Ladies and gentlemen, we have another interesting discussion tonight. We have Dr. Josh and Schuyler versus Stuart and Cliff Connetley. This is going to be a very interesting discussion. Tonight we are talking about is Christianity Rational. The format for tonight is going to be 12 minute opening split by both sides. 55 minute dialogue and 30 minute Q&A from the audience. I am Converse your host tonight. If you are interested in having a question answered, please shoot it into the old live chat. And I will take it and we'll hold until the Q&A section and I will ask them your question. Superchats get pushed to the top of the list. So if you'd like to make sure that your question gets answered, you can send in a super chat. Again, thanks for everybody for being here. We want to make sure that everybody feels welcome no matter what walk of life you're from. And we hope that you will subscribe if this is your first time here and like the video. So with that being said, we're going to get started with 12 minute openings. We're going to start with the affirmative from Stuart and Cliff Connetley. You guys, the floor is yours. Thank you Converse. Thank you Schuyler and Josh for tonight. Another great time with you guys. Appreciate it. Stretching our minds and our hearts more. We, let's see, just shameless little promo. TikTok, my TikTok account, Stuart Connetley. You can check us out there. We have a lot of kind of just our short picks from college campuses and beyond. And then the YouTube channel where you can watch our full debates, ask Cliff on YouTube. But tonight is Christianity Rational. We would start with Jesus Christ is a historical figure. 99.8% of scholars would agree on that one across major college campuses throughout the U.S. Secondly, he claimed to be God. Absolutely. You got the 7 I Am Statements in the Gospel of John alone. And then you have him doing miracles, but that doesn't necessarily mean he absolutely claimed to be God and was God. But it was a small piece of the pie where you have it clearly in the Synoptic Gospels. Then you have other places where angels are being bowed down to, and they're saying, no, no, we're not worthy. We're not God. You have the disciples like Paul, for example, elsewhere, who's not a disciple, who the same kind of thing happened. People are bowing down to him and saying, hey, you're God, right? And he says, no. But every single time people worship Jesus, he says, yes, he takes it and he says, I am God. So clearly there's that piece of Jesus' historical figure. The claim is there. So when we debate Jews, when we debate a lot of people just of other faiths, we have to work through that with them. The third one is, are the Gospels reliable? And if you look at extraneous sources outside of the Bible, there's plenty of the younger Tacitus, Josephus, there's 16 of them. Clearly you have to struggle with, okay, all of these different extraneous external sources are claiming that Jesus Christ absolutely did exist, that he did claim to be God, that he died on the cross. Occasionally you'll have some that hint at the resurrection. We don't have any direct ones on the resurrection itself. But you have these that you have to wrestle with for starters. Then you have the Gospels for separate sources. Historians would call that paydirt for an ancient document. And then you have all of Paul's epistles that you have to wrestle with as well, all referring to these Gospels as tremendously reliable just in terms of the amount of source material that we have. Then you have to deal with the Gospel writers themselves. Did they know their stuff? Well, they talked about roads in terms of going up and down to places like Capernaum, to Nazareth. They understood their directional sense in that kind of way. They also understood gardens, Garden of Gethsemane and others. They also understood towns, 26 towns alone, between Matthew and Mark, talking about different historical towns that archeologically absolutely existed. These guys weren't just total mythical figures or figures, say, in Egypt or Turkey, who had no idea what they were talking about. No, they fit their context in a beautiful kind of way. That doesn't mean they couldn't have been making it up. Maybe they were making all of it up. But then oftentimes we also get the heat of, well, we don't even know if it was Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. We have no idea. Okay, that's fine. Most who I have heard of, at least secular and Christian scholars would say that most likely it is Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. But it was the dating that came first and then the names. Dating first, name second. And there's no real reason why to absolutely outright reject Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. And then lastly, who in the world would make up this story? Why would you make up this story? Why would you make up the Trinity, for example?  Father, Son, Holy Spirit. How do you even grasp that? There's no other theological concept in any religion that comes even close in terms of the complexity of that. Do we think somehow some monks were sitting somewhere and just said, hey, let's just make up this impossible doctrine and somehow we'll try and get over a third of the world to believe in it? No. That complexity lends some type of credence to, okay, wow, maybe Jesus did come, maybe he did make some crazy claims, maybe the early church did wrestle with this type of doctrine. And boom, there you have something that I think personally makes sense of the world in terms of the world coming from love, not power. And what I mean by that is Father, Son, Holy Spirit throughout time have loved each other perfectly in the most beautiful type of community and have given us that ability to love each other relationally in community. We know that's what we long for the most, even when I'm in a counseling office counseling somebody who's tremendously depressed. I know the number one way to ultimately help them get healthy is to have healthy relationships with other people. You strip God out of the picture or you switch God to a monotheistic type of God where it's just one God. Well, now you have to deal with, again, not a relational beginning. Instead, it's one just, you could say pride because it's just one God dealing with one God. Or you strip God away completely and it's just Darwinism or macroevolution. But clearly there is zero God, so we are coming from nothing and nothing we are going to. And so why not just power? Why not the strong eat the weak? Why not, we're right here in New York City. We see a lot of cutthroat businessmen for sure go in and rip people off on a daily basis in order to make a certain amount of money. Why not do that? And it's kind of natural if there is no God, right? If we simply come from darkness and go to darkness, then it's a power grab through evolution. I believe in evolution, by the way, but if that's all there is, isn't it natural within ourselves just to behave that way? Why curb that appetite? Is it just so we can somehow get along more so in a healthier way together? I don't fully see how you can really reconcile that with our experience. And then lastly, resurrection. Resurrection is huge for me. There's more and more studies coming out. And there will be on all the evidence for the resurrection. One, you got Jesus' empty tomb. Second, Jesus' postmortem appearances. Three, the short timeframe between the actual events and the eyewitness claims themselves. Four, the extraordinary transformation of the apostles and what you see with so many people today who come to know Christ. Next, you have, fifthly, the greatest religious conversion ever through Saul to Paul. Then you have the emergence of the historic Christian church and the power that came through it. Seventhly, you have the emergence of Sunday as a day of worship, Sunday. And then eight, the plentiful early reference to Jesus' resurrection in the Apostle Paul's letters is crucial. Nine, the New Testament accounts of Jesus' resurrection do not resemble later apocryphal stories. Ten, no tomb was ever venerated as the burial place of Jesus. Eleven, a crucified Messiah would have been viewed by all Jewish Christians as cursed by God. A total joke. Again, no one would have made that up. And then twelve, all the alternative naturalistic explanations for the resurrection of Jesus proved to be false.  I realize that. But there must have been a twin Jesus walking around somewhere. And that was a serious claim because he had no alternative when it came to the resurrection and Jesus having been raised from the dead. How much time do we have left here? We have about four or five minutes left. When people say to me Christianity is not rational. Usually what they mean is science has disproved Christianity. And I just wish that someone would have thought to tell a large number of MIT professors that science has disproved Christianity. MIT is obviously one of the leading scientific institutions of higher learning in the world. At MIT, there's a nuclear science professor named Ian Hutchinson. He is a committed follower of Christ. There is professor of aeronautics and astronautics, Daniel Hastings. There's electrical engineering professor, Jing Kong. None of these people were raised Christian. But there are more. There's artificial intelligence expert, Rosalind Pickard, who invented the field of effective computing. She became a Christian when she was a teenager. There's chemistry professor Troy Van Voris came to Christ when he was a grad student at Berkeley. There's biological and mechanical engineering professor Lyndon Griffith, who became a Christian when she was already an established scientist. Other Christians at MIT include professor of mechanical and ocean engineering, Dick Yu, chemical engineering professor Chris Love, professor of biological engineering, chemical engineering in biology, Doug Lofenberger, history professor Ann McCance, neuroscientist and former MIT president, the first female president of MIT, Susan Hockfield. And the list goes on. So I'm afraid it is absolutely irrational to say that Christianity is irrational, non-rational, because science disproves it. No, that's totally false. Science does not disprove Christianity in the slightest. In fact, Christianity began in the Christian West, where there's an understanding that there's a rational being who gave us rational minds and we, by using our rational minds, can unlock the secrets of the universe. Albert Einstein pointed out so accurately how one of the greatest miracles in the universe is that the human mind can understand the order and design, the complexity of the universe. I mean, think about it. If everything's a cosmic accident, why on earth do we human beings have a rational mind that is able to put us in touch with the order and design of the universe? It is far more reasonable to say that behind this complexity of the rational mind, there is a rational being than it is rational to say behind the rational mind is the irrational or the non-rational. So the argument that Christianity is not rational is a tragic, tragic mistake. Thank you for that, Cliff and Stuart. We're going to kick it over to the negative on the proposition. But first, let me just say thanks everyone for being here again. We hope that you're enjoying this discussion. If it's your first time, please hit the subscribe button, share, or like the video. And I'm being flexible on the times because the debaters are fine with that. So if you guys need to take an extra 30 seconds for a minute or something, feel free. Let's kick it over to you guys. Hey, hey everybody. Thank you once again for having us on the show and kind of moderating and Stu, Cliff, I love you guys. Here's how we're going to start. What we're talking about is Christianity rational, right? I think it's important that we talk about what is the biblical narrative of Christianity, like what is it that Christianity believes and is it rational? So I mean, let's start at the very beginning. Let's start at the Garden of Eden, right? We have God creating Adam and then Eve, you know, but there's his children. There's his beloved children. He loves them. He cares about them, right? But within a couple of pages, we already have them doing something irrational, which is leaving them with a serpent that doesn't have their best interest at heart, right? As any parent out there, we wouldn't leave our children with someone you didn't trust in the particular way that Christianity is formed or the belief in Christianity. They believe that God knows what's going to happen. It only adds to the problem. Not only does God know if he allows this serpent and there's debate on who this is, Satan or some other type of being, you know, even he knows allowing this serpent is going to allow for his beloved creatures to fall, right? And then of course, you know, I think something that's important that I think we could all agree on, right? So like I think during this debate, I'll just grant objective morality exist, right? We'd have to argue that it's objectively moral for parents to take care of their children, right? There's no excuse to why God would in any rational way leave his children with someone who didn't have the best interest at heart. But that's just the beginning, right? But then we leave, you know, we have the idea of him, he left a tree that if they eat from, they'll live forever. If they another tree if they eat from, you know, it's the knowledge of good and evil. They'll have that knowledge, right? Now, he didn't want them to eat from the tree. He knew they were going to eat from the tree because the serpent would trick them. But did it anyways, still not rational, right? But from this, this is where we get original sin. This is the idea of why we need Jesus, right? Because we're fallen. We're a fallen creation. Adam and Eve have this type of thing called federal headship where they are our representation of mankind. And because of two people's actions, all are punished and need salvation through Jesus Christ. Now, I mean, let's think about the rationality of that. Like, I mean, listen, I don't want to tell God to Thanos it, but like, that's what he could do if he wanted to to atone for sin, right? The repercussions that happened to Adam and Eve were created by God. He set up the scenario. He knew that they would fail. And even if he didn't know, they would fail. Let's just say maybe he didn't know, but he knew what would happen if they did fail because he created the reality in which they live and the reality in which the descendants of those people would exist. So, but we don't stop there. I think it's important we keep reading, right? So we have a problem with original sin. Oh, don't forget, like, it gets so bad, we flood the world, right? It gets so bad that God floods the world, including all the babies and the children, right?  But does he harms his children? It is a moral to harm your children in these ways. It is a moral to drown babies objectively, we'll say. So God is committing immoral actions yet is supposed to be the standard of morality, the one we look up to. So, you know, that's not rational. So, you know, we have all the people die, okay? Later on, we have Abraham come around, right? And this is where it kind of gets fun because of, like, interesting things happen with Abraham. We have circumcision come about, right? All of a sudden, God's like male genital mutilation in order for us to have a covenant together to show our covenant, right? But not just you, your slaves. Your slaves also have to have the foreskin removed from them. No, it's just, you know, to me, I don't know about you, once again, father, relationship, children. I'm not going to make my kids show some type of covenant with me by having them mutilate their flesh, right, and harm them. So I think this is, is this rational? The Christian God so far, no. This Christian God is doing constantly doing irrational things. Let's keep going. Oh, man, hopefully I get all this. Let's say Abraham was supposed to be the most righteous man. He was blessing. He was, you know, Abraham got blessed with lands that he would later have to have, well, through the Joshua Conquest, would take and commit genocide to get the lands he's promised, that the Israelites were promised. Abraham's descendants were promised, right?  And you'll have these lands. Well, you know, in order for them to have the lands, guess what happens?   Oh, and of course, then like we get past Abraham dies.  He had lots of concubines. There's a big list of them, right? He leaves those to his children, the righteous man. That was God's favor, which doesn't make any sense and is not rational. But anyways, we get the Exodus Leviticus. All right. Now we get, now we get rules and laws that God gives to Moses to give to his people.  This is what I want you to live like. And these laws include selling women as property for fathers to get out of debt, selling children into slavery permanently, executing gay people, executing people, work on the Sabbath. Men with crush testicles couldn't go to church. I mean, there was all types of rules God made for, you know, Moses to give to his people, right? And they had to follow these rules. Now, do these rules make sense? Are they rational, right?  No, it's not, right? It's not rational that women who are on their period have to go separate and live in a different tent or live further away from the men. That's not rational. So these are all things God, and then of course, slavery. Don't forget good old fashioned slavery. You're allowed to have them. There's forms of beating them. There's forms of discipline. You can pass them on to your children, keep them permanently for life, depending on the context of it. In which we got time probably getting on two, three minutes. Josh, I'm sorry if I'm eating it all up. You used seven minutes so far. All right, good. We got time then. Letting people own slaves is irrational.  Men with crushed testicles. That's always a fun one. We're going to talk about that sometimes.  All right, so we're past this. We're past all the stuff that happened with Egypt, right? We have no historical evidence for the Jews ever being in bondage in Egypt, right? But they're free now. God's committed miracles. He's had through Moses, part the Red Sea. They're free. And we move later on, right? But you know, now after they wander the desert for all this time, sorry, I'm thinking of all the things that happened. After we wander the desert, we go on to the lands that need to be conquered, right? And those lands, Joshua's conquers. And who's at, what does God say the Christian God in here?  Take the women and children as plunder.  Now, I get it. Jesus is nice. I like Jesus, right? Like Sermon on the Mount, Jesus. Honestly, I wish people would kind of live their lives in the way that Jesus from the Sermon on the Mount lived and the way he spoke. I think it's just a good way to live, right? But, gotta look at the whole picture. Like, why is he, why is Father Jesus, I mean, son Jesus here in the first place? Why did Father God do all the things in the Old Testament? Why did he set Adam and Eve up to fail? Well, it's not rational. Like, why would he go and make himself, I mean, we get into the trinity. That's a whole paradox. But why would he make it to where he had to have a blood sacrifice? His own blood. I mean, he started with animals in the Old Testament, which really wasn't rational either. It doesn't make sense how killing an innocent animal, you know, will make somebody some kind of sin atoned or something like that.  What about the problem of animal suffering? Does my dog not go to heaven? I was told when I was a child that all dogs go to heaven, right? And these days, people tell me they're soulless, emotionless creatures. So anyways, the last thing I'll say in Josh, then you can, if you have anything you want to add to it. In the same way, Shabaka living on Endor with a bunch of Wookiees makes no sense. Jesus having to die for our sins makes no sense with a powerful God who could literally Thanos our sins away. All right, that's it. That's all I got. Thank you. Yeah, I mean, I don't, I guess I don't have much to say and I probably don't have much time to say it. I think some of the things I, no, no, no, it's... You guys got about two and a half minutes. Just a few extra seconds. No, no, it's fine.  So, I mean, I think there are different ways to define rationality and I'm not a philosopher and I don't study epistemology. So, you know, I'm certainly not like in many ways I'm out of my depth or out of my field of expertise here in this discussion. You know, I think about things, you know, when I got my THM, you know, we spent a lot of time wrestling with things like the Trinity, things like the hypostatic union of Christ, looking at the tension between transcendence and eminence. And these are things that the reason that we spend so much time on them is because they're theological constructions that you come to a set of texts that are, you know, set aside as holy, you know, most evangelical circles would say that they're inerrant in one way or another. And so you have to then grapple with, well, this text says God is transcendent and completely outside of His creation and above it, but then this other text says that He's eminent and He's working in it and this text says that God is, or Jesus is God, but then this other text, you know, certainly says that He's man. You know, you've got Jesus saying He's God, Holy Spirit is God, God the Father is God, do we have three different gods? No, that's heresy. So, you know, theology is that act of trying to make the pieces fit, right? And I was reading through, like, my Lord, Erickson today, it's been a while, and, you know, just reading back through the section on the Trinity.  This is God's ways are higher than our ways and when we get to heaven, we'll fully understand, we'll fully comprehend right now how we have, you know, three distinct persons, but one essence. How do we, how does that work? We've got analogies, but they're imperfect. And I think that that's a, in the end, it's what I think I wrestle with when I think back on Christianity and the rationality of it, because I would have called them apparent contradictions. But I feel like in a lot of ways, that it just ends up being a type of special pleading, because they sure do seem like contradictions. And you have to then appeal like I did, you have to appeal to some knowledge that we just can't attain because of our human state and God's, you know, transcendent state. So anyway, those are the things that I guess I wrestle with in this context. All right, thanks so much for that opening. We are going to kick it into open discussion now. I just want to say, if you have a question for the Q and A, you want to ask, tag me and not modern day debate. That's converse contender. You should be able to see my name here. And just tag me in the chat and I'll be watching for those. Also, if you've just joined us, we're talking about is Christianity rational? So we will be, we'll be kicking it over to the open discussion followed by the Q and A. You guys, you have the floor. I like where Skyler started with the theology and the narrative arc of Scripture. You know, oftentimes atheists on the show will start off saying, well, extraordinary claims, extraordinary evidence. I always think of, OK, well, it's pretty extraordinary to say consciousness came from unconsciousness, that something came from nothing on and on down the line. I think that's pretty extraordinary. I also appreciate though how I think both of you are clearly saying, you know, what oftentimes when I come on these debates, someone will say something like, well, it's equivalent of the Loch Ness Monster, you know. You've heard people, anecdotal evidence and that's about it. Well, no, what you have in Genesis and the character of the world, the character of the cosmos is a God outside. The Loch Ness Monster is not outside of the world and he has not created a type of narrative structure that makes sense of things like suffering, value, why we are here, where are we going, on and on down the line. So vastly different comparison. Although I understand the whole piece of like, yeah, your five senses can't exactly touch, smell, see God. I get that piece. So if you want to compare that to the Loch Ness Monster, totally get it. So I like that you guys didn't really start there, but instead that you went the theological approach, I would disagree with you, Skyler.  I was just in the city at the beacon listening to Jordan Peterson. Seems like a fascinating guy. And he would disagree with you strongly on what you just said about the serpent. He would say, the serpent is you if you're not allowing your kids to fail. Let me say that one more time. The serpent is you.   You're the reason why your kids are going to be triggered by any single type of word that they might disagree with. And so you're the serpent. Again, I understand your perspective. I understand Jordan Peterson's perspective on that. I would lean towards Peterson on this one because I think it makes a lot of sense where absolutely the serpent is allowed in the garden. He clearly gives. I love the connection because it's backed up by all psychological studies. He gives free will to Adam and Eve. And at the same time, he gives parameters.  You will not take the modern-day parenting approach of just, hey, no parameters whatsoever. I don't want to disagree with my eight-year-old child because it will stunt their cognitive growth. So I let them say whatever they want, never say no to them. Every study will show, starting with Jonathan Haidt, that that creates debilitating anxiety within a child. You need parameters. But then at the same time, you're not going to indoctrinate your child.  You have to believe in God. You have to believe X, Y, and Z. No.  So I think the problem here is like, okay, well, then you've given up if we do whatever it be, something that's not... We can go with your particular idea here and what's his name's idea. Jordan Peterson. But now you've given... Now you have no sin problem in the Bible for us to be saved by. If it's not historical narrative, if you're not reading Genesis' historical narrative, when did human beings fall and what exactly is Jesus needing to die on the cross for? Why did Jesus die on the cross? It's a good idea. Well, the thing is, it's because he was originally a tone for the fall of man, for man's kind sin. So one had to do a tone for that. Like in the Old Testament, they used sacrifice animals, but in the New Testament, he had told. He came into the flesh to die for those in the situation.  Where was there a sin problem? Yeah, but that's your point. That's like your fifth point down here. I just want to stay in the garden because you made a lot of interesting insights into the garden. That's the whole point of the garden is, is if you don't look at it as historical narrative, right? Then where do you have a sin problem? Where do you have a sin problem? Do you believe in original sin that came from Adam and Eve? Is that what scholars are saying? Oh, and whether ultimately is Adam one man, or are we going? Well, okay, sin has to be in the world in order for there to be a reason for Jesus to die on the cross. Right. He died on the cross for a reason. It was because sin had to be considered come to the world. Right. He wouldn't have to have died on the cross if Adam and even that story hadn't have disobeyed God under the Christian narrative. So if you're not saying that it's historical narrative, because you're saying it's this other thing, some kind of metaphor or something, the serpent is a metaphor. Well, then where did sin come into the world? Why is there all of a sudden a sinful nature? That we need Jesus to cleanse with his blood? No, it was both. If the serpent could have existed, it could have been a real serpent. I'm okay with it wasn't an actual serpent. Adam and Eve sinned? Well, what you guys believe is you're in the business of talking about God. And so it sets us up in a way where we were going to do the same thing no matter what. Well, we should go with what you guys preach. You guys do question people on college campuses and what you guys believe in your church under Christianity. So as a Christian, what do you believe about that story? Is it historical narrative? Was it one person? And maybe and or like what is it that perhaps mainstream Orthodox Christianity would teach? I think it's real clear that the Bible and Orthodox Christianity teach that God created Adam and Eve with a free will. God has given all of us a free will. And sin is abusing the gift of free will in order to choose to do that which is unjust, unloving, rebelling against God, violating the purpose for which God created us, choosing to kick God out of my life because I have a free will and choosing to live my life autonomously as a separate being. And that's why I think I know what the theme song of hell will be. I did it my way. So that's the heart of sin. And yes, Adam and Eve committed that. I've committed that. We all have committed that in different ways. I will be in control. I will run the show. I will be the center of the universe. And God is irrelevant. And yes, you're absolutely right. Christ died on a cross to pay the just penalty for our flipping God off, for our rebellion against God, for our being control freaks, and let's look at all of our relationships. I think they all are scarred by someone trying to exert control or to manipulate to use the other person instead of to love the other person. Well, he set us up in the garden to fail in that situation. Yeah, please, Josh. Sorry, I mean, like, so Stuart, obviously, how many disagree very strongly with Jordan Peterson, but in this particular, particularly in this instance, but like, I think drawing an analogy to, you know, not, you know, not correcting your kid, maybe when they are using, you know, curse words, right, at an inappropriate age because it might get them in trouble in social contexts. I think it's very different from what we're seeing here, depending on, you know, it seems like how you guys are viewing the garden story. Here, you have a catastrophic event, right? This, like, seems analogous more to you leave your baby in the, you know, in the crib or your toddler in the crib with a loaded weapon, right, or later with a box of knives and you say, right, no, don't touch these. You have two people that have no life experience whatsoever, right? I mean, again, if we're reading the narrative that way, and you're not only leaving them there in that crib, but now you have somebody coming in, pushing the knives toward them, right here, hold this knife. And this is irreparable harm, right? It's harm that's, and even that analogy isn't great because it's just catastrophic to the child. Somehow that is going to affect all humanity to come.  Skyler, is that what you were saying? No, no, I think that's perfectly articulated. It just, you wouldn't create, like I said, that they're your children. You protect them from harm. You don't set them up to fail. And then the idea that you would punish, it is a punishment to all the rest of the mankind because of these two people, their two actions, not the actions of other people, but two people's actions. Now we have diseases in the world. We have suffering. We have, you know, as the things are just men had to work the field, women had birthing pains afterwards. I think that's the way to put it. Let's say you, Stuart. No, all that makes pretty good sense to me. I would disagree still, though. I don't see the same thing as me going to put a stick of dynamite in my younger girl's crib right now to what God did right there in the Garden of Eden. I don't see that even close. Well, Stu, let me ask you this, right? Like, say you knew because you didn't know what you were doing like say you knew because you're God, right, that if you left your little girls over in a neighbor's house, something bad would happen to them, right? You knew because you're God, hey, if I know that if I leave my kids over at this house, something bad will happen to them. Will you leave them over? Especially now, think about the consequences Josh just talked about. Think about the consequences I just talked about. We're not talking about just something bad happens to these people. We're talking about what people base the whole problem of evil and the problem of suffering on when they argue against these Christians. Like, there's just no good right.  Yeah, no, granted. I totally struggle with that as well. But again, so here's where I come at it from. Again, I still as a Christian as an Orthodox evangelical, I have to allow God to be God. His thoughts, yes, are way above mine. That's why Josh, I would disagree with you when you get the words like foolishness, when you get the words like mystery with Paul so many times and his epistles. I agree. I don't think that should be a way of getting out from underneath answering tough questions. Fully agree. And at the same time, if you're going to allow the God, the size of the God that we are granting, then you have to have the humility to say, we're not going to understand a lot. And so I start with that with the question, but then I also go to, hey, look, what is so wrong? What is the alternative that you want then? Just perfect relationship with humanity inside the Trinity, since the very beginning, us having that same level of power. See the alternatives where I'm trying to figure out I don't have a problem with Him setting up this tree and the knowledge of good and evil. Him saying you have to be reliant and dependent on me. And if you're not, then you're going to be driven out of the garden.  They did not die.  But automatically you have forgiveness. So this God who supposedly is throwing all kinds of knives and weapons into the crib at the same time offers forgiveness and love immediately after. And this is the God of the Universe. Come on, Stuart. It's called these things like it's called brain tumors, right? Like it's called, you know, people getting their children abducted and never seeing them again, right? It's child soldiers in Africa. Like we're just saying these things like, oh, well, you know mistakes were made and, you know, you have to live with repercussions. Well, God, you created these repercussions.  The loving God would let it get this out of control, right? I mean, he literally got his people out of Egypt, but like was kind of slow on the Holocaust, right?  So, if there's no divine judge, what's your Skyler? What's your intellectual defense against the naturalness of violence and suffering? Like Friedrich Nietzsche talked about. What's your intellectual why do I think there's pain and suffering in the world? There is no divine judge. Yeah. Why is there no why is there no intellectual defense against the naturalness of violence, evil and suffering from the atheist point of view? That's Friedrich Nietzsche. That's not me. No, I don't understand what you're actually like, what are you asking me to give you? You always go here with God has just let things spun out of control so badly. Sure. Suffering and all this entropy and it's just a poop show now. Yeah. Come on, God. Well, Friedrich Nietzsche, if he was me sitting right here, again, this is not me, he would say okay, fine. Remove God. There is no divine judge. There is no intellectual defense against the naturalness of this suffering and violence. Yeah. It is natural. Sure. Why do you disagree with him? Like, why is it just why is there it's like you're asking why is there naturally bad things? No, no, no. This is a simple question. This is a very simple question. It's not like I'm asking. This was Friedrich Nietzsche asking. No, but I think you're the question. I don't quite understand what you're specifically asking me. There's a divine judge you brought up early on that we're going to grant you moral absolutes which I don't understand from anything. No, I didn't say moral absolutes. Well, no, no, I didn't say moral absolutes. I said objective morals. It's different. There are two different things though. A divine judge, so you have objective morality. There's no divine judge in objective morality. What is right or wrong and that there will be a judgment day at the end of time. Where wrongs will be righted. That's your claim. That's the omniscient God. That's the judge that gives the eternal understanding of what is right and wrong. Yes, that's the Christian position. But if you remove him No, no, no. Hold on. Hold on. He doesn't tell you why. You asked me. I'm finishing this point. There is no intellectual defense against the naturalness of violence, suffering, and evil. I don't know what that means. Natural violence. Tell him to tinker. Explain it. I could talk about it. So many people have picked up this argument. Just explain it and I could talk to you about it. I'm just saying what he's saying is saying that scholar A or scholar B articulated it clearly. He's saying the way you're articulating it is unclear to him. So you have to articulate it more clearly. What you're actually asking. I'm not going to engage in it. I'm honestly not understanding the way you're phrasing it. If there is no such thing as a divine judge no divine judge then there's no intellectual defense against the naturalness just natural of suffering violence, evil. There's nothing to defend. It's just the way it is. It's just the way of the world. What he's saying is exactly, it's natural. Yeah, absolutely. Violence is natural in some aspects. And why is God in the doc in this scenario instead why aren't you in the doc for this bugging you so much because it's natural. This is Nietzsche's point. Now I understand you. The difference in those two scenarios is one is it's just natural that I can do about it. In the other scenario the one that I'm arguing why it's irrational tonight in the one that you're claiming is rational God created brain tumors for children. He created a world where it was possible for child soldiers and for kids to get kidnapped. He created all this. He created all these negative aspects to it. But he loves us and cares about us and wants a relationship with us but every step of the way does the opposite of what it would take to have a relationship with somebody. That's what I'm saying. That's why I'm making a point of it. I just have to deal it up. Secrets out, Josh. I'm not an atheist anymore. I consider myself a pantheist. He's an atheist. So I kind of believe in God. That's it. It seems rational to me. It's going to be a good time to get Cliff and Dr. Josh in the conversation as well. You guys want to contribute here?  You're going to fall asleep. Oh, I... No, go ahead. No, I don't think I have a great deal.  I think the thing that stood out to me maybe the most here over the past 10 minutes and I get it. Again, I think it's where all of these discussions have to end up is... we just have to say if we're going to say that the Christian world view and the Orthodox Christian world view or the Evangelical Christian world view is coherent and correct, then we have to ultimately come back and say there are just going to be things, maybe lots of things that we have to say we're not God. So we can't really... we have to assume that God had morally sufficient reasons to do X.  Moral reason that he did that. And we have to assume that things like the Trinity and the Hypostatic Union of Christ and Eminence and Transcendence, they're not contradictions. Then we can't really get to them here. But God's ways are higher than our ways. And Stu, it sounded like you said you start with that. That's sort of in the background as you move forward. And I get it. I don't want to start there. I definitely don't want to start there. According to what I say, if you have to start there. I think this is sort of my point. If you don't, it's very easy to then argue for the coherency of the worship of Asher. Because, for example, with divine violence, Asher makes very similar claims. You can read through the Moabite stone and see that he pushes the Moab to go and strike Israel. You could make those claims. But what you end up having to do and this is something that I wrote about this. I just finished Volume 2 of the Atheist Handbook to the Old Testament. One of the chapters is on divine violence and genocide. And when you think about the figure of Samson, what Samson did to the Philistines at the end of his life in Judges 16, you take out his name and the Philistines and you plug it in to anyone today and we would say, oh my he's a terrorist. I mean, he's like the world's first suicide bomber. But we don't look at Christians I didn't, evangelicals, we don't look at Samson that way because the way the text frames him is he's working for and Yahweh is working through him. And so we don't frame it as a suicide act that kills civilians. No, it's God striking one last blow at the Philistines before he dies. And I think that's because there's just a very strong aspect, there has to be a strong aspect of special pleading because you have to start with my system is the right one. However you get there, whether you base it on the resurrection or my system is the right one. And so I have to view all of these things that are inconsistent and incoherent, seemingly apparent contradictions through that lens. If you take this from a philosophical standpoint by you saying that it's a very relativistic way of stating that whoever you're hearing that from is saying the same kind of thing by saying they are choosing a certain lens to say this is the right way but by me saying that they're choosing a certain type of lens to say this is the right way and obviously it's way too narrow. I'm seemingly more tolerant and broad but that's just as narrow. That's what I get from because you made this point and I was trying to hang with you on this one for a while but and I understood where you were coming from but there's still the other side there's the conservative and the liberal theologians and scholars on this one, right? What would in particular Sorry What would in particular? No, no, sorry It's great, sorry It's very simple for me It is total arrogance for me to say that I understand God totally in the same way it is total arrogance for any biologist I don't care how many post-doctories they have to say I understand biology totally It's totally arrogant for me to say I understand God totally and it's totally arrogant for a chemistry professor to say I understand all of chemistry at best all of us have partial knowledge none of us have total knowledge on any topic I don't totally understand myself never mind I don't totally understand Stuart I don't totally understand God that is not a cop-out that is a very brutally, humble and honest appraisal of reality and if anybody is going to be so arrogant as to claim well, because the Bible doesn't answer this question therefore the Bible is fallacious it is just as arrogant as for me to say to a chemistry post-doc student if you can't explain this chemistry question to me then you don't really understand chemistry that is so intellectually dishonest it is scary we all have a partial knowledge of different areas of study of education so I am a little bit shocked by the naivete of people who say because I don't understand and can't explain exactly why God does something therefore God doesn't exist that is so narrow-minded that is so narrow-minded that is such a denial of the limits of human reason and logic it's scary Albert Einstein said I know less than 1% of all there is to know that is an appropriate humility and appropriate realism and for anybody to think that they are going to understand why God does certain things or why God judges the way God judges or why God loves the way he loves is ridiculous I just know that if I love someone I am going to be angry if that someone is hurt by somebody else if someone hurts Stuart and I say, hey I am going to go to Starbucks then let's be real honest I don't love Stuart I have this idea that because God is love he cannot get angry and because God is love he can't judge I mean that is so naivete it's so irrational it's scary nothing in your experience I can promise you Josh if someone murdered your wife and you were not angry about that and you were not pleading for justice then you don't love your wife sir well God does that I mean God literally has people I would like to respond real quick can I respond please hold on we're not going off the cliff we're not doing that that's not a possible or an interesting anger that's ridiculous that is very very sad we'll give you 30 seconds to wrap up and then we'll go to Skyler 30 seconds to wrap up here Cliff 30 seconds are you done 30 seconds to wrap up this point we can kick it over to Skyler there is more than enough evidence based on the lifestyle the teachings the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ that he is reliable there's more than enough evidence for any thinking rational person to realize that Jesus is so superior to any of the options it is scary I don't care if it's hedonism I don't care if it's narcissism I don't care if it's racism rationalism those are all wonderful areas of thinking but Jesus Christ is so much more reliable than any of those options it's embarrassing let's kick it over to the other side what I find ironic is we make an emotional appeal to like what if someone killed your wife you'd be angry what about God who goes and kills lots of people's wives lots of people's children not only does it and doesn't do it in a kind or gentle way doesn't just say hey lights out folks you're all dead no no no he makes Israelite soldiers go in and execute babies children to hear like this moralizing we're like we just don't know why we don't know why God commits genocide that's just a mystery of why God commits genocide it's a mystery of why God has children mutilate their genitalia right why why God has slaves God tells people they can have slaves right like it's the same thing over and over it's just a mystery and then like you guys are the bad guys for bringing it up like how dare you want to know why God treated women as property and told men to take them with children in war time like and then you guys are like you guys are the wild ones you guys are the ones with no morality right we all know when we look at these situations that they're immoral actions that God is telling human beings to commit taking women children as plunder is immoral telling people that they can own human beings as property is immoral right so I just think the epoxy here needs to stop and what's going on here and like if you're going to deal with why it's moral for God to tell people they can execute little children take the women as plunder then defend it or just say it's God's mysterious ways and he has a greater reason for it all right you guys before we kick it over back over if you have any questions we're going to be wrapping up here in the next 15 minutes or so with this segment and we will be going to Q&A so if you do have a question shoot it into the live chat tag me my name's right there on the screen and so and then I will get to your question hopefully in the Q&A all right you guys get to the floor Scottler, thank God more Christians don't read their Bibles or listen to God because man we would have a lot of bloodshed on our hands so thank God that they're not reading their Old Testament thank God who is known who is known to be supposedly the most compassionate supposedly they were the ones who introduced forgiveness based off of the cross supposedly they were the first ones who were actually bringing women and children into a tight-knit community supposedly they were the first ones to bring different races different socio-economic backgrounds of people into the community supposedly they were the ones setting up the hospitals not just like the Stoics and others who were setting up hospitals mainly for as military campaigns for their military soldiers coming in healing them and then getting them back out of the war path but instead bringing in people of all ethnic groups thank God there were let's just say more than a couple Christians who when the plague spread in 100 to 300 AD you had Christians from the outside coming in giving up their lives in the inner cities to bring people to the outside hopefully to be able to come to less and by doing so again losing their lives based off of a suffering servant Jesus Christ dying on the cross for their sins why are Christians better than Yahweh, Stu? I love you keep going to Holy War and I agree I'm not going to stick here and say let's pretend like God didn't order those very difficult commands at times there's 400 years he gave a very atrocious evil people group to repent and they didn't want to change and he judged them again that squares with me this debate is on rationality rationality the term itself comes from the enlightenment you guys I'm glad Dr. Josh brought up the term the enlightenment brought up through Hume and others basically this tendency of thought philosophical thought to say I am ultimately the judge of all things look I'm not saying that I'm more humble than you by the way you guys are probably more humble than me so don't get me wrong on this where I'm going but basically rationality Hume the enlightenment brought up this type of thinking which said I should be able to look into the Bible like a Mark Twain and say God you better explain every single little jot and tittle to me or I don't believe in you or I think you are a terrible dictator I was just meeting with an African guy today super sharp intellectual he was talking to me we were talking about cultures and how our little culture here in the west is the only one that pushes this subject Skyler is pushing right now every single other culture this is not an issue it if God is the God who comes up with moral objectivity and absolutes right and wrong if he is way better than we could ever imagine creating this cosmos he is allowed to judge at certain times in ways that we don't fully understand but then thank God that he gave us Jesus Christ to start a new covenant where we can start to grasp that and that's where secular humanism came from out of Judeo-Christian cross understanding of things that's not you know a lot of that when you talk about like what Jesus came for and you know like these never mind we probably want to go to the next segment we can keep going let's Josh you guys go ahead do we have a couple more minutes here so I mean listen I think one of the things again to sort of circle back to it because again I think that bringing up how a people group of people interpreted a text is distinct from whether that text you know what it's intent was or what those passages meant in their own context right because we do this all the time like you know when we look at atrocious passages the reason that they're atrocious to us is because the progression that we have morally we don't want to look at women listed as plunder we don't want to see them listed along with property we don't want to see slaves being kept for life and so there's a reason that we buck against those things so I don't think I'm not saying that it's useless I think it's very useful to talk about what a group or groups did with a text or a group of texts but that's an interpretive issue right because if you look at the early church for example or if you look at what you know Paul did with something like slavery you're going to get a very different view of this and I don't think it's one that you would want to follow and it's certainly not one that I would want to follow so that's one thing the other thing again it really does come back to this lens like when you said if this God is the God X that does X and that is higher than all and that is mighty of course but if I were to say to you if Asher is the God or if Marduk is the God that is all powerful and that is all knowing and they can that would also be true that system would also be coherent it would also be justified that the third went and conquered people and created vassals but we don't start there we can't start there you guys don't start there and that's why I say ultimately in these discussions it has to come back to a type of special pleading and I wanted to say I remember what I was going to say is that you kind of listed a lot of great things Christians have done I don't disagree with you Christians have done amazing things they are more moral than what the Bible describes Yahweh as being right and I'm not like I think a lot of times people misinterpret like I'm trying to make you make it so like the God you guys worship because you've got a monster I'm trying to get you guys to understand that you got to at some point give up the ghost because the biblical narrative is what it is and the biblical narrative basically says God is more similar to Putin than he is something more positive in the Old Testament at least the Old Testament God he kills children just like Putin does attacks innocent civilians you're not going to be able to articulate and justify to me that there's some morally good reason you can judge babies and children the most humanistic God would be Jesus Christ why would I worship anybody you just said you're a pantheist do you worship yourself do you create God in your own image because that's what it sounds like to me it sounds like there's no moral standard to challenge yourself by if you have no God who calls you a certain standard what about my moral standard you like to challenge pantheism that you're describing here the topic of debate isn't pantheism and why it's rational the topic of debate is why Christianity is rational I'm kind of a pantheist I'm kind of aligned with you guys I'm the fellow God believer I'm trying to connect with you I'm not some evil atheist troll I'm the outlier here unlike Josh I don't eat babies as all the other atheists we know that they do so we listen this is the whole point because you can get rid of it get rid of the dogman bible there's a reason the scripture sounds like the way people talk back then and the Israelites are just like everybody else there's a reason it would tell you to conquer people like that that's just what they did back then they went in, they took slaves they conquered civilizations that was just the time period but when you connect the problem is the bible says that your God said it was okay and that's where you guys get into the problem and you either got to say no the bible is not correct in this part and just keep going but I still haven't heard why I actually need Jesus Christ maybe that's a positive way we can end here why do I need Jesus and what do I got to do to get saved I'll just give one illustration what do I need who was the head of the British welfare system for 35 years was an atheist and she said look originally I just thought education would heal the evil that we see in our world injustice then she said I thought it was going to be technology then upon retirement she said no amount of education technology or science is going to be able to change the human heart which is always so hell bent on evil and injustice in order to change a broken system whether it be a governmental system whether it be a family system whatever the system might be you need to deal with human hearts and that's why Solzhenitsyn said the line through good and evil goes through every single human heart starting with me that's why Martin Luther King Jr said the same thing and you need some type of saving from the outside that's why AA picks it up that's why a beautiful illustration like this guy with dreadlocks true story comes in and there's this arrogant guy saying I don't really need saving like I'm going to get over my addiction to alcohol by myself and this dreadlock guy walks out and says well I've actually started to get over mine because I've achieved low self esteem and what he meant by that was understanding that I need saving something greater from the outside to come in and save me now Skyle you might say yes, AA I could not disagree with that because AA has a phenomenal success rate well I'm not an alcoholic though well that's the difference between you and me I think that every single human being bought, action it sins or if you don't like the word sin fine you're born broken right you're born broken why are you born broken that's not the question that is the question why are you born broken what do you mean saving you're still irrational I'm going to tie it all together now all these other points completely mute they're stupid I'm going to talk about the cross without any type of moral objectivity with your secular humanism that's very comfortable in a very comfortable, suburban environment here in the west that is just not sustainable at a level where you can say wow I'm in a war torn country and there really is evil going on what are you going on to what I want to do is let's give Cliff a chance to say one final thing and then I want Skyle or Josh to wrap up because you guys started this segment Cliff you say one whatever your final thing is on this and then I'll let them have the last word on this can I get like 20 seconds to talk about like this sin something right we're talking about you're born broken something I didn't control who controls me being born broken in the need of a savior this is what I'm talking about irrationality we make a world where Jesus has to come about and all those steps we go through in the bible for Jesus to be born instead of we're just not born in a sinful nature God could ban us it doesn't matter just don't make people born with a sinful nature no reason for Jesus go ahead let's get you in we'll let them wrap up the segment give a quick sermon the reason that I believe in Jesus is because he is so rational he analyzes the human dilemmas so accurately in my work with children I see that they are precious and can be just so loving and good it's incredible and I see that they can be such sinners such promoters of evil in different ways I myself was as a child I loved and as a child I picked up a metal truck in a sandbox and brought it down on the head of a kid so we are all this incredible mixture of good and evil and that's exactly what Jesus taught that's exactly what the bible teaches secondly I think that it is very rational to follow Jesus because he taught the golden rule he taught if someone strikes you on the right cheek turn to them the other also he taught about ethics in a way that civilization and now far more in Asia and Africa and South America has accepted in a powerful way Jesus taught in such a way that the center of Christianity is no longer in Israel or Jerusalem it's no longer in western Europe or the United States it's in Africa Asia and South America far more followers of Christ in those parts of the world than in the other so this whole idea that Christianity is irrational whole idea that is rather embarrassing that God put guns into the cribs of Adam and Eve I mean that is so irrational so illogical it's a total denial of the importance of free will if I don't have free will I can't love if I don't have free will I can't have a meaningful relationship with anybody free will is crucial and God gave Adam and Eve you and me free will and sin is the abuse of the gift of free will I also believe it's incredibly fascinating that around the world everybody has a desire to know God we are hardwired to know God and be it pantheism or be it polytheism or be it Islam, Judaism, Christianity we as human beings have this God shaped vacuum at the center of our being unquestionably anthropology shows that very clearly we also have a deep longing for life after death Woody Allen said I'm not afraid to die I just don't want to be there when it happens honestly Woody and I really am not impressed with people who have brainwashed themselves are thinking that death is a friend that death is actually good no death is not a friend death is an enemy and if you are excited about the death of your friend let's be real honest you don't love your friend for death will be the end of your relationship with that person and yet Jesus Christ said I'm the resurrection of the life he believes in me will live even though he dies and he just didn't talk about it he backed it up with the resurrection so I can promise you Jesus Christ meets the deepest needs and longings of your heart and my heart like nobody else and that's why putting your faith in him is such a wise decision Dr. Josh let's end with you on this segment and then we'll go to our Q&A Yeah I mean I think in the end for me looking back again I was an evangelical conservative evangelical Christian for 26 years as a pastor to church for seven years I have a master's in theology from a very conservative school so you know like these issues are very real for me you know I taught them I preached them so looking back I feel like sort of being on this side of this debate now it's a lot clearer to me that you have to put on that lens before you this is the whole point of theology is theology is saying I know that this makes sense somehow and so we're how do we do that and so if you're starting from that position I think it's easy to be able to say well I can see how this could possibly make sense maybe I don't have a lot of evidence for that but I can see how it works together and I trust the person that told me and of course I think that's I think that's the that's the approach that I took and I think it's the approach probably that most take but I will say you know for looking at this through a lens of well we all have to sort of start with this and we all have to look at something and say well we can't know everything about a particular topic like I agree the thing that I would say about that is that I often hear that coming the other direction right and it was actually said I think at the beginning of this discussion like well where did everything come from right how does you know something come from nothing those are you know like the hardest questions that I can think of that I have an expertise in what the hardest questions are but you know if I don't know what holds all reality together or something I don't think that that necessarily follows that I should believe in a divine being right I think it just means that I don't I don't know that so the question for me and the reason that I ended up leaving Christianity was because even with that that lens on I kept coming to the data and saying I can't take this work primarily historically right and that made me take a step back and take off that lens and say I'm not going to special plead this I'm going to look at it like I would look at anything else and what's the conclusions I think that's the question that Skyler's talking about and I'm done but that's the question I think that Skyler's talking about is at what point do we say this stuff seems to stack up maybe we shouldn't be special pleading our way out of it alright thanks so much for that Dr. Josh we are going to move on to our Q&A if you are new to the channel it's your first time please hit the subscribe button we have a lot of interesting debates on science, religion other topics it's a lot of high level people on here but thanks so much for being here with us we're going to get to our super chats first and we will get to some other questions as well at this point beware if you're going to send in a super chat we may not have enough time to get to every single one so we'll see how it goes one thing I did want to say is like when I first was asked to moderate this discussion I thought you know it's interesting I've got a few of Dr. Josh's books here obviously people that know me know that I'm taking a class with Dr. Josh right now as well but I knew I was like wait a second I know Cliff and I know Stuart right but I haven't talked to them that much but I was thinking I know Cliff I've watched his stuff before I think I might have something right I went into my library and sure enough I found a book by Cliff Kinetley isn't that interesting so now I can add it to the website Dr. Josh's books as well so I thought that would be a fun little thing to share so Cliff also so let's get to our super chats now thought that would be a light note to move to the Q&A with so our first super chat came from Duke Sahib thank you so much for your 499 super chat says Stuart and Cliff in Joshua 10 God makes the sun and moon stop in place for that day if this really happened then why didn't anyone else record it? I think you've got to be very careful about the use of language in those situations I think it's rather clear that the earth does not have four corners and when the Old Testament talks about the four corners of the earth that is not a scientific description I think often that the descriptions that are given are from my perspective sunrise and sunset if ABC News answers the question when is sunrise going to be tomorrow morning and when is sunset going to be tomorrow evening I'm not going to call them up and tell them that they've got an antiquated view of the solar system instead I'm going to understand it's a figure of speech and I think it's real clear that when I played basketball and football in high school we talked about killing the opponent not literally meaning that we were going to murder them but it was a strong figure of speech to communicate wow we really are going after them to beat them and so how do you handle Joshua recording that the sun stopped I don't know exactly but I don't think the text is claiming to give a scientific description of how the sun stopped literally and the earth stopped rotating on its axis it is not a scientific book there is no science anywhere in the bible lots of history lots of didactic teaching lots of poetry lots of apocalyptic literature but there is absolutely no scientific language anywhere in the bible so therefore it should not be this humongous problem for anybody alright thanks so much for that Cliff and in the chat you will see we have a moderator Amy Newman that will be having an after show discussion on her channel and be an open discussion our next super chat comes from Chad for five dollars thank you so much Chad says Cliff if Jesus died as a once and for all sacrifice for sin why does Jeremiah 3318 prophesy prophesy a permanent restoration of the animal sacrificial system the animal sacrificial system was done away by Christ He was the lamb of God who laid down his life to make atonement to pay the penalty for human sin and that is clearly articulated by both Jesus and Paul and Peter and John in the New Testament Jesus is that sacrificial lamb that the Old Testament pointed to in a very clear way people can just get really off on some of these points we were at the University of Texas this past November and a Jewish student tried to insist that if you really read the Torah and the Old Testament there is no atonement ever mentioned ever taught anywhere in the Old Testament that's tragic that is really tragic that is so blind that is so biased it's scary and so these caricatures of the Old Testament are very very sad I think it shows a lack of honest scholarship it shows a lack of honest struggling with a text that was written 3,000 years ago seeking to understand what was happening a classic example this is in Matthew chapter 19 in Matthew chapter 19 some experts in the Old Testament come up to Jesus and basically say hey if divorce is wrong then why did Moses say hey you guys gonna divorce your wives right or certificate of divorce I mean he's allowing for it and if it's wrong what's going on here and Jesus points out very clearly very accurately God permitted this due to the hardness of your hearts but it was not that way from the beginning so Genesis 1 and 2 communicate the Garden of Eden Genesis 3 is a fall and the Old Testament is an example of how far things have fallen and never does God affirm slavery yes he gives instructions about slavery but never does he endorse it so you've got to read stuff in context and be careful the way you interpret alright our next super chat comes from valet waste disposal LLC for ten dollars says God did give free will he never wanted them to have choice told them not to eat from the tree the snake was their liberator if this was real you guys have a little bit of a tough time following that sorry yeah it was the way he worded it I think or the person worded it God did give free will he never wanted them to have choice told them not to eat from the tree the snake was their liberator if this was real it's kind of like I think it seems like it's kind of like it's kind of like it's kind of like I think it's the analogy of a mob boss giving you a choice but you only have mob boss choices like what's good for the mob boss I think that's what it's talking about he wants to give you free will in Genesis but then he's like you got free will but don't do these things don't utilize your choices that I gave you because if you do brain tumors one day when it comes to total destruction of human society so do you guys have anything to add to that or do you want to just pass to a question yeah it's real clear the idea that a person can have free will and there be no severe consequences to their decisions is irrational that is irrational if we have free will it means we can choose to create and we can choose to destroy there are going to be consequences decisions alright thanks so much for that Cliff we have a member chat from Mr. Monster says I don't believe that's rational to worship there's not really much context there so we'll move on to his super chat which was next says or their super chat I should say $5 super chat from Mr. Monster says rational reason to believe in a God that is described in the Bible might as well read the poetic Eta as historical truth you guys care to that's just again it's not a question but if you have any response you want to give before we move on I wish you and I could live the life that Jesus lived you haven't done it I haven't done it and to try and argue that the God of the Bible is some type of screwed or some type of evil monster is a really sad joke and down deep anybody who reads the Bible from Genesis to Revelation should know that are there difficult passages in the Bible absolutely yes are there mysteries and paradoxes absolutely yes but if you read the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and you walk away saying that is a really monster God that is a very sad commentary on your lack of ability to read I mean listen it's morally evil to drown babies and y'all way drown babies yeah tough that's simple wow so tough we're still stuck with that God though because it's either the Gospels reliable but you can even throw away the Gospels reliable did the resurrection occur or not and if the resurrection occurred that Jesus is the Son of God and you have to deal with it I don't care if you ate babies and you have to deal with it I'm not arguing that I will have to deal with it if it's real you're hyper left and I get it and that's fine but your theology is far far left so that's what you have to deal with I see Dr. Josh cringe when I say that but still it's a historical claim did it happen why don't you deal with what he said if God did something that you he drowned babies stoop he drowned babies you still have to deal with that is it moral to drown babies that's not a question it has nothing to do with the wrath drowning babies is it objectively we get the last word on this that's okay Steve you don't have to answer it is a question for them it's a good question to avoid your only question ever but you can't answer it look how worked up you get about it it's still talking about it it's not the weekend to get all riled up on it it's tough to defend your God drowning babies no that is but this is not the rationale you don't have to believe it though whether the historical resurrection occurred or not I'm sorry let's move on to the point because if we do this on every question we'll never end but the same person with the next question is it rational to have imaginary friends it's kind of a jab but do you guys want to say anything about that type of question sure that's a classic example of incredible emotional bias if you tell me you have a friend your friend's imaginary without studying the evidence and finding out does your friend really exist or not if I just conclude that's an imaginary friend you're talking to me about that's an incredible bias it's incredibly narrow minded and prejudice no the question is does the evidence point to your friend really existing does the evidence point to your friend really being good and loving and have integrity that's the issue to try and throw around emotional diatribes about oh man the God of the Bible is just an imaginary God that doesn't cut it about as dishonest as me saying hey guess what Allah is an imaginary God because I just think that and I emotionally emote and say it's an imaginary God that's incredibly biased and narrow minded it's embarrassing okay thank you so much for that Cliff we're going to move on to our next super chat but I did want to say to everybody who's in the comments every time I'm moderating I'm sure they get it all the time some people that'll say look you stop jumping in and let them do this that's why we brought our popcorn just let them have this little dispute because this is entertaining but then we'll have the other side saying jump in more you're not moderating what are you doing look there's got to be an even I can let a little bit go I just want to make that clear I'm getting both sides the next super chat $10 from Robert Somers is crazy how biology and chemistry have models and predictions that help to show that while we don't know some we have means of figuring it out what is the analogy for the unknowns in religion do you want me to repeat that question or I think once again it's rather simple evolution is a process but there is absolutely no creative mechanism in evolution there's adaptation there are changes but there is no creative mechanism in evolution and that is why to argue that there is no god because of evolution is not a scientific argument it's a philosophical argument alright thanks so much for that Cliff we'll move on to our next super chat from Alyssa Viper let's make sure you guys are getting all the questions so I want to see if I can switch it up a little bit no one wants to talk to Dr. Josh and I this evening for the try to find more for you guys because they are all for the other side it seems but there is no god at least a couple for you guys we got one super chat set from Oliver Katwell 200KES whatever that is less than 25 viewers hitting the like button come on y'all and then I've got a member chat from Sunflower says Skyler can you rationally oppose eugenics can I rationally oppose eugenics I think human beings try that eugenics thing backdoor and World War 2 Nazis certainly try I don't think that turned out very well for people it seems like it's going to be harming people in some way I don't know a lot about eugenics so I'm not going to speak broadly on the topic but it seems like it's got some problems to say the least if you guys ever want to just pass just say pass as well and answer as many as possible so back to elusive viper for $10 if there is an aspect of chemistry that you cannot explain and nobody else can either then it's simply not a reasonable position to hold your other reasoning for god has no bearing on this question you guys it's still kind of a statement but do you want to respond to that or do you want to just move the position I think that we're trying to take is really rather simple science is a continuing process of understanding the physical world we live in and it's a very good study and just because there are questions in science that I don't understand the answer to or I don't know the answer to doesn't mean I stop doing science science is progressing if they teach the same thing in chemistry class 10 years from now that they're teaching today we have a problem science is a continuing study of the processes of this physical world and we continue to make new discoveries to revamp our theories I have a younger brother who does research on how to help new organs that he transplants not be rejected by the body and he goes down all these different avenues of genetics of chemical balances and he's trying to discover a better way now do they have a fairly good way of helping the body not reject a new organ yes they do is it good enough no it's not good enough and so he will continuously do experiments in his labs down at Duke University hospital in North Carolina to find a better way to help the body not reject a new organ that's what science is a healthy study alright thanks so much for that cliff our next question for the other side I'm trying to split them up here is we have a super chat from I'm sorry we have a member chat from nuggetman having pronouns in your well it's a it's kind of an insult but I'll just say that he didn't like that Josh has pronouns in his name we'll just say that for now well good alright just make sure you guys get a question sunflower had a $5 super chat for Skyler if there are only two possible options let's say good and evil how exactly is the ability to choose between those a mob boss ultimatum well okay well I mean one it's in the same sense of like they're forced to like oh this is about free will this is about you wanting a relationship with God God wanting a relationship with you right but the whole thing is a setup right God knows the serpents going to do what it's going to do right the boss is set up the scenario to entrap people right and it's like hey when people say hey I'll give you two choices but both choices are the choices that I allow you to have right that's not freedom that's not like free will and I think within the I mean the key when you talk about free will within the context of Christianity I always believed in other Christians that I talked with always at the idea it was just you know was the ability to freely love God on your own volition right without him coercing you into loving him right but the problem that we bring up Dr. Joshua throughout this debate is he does he doesn't treat us with that same respect he didn't treat his children like we treat our children he does not protect his children like we protect our children right and that's why we have diseases suffering in the world and then he does the things that he does to his creation and I'm really sorry to do this but we have newborn twins well I guess they're about nine months now but they're upstairs screaming and they're two of our five kids so Megan is texting and asking me if I can come and help so I'm really sorry this has been great and we'll do it again thank you Dr. Josh you guys take care alright so thanks for that we'll get to our next super chat we have a super chat from we've got that one heathenqueen for five dollars thank you for your super chat says has cliff considered therapy for his unchecked anger issues has okay so this is kind of an insult as well the last person okay yeah so the last person well sorry I guess I'll read this one then remember chat for Josh said that he thinks it indicates that it's mental illness that you would have pronouns in your name that's they said that they were upset that I didn't say that out loud but I just this one's very similar so have you considered therapy for your unchecked anger and Stuart considered reading a history book yeah I mean I hope people paid to do this right like people paid to put a message and gas like like the people on here and they were like okay fool you paid the money thanks I think it's a legitimate question the answer is very simple I have definitely struggled with the problem of anger and I definitely have gone for counseling to help me deal with anger and that's one of the points of the church of Jesus Christ that we love each other we counsel each other we hold each other accountable we are the body of Christ and I am far from a perfect human being I am far from Jesus that's for sure and that's why I'm in such desperate need of His grace and His help and His forgiveness and His mercy and that's what He offers to every one of us and I think it's fascinating when you read the gospels that you will notice that the people who gave Jesus the roughest time were the self-righteous people who loved to stand back and judge God and act like they were holier than that so no I'm a follower of Christ which means I have to acknowledge that I am a sinner I am broken and I am in desperate need of God's grace there is absolutely no question about it and that doesn't mean that I just go to a mountaintop pop bird seed and think about God I've got to deal with anger I've got to deal with lust I've got to deal with frustration I've got to deal with depression I've got to deal with discouragement I've got to deal with fear of death I've got to deal with reality and I have found that Jesus Christ helps me in a way that none of the options do and that is why I am devoted to Him I've never read a history book Did you want to say something? No I know I've never read a history book and I'm reading children's fairy tales right now because I've got a lot of young kids and histories for the winners so do not read history it's all about scientism these days so keep them coming though I wasn't sure what the rules are I've heard James say before he wasn't going to read something because it was an insult you're doing great I like Skyler's defensiveness I appreciate that too so Mr. Monster says for $5 how is it rational to convince people that they were born with sin why is it rational to be sinned to hell well I don't think you have to be an astute observer of human nature to work in a daycare center that we are born with a sinful tendency a readiness to sin factor I don't think you have to work with too many children to realize they can be precious and darling and kind and humble and loving and they can also be little monsters and can start fighting and unfortunately when you watch them grow up if they haven't learned self-control if they haven't learned to choose love over hate forgiveness over revenge then the problems just simply escalate and that's one of the reasons that we've got divorce going off the charts and that's one of the reasons we have racism off the charts and that's one of the reasons we have sexism off the charts because we do not respect each other the way God created us to respect each other and if anybody has a problem with the idea of sin I would encourage you to work in a daycare center I would encourage you to work with couples who've been divorced and are trying to reconcile in some way and you will see the depth of the human dilemma I got to say can I just say my experience in life and I don't know if Stu was just really really bad as a little kid growing up but with my children I don't see that I don't see this evil intent I don't see this mischievousness like this they don't lie to me they don't steal it seems like by being a positive around them and you know teaching them certain things I don't see a natural evil within children and I don't see it I think that when you see people do bad what we would say quote unquote bad things probably things we would agree on morally it's because of environmental situations I think it's like poverty lack of healthcare lack of money racism in this country you have real reasons why we suffer from particular areas here and I think I'll just leave it at that you sound like Clarence Darrow the American lawyer who insisted a guy in prison and a guy who runs a wonderful business and is a great businessman are the same it's just simply an issue of what environment they grew up in it affects us profoundly but that is one of the most simplistic naive views of human beings available genetics play a part too genetics play a big part we have two children both of whom have an alcoholic father one turns out to be an alcoholic and one turns out to be totally sober the idea that we are slaves of our environment is really false environment has a powerful influence there's no argument Cliff no one said you were slaves of your environment your environment plays a key part of why you are the way that you are in genetics your genetics with that genetics, physiology your own decision we're not just simply the result of our environment but you're not broken there's nothing wrong with you when you're born you're not born with a sinful nature this is the imaginary thing that Christians have made up I can't be done with that secular psychology talks about this too just go to a day's care center Eric Erickson my background is in education I have two children I won the child development award I'm not proud of it what are you arguing that children are evil or something we're arguing that you got locks on your doors for a reason I have a dog a dark side, a shadow side that we're born with Floyd look at Freud he's not a Christian he's a very secular atheistic Jew I can promise you that much alright you guys let's move on to the next question let's try and get through these last few as quick as possible if we can we're running up on almost two hours here so if you guys don't mind I mean if you want to make a comment as well that's fine but we have a question from KWNY Stuart and Cliff are we justified in killing people in modern society if God speaks to us and commands it followers of Christ disagree some of the most conservative fundamentalist followers of Christ are the Amish and they are total pacifists and they would never harm a human being or inflict any type of pain on them other followers of Christ myself included due to the reality of sin and evil due to the reality of what Vladimir Putin is doing in Ukraine are committed to the idea that because people are sinful and live it out in very tragic ways it is important to use force to prevent the slaughter of innocent people alright thanks so much for that Cliff and we have a $10 super chat from Mr. Morpheus if God is above human comprehension undetectable unfalsifiable not interactive not objective how can you rationalize the belief if Jesus Christ has not risen from the dead I'm a fool for believing in him you can falsify Jesus just show that he didn't rise from the dead and the whole thing falls apart why? because he said while he was alive I'm going to die and three days later I'm going to rise from the dead oh that was a big mistake Jesus because you gave us a way to verify you or to falsify you and what John writes in the Gospel of John is I have written these things to you so that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ the son of the living God in other words the record of these miracles the record of his death and resurrection is so that you might have good reason not proof but good evidence good reason to believe alright thanks so much for that hopefully we'll get to most of these we are running short on time but we did have a super chat just come in for Skyler so we're going to jump to that one just because the rest of them are pretty much for the other side Sunflower $2 trip chat says sky if we're not born broken are we born perfect see this is like like you're just born the way that you are you're born into this world that's what I'm saying it creates a standard when we say someone's born broken then there was some kind of perfect standard that could have been created or it could have had this is God created the way that you are you have no control on your nature or who you are as I believe he told in the Bible he knew people in the womb he designed you in the womb for a purpose so like this idea that I don't know I don't even know where to get into I'm just saying it just doesn't seem it just doesn't seem to be very purposeful in this situation go ahead alright our next super chat is Dharma Defender $5 Stuart there are 0 eyewitness accounts for Jesus 1 Corinthians 15 says there were 515 eyewitnesses we don't have a single one lying for Jesus what? did you hear the question? no eyewitnesses are you saying outside of the Bible? 0 eyewitness accounts for Jesus in 1 Corinthians 15 says there were 515 eyewitnesses but we don't have a single one of them I guess he's saying still to check with or something oh sure so Mark 15 21 when you have Simon of Cyrene for example who this is pre-resurrection obviously carrying the cross Alexander and Rufus would have been 2 who the community that was the footnotes during the day 2 who the community would have known very well that's typically how they did footnotes and how you did checking with historical events that actually occurred or not so no when obviously that person is about 515 it's over 500 and obviously you have the women at the tomb so Mary Magdalene, Mary and then Solomon and you have Thomas and the disciples all being witnesses of his resurrection and those 500 you're right are not mentioned specifically many Paul says have fallen asleep which has died others you can go check with and so I would encourage that person you're right specifically there you do not have names but in other places you have clearly names that can help us follow in a way where you can go check with eyewitnesses alright thanks so much for that Amy Newman 5 dollars super chat says great debate I'll be running an open mic after show question for Cliff and Stuart what would it take to convince you that Christianity is irrational that Jesus did not rise from the dead the evidence shows it if you can show me that the evidence is Jesus did not rise from the dead my faith in Christ has been falsified alright thanks so much for that Robert Summers 10 dollars super chat thank you Robert could God have made a world with no suffering but we would still have free will if no why not make a square circle it's impossible for God to make 2 plus 2 equal 5 it's impossible for God to exist and not to exist at the same time in the same way so when the Bible teaches that God is all powerful it's not saying that God can do anything including make a square circle or make 2 plus 2 equal 5 it's saying that God has power total power over his creation so if God gives us a free will he is limiting his power by giving us a free will which means we can do what we choose and no if God gives us free will and then prevents us from using it prevents us from choosing he's contradicting what he created which was a human being created with a free will alright thanks so much for that we have just a few more unfortunately we're not going to be able to get through all of them tonight we just have too many that's why I did warn everybody earlier if you're sending them in we have a question for Mr. Morpheus 10 dollars super chat please stop saying Jesus said this or that the authors of the book said it and in most cases 40 to 100 years later just stop you have no primaries what do you guys say about that primary sources please stop telling me that Abraham Lincoln gave the Gettysburg address because you weren't there to hear it that is such historical skepticism and cynicism as to be tragic obviously I never heard Abraham Lincoln give the Gettysburg address I never heard those words come out of his mouth but historical knowledge is not based on hearing the words fall from someone's mouth historical knowledge is based on the evidence of eyewitness testimony where were people who heard Abraham Lincoln give the Gettysburg address and it's recorded and we can read it the same thing is true for Jesus Christ you are right I've never heard Jesus say anything but the eyewitnesses heard him say it and they wrote what they heard and their oral tradition was very strong and the gospels were written in the first century which means there were still people alive who could verify or falsify that Jesus really said something so the gospels of Matthew Mark Luke and John give us a very accurate historical record of what Jesus said okay thanks Cliff our next one we have well unfortunately we're going to have to end here because we are just about to go for two hours and we have to respect our speakers time so we're going to give these last two super chats that were I think pretty a pretty good note to leave on we have Kent Hoven PA says please have the Connecticut family on again thank you for that super chat and one from Will Stewart he says hi Skyler much better tonight good job and so that's uh people from opposing sides saying good job to both sides so that's great to see you guys any last words before we close out it was fun thank you guys you guys are always a pleasure to talk with Skyler thank you okay we'll end it there thanks everybody in the live chat thanks for the debaters for coming out this was an interesting discussion to consider and I hope you had a good time remember to sift out the reasonable


Negotiating fair agreements between government and communities affected by dams. Large dam construction often forces villages to be moved and their residents resettled. Thousands or tens of thousands of people may be displaced. This upsets lives, breaks up communities, disrupts agricultural systems and can lead to people losing their society's traditions. At the same time, large dams can bring many benefits. Electricity. Irrigation for agricultural development. Better roads and connections to markets. Reservoirs for fishing. And better social and community services including schools, water supplies, clinics and markets. However, evidence from dams in West Africa shows that during negotiations before the dam is constructed, the benefits are often exaggerated while disadvantages are downplayed. All too often, local people have been made promises by politicians that are not subsequently met. There can be different reasons for this. For example, needs and expectations discussed in village meetings may not be effectively translated into project documents. All planners are unrealistically optimistic about how far the dam will boost economic growth and create local livelihood opportunities. The gulf between promises made and what's delivered has led to frustration and ill-feeling among local affected communities. Grievances are passed down from generation to generation. Communities speak more of sacrifice than opportunity but it is possible to learn from the past. Dam building in West Africa can be different. The ECOWAS guidelines encourage transparent agreements between government and local communities before dam construction. These agreements clearly set out how resettled communities will be compensated including development opportunities the dam will create. They also clarify commitments and obligations of the different parties agreeing how they will work together to build a dam that brings benefits for all including the local community. Once agreed, a social contract is drawn up. This might be a legal document or simply an agreement of mutual understanding. Essentially, it's a demonstrable deal made between people and their state that allows local communities to become active partners in the project and agree the measures that are intended to compensate and ultimately benefit them. This deal demonstrates local peoples free, prior and informed consent where they have the right to give or withhold consent to actions that will affect them in relation to land, territories and natural resources. Such clear formal understandings prevent the government from over promising the benefits that the dam will bring. They provide a constructive framework that gives affected people a stake in the project and ensures plans for compensation and benefit sharing are agreed. And most importantly, they reduce the risk of social conflict as resettled people re-establish their lives.