that they went and spread that persists

to this day so the author of Matthew knew that there were people who were saying that somebody stole the body and intentionally puts these guards there has this story of the high priest paying them off to to spread this rumor in order to combat that rumor so we know that people in the early church before the writing of the Gospel of Matthew impression thought that the body was stolen there's even tulan talks about this is amazing tulan talks about a theory that some people were were spreading that the gardener had stolen the body of Jesus

because he didn't want people to come and spoil his letes when they came to see him as a shrine and I would agree that both seem illogical but if we're just going to say that it was robbed and then these disciples this group of people now are just not looking for the body or that again which I would say is even more unlikely that it is people who did not someone who did not care about Christ that now would steal his body I feel like this would be also very a there are theories that are

suggesting for example that the authorities either the Jewish or the Roman authorities didn't want this to become some kind of shrine to Believers of Jesus to go to after his death and so they disposed of the body there are all kinds of theor some people think that the body was eaten by dogs like there's all kinds of things that could have happened which seemed pretty Furious and unlikely but to me if you're trying to tell me that a man rose from the dead you're going to have to do a lot more in the way of

getting rid of these other it would be the only Clause that has an external Force every other Clause is also extremely illogical but the Clause where Christ raised from the dead has that external force and that external Force can you tell pause guys that's [Music] time uh so the first thing I want to ask is do you have to have evidence to prove that something's real to believe something's real broadly I think that can't be the case because there are all kinds of things that we believe without evidence such as the existence of the external

world and the laws of logic fine but when it comes to historical claims I think that yes we we need some burden of proof and how much historical claims do you need in order for you personally to believe that Jesus is real that he was real to believe that he was resurrected is a different thing I think I would need probably more corroborative accounts of specific appearances that didn't contradict each other okay what if I told you that Jesus still is revealing himself to people today that's fine but do you think he's doing so in

bodily form to multiple people at once okay so this is the thing is I believe Jesus is still alive today and that he is revealing himself he's healing and delivering people and it would be absolutely impossible for Jesus's resurrection if Christians didn't have power so if a Christian was powerless then Jesus wouldn't have resurrected but because there's still Deliverance Miracles healing signs wonders visions and dreams that's evidence and that's living proof that Jesus resurrected because if he didn't resurrect he wouldn't have sent his holy spirit as an advocate to fill the believer to operate and

to be empowered to walk in signs wonders along with the wealth of other religious Traditions which also have their Visionaries too as an outsider I have to say I can understand as a Christian if you hear the story that someone seen Jesus you might think that's plausible and think you know praise Christ for me I don't find it convincing because I see it happen all over the place we see all kinds of Visions we see people seeing ghosts we see people seeing Jesus we see people saying all kinds of gods and and by the way

that also I don't think would really indicate the historicity of this particular Resurrection account of Jesus of Nazareth I had Jesus appeared to Me 3 years ago I was in my room and he appeared to me and he came and he gave me a big hug he Lifted Me Up he turned me around and the joy was unlike this world and I'm telling you like he's so real because I've physically seen him but you know I could say all day my tangible encounters with Christ I've seen signs wonders Miracles I've seen paralyzed people walk out

of wheelchairs and not over time I've prayed over people and I've seen broken bones go back into place I've seen people delivered of demons like the very things in the Bible I've seen come to life and my life has been tangible evidence of the Living God of the living resurrection that that he has risen because I wouldn't be able to see or do any of that stuff unless that happened but as much as I can tell you it right it's up to if you want to believe it or not so I'm fascinated by by your

account I always love to know what people see when they have these kinds of Visions the physicality how Jesus appeared did he fade away did he walk out of the room did he knock on the door this kind of stuff but but the crucial point is that if I had such a religious experience I have no doubt that it would probably turn me into a Christian and God willing it will happen one day that would be awesome unfortunately it hasn't happened yet and as far as that goes to convincing anybody else people will say that's

not evidence and it's not but it's not supposed to be it's supposed to be for you it's supposed to be the reason that you have to believe in God and it's probably the best reason you could have for believing in God unfortunately that's not going to do very much for me because these stories of sort of demons being driven out and kind of you know I think the only that demons seem to be more scared of than Jesus is a camera you know if I can see this kind offf happen maybe that would increase myed

but until it does I just have to accept that that's something you experienced that like the the apparent visions of the disciples and other people that you've already mentioned I don't know what's happening there I have to suspect it's some kind of psychological phenomenon until I'm shown otherwise guys I'm sorry so thank you my next assertion is that Jesus never claimed to be God what's up man coy coy so talk to me where does Jesus claim to be God yeah so I'm curious when you say that are you including the Book of John so I

think that the Book of John is probably the least historically reliable in this case so I'm talking about the historical Jesus yeah I do think that there are a number of instances where Jesus appears to claim to be God in John's gospel okay but even if we think that he actually said that I still think that there's reason to believe that he wasn't claiming to be God in the sense of being identical with Yahweh when you talk about the historical Jesus what else you pull from other than the gospels of things that he might have

said the things that he might have said we only really have the gospels but there are multiple sources within the gospels what do you dated at uh around 70 AD I I sort of go with the scholarly consensus and so you have also a bunch of sources the unique sources to Matthew and Luke um you also have this this potential Source called Q from the German forel right all of this kind of stuff John comes in the latest and so when we're trying to figure out what the historical Jesus actually said if we've got multiple

sources all claiming that he said the same thing then I think we have good reason to think that he actually said that claims like before Abraham was I am I am the father are one anyone who seen me has seen the father only appear in the Gospel of John not in any of our other sources which I think makes them less historically reliable well I like the claim I got to come at a little bit different approach because I think that the gospel writers are claiming that Jesus is God sure let's just go with Mark

as Mark starts he talks about John the Baptist preparing the way for the Lord right what is your response for that cuz ensuing Jesus comes I have no problem I've no problem saying that Mark is intending to portray PR Jesus as God it's not entirely clear but I have no problem just granting that for the sake of this conversation I think that the belief that Jesus is God is something that developed in early Christianity after Jesus died I think there's nothing that Jesus said himself that can make us confidently say that he was walking around

claiming to be God what do you need in order to believe that Jesus is God because even if we take kind of this development in the gospels we can go before that so would you say Paul's letters like Philippians and Colossians would you say they were written before the gospels uh yes yeah yeah they were written before the gospel so if we're going for the gospels we have Paul claiming that Jesus is God in Philippians 2 where he's saying he's was in the form of God or maybe like a better translation would even be the

essence or the nature of God the problem I think with sort of quote mining in this respect is that there are quotes that point us in either direction even in the Gospel of John so Paul for example says uh that there is one God uh one God which is the father and one Lord Jesus Christ seeming to separate them Jesus says things like the uh my father is greater than I am he says things like nobody knows the hour not even the son knows the hour but only my Father in Heaven he says when he's

crucified in the first two gospels Eli Eli Lama sabani my God my God why have you forsaken me I could point to these and say these are Jesus claiming that he's separate from God well there is a distinction from the father and the son so we're not but instead of quote mining I could just quote the whole thing that though he was in the form of God didn't count equality with God a thing to be grasped but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant being born in the likeness of men sure I also

have no problem saying that Paul thought that Jesus was God my ass that's actually super clarifying for me because then my question is what piece of evidence do you now need in order to believe that Jesus claimed to be God like what what is it for you that you would be like you know what that convinces me Jesus in his own words saying that I am God right but he does that in John where before Abraham was I am sure so before Abraham was I am for start as I've said it only appears in the

Gospel of John we don't know if the his at least said it once and the claim is that he never did if he actually said that if he was going around claiming to be God in explicit terms that's a great why is it that none of the the gospel writers thought it was a relevant detail to mention it's difficult to now deal with it cuz you acknowledging pause I'm so sorry you voted out by the majority great to meet you too hey how's it going Alex it is great to meet you I've been fan of

yours for a long time even though I'm a Believer thank you so much that means all the more you claim that this was a later tradition that developed is that correct yeah I think so okay when would you say that that tradition developed probably fairly early on I mean the writings of pool are decades after Jesus's death okay so do we have a better source for knowing what Jesus actually claimed than the gospels no we don't okay so if the gospels are indeed the best source for understanding who Jesus was do those gospels portray him

as a Divine person well like I say I think that there's only one gospel that unambiguously portrays Jesus as himself claiming to be divine and that's the Gospel of John which is the latest and most theologically motivated of all of the gospels even then the claims that we're talking about things like before Abraham was I am the Greek term there is egoo Amy one chapter later in John chapter 9 Jesus heals a blind man and the blind man goes back and people say were you not the man who was born blind and what does he

say ego Amy I am it's also just a way of identifying yourself and saying it's me I would want to know then in the synoptic gospels yes are they claiming that Jesus is just a mere man I think that it's debatable what the synoptic authors are doing but I'm happy to grant that the synoptic authors were trying to portray Jesus as God and thought that Jesus was God so that means all four gospel writers were intending to portray Jesus as God corre okay now in the first century Hebrew culture do you worship anyone other than

God depends what you mean by worship so the Greek word for worship used in the New Testament is I don't know how to pronounce it Prine or pranin something like that which typically in the Hebrew is translated in the sepagan to that word Prine in the Hebrew is a word which tend which just means something like bow down before so for example the same word is used when Jacob bows down before Esau the same word is used when Joseph's brothers bow down before him when he's the the governor of Egypt the same word is used

for King David for example in multiple books of the Bible but in the synoptic gospels is Jesus portrayed as being worshiped I think at some points yes so for example at the end of John's gospel with doubting Thomas uh the beginning in the birth narratives of course I think the birth narratives were forged in later additions to the newest I want to focus entirely on the synoptic gospels because those seem to be the one that you think are the most shaky on this in the synoptic gospels is Jesus is the charge of blasphemy given against

Jesus yes absolutely right can you be given the charge of Blas merely for claiming to be the Messiah well let's find out in the book of Acts since Steven has a vision before the Pharisees what Vision does he have he looks up before the Pharisees and he says I can see God and I can see Jesus sat at the right hand of God separating Jesus and God what do the Pharisees do they Stone him to death for blasphemy so we know that you didn't have to claim that Jesus was identical to God in order to

be stoned for blasphemy how about judging the entire world is that something that a an a human would do I it have to be a very special kind of human I understand that you think that only God can judge sure so did the synoptic gospels did the synoptic gospels portray Jesus as the one who is going to judge the world I think that may be true the synoptic gospels May betray him as as being that what I'm asking for is in Jesus's own words or indeed in his own actions claiming to be God for example

a moment ago you said that he was stoned for blasphemy can you be stoned for blasphemy for doing something other than claiming to be God in the book of Acts since Stephen is ston for exactly that so do you agree that that at least isn't an indication that Jesus is claiming to be I don't know that they necessarily were stoning him for that exact thing I don't know the exact context of that with with that in mind the divine birth of Jesus is another Factor that's in all the synoptic gospels in those gospels Jesus is

born of a Virgin Mary and the Holy Spirit it's only in two of the synoptic gospels and in Luke's at least is probably a later Edition it wasn't in the original vers Luke regardless is Jesus's birth portrayed as a normal human birth no no not at all in all of the synoptics so if he's not a man only two of them well well that's fine if he's not a man in these gospels then what is he well again I'm happy to say that the synoptic authors were portraying Jesus as God especially whoever added the the

birth narrative to Luke after the fact that's I've got no problem with that you just don't trust those gospels no in the same way that I don't trust the legendary accounts surrounding the birth of Alexander the Great I don't think that he was God either is there a better more reliable source for the historical Jesus than the gospels no but within the gospels there are more and less historically reliable points so as I've already said there are seemingly sources so for example when Jesus says something in Aramaic on the cross when he says Eli Eli

did Jesus okay pause sorry you've been voted out by the majority please return to your seat good fun nice to meet you great to meet you how's it going I'm Mills nice to meet you me I'm not a fan because I don't know who you are but all the better well the feeling is mutual yes um but anyway so uh the Dead Sea Scrolls yeah I don't know a ton about them but okay well they were F found in 1943 um it is proven that they are about 2300 years old and you've got your Bible

there do you know when crucifixion starts when crucifixion started yes uh no I don't think so okay so the Israelites for instance in King David's time if you were found of blasphemy how would they kill you H well there are different ways of doing it you could be stoned for example and who's they is it is it well the FES sades of course it was the Romans that killed Jesus and they didn't kill him for theological reason would you do me a favor sure open up Psalms 22 whatever you like Psalms King David wrote this

Psalms 22 would you read it from the beginning sure my God my God why have you forsaken me why are you what did Jesus say on the cross my God my God why have you forsaken go on why are you so far from saving me so far from My Cries of Anguish my God I cry out day by day but you do not answer by night I find No Rest yet you are enthroned as the Holy One you are the one Israel Praises it like what are you looking for here well basically if you go

on it basically describes crucifixion to the tea sure can can I can I just stop you there it but let me finish written 800 years before crucifixion ever even happened it even gets into the lambi Lami l what does that got to do with Jesus claiming to be God well what this has to do with it is I believe that the entirety of the word of God just like in John chapter 1 the word became flesh and made its dwelling amongst us I believe the entire Bible points to Jesus being the Messiah I I agree

with you so that that is my point the Messiah is not the same as God Jews didn't believe that Messi I was going to be God well okay pause sorry Lori you've been voted out very nice to meet [Music] you in charge here nice to meet you nice to meet you learning more about our God that knowing like what happened in the Old Testament he needed to have a representative to Humble himself during these trials of the early beginnings of the Old Testament for the sake of time really need Jesus claiming to be God so

my point is that He sent Jesus to be that human figure to represent God so he can humble himself in his own creation so where does Jesus say that I am that person I am God when he claims to say I am the light I am the way follow me I am your God he says I am your God I am the light I feel like so he say that you just said I am your God I don't think Jesus says that my apologies on Miss representing like the whole entirely of the words in that

verse but he's still claiming that he is the light that has that connection to that higher God and I feel like with that connection that connection to that higher God yes that he is in that physical form I also want to say with the Virgin Mary he has no father and the angel blessed him with what he was saying to two mythical birth narratives yes which by the way that the the gospels don't seem seem to have any knowledge of well hold on the with the Virgin birthing that's come up twice now uh at one

point Jesus family in Mark's gospel Jesus's family come out to him and say that they think he' lost his mind which is a very strange thing for his family to say if they if there was a virgin bir and for the sake of flags I just want to emphasize that Jesus is that human God form that he needed to Humble himself so he can truly understand how humans work in I know how you know that that was Jesus I want to I want to emphasize that as well just but by the very teachings that he

said and how pause you've been voted out please return to your seat what's up Alex hey how's it going nice to meet you good good fan I think that the general Narrative of the Bible is the sooncoming Messiah obviously there's some discrepancies and disagreements on the whole notion of whether Jews believe that the Messiah was God or not but if we're looking at the New Testament as a whole there seems to be this narrative from the beginning of the gospels all throughout acts that the religious officials and everybody around the this Jesus figure is trying

to do away with this upand cominging revolution or or whatever where you specifically note it with the blasphemy that that stepen so-called dead I don't believe that they stoned him because he was claiming to be God I think they stoned him because he was reaffirming this narrative that was so etheal to the whole entire so what this Got to Do With Jesus claiming to be God I have no problem with saying that Jesus was claiming to be the Messiah the Christ and that the Jewish authori saw that as a threat and that the Roman authorities

certainly saw it as a threat that he was claiming to be the king of the Jews those were the charges that he was actually crucified on King of the Jews where does Jesus claim that he's God I'm just going to go back to John because it's the strongest source and and you the multiple instances of of I am like even if it's just the what you said earlier with that the exactly how you quoted it he says before Abraham and Abraham in Jewish tradition culture seems to be this forefather of their faith so it's like

how are you putting a man just any man above Abraham well he's not just any man he's not claiming to just be any man I'm not saying any old man and then there's God and say Abraham statement reaffirms that I am that you can't just say before Abraham because Abraham is the beginning of the Israeli timeline like this is the beginning of their faith so to say that so for what it's worth I don't think that Jesus the historical Jesus actually said this but even if he did saying before Abraham was EG Amy certainly seems

to imply that he is maybe Eternal at least existed for his bodily form that's pretty weird but claiming to be God is a different thing as I say when Jesus walks on the water the disciples think that they've seen a ghost and what does Jesus say to them do not be afraid EG Amy which most bibl translate as it's me because sometimes saying ego a okay pause you've been voted out by the majority good to see you again all right two things have you heard of the cloud riter Motif no I don't think so okay

oh Cloud Rider Motif okay then I'm assuming youve heard of like the two powers in heaven motif no okay there's a Jewish historian named Alan Seagal he wrote a book called the two powers in heaven and what he talks about is there's this weird thing happening in the Hebrew Bible where there's almost like two Yahweh figures that they point to so some verses for instance will say like Yahweh reigned down fire from Yahweh and so Pho of Alexandria in the second temple period talks about this two powers in heaven Motif and he says like there's

two Yahweh there's the first Power and the second power but they're both Yahweh it's almost like a sort of Proto Trinity Aran view that's one thing that I'll just kind of put there for now another puzzle piece here is you heard about the cloud riter Motif so in thetic texts um in the baale cycle we see baale referenced as the one who rides the clouds and I think you can see that actually adopted by the Israelites in the Hebrew Bibles well so Psalm 104 is like an exaltation Psalm and actually talks about Yahweh being the

one that rides the clouds in heaven he is the king I see that is kind of a poic of calling Yahweh the king over Baal are we on the same page there sure okay into Daniel 7 you'll see a Messianic passage there about how God will come down and you'll see the son of man come riding in the Clouds Of Heaven and his kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom do you think Daniel thought that the son of man was going to be God since he says that he's riding on a cloud this is a really

interesting point I don't think that he did because he was he was a Jewish writer I lean on saying yes but I don't know if I can say that with like absolute certainty the Prophet Daniel was expecting the Messiah to be God I think so oh the son of man to be God who is that's a that's a motif only applied to God so you have this Cloud intive by the way I I do think that there are multiple things which people even in Jesus's time thought only God could do things like forgiving sins and

when Jesus does these things he's not doing so in order to prove that he's God but in order to prove that the son of man has the authority to do I completely agree I completely agree this isn't that kind of an argument this is an identification thing so where's Jesus claiming to be God yes that's where I'm going so we have these puzzle pieces in in place sure if you fast forward to the Mark's gospel and I'm going to use Mark let's do Mark Jesus before Caiaphas in Mark's gospel Caiaphas asks who are you and

instead of just explicitly saying I am God Jesus quotes Daniel 7 saying he is the son of man the human one y who will ride on the clouds and calls himself the second power so you have this two powers in heaven Motif the two Powers they're both God and the cloud Rider Motif and the son of man he's quoting Daniel 7 to identify himself after that Caiaphas tears his robe and cries blasphemy I do think that that Jesus is making some pretty extraordinary claims of himself such as being the son of man but I still

don't see why he's claiming to be God If This Were the way that he was trying to reveal his divinity to people it'd be a strange and convoluted way to do it Psalm 82 also talks about God presiding over a council of gods saying you shall be called God and Jesus quotes that Psalm when he's referring to his relationship with the father in The Gospel of John so so even if in the Old Testament you have hypothesis right that this is not a christological implication and I have mine and I I I get what you're

saying where you're coming from but to the ancient author how obvious would this be so the best we have here is Jesus claiming to be the son of man and that might indicate that might yeah but we don't predicate our hypotheses on the evidence we wish we did had we we go off the evidence that we do have that's right and I don't think that there's any point of which Jesus says so you're saying that this is not all right guys that's time evidence but not good enough so nice sorry we haven't got more time

I wish we could this CH over here just seems very also very knowledgeable very enthusiastic and philosophically minded as well why don't me bring you back so my claim which might bother some people in this circle and this is why I thought maybe we could find a little bit of Middle Ground here because I represent a form of Christianity that a lot of people don't even consider as Christian I'm a Latter-Day Saint also known as a Mormon awesome and um my claim is that the restored gospel also known as Mormonism provides a conception of God

that is more rationally defensible than any other credal Christian sect okay oh tell me why I I must admit I don't know very much about Mormon theology I know you also don't like being called Mormons right so I don't quite know what what term what term we generally are know saints latterday Saints the church a member of the Church of Jesus Christ are theological claims for example um the problem of evil evil okay so the way that we address it so the problem really so far as I can tell that you have isn't so much

with suffering right because suffering could be something that is just if iable right yeah in principle it's sort of the amount of suffering the depth of suffering absolutely so the issue really is Injustice it's it's not Injustice it's suffering and particularly suffering of non-human animals okay and and and and fair enough so with the concept of Injustice the Latter-Day Saint conception of God is that God actually his purpose is to make us become as he is yes does that include animals as well animals are part of the created order that will be redeemed along with

the rest of of the created order okay so what does suffering do for them suffering is part of the inherent nature of the world as a Fallen World okay even for Animals yes even for Animals whose fault is that let me break it a lot of question yeah let me let me break it down like this sure so if I have a child and I want my child to grow up to become like me my child needs to go out of my house he needs to go into the lone and dreary world and if that

is the case that means that there's going to be some level of separation between me and him he's in the world of Injustice it's a world that is unfair why is that world unjust and unfair CU I understand what you're saying you want your in this analogy you want your child to become like you and what's what that's going to involve is encountering suffering developing as a person getting thicker skin the only reason that you want that for your child is because they're going to live in a world where they're going to have to encounter

that and you want them to be better at dealing with that right if you were given the opportunity to give your child a life that was separate from you where they went about and did their business but there wasn't that kind of suffering and you chose the one in which there was suffering just for the sake of it I think that would be problematic well it's not it's not that I chose to put them in that world see this is a difference in Latter-Day Saint theology that's what I'm interested in latterday Saint theology there is

a pre-existence and human beings knowing the injust nature of reality have the choice oh they choose to they choose to enter into the Mortal state to pass through the way to look at it is there's this realm of Injustice where anything can happen I can go out tomorrow my kid can get cancer all these things can happen and the idea is we say but if you're willing to pass through the realm of Injustice this is a necessary NE condition to reach your Divine potential come was it necessary there's another thing about latterday St theology that's

different like for instance God cannot create a square circle why does that apply here I mean that because God cannot bring you to your Divine potential because of the nature of the laws of reality okay but like why why not CU you're just you're just sort of restating that he can't do it I want to know why I know what I'm saying is is that there are laws that even God is bound by now which laws are relevant here like which laws is like the law of non-contradiction for instance why does why is explain to

me how the law of non-contradiction binds God to not create a world where there's no suffering because that relationship with God must be freely Chosen and God cannot force me because there is the question why doesn't God just make us all Happ that's a separate question because God can make a world in which there's no suffering which you're still in which you're still free to choose whether or not to follow him I I would say that that is a logical contradiction okay so maybe you can tell me why CU right now what you're telling me

is that it's it's illogical on the level of creating a square circle to create a system that a person can voluntarily choose to to to sort of exit the Heavenly realm and go into in order to whatever they need to do to get to God's ultimate not get to God to become as he is sure to to fulfill their full potential that has to involve not just suffering but the kind but the kind of suffering that we see on planet Earth the the I'm asking why that's logically necessary a totally unjust World okay because it

is by passing through this realm that we have the experience of Injustice that allows us to know what Injustice is but why do we need to know what Injustice is because how else can you come to be like God kind of like the Adam and Eve story there's the fruit of the tree of knowledge in Good and Evil so what is Justice how do you define justice off the top of my head I would say that Justice is getting what you deserve yeah right okay and so the problem is that like you could imagine a

situation in which there was nothing wrong nothing bad nothing evil and therefore no need for this rectifying force of Justice it's a little say we say justice is a good thing but Justice is a good thing in so far hold on Justice is a good thing in so far as it overcomes Injustice that's what it's there for in the same way that chemotherapy is a good thing because it tries to overcome cancer if I said that I was going to create cancer so that we could have the good of chemotherapy and you said why would

you do that and I said because there's no way for us to achieve the good of chemotherapy without creating cancer you'd look at me like I'd lost my mind no it's like saying this is the the better analogy it's like saying to my son son the only way that you can become the way I am is to go out into that world where Anything could happen and to persevere okay I so I I I still have qual with this but for the sake of time I wonder ask you about animals do animals consent to go

into this the animal kingdom is part of the Fallen World they are part of the Fallen order do they feel pain I don't know I that's that's more of a good question I don't know necessarily where they what's your confidence level like if I started strangling a dog in front of you would you stop me yeah I think I think that I have a an obligation to prevent the death of living creatures not death no I'm not going to kill it I'm going to sty keep it alive just so it can suffer more you stop

me from doing that yeah why uh because I believe that God wants us to protect the created order okay so and to create goodness light and so would that be similar to like you know me stepping on a a plant or something you're just like hey don't do that man it's the Crea or do you think it's because they're suffering I think it is probably because they're suffering but I don't understand that suffering in terms of of the way that humans suffer because you said that the reason why it's not so much of a problem

for humans to enter the veil of tears and have to suffer is because they consent to do so before they're born if animals don't do that then I don't think that their suffering is Justified on the same grounds well let me turn this around because while I think that you you bring up some objections there my claim is is that we have a better capacity to hand hand this than the credal Christian model sure okay so and so would you agree with my claim that we have a better model than credal Christianity I don't I

don't know because I don't know enough because we've only been speaking for 10 minutes uh there there are probably things that it deals with better and things that it deals with worse for example you know I've i' I've spoken a turn on my show about the Gnostic cosmology which I think does a lot to do away with problems like the problem of evil and the weird sort of seeming IM immateriality of Jesus in some passages and stuff but there's a lot of problems with it too there's a ton of problems such as like God's Providence

and the nature of why the demiurge is created all of these ideas are often times I think created because they better account for certain things over others don't think that's necessarily the case with Mormonism of course but yeah I'm sure in some cases it does better in some cases it does worse in this case I I don't think it does anything more to explain the suffering of animals your problem with the suffering of animals is that it's unjust no it's not then why do you then what suffering if suffering if suffering ultimately is redeemed let's

say the animals on the other side for all they suffer they get the best possible animal future that you could ever imagine and the animals get there and they go this is great it was all worth it the question then it would be worth it it's the ince the question is why aren't they just given that without the suffering first I can understand why that wouldn't happen with humans for whatever again I I want to clarify I still have quals with the idea but let me just grant it for a moment I can understand why

you need to do that with humans before they get the the knif reward at the end but why the animals why cause them to suffer human beings will suffer as well unjustly it's just the nature of an unjust World The Suffering of animals I think is unexpected if a good God is overseeing but it's not a problem if ultimately they are comp well I think it still is a problem because you don't just get to inflict suffering and then compensate people and think that that's okay have you heard of the burington club is a club

no if if if I have to inflict suffering on here wait a second let me let me let me let me give you this example let me give you this example there's an Infamous Club a private members Club at Oxford University called the Burlington Club there are a bunch of like eits Posh kids who used to go around they'd go to restaurants they were incredibly Rich they would host a dinner and then they would trash the place they'd flip over tables they'd smash things they they'd cover the walls and everything it was absolutely devastating just

horrible behavior and then when the owner came up and said what the hell have you done they just paid them off they said hey have a bunch of money and not only that they paid them way more than the repairs are worth so they could get away with it because the because if anything they've done those people a favor no it's still terrible awful Behavior because even if you've compensated someone for it if you've caused them for suffering which by the way still hasn't been explained why that suffering exist 30 second let me it doesn't

seem like it's worth it let or if it's worth it it doesn't seem like it's just can be worth it though for instance a dog that's getting a shot has no idea what's going on he's just thinking this hurz and is so terrible and the thing is is If It ultimately saves its life it's worth itag is a compensatory reward for the suffering that's there everything can be redeemed view is life even worth it because if life is mostly suffering even for the animals then isn't The Logical conclusion to end this project altogether that's a

separate question but if you had the opportunity to to not have that dog need the shot and you gave them the shot anyway you created the need for the shot and then gave them the shot and call them to suffer L cosmology do God God does not the create the conditions that are where the shot is necessary you're correct and you're correct on credal Christianity it does and that's the biggest flaw with it by the way I want to give you that's just hey Alex it's been meet likewise yeah see you later Jacob himself said

that a lot of the people here might not even consider him to be a Christian because he's a Latter-Day Saint and I think the best thing that speaking to somebody like him does is reminding you that not all Christians are the same there's not some uniform Christian worldview everybody who comes up is going to have a different opinion and having lad Saint in there who has a totally different theology to other Christian denominations let's say I think is a good reminder of that overall it was a really great experience if I were to give my

totally honest opinion I think it was that Alex o'conor was able to kind of destroy a lot of credal Christianity because of the weaknesses in the credal Christian position and as a latterday saying I couldn't help but feel like I think we have things that can help solve a lot of the problems that Alex has with credal Christianity I think I probably disagreed with most people around this circle Christian contemporaries included but I tried to come in pretty curious and so I actually feel like I'm leaving more informed and smarter on the other side of

this I'm sad to say I felt like we found no middle ground only due to the fact we were talking about a lot of the lore of the Bible however if we were able to kind of tackle on real modern day uh challenges I feel like we could have found some Middle Ground people don't ask questions enough I have a lot of respect for Alex because other atheists that I've talked to usually they carry a lot of resentment and bitterness but something about him is he can sit and have a mature respectful conversation ask questions

and also something that I highly respect is that he knows the Bible maybe more than some Christians I'm glad that I did this I think that at the very least the topics that were brought up in the short time we had work as a incredibly effective springboard for people to think about this kind of stuff this will hopefully be the beginning of a fountain of useful information and content on those topics