Tim Keller debates atheist Norman Bacrac on The Reason For God

In this ‘classic replay’ Justin shares the 2009 radio debate in which New York pastor Tim Keller defended his best-selling book ‘The Reason For God’ opposite UK atheist Norman Bacrac.
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[@joshuaforeman2611]

Speaker intro starts at 4:30 Discussion begins at 10:00

[@bruceboettner3399]

I appreciate the civil discourse and that both were deep thinkers. I think Mr. Keller helped me more make sense of this world I live.

[@grubblewubbles]

RIP Dr. Keller

[@itzyourbwoytchybooxuur6475]

Honest and intelligent discussion... There's a certain fair and mature feel to this channel. Big ups. Coming from an atheist. 👍🏼

[@gretareinarsson7461]

This channel has a really well balanced discussions😊

[@tt-jo4bd]

Very good. I like how Tim Keller used moral argument here. Fine demonstration, actually.

[@robinhoodstfrancis]

I was raised an atheist humanist, and to value education. I felt my way, found a scholar, and set me on an interfaith spiritual path and have found spiritual-religious experience needs to be acknowledged. Without getting clear about Jesus´ legacy of loving integrity in University-based society, a key angle is lost. Modern atheists are not just trailblazers, they are using values based on Jesus´ legacy. Modern philosophical scholarship with empiricism is a University-based practice, and it was developed by Christian spiritual practitioners.

[@BrianNeil]

Justin I think your channel is a great good for the community. Well done. I am not a christian, in fact I hope that humanity will free itself from the shackles of slavery but this channel is very fair and open. This is so good for our advancement. Thank you.

[@PremierUnbelievable]

Thanks Brian, much appreciated!

[@s.larson5632]

Brian, have you read C. S. Lewis’ book the Abolition of Man? It’s one of his more philosophical works and addresses the relationship between slavery, freedom, and belief in the transcendent. It’s not a Christian book, per se, but he makes a pretty good argument that a rejection of the transcendent will result in a techno-dystopian future (the abolition of man, as we know him).

[@TheKvltPantShater]

It's unfortunate you call religion slavery even though I Soviet Union's gulag was slavery too

[@markacohen1]

@@TheKvltPantShater both are slavery. Not complicated.

[@JulioGonzalez-gy9cc]

Have really liked this channel but ultimately gave it the Sub for getting Dr. Greg Boyd on the show !!! Great debate can’t wait for the next one on Greg’s book this time.

[@lestariabadi]

The most polite debate ever. No yelling, makes me fall asleep.

[@kensmith8152]

I strongly suggest listening to James Tour’s lectures.

[@samdg1234]

I listened to the end, in part to hear an update on Tim Keller's health, which Justin promised but didn't deliver.

[@archangel7052]

12 midnight here...still can't sleep, gonna try this one 🥱

[@nicodemus369]

It was 2pm over here. You must be on the other side of the planet.✌️

[@kelvyquayo]

Did it work? :p

[@chriper77]

@@nicodemus369 I'm trying to guess a 14 hour difference- guessing you in Western Australia and them on east coast of US 🤔

[@chriper77]

@@kelvyquayo He's still sleeping

[@nicodemus369]

Chris Perks ... Hahaha! Actually, I thought Max was Australia because I’m east-coast!✌️

[@beautybearswitness]

49:04 Justin subtly nailed it here 👌🏻😂 I also liked the well placed story of the anthropologist by Tim, thank you Justin and greetings from Germany

[@landon7612]

I thought the intro was talking about SpiderMan when he was mentioning Tom Holland 😂

[@Aidenjh11]

Tim and Norman are very well situated to discuss their views. They are both thoughtful and respectful in their manner. It is a great pity that such a rare match of intellect and character had to be cut so short to fit into the predefined limits of a typical broadcast. These gentlemen could have continued in depth probing the inner and outer edges of their viewpoints without being rushed from one subject to the next; without artificially having to jump out of a discussion and into another one. What we need are more natural conversations that are allowed to continue as they need to continue. Tim and Norman really needed no mediator, although I mean no disrespect to Justin. The ultimate show would simply be to listen as these men talked with one another on what ever points they wished to discuss, for however long they wished to discuss them. I would pay for a ticket to such an event.

[@MichaelMendis]

Beginning at about 16:06, Tim Keller says: "To trust your memory is an act of faith. You can't prove your memory is right, or any of our memory is right, unless you make a real leap of faith, because the only way to talk about the past is to rely on your memory. In other words, you have to assume the reliability of your memory to prove it." I do not know how Justin and Norman Bacrac allowed Keller get away with making such obviously absurd claims. There are dozens of ways in which we can demonstrate the accuracy of specific memories (and of memory in general): we can compare a remembered event, for example, with written accounts of the same event made at the time of the event; we could compare it with a video recording of the event, if one exists; we could compare it with the memories of others who were present and witnessed the same event. So, unless we are talking about a memory of an event that happened entirely in private and was not recorded in any form or witnessed by anyone else, we CAN demonstrate the accuracy of memory in general. Furthermore, if the only way to talk about the past is to rely on memory, as Keller claims, then historians, anthropologists, archaeologists, geologists, astrophysicists, and so on, would simply not exist, since it would be impossible to do what they do professionally under such circumstances. A number of academic disciplines make it their business to "talk about the past" and they conduct their business of talking about the past *without* "relying on their memory" of the things that they "talk about". Within the first few minutes of the conversation, Keller loses all credibility by making outlandish statements that no intelligent high school graduate would make.

[@sahkjumper]

Loved the conversation. Though I saw a small discrepancy from Norman Bacrac. Example 1: Genetal mutilation is wrong, though local culture says that it results in some greater good. We should consider the victim in this case. Example 2: higher taxes for the rich is good, because it counts for the greater good of the community. The apparent unfair treatment should be discarded. I might feel also, that the scale of the caused harm is greater in the first case, but now we are left with feelings and taste preferences (whitch in of themselves are very christian feelings) to decide what kind or how much afflicted harm is acceptable for the greater good.

[@WillhideOnIce]

Higher tax for the rich is technically theft out of jealousy. I definitely believe that morally it is better to give back to the community, but not by force.

[@chrisbessey358]

Higher taxes for the rich is very debatable with regard to its morality. 1. How are the funds used? You assume that 100% of the funds are for laudable causes and is used with 100% efficiently 2. If someone does not WISH to give to the poor, why should they? Should a small business owner have 75% of his wages garnished in order to give to someone who has squandered all their wealth on a reckless, self-centered life? I’m not saying this is the case for all rich or poor people, just giving an example that isn’t so far-fetched. To me, intention is more important than utility with regard to morality and ethics. And that being said, I’m neither Republican nor Democrat. I think when it comes to spending, we should, as citizens know where our money is going and why.

[@Apol-los]

"In an organized society acts of violence & cruelty, no, they aren't wrong. They're impractical. He (Norman) doesn't have a basis for saying they are wrong... The only way to appeal to people to live like this, to live generously and kindly, is to appeal to their selfishness. To say we want you to be generous not because its right and to be stingy & violent is wrong, but because this how you'll be happy. So you're actually encouraging self-centeredness."

[@mikemcgill90]

Choice is limited to the choices that are available .

[@rubiks6]

That was deep. Pardon me while I wipe the shit off my boot.

[@jinglejangle100]

The reason one tries to pursuade others toward one's own moral point is because one feels it's really important to do so. There is no higher power needed. Let the persuasion begin.

[@annchovey2089]

You can live a moral life without God and you can eat food that has no nutritional value and survive for quite a while. Thrive vs. strive.

[@betsalprince]

We're all living a moral life in the absence of gods. If you actually got your morals from the God of the Bible, you'd be in prison by now.

[@annchovey2089]

@@betsalprince There's an old saying that says that if everybody practiced the 10 commandments, we would close all the prisons. The 10 Commandments are from the BIBLE. That book everybody wants to discard because God expects something from them but they think nothing of turning to the gods of greed, power and lust. It's because of those "gods" we have prisons.

[@grantbartley483]

Thought it important to mention that they clearly based the villain baby in Boss Baby 2 on Tim Keller.

[@kcdad2806]

Point 2: money doesn't belong to the individual. Money belongs to the government that issues and backs it. It is distributed to those members of society that government that supposedly contribute best to society.

[@lawsonfalomo8739]

The biggest problem I think comes down to human interpretations. I think religion is mis characterized by many who don’t understand or use people as an example to why faith is invalid. Do I believe humans don’t need God to tell us killing is bad and cruelty is bad no. But Gods actual commandments are very simple and if followed will do nothing but benefit us. Let’s take the intricacies out of religion and take a look at what God ask of us. He says don’t sleep with a married woman or man ok. He says don’t covet what your neighbor has.. so teaching us not to compare ourselves to one another. Which is a huge problem now that we have social media and are more exposed to others lives. To honor your parents it doesn’t say do everything they say it just says at a minimum be thankful of the people who brought you in this world regardless of how bad they may be. Not to lie murder create false prophets or put the Lords name to remember to treat others like you would treat yourself to never be cruel bear hatred or anger. To not desire material things because they are not the answer and create unhappiness. Do these sound stringent or do they sound like a guidance for happiness God doesn’t force anything on anybody us humans do that if you were to read multiple scriptures of the Lord with an open heart I think many will be surprised like myself the lessons to be learned

[@robinhoodstfrancis]

You put things in a nice way to start. I started raised as an atheist humanist, then in high school a spiritual seeker, just after as an activist, and seeking therapeutic benefits from psychology. However, as I continued on I asked where my education and mental resources weren´t just random. They also weren´t generic. University-based culture is behind it. And where did University-based culture come from? Christians took monastic schools and developed them into Christian Universities. I had been concerned about social justice, ecological sustainability, and noted that the UN was the institution that was defining those internationally. And that becomes a focus of a modernization perspective. What is the meaning of the heritage of all that?

[@adriangeh6414]

Is this the same god who drowned everyone because he had a hissy fit?

[@robinhoodstfrancis]

@@adriangeh6414 Yeah, let´s put your fave term "hissy fits" into some empirical contexts, shall we? Fast forward and keep clear about chronology, and all lines converge around how human beings showed their stripes in all the forces unleashed in WW I and II, that FD Roosevelt distinctively influenced by the Social Gospel had appeared and sustained his timely and pro-social concerns, envisioning his legacy in the UN and human rights, proposed and negotiated with the world. And since then, profiteering businesspeople have tried to demonize FDR, no less, and with Reagan, have created a tragic anti-social pro-rich culture to new extremes with mass murders a common event in the US, as a massive tragic invasion of Iraq and an elected billionaire ultra-fascist have all come down the pipe. Ah, humans indulging in the abuse of power, privilege, and pleasure, and misusing the fruit of Jesus´ legacy in modern education. Meanwhile, "Hissy fit" is a modern American popular idiom that is part of corporate-consumer culture. You´ve been indoctrinated to believe that you should buy what you´ve been lead to like, and that´s what matters and little else does. To one degree or another, and it looks like you just swim in it. The people that have indoctrinated you so that you use terms like "hissy fit" to deal with the subject of God have not hidden their trail all that well, for those who are not fooled. My dad got a good education, and saw through the problem of "multinationals (profiteering businesspeople´s corporations)". I haven´t found any problems with that basic notion, and can now inform anybody capable of some sense that the colonization of the world starting with Prince Henry the Navigator´s project and Columbus´ voyage´s legacy. That led up to the British East India Co. that irked the 13 Colonies´ residents, just in the time when James Watt was inventing the steam engine in the UK. It´s also when George Fox et al´s protege´s in Quaker Friendism were agitating against slavery, just before Jefferson et al set up constitutional democracy with Civil Rights. All that fancy stuff showed how a big company needed people with some education to run it, and improved weapons to fight for it, and that Civil Rights the same, and spiritual Quaker Christians the same to have greater impact. From the side of going too far to get rich, it was profiteering businesspeople by the time of Lincoln in the US who were following the British East India Co´s profiteering, ignoring the teachings of Jesus Christ in the Good Samaritan and Great Banquet parables, for starters. Just as it is Jesus´ legacy that Christians turned monastic schools into Universities just before the monk Thomas Aquinas did major innovations, it is important to understand how causes and effects work in the real world. God the Creator, and Jesus the Son´s loving parent for all of us who seek, had created a lawful reality that Newton the natural philosopher famously discovered gravitational lawfulness in, human beings are part of a long evolutionary and developmental process. Yet, it is profiteering businesspeople´s own fat cat barking and Svengali indoctrination of a "peaches and cream" world illusion that Steve Miller Band sang about that we live in in the US, with many thinking Social Europe is a "nanny state." We see in retrospect that human beings have perpetrated violence and enslavement all over the world, and it is God that is then part of the establishing of covenants in attempts to guide human behavior, in Hebrew-Jewish culture first alongside other religious efforts. Fast forward and keep clear about chronology, and all lines converge around how human beings showed their stripes in all the forces unleashed in WW I and II, that FD Roosevelt distinctively influenced by the Social Gospel had appeared and sustained his timely and pro-social concerns, envisioning his legacy in the UN and human rights, proposed and negotiated with the world.

[@adriangeh6414]

@@robinhoodstfrancis i didn"t bother reading all that. I'll just take that as a yes.

[@robinhoodstfrancis]

@@adriangeh6414 Yeah, then that´s your own affair. It´s important that I wrote it as I´m building a sustainability justice viewpoint for spiritual modernization and human rights. That´s as I identify as an interfaith UU Quaker Christian, aka a Gandhian Christian. As for what you "take it as," that answer is no. "Hissy fit" is about the world you take as real. The God of the OT is the predecessor to Jesus, whose legacy of loving integrity underlies University-based, UN human rights society that someone like you takes for granted while you don´t know the meaning of the phrase "human rights abuses and unsustainability."

[@wardandrew23412]

The question I wish Bacrac had asked is this: If "right" and "wrong" is completely independent from terrestrial concerns (ie, "wrong" = harmful to society; "right" = beneficial to society), and is instead rooted solely in God's judgment, what would prevent a theist from committing the most morally atrocious acts if he's convinced that he's following God's will? Isn't this exactly the sort of morality exemplified by groups like ISIS and the Taliban?

[@surewhynotverysure1504]

Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? 17 Even so, (F)every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. 19 (G)Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Therefore by their fruits you will know them. - Matthew 7:15-20

[@wardandrew23412]

@@surewhynotverysure1504 "A good tree cannot bear bad fruit". Precisely. Considering all the bad fruit the tree of Christianity has borne, it is clearly not a good tree.

[@WillhideOnIce]

That’s actually a good argument for proving the need of religion.. Christianity follows the belief that God is all good. Same as how Isis and the taliban see that Allah is all good. The important thing to point out about what the moral argument is saying is that without religion, there is no moral basis. Isis and the taliban, in terms of the Hadiths and the Quran, are great Muslims that follow the moral structure of Allah. The Westboro Baptist church and the Crusades go against the moral structure of God though. That’s why you look at the symbol of how to live: Christ and Muhammad. It is important to remember that we are all flawed and go against God in the name of sin. If you want to judge the morality of a religion, look at their symbol of how to live. Christ lived the perfect christian so that we can look back and see how we are supposed to live. Christians have the moral symbol of Christ’s life. Islam has the moral structure of Muhammad’s life. What would be the moral structure for atheism? That is what the moral argument argues. It’s directed at an atheistic idea. If you want to get into detail about what moral structure or religion is correct, that would have an entirely separate argument.

[@oneofthecrucibleknights1679]

@@WillhideOnIce 11 months later but that’s an incredibly presuppositional argument. From what I see you don’t believe morals can be derived without god. For example the United States. Our morals are based on the law, which you could argue could be based in some form on the Bible but once we’ve established those things in our culture haven’t we moved past the need for god. Also saying isis and those are good Muslims is a shallow way of saying the Muslim faith is violent and evil since they are “doing what they’re told”. It’s an incredibly blind argument and one that is basically saying the Muslim faith is inherently violent and bad but the Christian faith is good. How do you know Muslims don’t denounce the radicals the same way you denounce the WBC or crusaders.

[@UltraAwesomeSauce12]

39:55 This is the point where this dude completely fails at understanding morality from a theistic perspective. He is looking at it from the lens of subjective morality while theism generally submits to objective morality. It's a fundamental philosophical concept that he unfortunately completely misses.

[@BFizzi719]

Theists assert their moral laws to be objective, when in fact they aren't. Grounding objective morality in a mind fails regardless if the mind is human or supernatural.

[@jrivera345]

Tim and other theists merely make the assertion that morality is objectively grounded in God. In no way can this be demonstrated. So theists will keep asserting it and atheists will keep rejecting it.

[@UltraAwesomeSauce12]

@@jrivera345 LOL do you get the philosophical point? If morality is not objective, then it is subjective. And if morality is subjective, good luck establishing any type of consistent moral structure.

[@jrivera345]

@@UltraAwesomeSauce12 Facts can be objective. But values and morals are not like facts because there will always be subjective human minds interpreting them. And there is nothing wrong with that. For thousands of years, societies have had to subjectively determine what laws best promote the greater good. At no point was a god present or necessary during these moments. Today, nations do there best to collaborate and learn from eachother. Its not perfect. But feel free to keep asserting the objective source is a god. Im sure he will come down any second and back you up.

[@jrivera345]

@@BFizzi719 agreed

[@Jamesatbtinternet]

Personally, I have a problem with humans creating their own morality. Hitler, et al did exactly that.

[@neilcates3499]

Well......if our morals come from an imaginary god then they are still coming from humans so................

[@neilcates3499]

@Tomas Krukas Anyone who believes in any god.

[@neilcates3499]

@Tomas Krukas The same way that I determined that Santa Claus is not real. We know that humans tell stories and we know that people can/do invent gods. Of all of the gods that humans have created over the centuries, how many of them do you think have turned out to be true? I put Christianity in the same category as - astrology, numerology, voodoo, Islam, ghosts, bigfoot, etc., etc. I have watched many Christian/atheist debates. Have never seen a god come down to set the record straight. We all know that will never happen. I could be wrong. Where is the evidence that shows there is a god?

[@neilcates3499]

@Tomas Krukas All of your arguments have problems. I am no authority on the matter but, I doubt that nothing was ever an option. If that is indeed true, the universe came from somewhere. I just don't know how./where. I think a universe creating god is a figment of human imagination, an attempt to explain what we can't know, rather than admitting that we don't know.. Free will is also an illusion. We do not have free will. Did you choose your DNA, your parents, where you would be born geographically, what time in history you would be born? Do all of those things influence who you are, what decisions you make? Of course they do. What if you are born with a terminal illness and only live a few hours or days...where is the free will in that? Can you go to a public place and choose to be attracted to someone that you do not find attractive? You can't. Do you have any brothers? If you do, I assume you have different personality traits - could you be like them, or they like you? You can't - at least not to any large degree. I love real maple syrup and black olives (not together) and I cannot choose to not like them.

[@neilcates3499]

@Tomas Krukas We do not know where time, space and physical matter came from. We may not ever be able to know that. I suspect there was always something - I have no way of knowing any more about it than that. I certainly have no way to say that it was personal, or a being. Or, if it was...does it still exists, what it's attributes are, etc. How could I know these things? Of course Hitler was wrong. I say he was wrong, you say he was wrong, probably 95% percent of the human population says he was wrong. I do not think he had a choice in what he was and what he did. I can still call it wrong. I am not a child molester, guessing you are not either. Most people are not. It is not to my credit that I am not sexually attracted to children. It is a fact that most people are not sexually attracted to children. I do not get up in the morning and decide to not have these attractions, don't have to. That is the point. I cannot be like Jeffrey Dahmer, I doubt that he would have decided to kill and eat people. Why was he that way? Don't you think he would have chosen a different life, had he been able to? I can call things wrong, as most of us can. I just don't need a god to tell me what is right and wrong.

[@lesliecunliffe4450]

The focus on the soul is a red herring. Hebrew thought does not dichomise soul and body. No doubt that is why the resurrection of Christ is described in the gospels as a transformed embodied state.

[@betsalprince]

Appealing to deities does not solve any of the many objections raised by Tim and Justin against Norman's moral views. I would argue that moral suasion and resolving moral conflicts is much more difficult for theists than it is for atheists. Two theists from the same religion may disagree on certain moral issues and they would both claim that they get their morals from God. Not to mention that there were wars and schisms because of these religious, doctrinal and moral disagreements, people who disagreed with Tim's moral positions the most before his passing were not humanists like Norman, but conservative evangelical Christians in the U.S.

[@talithaleah6563]

Approx 16:25, no, relying on memories is not a leap of faith. One might trust their memories, but one should be open to discovering ones memories are inaccurate. Memories can be trusted to the degree to which they prove reliable. No faith needed.

[@sly8926]

What if they can’t be proven?

[@talithaleah6563]

@@sly8926 then why should they be trusted?

[@tinacheng231]

Good discussion! Norman never answers the question *why* have morality...why is stealing/murder inherently wrong.

[@supersmart671]

TRUE!!! I find Norman's position to be really dangerous.

[@frankwhelan1715]

He does answer the question,because it's bad for humanity, you don't like to be robbed /murdered same goes for everyone,it doesn't take a genius to figure that out,if we didn't find it these things 'wrong' humans wouldn't last long

[@piage84]

@@frankwhelan1715 exactly, usually non-theists morality revolves around humanity's wellbeing. Non-theist morality is actually quite easy to understand as a concept (the hard part is properly define wellbeing, but that doesn't detract from the concept).

[@siim605]

Oh, I know, Tina - morals were dictated by the creator of the universe through text, in the exact specific religion you happen to believe in. To hell with genuine empathy and being good for the sake of it; we have to follow the orders of our dictator, right?

[@siim605]

​@Matthew N "It's not always through text, sometimes God did make appearance, said something that was heard, or sent a representative to earth" - All of these statements are completely unsubstantiated by any evidence. No religious text has ever been determined as the direct words of a deity, or a factual account of a deity.

[@markacohen1]

The secular humanist can prove easily that religions are man-made. That is the key. Not that the world would necessarily be MORALLY better if people were all non-religious.The Bible does NOT say that genocide is wrong. God destroys the whole living world in the Flood. No vile despot ever came close to that in their wildest dreams.

[@MichaelMendis]

Beginning at about 16:27, Tim Keller says: "... the idea of justice is essentially something that can't be proven, and I therefore also believe that the soul can't be proven." There are two points to be made with regard to this mangled piece of logic. First, ideas are logically not amenable to proof. Only propositions (or concepts that can be stated in the form of a proposition) are amenable to proof. So, the statement that the idea of justice cannot be proved is meaningless. What Keller might have been trying to say is that without a notion of "God" we have no basis upon which to arrive at a notion of justice. This is something very different from "proving" the "idea" of "justice"-but even so, this modified version of what Keller might have been trying to say is demonstrably false. The work of Frans de Waal with monkeys has shown that even animals (or at least some primate species) have an innate sense of justice and rebel against injustice when they are made victims of it. A video recording of de Waal's experiment is viewable here on KZbin and is well worth watching. Second, the logical conclusion that Keller draws from his mangled claim about the unprovability of the idea of justice, which he introduces with the word :therefore", is a *non sequitur.* The claim that the soul cannot be proved does not follow logically from the claim that the idea of justice cannot be proved. The two have nothing whatsoever to do with each other. The soul does not depend on justice; nor is it the case that justice depends on the soul. We might also add that the same objection about "proving" an "idea" can be applied to Keller's belief about "proving" (or not proving) "the soul". Perhaps he meant that the *existence* of something such as the soul (that is, the proposition: "The soul exists") cannot be proved, but his careless and unthinking use of language reflects an abysmal lack of intellectual rigour on his part. Why would anyone want to pay any attention to what he has to say?

[@loveandfaithfulness4479]

Ecclesiastes 1:4 "One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever." Solomon is dramatically describing life here on earth, and the folly of that existence when God is left out. No matter how exciting life may seem to be “under the sun,” ultimately, it has no value without God. we exist for a very short period of time but the earth remains forever in contrast to our short life spans. Nothing ever changes. So, any search for real meaning and lasting profit cannot come from under the sun. We will die and eventually stand before God and be judged. Those who have trusted Jesus Christ to forgive their sins and have given Him their lives will spend eternity with God. Those who have not done so will spend eternity in the Lake of Fire. Let us place our faith in God alone so that we would be strong in the Lord and ready to battle against the doubts planted by the enemy. Lord, increase our Faith! John 10:10 I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

[@webslinger527]

@Daniel Storm I don’t think you understand what the whole meaning or profit or life giving meaning means.Let me try to explain what I think it means and what I think most people try to explain is that people have a purpose that evolution which is the tool used by God to make then it’s a way for us to be humbled for us to know our background if you read the Bible you know that there are chapters or a list of “you know we are like the beast will be or not the beast will die like them but we are not them.Even the Bible acknowledge his real like beasts but we are not them one monkeys throw feces we build ships to Mars that’s a pretty big difference considering we’re 99% genetically related to a monkey .All evolution was is a tool used by God to make us go humans have flaws that’s part of the design if we were perfect wife would be meaningless boring and unfunny you need a challenge every once in a while do I agree that there are some things that should be changed or maybe altered sure anyone can agree with that or disagree but I think humanity turned out all right I’ll things considered were the most intelligent being in the world we dummy almost everything nature in almost all the world Ben’s to our will and we have almost everything We could ever want. So I think using evolution as a way to disprove God is false I think it actually helps prove gods existence look up the statistics of how one single life could come to existence and that might turn you into a Christian the odds are so astronomical it is insane.

[@webslinger527]

@Daniel Storm I'm sorry to hear that but thier is evidence for him not just Jesus but Evolution, the mind, the universe and more if u want i can explain more if u want

[@webslinger527]

@Daniel Storm thank you for the luck. It's not about convincing you or anything like that I'm just trying to show you that there is evidence for God not trying to convert you if you want to be a Christian that's a good thing but I'm not forcing you to its your choice. Let me try to explain what I mentioned not just Jesus and evolution what I'm trying to say about evolution is that what looks like Randomness random mutation Random Acts II ever be repeated is just a giant web like a tree of life you move one branch or take away a bridge and the tree changes run this instant it's a giant web so what else looks random to God was a plan he pulled a certain web and then in those certain ways we came about. That's why the Bible says we are like the Beast will die like a beast but we aren't the Beast what were 99% monkeys one throws feces in the other one build Rockets obey hits on with the stick we hit each other with nuclear bombs there's a big difference from 1% God brought us from these animals is a way for us to Humble ourselves Noah ancestry to be interested in our past it's a good thing God is evolution of bring us about that should be used against him if you've used for him. When it comes to the universe University extremely complex very complex there's no scientist that would dare say the universe is not complex regardless of the theological background. If even the smallest thing was off the smallest atom the smallest hair of an atom with a small is the number the whole universe would exist even if he was a Multiverse it have to be a prime numbers meaning of anyone Universe God could exist then he would be in one of the meaning God would exist whether he does or doesn't you need to Prime Universe most likely God for the prime minister to exist or be outside Universe in order to make the Multiverse and other which case this still helps give Evans towards God what do you believe in just our universe being complex or the Multiverse. When it comes to the mind it cannot be found in the human brain yes we can tamper with the mind we can make it spasm do things uncontrollably injury or damage it giving a speech impairment learning disabilities we can do that to the human brain but we cannot stop conscious there been people verified rods jam through the side of their head taken off whole parts of their brains are we were hoping a shot with a gun or whose heads in a split open to the pain with half their brain has been cracked open or completely removed and yet they're still conscious. Also people who've even died or should I say near death experience is he will have no heartbeat four five six seven eight nine 10 minutes even longer they're able to explain things that should have been possible their eyes were closed exact doctor movement they were you choose on the patient other surgeries happening what loved ones were saying while they were dead or hundreds of other things which still baffles scientists to this day. If you want more clarity on some of these issues Whatchamacallit inspiringphilosophy he touches on these things he shows how scientists are baffled by this how the universe is so complex how Jesus is God and how he existed how Christian just didn't develop that he was always called God in Mark they asked him or you the Sun a blessed in Jesus said I am he's always been God so I asked you watch his KZbin channel he can help show you better things that I could. Also sorry if this is really long I just try to get my point across. 👍👍

[@webslinger527]

@Daniel Storm Those are scientific studies and is our testimonies from people from all over the world. Also prayer only works if it isn’t in gods well you cannot force someone to pray and he’ll just magically happen no. if you pray in Jesus some it will happen but there are other things to do. I asked build a world of father you cannot pray and wish for a nuclear bomb it’s not gonna happen if you have faith and maybe depending on what you ask for you may receive it but none are worthy to ask anything from God we should be happy but we have not ask for more. Also how do you know no Arm or arm has never gone back in history most of the things that happened when in Israel.Even with Jesus in miracles they are documented the Jews hold it in the Talmud they called magic because They believed he wasn’t GODbut he still reference him doing something magical even though it’s not it’s a miracle and they didn’t think of them as messiah so they made fun of him by calling the magic. Also A lot of things Jesus did or not documented me know he was a real person and get some things are not written by the apostles or by others but yet we know they happened also leader sources like some Romans make knowledge of some certain miracles. Also to answer your question of illusions how could it be an allusion when thousands if not millions of people experience the same thing also how can you remember sending that shouldn’t be possible can you member your families dying words when you’re on level III of a hospital where they’re entering the hospital on the first floor. No heartbeat 5, 6,7 minutes dead how can It be possible how could you sis want to surgery for him above you hear other conversations see what the doctors are doing while your EYES are closed. You cannot cover an illusion that would make no sense no offense but that is a really bad argument to call an allusion.

[@webslinger527]

@Daniel Storm also it’s not even just about being a believer people who are atheist Muslims and Jews Christians Hindu Buddhism all experienced nearly the same thing it’s universal. We know the brain is not the source of consciousness it may influence consciousness like it can make you damaged mentally impaired it could slow your speeches or it could cause you to not respond soon as we know we can timbre conscience will be no consciousness is not found in the brain. That’s what baffles scientist that has been scientifically studied for years even certain age is in math this they don’t want to admit it because they did approve something is beyond nature nothing wrong with being beyond nature.

[@josephpatterson2513]

The Christian claims they have objective moral values but what are they? Christians using their Bibles (and/or Tradition) do not agree on the particulars concerning what Objective morality is. It's just what one Christian opinion of what is objective vs another Christian's opinion about what is objective. It is all really subjective for the Christian. His morality is as subjective as Norman's is. Also, while Norman claims that morality is subjective there are many atheists/humanists who would disagree with him. One more thing, there are many different atheist/humanist theories concerning morality/ethics. Ethics and morality is much more complicated than is presented on this program.

[@brianorf461]

Just curious what your thoughts would be on this: would you consider the constitution and bill of rights objective?

[@surewhynotverysure1504]

Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? 17 Even so, (F)every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. 19 (G)Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Therefore by their fruits you will know them. - Matthew 7:15-20

[@josephpatterson2513]

@@surewhynotverysure1504 And your point is????

[@kcdad2806]

Is sadism "wrong" if the sadist is enjoying causing pain to a masochist? Both are getting out of the interaction what they desire.

[@finty077]

Who won?

[@kelvyquayo]

The host. And the audience.

[@egorall]

I keep listening/watching these debates hoping to hear something interesting from Christians but it's frustrating to hear the exactly the same arguments. If Christianity (or any religion) is true, there should be very good reasons to think so. The Christian response to morality seems to be limited to "oh, you have no standard for morality and subjective morality is icky", as if it being subjective automatically makes Hitler (yawn... ALWAYS brought up),and any bad dudes doing bad things just a matter of opinion and so we should all think by association that subjective morality is all arbitrary and there's no way to get to oughts. This is a childish way of looking at it and lacks the nuance that any meaningful discussion of morality would necessitate.

[@St.Raphael...]

Look up Uberboyo on youtube. Also Jay Dyer has some good conversations.

[@egorall]

@Matthew N I'm sorry, but I'm not sure how this makes sense for either Christian or atheist. An atheist doesn't believe in God so to say "better than God" holds no meaning, and a Christian would never think they can do better than God. This tells me you are a Christian, and one trying to "instruct" a non-Christian about the silliness of questioning "God". If the goal of a Christian is to evangelize and help bring lost souls to God, the first step should be in finding a way of convincing a non-believe that God exists. Asserting the folly of them thinking they "know more than God" is an assertion, not an argument or demonstration.

[@egorall]

@Matthew N I'm not pretending to myself at all. That would be, what? Willfully deluding myself? That only comes about when I'm defending a proposition I WANT to be true and that hampers my ability to properly evaluate. I think what you're failing to grasp among many atheist is that for many of us (I included), would absolutely LOVE to be able to live forever. I'd LOVE to see my dad again, my other dead relatives. I hate the idea of dying. I really WISH I could live forever. So, when I reject things that believers use to support "God exists" it's not because I want to, it's because I'm not willing to believe for stupid reasons and terrible evidence. God either is real or not. My opinion and your opinion has no bearing on that. My personal wishes have no bearing on that. Because it has no bearing, I am not 'pretending' anything to myself. I earnestly and honestly evaluate both arguments and evidence. It's not my fault you guys can't come up with anything good. That's your fault. You obviously have your reasons for believing, and whatever they are, they're sufficient for you to believe. They aren't for me. They fall far short. I want to know the truth, no matter what direction that is. I care more about the truth than my person feelings in the matter.

[@Eldian16]

Eric Gorall Appreciate your honest reflection on the question of God. But this seems to be a common stumbling block for Atheists: that they would believe in God, IF X and Y conditions were met. Ie: if there were enough ‘evidence’, or if God revealed himself in such-and-such a way. There is a specific demand or expectation: if God we’re real, then He would have done things MY way - in a way that makes sense to me. But my question to you is this: why should God give a hoot about what makes sense to you? Why should God do things your way? Why should he provide X amount of evidence, or X amount of clarity? Why is it only *your* conditions that are the ‘fair’ or ‘right’ ones? Even further than this: would X and Y conditions being met change the fundamental question (whether to believe or not)? What would it take for you, personally, to believe in God? Someone telling you about their experience? Clearly not. Thousands telling you of their experiences? Clearly not. Historical records that align with a particular religious narrative? Clearly not. Probably, you want ‘scientific evidence’, right? If so, then your requirements - your conditions for belief - are, in essence, impossible. You set the bar at a level which can never be met. It’s likely that you expect the existence of God to be proven in the same way we would prove a Natural law. Which is a logical impossibility. It cannot happen, by definition. So while you may say - and even believe- that you are open to the possibility, the reality is likely that you’ve already ground yourself in assumptions (prior beliefs) that preclude the possibility of any religious or spiritual options. You are likely saying: “I’ll believe in God, if he works and acts according to my pre-existing naturalistic worldview. I have no room in my belief system for anything beyond that.” So that’s where the disconnect is happening. It’s not a criticism, just trying to get you to look in a different place. Discussions of evidence can happen, but not until the fundamental assumptions are jiggled loose.

[@egorall]

@@Eldian16 "why should God give a hoot about what makes sense to you?" He doesn't have to. However... IF he does "want a relationship with us" and IF he is "not the author of confusion", then it's certainly a reasonable request by those that do not believe that when asked for what they might consider reasonable evidence to believe, that something other than excuses are provided as a result, and in my mind when my queries are answered with variations of "don't test God" or "that's an unreasonable request", if the end goal is to convince me God is real and not just to win points in an argument, that's not the route to meet that goal with success. "Why should he provide X amount of evidence, or X amount of clarity? Why is it only your conditions that are the ‘fair’ or ‘right’ ones?" Again, he doesn't have to do anything. And neither do you. Though, why should he require people like you to "explain" why he can't do something? That's as curious to me as much as anything. "What would it take for you, personally, to believe in God?" Many, many things could be done to make me believe in God and here's the thing: It wouldn't matter what my prior beliefs were, it would work itself into my brain and change my beliefs. Beliefs are conclusions. We have no choices in them. What we conclude form our beliefs. One super simple example: If intercessory prayer actually worked, and especially if it worked dependably. In short order if only Christians praying saw them met, then the whole world would inevitably come to Christianity because it would be something tangible that wouldn't simply be explained away. It would no longer be blind chance. It would show in a very real way there's something 'special' about Christianity.. something no other belief system could do. What about only Christians praying have limbs regrow? That would work. Even better, what if they regrew when a person came to Jesus and was baptized? Doesn't God want a relationship with everyone? Doesn't he not want us to worship other, false gods? Instead of using prayer as an evangelical tool to bring everyone to Christ, God doesn't. Now, any number of excuses are used to "explain" why it's 'just not reasonable' to use prayer that way, but if God wants a relationship and if he didn't want to allow all the uncertainty and confusion to remain, including the religious killing/maiming, etc, prayer certainly COULD be used that way. And that's just a simple idea that I, an ordinary person can think of off the top of my head. Or.. what if only Christians survived plane crashes? Or, what if belief in Jesus ensured babies carried to term without genetic defects? Any one unique item could be used to differentiate belief in Jesus from those that didn't... and in a very short time the world would be Christian. It wouldn't matter what a persons beliefs were. A subliminal association between the special and unique benefit of being a Christian in even one area would do the trick. The association would eventually result inevitably in belief. "your conditions for belief - are, in essence, impossible" Look directly above. Are those "impossible"? God couldn't do that? Jesus said that anybody that believed could do any miracle he could and more. Why isn't any of that happening? " It’s likely that you expect the existence of God to be proven in the same way we would prove a Natural law. Which is a logical impossibility. It cannot happen, by definition." That's just an excuse. Really, it is. Anything that can manifest itself in reality can be detectable. If it can be detectable, it can be studied. Saying "impossible by definition" is just a lazy excuse (in my opinion). I'm not talking about a source, I'm talking about effects. Either God can do things in this reality or he cannot. If he can, then it could conceivably succeed in simple things like I spelled out above. If not, it's indistinguishable from something existing only in our minds.

[@lawsonfalomo8739]

All important God realizes that all men sin. All that God ask is to address your sins to bring it to him and make actionable steps to solve it. God is merciful and forgiving. But if you don’t bring it to Him and you don’t address it. Your sins will ultimately control and destroy you. God doesn’t punish for pleasure

[@SamIAm-kz4hg]

"all men sin" I don't. Bad assumption. "God is merciful and forgiving." But I will go to hell for not believing, right? Sounds like you don't get what the words "merciful and forgiving" mean.

[@lawsonfalomo8739]

I don’t know if you will go to hell or heaven for not believing in God. That’s up to God and his judgment for each of us.

[@SamIAm-kz4hg]

@@lawsonfalomo8739 "I don’t know if you will go to hell or heaven for not believing in God." Yes, that's a given, since your god might not actually be real. But, some Christians DO think that by "rejecting" god atheists will be punished eternally for a mortal crime. Anyone can see that this is not justice. "That’s up to God and his judgment for each of us." So it's pretty arbitrary in your mind? And there's no good evidence that any of this is real. What a wonderful imagination you have.

[@lawsonfalomo8739]

@@SamIAm-kz4hg I would say read scripture for the answers you’re looking for. I suggest reading the Qur'an, the Torah, and the Bible to get a better perspective. Even if you don’t believe. God does and blesses as He wills. My job isn’t too understand why God does what he does that’s impossible we humans can never. My job is to learn his ways so I can be the best version of myself. I wish you nothing but the best and God bless you and yours.

[@SamIAm-kz4hg]

@@lawsonfalomo8739 "I would say read scripture for the answers you’re looking for." So that's a failure. You did not answer the question, and reading some random mythologies doesn't answer the question either. I also don't like slavery, nor do I think that we should take our unruly children to the edge of town and stone them to death. Is this the "better perspective" you think I'm going to get? So you seriously thought that reading CONFLICTING mythologies would give me perspective? The only perspective I get is that they're all likely just making shit up. But it was funny that you thought three different texts that clearly are incongruent with one another somehow bolstered your claim of a god. Now THAT I have never heard before. And it made me laugh. "we humans can never" One of the reasons I don't like arguing with theists is that they say things like this that are just dumb. I suspect you don't see that you can't make this statement unless you yourself were a god. This is the kind of lack of logical thinking that permeates theist "thinking". You can't say "we humans can never" know unless you know all that is or is not knowable. You should think this through VERY CAREFULLY. "God does and blesses as He wills" Your case for god is awful. So no one should accept your claims. "I wish you nothing but the best and God bless you and yours" In return I can only hope that you get a better grip on how "thinking" works. Have you thought of studying reasoning and logic?

[@zach2980]

As of 2020 Tim doesn’t fully acknowledge evolution btw.

[@webslinger527]

Really? That’s odd.

[@zach2980]

@@webslinger527 very few Christian apologists do.

[@webslinger527]

@@zach2980 no not really most do

[@brando3342]

webslinger 527 That isn't true. Most don't accept macro evolution and so they shouldn't because it isn't true.

[@webslinger527]

@@brando3342 What micro evolution is very true and so is evolution both of them are true.

[@kirjian]

Norman's worldview just crumbled over time, even the moderator noticed

[@lygiabird6988]

My question is, just because something benefits humanity why does that make it good. You could argue that humans as a species aren’t beneficial for the planet or the other animals that live on it, so why does it matter that something is good for us? Why isn’t it better for us to be wiped out so the earth can go on without us? Also when so many people are competing for the same resources why isn’t it better that we just wipe half of the planet off, Thanos style?

[@rubiks6]

How do you define "beneficial for the planet"? Why not wipe out crocodiles so the Earth can go on without them? Why not wipe out mice so the Earth could go on without them? If you actually believe Mankind should be removed from the Earth, why are you still here?! Your argument is self-defeating and therefore foolish.

[@rubiks6]

Let me make something clear to you ... The Earth was created *FOR* Mankind. What should be sought after is the benefit of Mankind, not the benefit of the Earth. All the resources of the Earth should be applied to improving the human condition. The Earth is mindless. The one thing on this Earth that has a real mind is Man. You've chosen to use your mind foolishly. What you believe is flipped around completely backwards from what reality demonstrates. How did you become this way?

[@lygiabird6988]

@@rubiks6 the definition of beneficial is ‘good or favourable’. Humanity, with all its intelligence, has misused the earth and its oceans and has been THE factor in the extinction of millions of species of animals, beginning in prehistoric times and continuing to today. We have destroyed the beauty of the earth and drained it of many of its resources. We have been decidedly NOT beneficial for the planet. If you are looking at the issue from a completely natural point of view, removing the possibility of the supernatural, then who cares if something is good for us? Why do we deserve to be here, if we use the very features of our bodies and minds that make us the most sophisticated creature alive for our own selfish ends, rather than to improve the world around us? Utilitarianism and humanism doesn’t answer this question and I would like to know how someone who holds these beliefs would answer these questions.

[@rubiks6]

@@lygiabird6988 - What is "good"? Who decides? What is favorable"? Again, who decides? I will answer your question. "... a completely natural point of view ...". Why would I be interested in such a point of view? This Earth was created by the Creator specifically *FOR* Man. There is nothing natural about that. This Earth was given to Man as a gift. Indeed, Man has ruined it in many ways, as he does with everything he puts his hand to, starting with his disobedience in the garden, but the central theme of this grand narrative is the redemption of Mankind by the only Person that can redeem him - his Creator. Why does Man deserve to be here?! Why do turtles deserve to be here? Why do butterflies or jellyfish or mushrooms deserve to be here? We are all here by the grace of God and each has its purpose. Your purpose is to discover the realities of your Creator and reveal those realities to others, for you are made in His image. Surely by now, you have discovered that Man is broken and not to be worshiped. The Earth, too, is broken and not to be worshiped. Search for the one who is not broken and worship him. Men, in their earthly condition, are very temporary things. We all die. The Earth, too, is a very temporary thing. In the very, very near future, this corrupted Earth will be uncreated in a moment and replaced with a new Earth that will not know corruption. Those people who trust the God that told us about the new Earth will live on it forever. Those people who have rejected their Creator will spend eternity experiencing only God's wrath in total darkness. Why do we *_deserve_* to be here? We do not _deserve_ to be here and neither do the bluejays or the octopi or the earthworms. We are all here by the desires and purposes of the Author of the grand narrative we are all participating in. This Author puts Shakespeare to shame. His desire is that you recognize Him for who and what He is. He has given you a great many clues but He does not today come right up to your face and announce Himself audibly and visually. The Earth with all its exquisite beauty announces loudly the presence and character of God. The Earth with all its horrors also makes it clear for you to seek elsewhere the source of all things good. Again, Mankind, with all his intellect, creativity, loving-kindness, morality demonstrates the image of God that was given him but in his utter depravity, indicates that another person is to be sought to find true justice and kindness. That one is God. Besides looking at the Earth and at Man, God has given us His Word to fill in many of the blanks. God also came to Earth as a man and walked among us so we could see with our own eyes the character of God. He gave his life to redeem us, though we truly do not deserve it. That is how His loving-kindness works. His loving-kindness does not depend on us. Because of the great act performed by the God/man Jesus Christ, God raised him from the dead. He lives today seated on the throne of God ruling the universe and the narrative goes on still. The Earth was made for Man and belongs to Man. When I think of improving the world, I think of improving it for Mankind. Turtles do not have eternal souls. Men do. Eternal things are more important than temporary things, according to Plato. If you search for reasons to be angry, you will surely find them. There are better things to search for. The One who created all things perfect can surely restore them. Search for Him, though He is not far from you. Blessings to you.

[@lygiabird6988]

@@rubiks6 I think you’ve misunderstood my question. My question was posed to someone who ascribes to the utilitarian or humanist way of thought. Maybe you didn’t watch the video but I was asking my question in response to the viewpoint held by the atheist in this debate. As an aside, your method of persuasion is extremely off putting. I’m a Christian. You called me a fool or foolish three times and we are supposed to share the same worldview. Matthew 5:22?

[@robotnik77]

As a Christian, I 'd have to say that was a pretty lukewarm debate, Keller seemingly agreeing with everything. If there are no points of difference, what's the difference? Keller's Christian God seems to be Deistic, just starting the ball rolling and letting the dominoes fall. I hope I'm wrong about him, but this apologetic did little for me.

[@quachett3965]

I think the reason it seems Tim was agreeing with everything is: Humanism is often accused of being Christian Lite, its Christianity without Christ, therefore, you will get a lot of things that philosophically you will find agreement. I believe the main point in Keller's explanation is a reference to a truism about a lie that is closest to the truth being more deceptive than one that is jarring. Humanism is likely to win many that pure materialistic Atheism, so when talking about Humanism it's all about questioning its foundations than an all-out contrast battle, hence it will seem luke-warm. That's my 2 cents at least

[@brando3342]

@DEFCON 4 I totally agree. Tim could have pushed back harder, especially on the Hitler bit. Hitler hated Christianity but loved propaganda.

[@markacohen1]

science and reason try to explain more and more things and improve on existing explanations. Religion RELIES on not explaining everything and throwing our hands up to say we will never explain much, and above all the most important things. They're happy to piggy back on whatever science does but in an utterly useless way. How did Keller check the ''evidence'' for Jesus's resurrection? The same way I tried to confirm that Dracula rises from the dead. We didn't.

[@candeffect]

One way to be saved: God's way. Unlimited ways to ensure a trashed eternity.

[@andrewfisherman3811]

No! The reason is God. Everything else is mere footnotes - or extended commentary. If you cannot say with conviction that you believe in the reality of the Living God then what are you saying? You are in danger of elevating a man (or humanity) to the place which God should hold. And a practice now so common it goes down in the annals of conventional thinking as common sense and all other interpretations of reality as hocus pocus at best and clinical insanity at worst.

[@walterjones9811]

Boy, Tim had to hold his mule, didn’t he?

[@teachpeace3750]

I can see why people believe what Tim believes, but I think Norman’s explanations and beliefs are a more accurate understanding of reality and the evidence.

[@michaelbrickley2443]

Teach Peace, the skeptic always seems to lean towards the narrative that fits their opinion. And believe me, atheism is both faith and opinion. There is no better explanation tor the evidence for God and there is zero evidence to back up what the atheist claims.

[@teachpeace3750]

@@michaelbrickley2443 I disagree. I wish Christianity were true, it would make my life a lot easier. I just go where the evidence leads.

[@michaelbrickley2443]

@@teachpeace3750, you go where the evidence fits your narrative. You’re funny, though. Do you have any idea how many people died in pain wondering if they were right about their disbelief?

[@teachpeace3750]

@@michaelbrickley2443 my narrative was Christianity, so no, you are incorrect. I’m a hospice chaplain and I don’t understand what question you are trying to pose.

[@michaelbrickley2443]

@@teachpeace3750, your narrative is anti Christianity. And I don’t care where you claim to be a chaplain. What evidence do you have that Christ faith is untrue?

[@talithaleah6563]

26:30ish how could you possibly know genocide is wrong based on the Bible? God commands genocide.

[@sly8926]

No he doesn’t. God punished evil.

[@talithaleah6563]

@@sly8926 in the Bible, god commands genocide. More than once.

[@sly8926]

@@talithaleah6563 No, he doesn’t. He punishes evil. Genocide is a mass murder. God punishing evil people by having them killed is not genocide. It’s justice.

[@talithaleah6563]

@@sly8926 that’s bullshit. Read the stories again.

[@sly8926]

@@talithaleah6563 What are the reasons he gives? Go ahead, tell us.

[@williamspringer9447]

Have you ever wondered why they teach our kids big bang and evolution theory in school,and yet those same State controlled public schools haven't taught the science of classical logic for more than a century? Do you think it's because they want to enlighten us ? Here's an argument for the existence of God that you may enjoy. Premise #1: The universe was created by either a directed (intelligent) or undirected (random) process . Premise #2: The proposition that the universe was created by an undirected (random) process runs squarely against numbers that are so astronomically improbable that we can not reasonable entertain them as a possibility . Conclusion : It is therefore a practical certainty that the universe was created by a directed (intelligent) process. "A high degree of probability is often called 'practical certainty.' A reasonable man should not refrain upon acting upon a practical certainty as though it were known to be true. In England, for instance, it is customary for a judge, at the trial of a person accused of murder, to instruct the jury that an adverse verdict need not be based on the belief that the guilt of the prisoner has been ' proved ', but upon the belief that the guilt has been established ' beyond a reasonable doubt .' To be ' beyond reasonable doubt ' is to have sufficient evidence to make the proposition in question so much more likely to be true than to be false that we should be prepared to act upon the supposition of its truth. Many of our most important actions have to be performed in accordance with belief of such a kind." -L. Susan Stebbing, "Logic in Practice", (1934) pages 98 and 99 •••••••••• The following is a quote of Dr Frank Turek, taken from a debate between Frank Turek and Christopher Hitchens on KZbin. •••• "This is sometimes called the teleological argument for design. Not only did the universe explode into being out of nothing , it did so with extreme precision . In other words, the big bang was not a chaotic explosion. How incredibly precise was it? Atheist Steven Weinberg put it this way. He said, "life as we know it would be impossible if any one of several physical quantities had slightly different values." There are dozens of these quantities . One of them Steven Hawking identified was this: He said that if the expansion rate of the universe changed by one part in a hundred thousand million million, a second after the big bang , we wouldn't be here . The universe would not have expanded, or it would have collapsed back in on itself, or it never would have created galaxies . That's how precisely designed the big bang event was. Not only was the big bang event precisely designed , so are many constants about our universe right now . If you change the gravitational force by one part in ten to the forty , we wouldn't be here . What's one part in ten to the forty? Illustration : Take a tape measure ; stretch it from that back wall to the front wall ; in inches. If you set gravity at a particular inch mark on that tape measure, and moved the strength of gravity one inch in either direction proportionally , we go out of existence . But the problem is that the tape measure doesn't go from that wall to this front wall; it goes across the entire known universe . You change gravity that much , across the entire known universe, and we don't exist . For you Navy people out here, (I was in the Navy many years) think of an aircraft carrier , like the John Stennis or the Ronald Reagan, which displaces a hundred and ten thousand tons ; has a runway on it that is about three lengths of a football field ; has five to six thousand people on it ; several stories high. If you were to change the weight of that aircraft carrier by less than a trillionth the weight of one electron , it would be uninhabitable , if the aircraft carrier was the universe . That's how incredibly designed the universe is."

[@deadweaselsteve3262]

Premise 1: Question begging: assumes the existence of intelligent designers capable of creating universes, which existence the theist is attempting to prove.

[@simplesimon7910]

The furthest you could get with premise 1, being as charitable as possible, is deism. That's problem 1. The 'god' could well have died in act of creation. Additionally, the idea that numbers are so large its impossible otherwise is also not very good. A multiverse theory could easily trump the numbers you are imagining. Additionally, the universe is so vast, with so many options of location for life and so many years for life to come about, the odds dont seem as daunting as you would make out.

[@deadweaselsteve3262]

@@simplesimon7910 It doesn't even get that far, since the argument is simply irrelevant. Consider: Premise 1) Financial disasters have two possible causes: an incredibly subtle, sinister, malevolent, diabolically intelligent conspiracy, or random chance; Premise 2) It can't be random chance, because :1; Conclusion) Therefore, the Illuminati must have done it. And therefore they exist. Is the question begging obvious now, in this example, or are further examples required?

[@simplesimon7910]

@@deadweaselsteve3262 oh absolutely, I understand your reference completely. And I was trying to give him a little more steel. Basically its an argument from incredulity but I didnt want to call it out by name since that tends to get an interlocutors back up. But I appreciate the example. (Edited because I cant spell)

[@williamspringer9447]

Simple Simon ••• The premises of my argument are true . Premise #1 is self-evident. Premise #2 , I could support with mountains of evidence. The conclusion logically follows. I consider the multi-universe premise to be a nullity , completely unsupported by any reliable evidence. “The statistical probability that organic structures and the most precisely harmonized reactions that typify living organisms would be generated by accident, is zero.” -Ilya Prigogine, chemist-physicist, recipient of two Nobel Prizes in chemistry "An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going. The trouble is that there are about two thousand enzymes, and the chance of obtaining them all in a random trial is only one part in (10^20)^2,000 = 10^40,000, an outrageously small probability that could not be faced even if the whole universe consisted of organic soup. In terms of complexity, an individual cell is nothing when compared with a system like the mammalian brain. The human brain consists of about ten thousand million nerve cells. Each nerve cell puts out between ten thousand and one hundred thousand connecting fibers by which it makes contact with other nerve cells in the brain. Altogether the total number of connections in the human brain approaches 10^15 or a thousand million million. Numbers in the order of 10^15 are of course completely beyond comprehension. Imagine an area about half the size of the USA (one million square miles) covered in a forest of trees containing ten thousand trees per square mile. If each tree contained one hundred thousand leaves the total number of leaves in the forest would be 10^15, equivalent to the number of connections in the human brain! Despite the enormity of the number of connections, the ramifying forest of fibers is not a chaotic random tangle but a highly organized network in which a high proportion of the fibers are unique adaptive communication channels following their own specially ordained pathway through the brain. Even if only one hundredth of the connections in the brain were specifically organized, this would still represent a system containing a much greater number of specific connections than in the entire communications network on Earth." -Professor Francis Crick, awarded the Nobel Prize for the discovery of DNA “From 1953 onward, Willy Fowler and I have always been intrigued by the remarkable relation of the 7.65 Mev energy level in the nucleus of Carbon 12 to the 7.12 Mev level in Oxygen 16. if you wanted to produce carbon and oxygen in roughly equal quantities by stellar nucleosynthesis, these are the two levels you have to fix, and your fixing would have to be just where these levels are actually found to be. Another put-up job? Following the above argument, I am inclined to think so. A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature.” -Sir Fred Hoyle, Cambridge Astrophysicist, “The Universe: Past and Present Reflections “Perhaps before going further we should ask just how probable is it that a universe created by randomly choosing the parameters will contain stars. Given what we have already said, it is simple to estimate this probability. For those readers who are interested, the arithmetic is in the notes. The answer, in round numbers, comes to about one chance in 10^229.” -Lee Smolin, American theoretical physicist, "Life of the Cosmos"

[@steveweiss7191]

You are a Christian because you believe in scripture? Scripture says that a virgin gave birth, Eve came from Adam's rib, the dead (not just Jesus) arose from the dead, that animals talk in numerous languages, that a person walked on water, that someone converted water into wine, and that one goes to hell for disbelief in mythology. Does this sound convincing to you based upo what?

[@bruceylwang]

When someone’s mind (motive) is not following the “Truth”, he would do something not appreciated. Thus, one’s mind (motive) should be explored first before we talk about “belief”. Looking into infant's Mind before it deeply “educated” by “words” to build “belief”, you will find answers for all of the questions about Mind and life. Life has purposes. Mind is carrying on these purposes, brain is just a tool (media). What is the mind? I will tell you later. How does the mind relate to the “Soul-Truth-God”? I will tell you later.

[@deloreserb1130]

U

[@HiVisl]

25:05 Bacrac's definition of utilitarianism assumes materialism-It's circular reasoning. 25:31 Bacrac states that "utilitarians' are more open to making better decisions (via observation) than those who are "committed" to a specific religious view(s). Does he not see how materialists (utilitarians) do the same thing, based on their commitment to their materialist view?! They too will twist reality (nothing creating a universe) in order to accommodate their beliefs ABOUT reality. 30:42 This is where utilitarianism unravels. Bacrac states that "you're not allowed" to get pleasure from someone else's suffering. He's injecting an absolute into a universe that (according to his view) has no moral absolutes. He's arguing against moral absolutes while trying to smuggle in an absolute. A logically inconsistent view that fails its own test. From here on in Bacrac tries to argue why his subjective assessment of right and wrong is "the right way" to live and think. Moral relativity always disproves itself. Bacrac does not live or argue consistently (convincingly) with his stated views. What an astounding self-contradiction! 😄

[@MichaelMendis]

Beginning at about 31:34, Keller says: "The point is that evolution says that we got here through the strong eating the weak, through weak people, weak organisms being squeezed out by the strong. That's absolutely natural; that's completely normal." In so saying, Keller makes it quite obvious that he does not know the first thing about evolutionary theory. The claim that evolution is about the strong "eating" the weak or "squeezing out" the weak is UTTERLY FALSE, yet Keller then proceeds to use this false claim to supposedly refute the humanist approach to moral behaviour. Quite apart from Keller's false representation of how natural selection works, it has to be pointed out that there is no known living species within which "strong" members of the species "eat" or "squeeze out" the "weak" members of their own species. In fact, among social species and herding species there are clear examples of members of a given species helping an injured member of their species to escape from predators-that is, the strong *helping* the weak within the species. The same principle would apply to the human species and the relationships between members within the species. Keller is either abysmally ignorant of evolutionary theory and animal behaviour, or he is appropriately informed but is being deliberately intellectually dishonest in order to convince himself that the Bible is "infallible" (a claim he makes elsewhere in the conversation).

[@Cheesesteakfreak]

The problem with most Christian debate goers is they are terrified of being wrong, so most dont listen and the few who do would never change their minds.

[@robotnik77]

...and you know that...how? An assertion, or an assumption...is just that - an assumption.

[@siim605]

@Caratacus That's not a straw man. Do you know what that is?

[@siim605]

@Caratacus Damn, you're the same guy I already replied to. Do you know ANYTHING?

[@siim605]

@RetroMan How can a dismissal of theism be "sturdy"? It's not a belief or a belief system. And it doesn't mean anything to say atheists "are known for ad hominems and emotional comebacks". I think theists are a lot more likely to resort to such nonsense. Because as we both know, theism cannot be substantiated. At all.

[@ojibwayinca8487]

"Is there a soul or is it a matter of faith?" Tim, Rambles... I wish Tim would have read JP Moreland and given some rational, analytical reasons for a soul rather than that flat, weak response, groping in the dark...hoping...wishing. "The soul can't be proven." (Tim says). Weak, just utterly weak and sad that such a well known pastor would give this reply.

[@webslinger527]

I don’t think you understood what he was trying to say what he’s trying to show is it a soul is a part of you.Let me try to explain what I mean and what I am assuming he’s trying to mean is that the soul is a part of you it’s hard to give evidence for a soul because no one can prove it does it doesn’t exist so he will say it does because if you have a near death or even sometimes die for 5, 6, or7 minutes they claim to see an actual life or no things they shouldn’t know . People can recount hearing peoples last words when they are technically the heart is beating anymore or seeing the doctors operate them or even other surgeries happen while their eyes are sealed and while they’re in a whole different floors of hospitals and exactly what happened and what tools and what words they said. But I think what he’s trying to explain is it have a soul is the part of you it’s just naturally there I wouldn’t cause argument week I just didn’t think he got the point across correctly or do you just didn’t understand which is understandable talking about the souls a very hard argument understand I hope this helps clarify some things if not please tell me and I will try to help again.👍

[@cvsree]

God is the only reality. What more reason to seek? Atheist also seek reality but, they are in an illusion that they are not seeking God

[@SNORKYMEDIA]

Claim

[@supersmart671]

Norman cannot see the incoherence of his own argument. Sad indeed!!

[@zach2980]

For a pastor who references human rights that believes hell exists and is made by a Omni benevolent god,.....uh no.

[@SebastianLundh1988]

I am a pantheistic idealist. We only know about mind. Consciousness is the world we live in. We couln't even in principle imagine mind coming out of nonmind. It is easier to believe that we live in an enormous world made of consciousness. I adhere to Bernardo Kastrup's idea that the universe as a whole is the second person perspective of God's mind, in the same way your brain is the second person perspective of your thoughts.

[@TheAndreas1008]

If you don't mind (pardon my puns) I'd like to challenge that view. I think Descartes was right when he said "I think therefore I am". I think we can know about our existence. I think we experience the world through our consciousness but that does not mean that it's all we can know - we also know that we exist. Know this would only lead to solipsism and some experience we may not certainly be able to trust. With our certain existence in mind I'd like to ask you one thing: Can software exist without hardware? Can a program run if there's no space to run it? I don't think this is a false analogy for human consciousness, I think we need "hardware" - matter. Also I think you're going too far with implementing idealism. I'm an idealist because I believe mind was the first cause that kicked off the universe, but I'm convinced that it is not the case for humans. It seems, and I think cognitive science shows this as well, that our materialistic brain causes change in consciousness, not the other way around. One more thing: the claim that we can't imagine mind coming from nonmind is problematic for two main reasons. 1) This is an epistemological claim, not an ontological one but you draw an ontological conclusion about a pantheistic idealistic worldview from it. 2) It is definitely not a true epistemological claim and science gives examples of mindlike functions originating from mindless processes, so it may not even be ontologically true either. I'm not here to bash you, I don't believe you ARE your worldview/idea - but I am definitely here to challenge that idea. How would you tackle these objections? And where does the deity come from in this kind of idealism?

[@kelvyquayo]

I once had pretty Hegelian views as well as pretty mystical.. as far as self-awareness/development.. What throws it off for me , however, is the very possibility of something that could actually be known IF it came from a Prime "God" and that would force me to explore what that could look like.. and I did find that it's Christ.. if there's a God that has any answers for us.. I am utterly convinced what I see in scripture and have now experienced is.. what it is. We can have many bubbles of minds bubbling through eternity.. but if there it is was possible.. I decided it must be taken seriously.. If I could be wrong about everything else.. I could be right about this.. any other alternative falls entirely short in the face of what is. That's my view anyway.. but I once could have described my views like yours back in the day. Peace.

[@TheAndreas1008]

@Language and Programming Channel I think we agree on quite a lot here. #1 In order to show that epistemology does not justify ontological claims I'd bring in Kant like you do. #2 I would claim that mind usually is an emergent property of the physical brain. I still think there is a "first mind" (I.e. God) that is without material and thus need no emergence. I think viewing our mind and consciousness as a mindcaused/Godcaused transcendent property is not necessary for an idealist - only the first mind need no cause (unless self-caused). Thinking that our mind needs to not be an emergent property of material does not follow from idealism (regarding idealism as mind as "necessary" and/or "prime"). Theologically speaking also, I don't think we must view mind as transcendent or divine entity - it can simply have a material cause which then, in the end, has a prime mental cause.

[@merrybolton2135]

I am not quite sure ?? Is this program a comic show If not it should be From proud to be a primate

[@tierrasanta1501]

God is faithful. He is the one who has chosen you to share life with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. God’s Power and Wisdom in Christ Jesus The teaching about the cross seems foolish to those who are lost. But to us who are being saved it is the power of God. As the Scriptures say, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise. I will confuse the understanding of the intelligent.” So what does this say about the philosopher, the law expert, or anyone in this world who is skilled in making clever arguments? God has made the wisdom of the world look foolish. This is what God in his wisdom decided: Since the world did not find him through its own wisdom, he used the message that sounds foolish to save those who believe it. The Jews ask for miraculous signs, and the Greeks want wisdom. But this is the message we tell everyone: Christ was killed on a cross. This message is a problem for Jews, and to other people it is nonsense. But Christ is God’s power and wisdom to the people God has chosen, both Jews and Greeks. Even the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom. Even the weakness of God is stronger than human strength. Brothers and sisters, God chose you to be his. Think about that! Not many of you were wise in the way the world judges wisdom. Not many of you had great influence, and not many of you came from important families. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. He chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. And God chose what the world thinks is not important-what the world hates and thinks is nothing. He chose these to destroy what the world thinks is important. God did this so that no one can stand before him and boast about anything. It is God who has made you part of Christ Jesus. And Christ has become for us wisdom from God. He is the reason we are right with God and pure enough to be in his presence. Christ is the one who set us free from sin. So, as the Scriptures say, “Whoever boasts should boast only about the Lord.”

[@petewoodroffemusic]

The trouble with UNBELIEVABLE is Justin not only talks to much but also feels it necessary to explain everything (ie spells it out) which is incredibly irritating and somewhat patronising!!!

[@ronaldmendonca6636]

Still no god. Thanks for the convo.

[@reviccho8899]

Hello, I just saw your other comments from the other video but I am curious. What is your reason to say that there is no god?

[@webslinger527]

Yes what is your evidence that there is no god because if you do a really good amount of research on the universe and what scientist are actually believing and how the universe works then you might actually see there is a pretty good chance of a God or at least a very high amount of evidence for it.

[@Joe-dz2fl]

It’s sad to hear Christian apologists misrepresent evolution over and over again.

[@grantbartley483]

I believe in evolution and natural selection. Specifically, I believe that God directs cosmic rays etc so that mutations happen according to an ultimate plan.

[@jrmitchell12]

Could you be more specific on which part? It seemed like both sides agreed with Keller's evolution comment, but that we now have the power to change the normal order of evolution.

[@scooterboy3676]

My concern with religion is that it allows us by the millions to believe what only lunatics or idiots could believe on their own. That's not to say that all religious people are lunatics or idiots. It's anything but that. Sam Harris

[@lotus9865]

@Cleo Fierro My concern with atheists is that they are in a very small minority, don't even have the 3 greatest scientists of all time on their side, and the fact they came from nothing, live for nothing, and die for nothing. Atheism=Nothingness

[@davidsson4927]

It really comes down to complexity, with the foremost example being DNA, the literal written instruction contained in every cell of how to make a dog or fish or YOU! And it’s not a simple recipe, it is equal in size to all the words in all the books in the library of Congress. Go watch the video The Inner Cell and witness just how complexity of the cell, it has micro machines all working in perfect order, The brain is also immeasurably complex. The Universe, over 50 constants like gravity, all of which set so precise if of a tiny degree life could not exist. Everything in life had a creator except living things? Evolutionists see their faith crumbling before them as science disproves evolution. . As far as believing in Jesus Christ, you can’t believe without God revealing Himself to you. “The Gospel is foolishness to those who are Perishing”. The good news is if you seek Him He will answer

[@SamIAm-kz4hg]

David'sSon "It really comes down to complexity" This is incorrect. YOU judged that DNA is complex. What did you measure it against? This is also a logical fallacy in which you happen to think that because something is complex, it can't have happened naturally. "the literal written instruction" No. It's not. DNA is a method by which things reproduce. This is another logical fallacy called "begging the question" where you try to use words like "written" in your definition. We don't have evidence of "written". You added that, hoping it would help your argument. It doesn't. "micro machines" Wrong. "all working in perfect order" No. Have you never heard of birth defects? Do you know what genetic drift is? Do you realize that the diversity of life on earth is in part possible because this process of copying isn't perfect? You show an incredible lack of knowledge here. "all of which set so precise if of a tiny degree life could not exist" This is also not right. First off, there could be life, but we have no idea what it might look like if the constants that govern the universe were different. But you also made the mistake of thinking that life is somehow the desired end result of those constants. There are many things that DON'T exist in the universe. For example, there is no such thing as magic. So the universe CAN'T be precisely tuned, because otherwise magic would exist. Because I WANT IT TO. Only by thinking that life in it's current for is the desired end, can you claim that there are precise constants. I suspect this is too subtle for you to understand. The universe might still exist with different constants. Or it might not. Other forms of life might exists, or they might not. So what? "Everything in life had a creator except living things?" We don't know. And neither do you. "Evolutionists see their faith crumbling before them as science disproves evolution." Evolution continues to be proven by science. Feel free to back up your claim with some substance. "Jesus Christ" You know the Bible is FULL of nonsense, right? "The good news is if you seek Him He will answer" This is a euphemism for "you need to believe in god for him to be real". Wanting to believe in something is the way we now have about 3,400 gods. Bravo!

[@rubiks6]

Complexity is an interesting idea but I find the idea of "purposefulness" more useful in a discussion such as this.

[@rubiks6]

@@SamIAm-kz4hg - You made many points. I will address only one. "Have you never heard of birth defects?" Have you never heard of birth? 'nuff said.

[@SamIAm-kz4hg]

​@@rubiks6 - You made many points. I will address only one. "Have you never heard of birth defects?" ????

[@bluegtturbo]

These two guys seem like lightweights, who don't really get to the heart of the matter. I've never heard anyone successfully rebut what Hitchens had to say about religion.

[@1960taylor]

whats the heart of the matter?

[@shanthalperera5216]

What did Hitchens say? He was eloquent and likable... had a good rapport with some strong Christians unlike Dawkins, but I have never been swayed by any of his arguments or claims.

[@eddiemorris17]

Hitchens was a lightweight to be fair.

[@heek0001]

which Hitchens? Peter or Christopher😉

[@bluegtturbo]

@@shanthalperera5216 Yes not everybody has the intelligence to understand Hitchens...

[@rubiks6]

(14:43) If Tim Keller accepts Darwinian evolution then he rejects the Word of God and has no foundation for his "Christian" faith. I am listening to a discussion between two men both of whom reject the God of the Bible. What is the value in that? I stopped the video shortly after that. I am wasting my time here.

[@bretttheroux8040]

Darwinian evolution doesn’t contradict the Word. You’re conflating an agent and a mechanism. God very well could have used evolution to create mankind

[@rubiks6]

@@bretttheroux8040 - Darwinian evolution contradicts the Word of God. Darwinian evolution is driven by constant death. According the Romans 5.12, death entered the world through Adam's sin. That means before Adam's sin there was no death - not of men, not of animals. The creation of Man is detailed in Genesis 1 and 2. It does not correspond to Darwinian evolution in any way whatsoever. It quite excludes any possibility of anything like Darwinian evolution.

[@bretttheroux8040]

@@rubiks6 it’s not clear from the text of romans 5 that Paul is referring to physical death. It’s the same word used when talking about spiritual death elsewhere. and Genesis 1-2 is not at all in conflict with evolutionary theory. Genesis only lays out that God created everything, and in which order everything was created, and it’s not explicated that each day meant a 24hr day. (To the Lord a day is as a thousand years and a thousand years a day?) In fact, the order in which God created all living things as enumerated in Genesis in consistent with best hypothesis’ about evolution (sea to land) Francis Collins has a brilliant book about DNA I would encourage you to read, or check out some of his lectures on youtube. He’s an evangelical christian, and was the head of the human genome project. Either way, Christ is Lord of all.

[@rubiks6]

@@bretttheroux8040 - Paul, in Romans, is referring to the same death Jesus suffered on the cross. Actually, Genesis 1 makes it very clear 6 times that literal days are being referred to. That's why an ordinal number is applied to each day. That's what an "evening and morning" are applied to each day. Each act of creation is preceded by "And God said ..." and followed by "... and it was so." Each act of creation was a fiat. Does evolution have the Earth existing before the Sun, Moon, and stars? Does evolution have plant life existing before the Sun, Moon, and stars? Does evolution have *birds existing before any other land creatures?* It is my personal belief that God chose the order of creation specifically to thwart any notions of naturalistic evolution. Francis Collins is a heretic. I do not swoon to Dr. Francis Collins. Dr. Francis Collins can apply any title he wishes to himself but he is lost because he does not believe God. Genesis 1 speaks very, very, very _plainly._ There is nothing cryptic in it. There is nothing hidden in it. If God had started with a single cell (where'd _that_ come from?) and transformed it gradually over millions of years into the variety of creatures we see today, He would have said so. It's not that hard to explain or understand, even for sheepherders. That's not the way God did it and that's not the narrative God told. DNA is one of the very best of evidences for special creation. Who wrote the code? Does an ink well spill on paper and produce the "Principia"? Who wrote in the adaptability that is in the code today and why is the code broken today? When God finished making Man, He pronounced everything "very good." That means no death (death is bad), no disease (disease is bad), no carnivorism (ever seen a crocodile eat a gazelle? that's bad), no thorns or thistles (those things are bad). ------------------------------------------- Indeed, Christ is Lord of all but if Christ is not true to his Word then his lordship is meaningless. Christ is indeed Lord of all. Anyone can mouth the words. If you make Christ out to be a liar then what does it mean to call him Lord? Time and again we are told that Christ is the Creator. "And Jesus answered and said unto them, For the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept. But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female." (Mark 10.6) Is Jesus a liar or a deceiver or himself deceived? God _did not_ make them protozoan, then fish, then rodent, then ape, then Man. No, Adam and his wife were each a man and a woman from the moment they were created. ------------------------------ In Matthew 7.21 - 23, Jesus spoke, saying, "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. *_Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord,_* have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity." (Emphasis added.) Your "Darwinian evolution" is a lie started by the father of lies. Believe God, not Man or Satan. Believe God!

[@bretttheroux8040]

@@rubiks6so here’s a question: If a day is a full revolution of the earth around the sun, then how can you conclude that the first day was 24hrs, when the sun hadn’t been created yet? think about it. And take care that you’re not conflating causation with agency. If I saw a pot of water boiling on the stove, I could ask: ‘why is that water boiling? You could say: well, kinetic energy excited the water molecules to the point that they vaporize into gas. and that would be true. Or you could say: ‘I turned the oven on’ Both of those statements would be true. and brother I would encourage you to actually look at the evidence dr. Collins puts forth, because it’s pretty clear you just dismiss it out of hand and you haven’t. God created DNA. It’s the greatest apologetic argument for His very existence. Even agnostic naturalists concede Today that it’s pure folly to contend that it just sprang into being. The Cambrian explosion is too inexplicable otherwise. Like everything else, God created science. Science never argues against God, it only affirms His majesty and power.