Hey everyone, welcome to modern day debate tonight's topic is Christianity true We have two new faces for you guys max the atheists and Steve and Steve's gonna Start tonight's debate. So Steve the floor is all yours Okay, thank you very much Okay, so the question of course is is Christianity true and I'm taking the affirmative and We first better define what we're talking about when we say Christianity because when I say Christianity I'm not thinking of a particular branch of Christianity like Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy or Protestantism I'm thinking only of what all Christians agree with and that is the claims of Jesus Christ Christianity has become a religion of course Centuries after the disciples and Jesus had been here Many things were added to it that I don't stand for necessarily But the original definition of a Christian was a disciple of Jesus and Jesus said that if you continue in my words You're my disciples indeed. So Christianity would be basically defined by the claims of Christ the words of Christ and A person who's a Christian is one who adheres to those things and I do and the question is Is this a fool's errand or is this something that is based on truth? So the real question comes down to Is Jesus who he said he was and who Christians say he was and that's really the question I'm gonna affirm that he was in fact I'd like to start by stating that I believe I'm probably more skeptical in nature than Max is and I'm actually move on the principle that Richard Dawkins presented in his book the devil's chaplain and Richard Dawkins said next time somebody tells you that something is true Why not say to them what kind of evidence is there for that and if they can't give you a good answer I hope you'll think very carefully before you believe a word they say and quote And I I plan to show you that there is evidence that Christians true and I doubt that there's any evidence to be presented for the proposition that Christian is not true And that's what I'm eager to find out from my opponent today. Who is my friend max? the atheist Okay, let's start by saying a Separate question not directly and related to is Christianity true, but somewhat related is is Christianity good Some people think it is not and if it is true That is if Jesus is who he said he was one would expect that Christianity would be good And the people who follow it faithfully would be Good for society that Christianity would be good for humanity since the Christian doctrine is that God loves humanity and Sent Christ in order to teach us, you know the ways that he intends us to be and if we follow God's ways We would expect that to be good for people now the Indian Intellectual Historian Vishal Mungal Wadi. I'm not really good at pronouncing pronouncing that in his book Which is called the book that made your world documents very You know completely the fact that Christianity is really at the root of all the things that Western civilization has introduced including human rights of the value of human life Compassion for the sick Actually education universities were first started by Christian influence hospitals likewise and orphanages virtually Everything of great value women's rights The value of infants the abolition of slavery all of those things are contributions to society society that Christianity made Historically, that's demonstrable and there's not really a serious question about that among historians. So Christianity is at least good. That doesn't mean it's true But I want to say this that not only do Christians say it's good There are atheists that say it's good for example a David Horowitz Who's a secular Jew in his book recently the dark agenda pointed out that if Western civilization gives up on Christianity It'll be a very dark age that comes upon us because Christianity Is responsible for all the freedoms and the and the better things that we have always taken for granted Tom Holland who's also an atheist in his book dominion how Christian revolution remade the world Basically said the same thing that basically our ideas of human rights and the value of human individuals all came from Christianity paganism did not have anything of it. And so he also is concerned that if the West would give up on Christianity the West would plunge into another dark period Douglas Murray another atheist in Well, he basically believes that we need to work furiously to nail down an atheist version of the sanctity of the individual He says if we can't do that we'll have to go back to Christianity because it provided us with one So these are atheists that say this and the most famous atheists of them all Richard Dawkins actually wrote This he said quote whether irrational or not it does unfortunately Seem plausible that if somebody sincerely believes God is watching his every move He might be more likely to be good and cool and that comes from his book out going God So I just want to start out by saying Christianity is recognized not only by Christians But by atheists to be something that's been good for society that doesn't make it true But if it is true, we would expect it to be good and therefore that makes it Perhaps still in the running. I mean if it was bad for people then Christianity would be There's no argument to be made that God is its author now How would we know if the Christian claims of Christ the beliefs about Christ are true or not? Well, we have the records We have historical records, you know belief in Christ is simply a historical question There was a historical man named Jesus of Nazareth. He made certain claims. He did certain things He died a certain way and Christians have always believed that he rose from the dead If these things are true Historically then that goes a very long way to proving that Christianity is in fact true if Jesus is We claim to be if he rose from the dead those are fairly strong evidences that he was not Lying or that those who spoke about him were not lying about him now How do we know if we have any records about this? Well, you know the skeptic and agnostic Bart Ehrman who's one of the leading American Scholars in the area of New Testament Manuscripts he made this statement he said quote The oldest and best sources we have for knowing about the life of Jesus are the four Gospels of the New Testament Matthew Mark Luke and John This is not simply the view of Christian historians who have a high opinion of the New Testament and its historical worth It is the view of all serious historians of antiquity of every kind from the committed evangelical Christians to the hardcore atheists and quote so Bart Ehrman like everybody else who knows what they're talking about knows that the four Gospels are the oldest and best Records we have of who Jesus was now of course that doesn't mean they're true But we now know where to look for the evidence the best Historical records we have are there now as far as the truthfulness of these records I'm not making any assumptions about them being inspired Some people say you can't use the Gospels because they're in the Bible and the Bible is just that's circular reasoning You're accepting the Gospels because you accept the Bible and you accept the Bible because you accept the Gospels No, that's not true now the historical records were written separately the Gospels were written at different times in different countries and We're later collected into what we call the Bible because they were recognized be true historical doctrines. They are not You know there's no no claim in the Gospels themselves that they are inspired Okay, now Christians often want to believe that they're inspired and they're welcome to think that way But whether they think that we're not that is not a claim that the books make for themselves What they do claim is that they're true And when people claim to be telling a true story, especially multiple people independently telling the same story Then you have some reason to take them seriously You might doubt them for If there's good reason to doubt them, but if there's not You basically we have a habit of taking people seriously if they sincerely say That they saw something happen and they were there and they have a detailed account You know we that's what you know news and History and all those things are based on that kind of evidence Dr. John Warwick Montgomery made this statement quote historical and literary scholarship Continues to follow Aristotle's dictum that the benefit of the doubt is to be given to the document itself not irrigated by the critic to himself This means that one must listen to the claims of the document under analysis and not assume fraud or error Unless the author disqualifies himself by contradictions or known factual inaccuracies Careful comparison of the new testament documents With inscriptions and other independent early evidence has in the modern period confirmed their primary claims Now in my opinion one doesn't have to prove everything the bible the the gospel say to be true If their primary claims are true and the primary claims are confirmed in all four of the records And the fact that they are historical Is really the view of almost all historians today there were doubts centuries ago because there hasn't been as much Study and research and discovery in the middle east But you know the writers of the gospels describe over 40 different Landmarks In israel especially in jerusalem, which nobody would know about if they lived there after 70 ad Or i should say if they didn't live there before 70 ad all these things were totally destroyed by the romans In ad 70 when the jews were driven out and taken into captivity over you know to other countries so You know the the landmarks that archaeologists have found in jerusalem that are mentioned in the gospels Make it it's a very impressive case that these were written by someone who actually lived at that time lived in that place And claimed to see the things that they wrote about So these are some of the important, you know, it's interesting over 3 000 people Are known to us not from the bible, but from secular archaeology From that period of time in palestine from the first century and over 500 names Of 3 000 people are known to be common in that period and what's interesting Is that 41 percent of the people that are known from secular history? Bear the the most popular nine names Uh of the many names that are known And when you look at the new testament This the same nine names are occupied They are applied to about 40 something percent of the people It's almost exactly the same as we find in secular history And yet when you look at the documents in the false gospels of the gnostics in the second century They don't have the same names at all. They have names that aren't found in archaeology at all They make up names Likewise, even in the first century jews and other countries didn't have these names So it's interesting as simon for example And joseph were the most uh common names at the time And those are also the most common names in the new testament Mary was the most common female name and there's a lot of marries in the new testament Certainly, it's the most common female name in the new testament These are just accidental or incidental confirmations that the writers Uh were telling truths that you would either have to know from being there Or you'd have to do a great deal of research to know these kinds of things They're just like almost accidental confirmations that they were there and that their stories are true Um Now a question we have to ask is did jesus work miracles? This is one of the things that make people doubt the gospels in fact No one would doubt the gospels at all if there were no miracles in them Because the historical evidence for them being true is superior to this Confirmation for almost any other ancient historical documents around It's only because there are miracles in it That many people doubt it and of course this just a doubting of miracles is simply a prejudice It's an assumption that supernatural things have never occurred and therefore could not have happened on those occasions That assumption is the basis of a worldview. It's not the basis of any demonstration from science Science has never demonstrated that miracles cannot occur Uh, and if there are miracles the best evidence we'd have for that would be people who saw them just like any other historical event in that sense. We have four Witnesses in writing from the period to the resurrection of jesus and too many other miracles That is the gospels report of course a lot of miracles that he did and unless we have just a an a priori Bigotry against the supernatural which is not a rational position to take Well, then we have no reason to doubt that these miracles are true Another question we'd have to ask and perhaps the last one Is well, it's not necessarily the last one, but I don't know if I have much time for more I guess we have a Every seven minutes. That's good. So I will take two more points. One of them is did jesus fulfill old testament prophecy If jesus was the messiah he would have to fulfill prophecies that god made in the old testament through prophets hundreds of years before his birth and While many christians claim that jesus fulfilled 300 old testament prophecies in his lifetime. I think that is somewhat inflated I don't believe there are 300 prophecies my study the bible does not yield that result. However Just at the top of my head. I could pull 25 Prophecies out of the old testament which were fulfilled by jesus and these had to do with the timing of his coming Including the approximate year that the old testament prophets said he'd come The place where he would come where he'd be born where he'd minister wherever he would die. These are all prophesied as well There's You know prophecies about what he would do How he would die actually is is prophesied and that he would be vindicated and the and the results of His vindication on the world are prophesied too and these things happened and the truth is there's just no one in history That fulfilled these 25 is actually pretty many if there's hundreds all the better But I don't want to argue for hundreds 25 would be more than enough In other words all the major things that jesus did that are recorded by the witnesses Have been you know were prophesied And and he fulfilled that now the last question I need to talk about is of course the resurrection of jesus Because it's the resurrection of jesus that would be the final evidence that he is who he said he was because he predicted he'd rise now people have risen besides jesus I mean people have come back to life who had been clinically dead Obviously that happens in hospitals not infrequently. That's not necessarily miracle though it might be that's not the point The point is that jesus predicted that he would die a certain way that he would be dead for a certain length of time and that he would rise And appear to his disciples again afterwards now those are things that the disciples themselves Say happened and they didn't expect them to happen when he died They thought all was lost They did not believe that he was going to be rising from the didn't even cross their mind until they found the tomb empty and they Of course eventually saw him with their own eyes and touched him and so they didn't have a hallucination They ate with him they touched him now as far as the empty tomb is concerned That is an easily verified historical fact Because everybody knows that jesus lived and died That he was buried as well as well established in historical records and that his tomb was empty three days later cannot be avoided By the fact that if it was not then the enemies of christianity who were many and vociferous Would have gone to the tomb and found his body and said look you guys who say he's risen from the dead He's right here You know, what are you talking about the fact that the enemies of christian were never able to discover his body When the uh, when the christians began to teach that he'd risen from the dead Suggested that the body was no longer accessible. It was not therefore in the tomb anymore We can deduce the tomb was empty though. There might be many theories as to how it became empty The christian view is that the same jesus that the apostles saw alive afterward Rose from the dead and walk out of the tomb But the other options are that some human beings removed him to the tomb Now the enemies of christ whether the romans or the jews would have no motive to do that And if they had done it they would have every motive to reveal that they had done that As soon as they wanted to discredit christianity The disciples i suppose might be said to have had motive though. It's really difficult to know what their motive would be Uh, they were not men interested in starting a religion They were fishermen and tax collectors and peasants who had no religious training and no religious ambitions Uh, and they were actually they went back to fishing initially after he died Uh, there's no reason to believe that's left Thank you There's no reason to believe that they would wish to fabricate a story There was nothing to be gained for them Even if we say oh well, they got to be the leaders of the great religion It was not a great religion at first. It was a persecutor religion The leaders were the ones who got hunted down and fed to the lions burnt at the stake and so forth and any one of these disciples could have avoided that had they reneged And retracted their statements under torque.  I mean, it's what their testimony was. They were eyewitnesses They said I saw him. I touched him. We walked with him. He spoke with us. We had conversations with him after he knows And we're they were willing to die for what they saw and heard and knew that's different than what you believe And uh, so if we want to say the disciples were the ones who stole the body And no one else can be imagined who'd have a motive for doing that and keeping it concealed Then they were pretty sincere and it's interesting, you know Con artists don't really make very good martyrs generally speaking. Uh, if a person really Has perpetrated a hoax There's usually a limit How far he'll go in perpetrating it especially under torture and facing the death sentence and uh, the disciples They went all the way they went all the way to their death and did as did many other christians who had seen jesus so That's my basic Presentation i'm sure we'll have challenges on some of those points and we'll be able to discuss them later on But this is my basic reason for arguing that jesus That christianity is true. Basically. We have historical records dating from that very period They meant some of them are eyewitness accounts Jesus is recorded to have done miracles his resurrection from the dead Was not a strange thing compared to the rest of his miracles He actually raised other people from the dead during his lifetime and he also fulfilled prophecies about the Messiah Now these may not prove beyond question to a skeptic That christianity is true But i would have to see much better evidence presented that it is not before i would Give up a position that has good evidence for All right, thank you very much steve Before i let max take the floor I'll just want to let everyone know this is modern day debate a neutral platform for topics like religion science and politics Our vision to provide a neutral platform. So everyone has a fair shot um, and we maintain that and that's why we do this every Well a couple times a week at this stage. It's going great We have over 178,000 subscribers. Which is Incredible that amount of support Definitely motivates us to keep us going now Before real quick before i let max take over. Um, just so everyone knows we've got a slightly different outline for tonight We're allowing our debaters 20 minutes each for openers. They're then going to have timed rebuttals um followed by More timed rebuttals, but there will be an open discussion portion. So There will be that so be ready for that and then of course the usual q&a section So you can start getting those super chats in now just a warning Um, I only guarantee super chats over five dollars being read. This is not to say that Super chats under five won't get read but um with the amount of super chats we get lately That's something we're we're having to do now so that we don't sit here for Three hours extra with our debaters just answering questions um Also real quick just going to mention this last time I moderated I wanted to stay after the debate and hang out with you guys for a few minutes Um, and then something happened the stream malfunction and it just shut down on me So we're going to do that today and i'm going to be gifting 20 Modern day debate memberships during that portion and if you guys want to get to know me a little better Um, I've got something to share with you guys. So with that max Your first 20 minutes opening statement starts now Laura's your way. Thank you. Justin. Am I am I audible? You're totally audible excellent Well, thank you so much to modern day debate and steve Thank you for agreeing to this and to suggesting this format I don't think it'll take too long to debunk christianity Uh as the music man says let's start from the beginning. It's a very good place to start Steve agrees in some sense as he begins his statement of faith from his website the narrow path dot com highly recommend With the citation from genesis one one in the beginning god created the heavens and the earth We read on further in genesis the discover a tale which is not supported by any objective religiously inert evidence The subsequent mythology cannot verifiably answer the question of where we come from It yields no insights into observable testable and predictive cosmology chemistry physics or biology Not what one would expect from a religion professing itself as the ultimate pathway to god's grace You may hear my opponent off you skate wax eloquent for what has generated hours upon hours of vividly informed Sometimes rather long-winded responses to extremely niche questions of certain theological idiosyncrasies And the confusion from his audience arises from this Christianity is the idea that a talking snake whispered in the ear of the first woman Who was made fully formed from the rib of her common law husband Who himself was formed from a planet and solar system an ecosystem made by a god in six days You throw in a planetary flood a sort of hitting the reset button by this allegedly all-knowing all powerful a superior being Or set of three beings depending on who you ask There's a tower of babel baffle some wandering in the desert across a rather small geographic area Slavery as steve mentioned child sacrifice all in setting the stage for a vicarious redemption of Your personal offenses to this god by a way of execution and subsequent resurrection Of a virgin's heretic child who is in fact the jewish messiah And the son of god and the christ like some herkulean knockoff My opponent may try to discredit my characterization of the faith However, I proffer here that the interpretations of the accounts of genesis are not merely an obscure distinction and disagreement amongst brethren But rather a fundamental component to the theology of christianity itself To accept christianity is to accept that these fables are true The fifth chapter of romans goes on about how Sin entered the world through one man and thus death through sin and thus death came to all people through sin It goes on to cite the reign of death from adam to moses and cites adam as the pattern of one to come Very important to remember the bible's emphasis having provided a lineage from adam to moses by the way It's very clear that at least paul believed in the literal interpretation of the narratives of the genesis account and believed it to be historically evident And cites it as a theological basis for the necessity of the blood sacrifice of the son of god to god the father So in asking the question is christianity true We are confronted with the subsequent question of who is christ Accepting that these gospel accords are the earliest although certainly not contemporaneous Accounts of the jesus of nazareth figure We are presented with not only a narrative line of persons But with the chronology of these persons with remarkable life spans of centuries each as documented in the early chapters of genesis In addition to being the son of god the source material also provides us a list of who jesus is human at least on maryside Since he's born of a virgin Of who jesus's human ancestors were documented do have been The genealogy of christ is provided in the bible even when accounted for in the most charitable way for contradictions between the two lineage presented in the gospels still only adds up To far less than 5 000 years from adam to joseph and mary And this is not some fringe numerological interpretation of Trying to see or determine what 6 6 6 really means by the way. We all know 6 6 6 is really ronald wilson ragan The bible gives not the dates, but the life spans of jesus's ancestors These are the boring bits of genesis and luke that discuss adam you get seth who we get inosh etc And it gives these stupendous life spans of centuries each for these early few Again truly remarkable given the fact that they would have been utterly totally inbred Due to numerical necessity. Let's say it would have been a very close and very big family indeed A bishop james usher of ireland A catholic theologian in the early 1600s added up the dates presented in the scriptures He determined the biblical math yielded a sum of creation of 4004 bc aging the planet earth today at about 6 000 years old today He similarly placed noah's flood a global catastrophe in which the entirety of the planet was submerged with water For an entire year after a 40 day rain event around the year 2350 bc Suggesting that there should be a planetary evidence of such an event dating to around 4400 years ago 4500 years ago Now the numbers differ slightly from the different versions and interpretations of the subtuagent the masoretic texts And mutually exclusive interpretations on how to assess those versions But taking the outer edge the oldest available. It still just adds up to 6 000 years old roundabouts That would mean all of history All the formation of the seas and the continents trees animals dinosaurs the ice age life the world It all occurred within the last 600 decades according to christianity My opponent often undermines atheism as a new fangled intrusion on the philosophical stage I don't see how we could have come any sooner Nor at a better time by his calendar Hebrews 117 the writer of Hebrews still anonymous still scripture Uses the historical allegory of the flood as a warning 2nd Peter 3 5 as well discusses how once the world was destroyed by water But soon it would be destroyed by fire I wonder at what point by the way will climate change become so unbearable a scourge that even christianity will interpret it as a real albeit a sign of the times only The theologies derived from these ancient judaic myths can be evaluated not only on their own face But on the face of their source materials, which coincidentally described the creation of the earth and dare I say it Genesis of the human race In other words, we can investigate the narrative witness of the christian scriptures against something we can also objectively evaluate See how well the two testimonies jive next to the facts now remember that jesus of nazareth and soliff tarsis paul Are at least culturally jewish Having studied and been immersed in the teachings of the Torah as interpreted in their time Why would a resurrection be necessary? Because it fulfills the ancient law. It provides the sacrifice of abraham's son up to god It closes the loop. It has a very clever poetic chiasmus in this regard But not only did the new testament disciples and apostles refer back to the global flood of noah as fact isaia does as well in 54 9 Isaiah is a heavy one because so many of the prophecies alleged to have been fulfilled by the jesus character originate in the book of isaia Jesus as well is recorded of sight at the first two chapters of Genesis when questioned about marriage and divorce somewhat rather graphically when he says in matthew 19 that the creator Made the male and female and that the two shall become one flesh It is of course evident that not only are there more than two sexes that not all species on this blue earth Get it on in exactly the same way we do But that the biological distinction between male and female human animals is a recent evolutionary invention indeed In the true historical scale of the world The same passage of genesis that jesus cites goes on to say that in the image of god He created him strongly implying that this god too must share 99 of its dna with chimpanzees and bonobos Since it is our dna itself, which provides us this fine shape and structure Jesus goes on same gospel account. We've only Covered the first one here of matthew Refers to the flood of noah in the 24th chapter right after prophesying that no stone would be left unturned or the jewish temple Didn't happen by the way the very foundation of the temple remains in the form of a retaining wall Which we widely know today as the western wall or the wailing wall in central jerusalem Jesus reportedly says that as it was in the days of noah So too it will be at the coming of the son of man That people were eating drinking making merry and were totally oblivious until the day the flood came and took them away Whereas if one were to say that if the teachings of christ were true Therefore christianity must be true Then following the premise we have to test whether the teachings of christ were true Again being charitable in our understanding that these gospel teachings are understood not to be contemporaneously written to accept For a moment that in a crowd of 5000 people for instance in ancient palestine There were not only just a handful of bread and fish amongst them But that nobody remembered to bring along a pad and paper or a tablet and stylus or papyrus and reed Whatever could be used to write down what the man had to say Getting past even that granting away that We still might expect a divine account to at least update us on the error of the previous revelation Or at least the transmission of its revelation Copying errors in the finer dates and details of prior oral tradition Given that there is no evidence to be found of a global flood covering the highest mountains by several feet As well as a genetic bottleneck of all people on earth from the eight family members of noah After beaching in the mountains of ararat less than 5000 years ago Why would the christ the messiah then cite that story as an example of a historical fact? Better question. How did he cite it? He cites it from the book of genesis Which of course was the sacred religious text of his time and place He seems to have known no better than those who preceded him in this regard And on a point only is so subtle as to deal with the origins of the human race itself Why would I say christianity is false? Why would I reject the divinity of jesus? Because he evidently did not deliver any kind of reformation or updating of the narratives of creation accounts in the old testament In abject error as they are Nor did he ensure a way to comprehensively secure his teachings and guidance for the rest of us Put another way It's not a qualitative issue. I take with christianity It is a quantitative one the timeline simply does not add up It's not an emotional or moral value of the teachings of christianity, which is the topic for debate here, by the way It's not is christianity good. It is the veracity of christianity itself We haven't even gotten to the miracles. We're just doing the background check on the guy If you're smart before you bring someone into a job interview you run a background check You call the references that way when you interview that person you can determine whether they are fully truthful or not Well, we can't interview jesus in a way that these gospel writers annotate that they did or at least experienced people who spoke with jesus directly Those same gospel writers are providing a set of dates and names that we can check against the facts That is so critical to bear in mind, especially when evaluating a prophecy claim as i'm sure we'll get to A quick overview of the tower of babel story from genesis Prophers in origin for the many languages upon the earth How did we get so many languages and so many people across so far and wide across the world and so short of time? Again a few thousand years. Ah, it must have been that god Interceded in the building of a tower from big bricks and tar from mortar as recorded in genesis I'll give you the niv here the lord said If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this Then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them come Let us go down and confuse their languages so they will not understand each other So the lord scattered them from all over the earth and they stopped building the city And that's why it's called babel babel Because that's where the lord confused the language of the whole world From there the lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth Again referencing the timeline as provided by the scripture itself We deduced that the scattering occurred around 4,200 years ago 4,200 years ago A century or two after the flood of noa that ravaged the entire planet We're providing no mechanism for this scattering and given the most charitable allowance of a miraculous teleportation of these people to the far reaches of the planet linguistics archaeology genetics all are decidedly Not in favor of such a model For we know where languages come from and how they evolve Similar we know where the human race comes from geographically not from present day iraq But from deep within africa and we know when we left and settled down in different places across the globe I say we know and that is to say we are knowing the dates of human occupation of the planet seem to keep being pushed further Not towards a garden of eden six thousand years ago But towards the deep past as one would expect from finding more evidence in places where one was not previously looking Nor knowing what to look for What we must do now is test to verify that there are outside sources that show that adam the first man according to the scriptures of christianity Did indeed live at the time of the creation of earth some six thousand years ago and as the first human being to walk the earth Similarly, we can do the same for the declaration of noah's global flood Not only will investigating and verifying this hypothesis assist us in evaluating the learnedness and knowledge ability of the gospel writers But it conveniently places us at the start of christian scripture an account of the world in the beginning From this investigation we may discover not just as atheists But as living organisms on this planet where the world came from how old it is We can ascertain from the rocks and processes and place the major events that occurred deep within our planet history And we can verifiably without a doubt place the origin of the world well before the dates recorded in the christian scriptures Because the christian scriptures are the de facto source of christian declarations By testing the veracity the truthiness of these scriptures from multiple angles We can verify whether christianity is true or not Not only are we only very recently able to age the earth We are only also very recently able to age the extent of the observed universe The christian scriptures have been totally usurped by the advent of the scientific method as a means of understanding the world It is no surprise that atheism appears as such a recently adopted phenomenon Since the physical means of investigating the world through the telescope the microscope Particle accelerators probes landing on mars all are in decently late mechanisms of discovery and inquiry And with each advance obtained by the atheistic method the license to ask questions that religions such as christianity of hitherto had a monopoly by force on the answers to The value and credibility of religion wanes ever less Christianity has had around about 2000 years to deliver on the promises it claims to deliver on Healing the driving out of demons the gift of tongues Prophecy and for two millennia Christians have been grasping its straws to reliably manifest any of these amongst their own adherents until the advent proliferation of the objective atheistic scientific method Until human minds were unshackled and liberated from the weighted chains of religious dogma in other words until atheism Which as my opponent rightly notes is a relatively modern philosophy Was adopted far and wide the promises of Christianity were withheld say again That's three minutes left three minutes the promises of Christianity were withheld from utilization by the human race The gift of healing is exponentially delivered by way of atheism Anatomy works across all religious uprengings and persuasions The day we switched from prayer to penicillin and cure what ails us that's demonstrated that Uh demons have been associated and treated once identified as just schizophrenia or bad fungus bad mushrooms or You know brain tumors anything like that the gift of tongues That's even now liberated computer science relying not on god has totally been able to allow for instantaneous transcription and translation of the spoken word of most languages The curse of the tower of babel is broken or rather it is breaking as we speak to each other across this distance Let's see. Let's get down here to some good stuff I I overwrote for 20 minutes All right You think that god made flesh to walk amongst us would be good enough to prevent such misguided Apostleses that it wouldn't have been like the debacle between god and moses at the pronouncement of the tank and mammoths You think that the teachings of jesus and the canaanized main stream gospels would suffice at that But in the classic jewish tradition of providing auxiliary religious commentary such as comprises the book of talmud We have to believe that the only historical reason we even think about christianity is the same reason Most of us don't think about zoroastrianism Because the victor writes the history It is for this reason that we must really care only about christianity as a society Then we same way that we do about any other extinct bronze age cult One must be willing to remember what people are willing to say willing to do willing to believe if they're a member of a cult I mean, this is evidenced by the branch devideans dying for what they believed in the Kool-aid kegger down in jones town heaven's gate with the sneakers people will die for what they witnessed to be true So steve's point about martyrdom is is totally null and void on that point How much time do I have left? I think I'll donate the rest of it to our questions and answers at the end there Okay. Yeah, you had about 40 seconds left, but Sounds all right. Well, then let me say this in summary Always bear in mind that something that requires a salesman is likely something that shouldn't be bought If something is true, it's true because it works and i'm going to be exploring that theme as well throughout the pro spark debate tonight. Thank you Thank you very much max. All right everyone once again Welcome to modern day debate if you're just getting here. We've got max debating steve on is christianity true So far so good. We just finished our opening statements And we've got over 750 live viewers right now, which is fantastic But only about 100 likes now Normally i'd be like hit that like button, but you know what? I don't want you to do that yet I want all you guys to hover the like button right now Okay, because what we're going to do is we're going to go into 10 minute rebuttals Which means steve's going to go first with 10 minutes and then max is going to go again For 10 minutes and if either one of our debates debaters say something you like show your support to them with that like button All right And with that steve 10 minute rebuttals. It's all yours All right. Thank you very much and thank you max for your presentation. You know max um like I said I like the skepticism Principle that richard docin said if somebody tells you something is true Say what evidence is there for that if they can't give you a good answer I hope you'll think carefully before you believe what they say I gave you some reasons why uh, which could be considered to be evidence that the gospel records are historically accurate Which of course has been the the view of people of many centuries of Including very foolish people and some very brilliant people It's not as if you know one kind of person has believed this. It's those who look at the evidence And those who simply take a fair-minded approach to historical records and say unless I find something that is untrue And I see these witnesses to be sincere Then I I have no reason to just disregard them. We take all historical writing that way or news reports that way now Max you didn't really address The matter of whether christianity is true you spent most of your time at the beginning at least talking about genesis Chapters one through eleven now whatever I may think about genesis chapter one through eleven It's not directly related to whether christianity is true Because actually over 60 percent of people in america who call themselves christians and believe in christianity Do not believe that genesis one through eleven is historically accurate now many do But it's obviously not an essential part of being a christian to have a Literal view of genesis one through eleven So to spend time debunking that may be fun and might be an interesting debate to have it another time but It's not addressing the question of whether christianity is true christianity is not found in genesis chapter one through eleven Now you mentioned jesus believed in adam and eve Or at least he believed that god made man and woman. That's what jesus said and that he ordained marriage Now you didn't prove that that isn't true. He didn't say how long ago it happened. Jesus didn't give any dates about that He just simply said that there are two genders that god made And he also instituted marriage He also said there was a flood He didn't say if it was a global flood or not. There's been many floods and many people have been killed in floods Whether i believe in a global flood or not is not relevant to whether believe in christianity But of course you you mostly ridiculed those things rather than proving them wrong So in other words, you took the typical atheist approach Of using mockery rather than evidence. So you haven't presented. Of course, you didn't have time I don't blame you but you wasted time talking about things that are not relevant to our debate topic The question is are the gospels true is jesus who they say He is did he do the things and say the things that are recorded? Did he rise from the dead? Those are the issues that really determine whether christianity is true Now if jesus believed in a you know a six thousand year old earth today And adam and eve created four thousand bc We don't know we know that he believed that man and woman are the two sexes that god made and i don't think anyone has ever disproven that We jesus did say that god created marriage between the sexes I don't know if anyone could disprove that And he said there was a flood in the days of noa and i don't know that anyone could ever disprove that He didn't say whether it was global or not. He didn't say when it happened so most of your arguments had to do with dates and Likelihoods that certain things happened it but no evidence has been proven that a Those chapters and genesis Are not historically true Or b even if they are not that that would have any impact on christianity since some 60 some odd percent of christians in america Do not believe those stories are historical and they believe they're Legendary something else like that But they're still christians so obviously to attack those things does not really touch The essence of what the beliefs of being make a person a christian thought And those beliefs have to do with the man jesus christ that he's the son of god Of course is a matter of faith, but it's based on historical Proofs and evidences of things that were seen and witnessed and and reliably recorded about him And uh that he rose from the dead Is considered by christians to be the you know that which seals the deal That he predicted he'd rise from the dead on thursday third day and he did Is pretty much where christians Derived their view that christianity is true And now if you can prove that he didn't do that that's okay. Well, I mean i'd love to hear that But I you haven't really attempted to do that what you've tried to do Is actually to uh kind of just you know Ridicule things that you say christians believe But many of the things you ridicule are not believed by all christians They are believed by some christians But there's quite a variety of beliefs on christians like I said at the beginning I'm not here to defend one denomination of christians I'm not here to defend catholic or protestant or orthodox christians Not here to discuss whether those who believe in calvinism or those who believe in armonism are true Whether those who believe in reform theology or dispensationalism are true Those are not the issues we're debating we're we're talking about is christianity true and christianity as I said at the very beginning is Jesus himself christianity is acceptance of christ's claims And continuing to live in the embrace of their truthfulness and is uh, frankly Unless someone can show that christ claims are not true Then then all the evidence seems to be in favor now what I find is that The arguments of atheists do not ever Provide any evidence that these things are not true What they do Attempt to do and I assume max will do this in our cross examinations later What atheists often do is say well the evidence that christians use is not convincing to me It's not good enough. Well, okay. Everyone's entitled to make their own assessment of the evidence however If one wants to argue that christianity is not true that jesus is not who he said he was and he did not rise from the dead I have yet to hear any atheists actually make a case That provides actual evidence and and something other than ridicule now the ridicule actually comes from this a difference of world views Atheists are materialists naturalists in their world view now world view is the grid through which you see everything The paradigm that you look at the world through it tells you where we came from What matters what what values are what moral? Code should be followed if any You know what the meaning of life is what the purpose of life is What exists and what does not exist these are the Aspects of a world view Christians hold to a an open-minded world view. They believe there is a natural world And they're open to a supernatural world if there's convincing evidence that it exists and christians believe that evidence does It is there atheists are not open-minded. They are Uh, they're naturalistic. They do not allow for a supernatural realm to exist Now they can say well, I didn't you can say well, I I've never heard anyone speak in tongues or heal the sick or raise the dead So I don't believe there's a supernatural realm But the bible doesn't tell us that if the supernatural realm is true that you will have seen these things Uh miracles are not said to be commonplace in the bible There's only three periods of time usually about 40 years Approximately one generation each where there were a plethora of miracles recorded in the bible and there were centuries and centuries in between them millennia in between them in fact So the average person in the bible Did not see any miracles and the bible doesn't teach that they should have miracles are not commonplace But to say they never happened requires that we know far more than we can prove And since the majority of humanity throughout history has believed that they have seen supernatural things whether it's the activity of demons or of god Uh, you know, of course christians don't accept every report that people give But the christian is at least open-minded about the possibility of a supernatural realm that exists and might intrude in some measure into our world too Atheism simply ridicules that but on no basis because the the naturalistic worldview has not been proven It's simply an assumption. It's simply a ruling out prior to investigation and about evidence uh of whether there is or is not a god a supernatural realm And you know, if there could be one then there could be miracles obviously Uh, and if there could be miracles then everything that is said about jesus could actually be true And therefore to suggest that there are no miracles Requires that we prove there's no god and that is of course something that the proving of a universal negative is is actually an impossibility so anyway There's a lot of time spending max's presentation Uh debunking things in genesis And i'm here to say i'd like to hear what arguments there are to prove that christianity is not true All right. Thank you very much steve Okay, we were halfway through our first set of rebuttals folks Um Max you're next so guys if you hear anything you'll like hit that like button max the floor is all yours Keep smashing it that like button at this point guys so yeah, steve addressed several things, uh Quoted i believe it was dock ins etc One thing he said is that 60 or so i believe was his figure of christians in america today Are still christians but reject this idea of a earth that's only 6 000 years old And there's a reason that 60 of americans reject that reason it's because The evidence has caused them to reject it They have edited out that part of the narrative of their understanding of how the world was because Prior to the evidence being discovered again very recently from the atheistic naturalistic Scientific method prior to that People did believe that the earth was 6 000 years old again since at least the 1600s when james usher calculated it and so The fact that steve's offering saying that well the majority of christians don't even believe that that's really not very good evidence Just because the majority believes it similarly I think he said that the majority of people believe in the supernatural Again, not great. You're appealing to a majority fallacy there and saying that well We took a poll family feud style and people say god they believe in god You wanted a little naturalistic explanation. I think of why people believe in god. Fortunately, I prepared one If we are as as many of the faithful tell us that we're just molecules in motion Why do we all have this intrinsically deep seed of belief in the all powerful divine presence of the almighty? It's a simple reason our species evolved it as a means of escaping predators and evading danger Take for instance your early proto human Some prehistoric watering hole and you you're taking a drink when you see in here There's a rustling in the leaves next to you. It catches your attention Is it the wind? In which case you could just keep drinking water and not have to worry about it Is it a lion ready to pounce possibly in which case you should really take notice of it and get out of there If it's a lion, you might be eaten And thus it's going to lower your likelihood of passing along the genes of your relaxed Disposition so over the general excuse me over the generations We have evolved from the traumatized paranoid survivors where it pays to heed a false positive To assume that there is a hand behind the rustling in those leaves that shadow on the wall complications in anthropology created the first superstition Then ritual and then thereafter it combined the myths and legends From actual history in large part just hyperbolized from it And it's no surprise that the human race has evolved not only a system of religious thought and supernatural proclivity But that the psychological and sociological mechanisms by which to embrace it so fully are you know evolved there as well Let's see you wanted to know About evidence that the the sort of the you sort of kind of got at the burden of proof again The burden of proof for Christianity. I I just took it from the beginning. Okay I assume Christianity is based in the Christian scriptures. Okay, so I just started at verse one You did the same thing in your statement of faith on the website the narrow path calm And so I sort of assume that Christianity is going to be rooted from the get-go In the scriptures and I just start reading from the beginning. Okay now I get it. You're saying that a lot of people don't take that literally fine I'll just start beginning I'll just start reading at the beginning of the gospels in Matthew and luke with with these genealogies They provide names it provides a list of names for who Jesus is We have to evaluate is Jesus who he says he was is Jesus who the gospels say they were We can look at the names that are presented in the gospels take them at their word There those names are also associated with like the reign of kings Like the the length of years of the reign of kings all these numbers are in there All I'm doing all I did to debunk Christianity was make a timeline Just make a timeline because if the timeline of Christianity of the narrative of Christianity works out The first person Adam Is going to be six thousand years ago in the Garden of Eden Then there's going to be evidence of a global flood. There's going to be evidence of all these things I mean what you're saying is that you're allowing to not take literally certain passages of the bible And to take other passages literally and and that's fine But I showed you in my opening where even in the New Testament the writers and theologians of the New Testament all they believed in the literal interpretation of The old texts of the old stories and genesis and so forth. They cite them as fact Okay, and they also cite them as prophecy and like in Isaiah and the Isaiah even refers to a flood And there would be evidence of a flood. There would be evidence of a global flood that occurred there would be evidence of of of like a genetic bottlenecking of all people just down to like a family of eight How did they how did they all interbreed? Like how did they all that they'd all be prospered? It's from the same family. It just doesn't work. I just have like Chronological issues with Christianity. I have just genetic issues with Christianity. Why is it that we're so similar in DNA to other primates like apes and bonobos and stuff like that like it just The claims that Christianity make don't necessarily provide as as Resilient an answer to the questions writ large about the world in the same way that naturalistic science does And naturalistic science you mentioned goodness is Christianity good naturalistic science has enabled all sorts of Awesome stuff to happen And it's largely because that we rather than saying well We already know the answer to such and such a question because we have scripture. We have faith We have our stories We begin to question them and sometimes we just Discover something we observe something that totally blows our minds about what we believed about the world before our worldview which is a word Christian love to use and so It really is no surprise that atheism all these things it's it seems recent because For a very long time we were just bound by these mythologies because we just didn't know Steve We just had no idea That fossils were down there in the way and the amount that they are We had no idea about seafloor spreading and what the bottom of the ocean really looked like We had no idea about plate tectonics. We had no idea About how the tides worked or solar eclipses. We thought solar eclipses were crazy omens now. We can predict them So really the value of atheistic science rather than saying something that happens It must just be a miracle or must just be a word of god The second that we shift our attribution of the the actor the immovable mover behind that into some kind of Law we're able to not only apply that natural law and our benefit and things like engineering But we're able to use that natural law to assuage our fears about things that happen like a plague or Or a you know a wildfire or something So it really is psychologically better than two since you brought up. Is it good or not? As far as is it true or not? We have a methodology an atheistic methodology rather than relying on scriptures for our basis of How to question the world whether trying to make the world fit our narrative for scriptures We have an atheistic methodology which allows us to make a hypothesis test it Create experiment reproduce that experiment. We have peer review, which is not great It's frankly peer review can a lot of times just be the the fallacy of the majority But the point is is that it's reproducible. So when people reproduce a prediction or they reproduce a A a model of how something will happen For instance, like tick tolic a lot of people said where's where's the transitional form from a fish to a land animal? Well, we thought that it should be somewhere in the devonian layer of rocks We went to a devonian layer of rocks and we found it. It's called tick tolic so Our way of understanding rather than relying on scriptures or faith or christianity Christianity is not true because our way is I suppose in closing that would be my way. Yeah, christianity is not true because atheism is Yeah Oh, I'm sorry. I thought I heard I thought I heard that I was closing up there No, you had 90 seconds. That's what I was saying. Oh, great. I'll donate the rest of my 90 seconds Thank you Um, all right. So our first set of rebuttals is over with that. Thank you so much gentlemen We got one final set of five minute rebuttals to go just to let everybody know in case you did not know Um modern day debate has a discord with over 4 000 active members And I am going to drop that in the chat right now The link it to you guys from you hooligan and uh, if you think you got what it takes to debate Or if you're suddenly inspired to defend your position Um, feel free to come over to the discord anytime And there's usually a lively debate on some topic over there And with that we will go into our final and second rebuttals five minutes apiece Um, and we'll start with steve and then right from there. We'll go into open discussions With q and a coming up quickly after that folks. So get those super chats in Steve the floor is yours You're muted steve. Steve you're muted Sorry about that. Thank you very much. Um Okay, so max said that um I made some kind of a Epistemological mistake by talking about what the majority of people believe He gave two examples One is I said that the majority of christians don't believe that genesis one through 11 Is historical Now I wasn't saying they were right I'm saying this proves that whether it's historical or not doesn't impact whether christian is true because christians can believe it is or not That's not that's simply a definition of christianity You're making your own definitions of christianity because you know what you want to refute but i'm i'm a christian I know what christianity is and I and I know what I believe And I know what most christians believe because I've been talking with christians for 50 something years And I know not all christians believe what you think christianity is now You also said that I mentioned that the majority of people throughout history have believed and thought they had some Evidence and interaction with supernatural things I don't credit them all I told you that but i'm saying that it was a universal belief among humans until modern times That there is a supernatural and a great number Of well educated modern people still believe that there's a supernatural not all of them are christians Some christian almost all christians believe that but many people who are not christians believe that too So I mean that's that's not an appeal to the majority. It's simply saying That the atheist is a very tiny minority Probably ought to be expected to Bear the burden of proof if he wants to show that there is nothing that everyone has been wrong. That's fine Now you said your final statement was christian is not true because atheism is well, you've done nothing to prove that atheism is you've Talked about evolution. You've talked about the flood. Well, what if you're right about those things? Does that prove there's no god? I don't think it does. I mean god god could exist in all the things you said could be true, too Now we could debate evolution sometime or some other issues from the old testament if you'd like But that's not what we're talking about here today You have not done anything to prove that the gospels are not reliable histories of christ now. You did mention that the genealogies seemed to confirm The old testament genealogies and they do seem to do that and that would suggest very strongly that matthew and luke who give Those genealogies did accept those genealogies is true But that's not we don't depend on their opinions about the past. We're talking about their opinions about jesus Okay, now again, if you're trying to argue that the gospels are not inspired and if they were they couldn't make long statements about genealogies Well, then i'm not going to fight you about that because i said i don't have an opinion about whether the gospels are inspired They don't claim to be inspired But they claim to be as true stories written by people who spent time with jesus or with his closest friends in some cases And that they have a valuable accurate record Of who he was essentially what he said and did and especially of his death and resurrection And uh, you know, if they had some views i don't hold that's fine, too If they had some views i may hold and you don't that's all right, too We're not really concerned about their views were concerned about their testimony And of course neither matthew or luke could testify about how many generations there were from adam to christ They could give lists that were current in their day And they may or may not be correct lists, but if they're not they were simply following the what they're the lists of their day that they Copied from set but to give that kind of information is not the same thing as to testify to Events that they saw with their own eyes. So again, we're talking here a very different kind of evidence now Um, you said that well science is good Well, yes science can be good. It's not all good, of course I mean science can make viruses that wipe out people And atomic weapons that wipe out people all kinds of things like that and uh, You know that happens, uh, but the point is the reasons The reason modern science exists at all is because the earliest adventurers in science Pioneers in science were believing that the world was rational and could be understood and could be explored They believed their natural laws other religions paganism before them did not believe this It was the christian world view that caused many christian scientists to branch off into scientific studies such as we Benefit from today certainly many christian or many scientists today are not christians But the whole scientific enterprise was launched by people who were and who and and frankly, there's still a great number of Professional scientists who are christians. So I mean it doesn't there's no There's no reason to say well science is good. Therefore christian is wrong Okay, science can be good. It can be bad, but whatever benefits have come from it. We can thank christian for that too All right. Thank you steve Just to let everybody know and to remind them all in the chat the chat is here for you guys Okay, we got almost 800 viewers. We got over 800 viewers But i'm gonna ask the chat to follow our debaters examples and and keep your comments respectful towards each other All right, the conversation is always exciting to have But attack the topic and not the person. Okay max your final five minute rebuttal is all yours So steve has uh tried to I think shift the burden of proof from his side to our side From christianity to atheism I think he said because atheism is so recent in such a minority that therefore we have to have the burden of proof That's not how the way the burden of proof works In fact, the whole reason steve went first in this debate is because he is arguing that yes christianity is true And then he would offer up his reasons for why that is so I then offer up my reasons for okay I'll look at your facts and evidence presented I'll analyze them by saying making just a timeline for the facts and dates presented in the bible As they are presented and not just trying to explain them away as well Some people believe these some people don't I understand that what i'm using is i'm using the source material the bible Not necessarily just as accepted in christianity as later scriptures from the new testament But the scriptures that were accepted by christianity at the time of christ And again, I've showed you that jesus believed they were true the writers of hebrus paul writer of second peter They all believe that it was true and literal. Okay, so for one thing that I understand that there are christians who don't believe it's true They don't believe it's true because there is overwhelming evidence in the opposite direction of the fact that Adam did not exist as the first human 6 000 years ago And that's that's a theological basis because if it opens the door in this way steve because if people Don't believe that adam sinned in the garden of eden and that each sinned in the garden of eden There is no need for a resurrection there. I mean, why do we need a sacrifice and resurrection of masai in the first place? Because the sin entered the world the bible says Sin entered sin and death entered the world through one man through adam. That's what it says. It's it's in there It's in the evidence you presented You presented it because it's the burden of proof you're presenting I mean, it's it's the bible the scriptures are there as a burden of proof evidence for the veracity of christianity I'm analyzing that evidence. I'm taking you at its word. I'm saying that yes, these people Spoke to jesus and great, but i'm just going through it from from start to finish which is a very logical thing to do And immediately right at the get-go right at the start there are things that just don't make sense They just don't add up There's no evidence for a flood that it just as described in the book of genesis. We don't see that so That's rather disappointing and not something that we would expect as from a historically reliable divinely not necessarily inspired I don't think you argued for that but a historically reliable source. You think that there'd be corroborating evidence with that The burden of proof again needs to be demonstrated by the party who says that such a thing is true Right, you have to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt Well, it's doubtful that jesus is who he said he was because the genealogy Provided doesn't add up the whole reason that that genealogy is in there is because he needs to descend from the line of david Or would have you in order to fulfill a prophecy? Okay, that's fine But the dates don't add up because it places that genealogy it starts that genealogy Six thousand years ago in the garden of eden as the first person was created six days after the formation of the universe There's not evidence that corroborates that quite the opposite I'm not going to address whether the science is good or not because again, it's not a question of whether science is good or not I will say that it is more useful It's more useful in healing It's more useful in communication and speaking of tongues, which we're not supposed to even be able to do But which I can do with anybody through my smartphone and google translate I can that that's been lifted God has not intervened in the stopping of any more buildings since then You didn't argue that he would but it just seems it just seems odd And uh, yeah, I think I want to get into the open discussion here Okay, I was just about to ring you for 60 seconds left. So Yeah, we can get right into the open discussion so With that just to remind everybody that we have a 30 minute open discussion coming up now With five minute closing statements still to follow after that and then we'll get into our q&a So if you have a question for our debaters Feel free to send in super chats Earlier I had mentioned that we only guarantee super chats of five dollars or more will be read Right now the certain level the the level of super chats that I have available if you just Had two dollars to to donate. We'd have time for your super chat. Just to let everybody know it's Well worth it. Yeah Um With that let's get into the open discussion. So gentlemen the floor belongs to you. Good luck Okay, uh Max could I respond to something you just said? You said if there's no adam and eve Then there's no need for the resurrection. I think by that you mean no no need for the the crucifixion and the atonement um why Because if it the the need for that starts in the garden of eden because If the if adam had if the narrative of the garden of eden and adam and eve and a talking snake had never happened Then we would all still be well allegedly we all would still be living in the garden of eden And there'd be no need for a resurrection and crucifixion and sacrifice of a child to their own parent and so forth Well, we don't have any cases in the bible of a sacrifice of a child to their own parent and I don't To me the beginning it's called god the son and to god the father So that would be the child of the to the parent actually the bible says that god was in christ Offering himself up for us. So I mean it's a different thing than offering your child when you offer yourself And that's what the bible teaches. Of course, you don't understand the the incarnation I don't expect you to that's a complex christian doctrine, but you're not understanding it and therefore you're misrepresenting it The bible does not teach that why don't you represent it? Okay, I will that the bible does not teach that god took someone other than himself his son and Killed him it says that god became man himself That man is called the son of god because god also existed outside of that Manifestation god was bigger than just that man But that was god stepping into our world and he is called the son of god for that reason But it is god offering himself the bible says god was in christ Reconciling the world to himself So, uh, this is not what you're that's contrary to what your statement of belief here says which I have up You say in your second point Quote I believe that jesus of nazareth is the word made flesh and is thus uniquely the son of god Right, that's well, that's not that's what the bible says the word made flesh the bible says the word was god Okay, you said that god was in christ not you didn't say anything about the word made flesh I don't think you said the word word or flesh, you know, if we want to talk about that We can use many scriptures in many terms. I in my statement of faith I'm quoting from john chapter one Which said that the word was with god and the word was god and then it says the word was made flesh and blood of My guess that's exactly what I said earlier in different words. So it's not a different comment It's not a different concept. It's simply just different words Yeah, yeah, you can say many the same thing in many different words in the bible does many many theology Points are made in can you say things in different numbers? Um No, I mean, I don't know what you mean by that. How could you well? Here's what I mean by that Is that I understand that there's room for interpretation when it comes to words or parables or allegories or so forth But the numbers the quantities the integers given in the bible all say When added up that the earth is 6 000 years old. It's not stated expressly nor is the doctrine of the trinity But the numbers add up to say that the world is 6 000 years old. That's what the bible says We want to talk about the evidence for genesis sometime. We'll do that This debate is about is christianity true and that has nothing to do with that So, uh, yes, it does steve Well, you think it does and you're not a christian So let the christians tell you what christianity stands for okay, and you can make You can make up your own ideas about what you think christianity should stand for But christianity would want you Did the scriptures say that the earth is 6 000 years old or not? No Oh, so those numbers that are in there. They don't add up to that Um Well, it depends on how you take them there, you know where it says so and so The numbers are up to interpretation. Do you want an answer? Do you want an answer? I do i'm just saying that the numbers are up to interpretation when it says that when it says that adam became was 900 or 130 years old and he got set And seth was so many years old and he got his offering then he The word begot means became the father of or in hebrew terminology became the ancestor of and therefore each of those names could be clans That that are given and many christians believe that many many bible scholars believe that that we're not talking about You know, that's the number of years between one man and another man but between the beginning of one clan And the beginning of another clan each of those clans could have gone a lot longer Then we have any record of the bible is not making a commitment about the age of the earth It's true people have interpreted as if it is But that's you can't force it to make that statement And I know that you're I know your whole argument depends on making Genesis look ridiculous, but my whole purpose in being here is to say the records about jesus are reliable And therefore we have every reason to believe that he did and said what is recorded now you said something I wanted to comment on too. You said we atheists have a better method of knowing things We don't trust in scriptures You mean sacred scriptures. I'm sure you do believe in writings the word scriptures simply graphene the greek means writings What do you believe in? What do you mean believe in writings? Well, you're the one who used the term you said we don't you said we don't base things on scriptures So you would base them on science.  What scientific historical repeatable thing would I use to determine what the president of the united states was? well there are Well, or none. There's one thing for one thing. There's mount That's not a scientific question. That's a historic question history History is known to us not from I guess you didn't I guess you didn't want my method for testing whether george washington was president You seem to be Balkan go ahead give it to me. Well, I wanted to give you a good answer. That's consistent and makes sense for one thing There's a house for one thing.  I actually remember seeing him on an eighth grade school trip to dc So we could go crack open the old boys sarcophagus and Resurrected from the dead when you were a kid You saw was he resurrected? Say again, you said you saw him when you were a child Yeah, I saw his his his uh tomb george washington's tomb Well, but but to find a tomb doesn't tell you whether the man in it was a president of the united states or not No, but a body is a good indication No, a body is not an indication of whether a man's a president or not It's an indication that he existed Oh, I have no doubt that he existed and and I don't doubt he was present But to say that a man existed is different than saying he was president And you can do no laboratory experiments to discover whether he's present You have to get that as we do all historical events from historical records And that's how we know about jesus you don't go into a laboratory and decide whether jesus exists or not Do you can you think of an experiment you could do to decide that? Or whether he's the son of god No, and here's here's where we we start to to spiral a little bit So historical evidence, I agree with you and again I accepted the historical accounts offered by the gospels as as facts all I did was try to put them in a timeline Okay, and then not only do I have to accept the historical gospel Accounts as facts But then I also have to accept the old testament because the new testament refers to the old testament so much Plus a lot of the prophecy provided in the new testament that's fulfilled is from the old testament So I take the bible writ large. Okay, that's what I have to evaluate All right, and when I start evaluating that even just focus in on the question of jesus I have to say to myself. Okay. Well, how would I know george washington as president for one thing? He has lots of living Common descendants and and has lots of great great grandchildren. What have you so I could I could Run that test and take a look at their lineages and their family tree. All right I think that's part of the reason why the gospel accounts even include a lineage I'm talking a lot I think that's part of the reason why the gospel accounts even include a lineage In their openings is to prove that jesus is who he says he is that jesus is fulfilling these old prophecies from the line of David and so forth and I think that once you try to just put those things on a timeline and add them up It all comes to the logical conclusion that the bible is making the proclamation that the world is 6 000 years old I want to address for a moment your uh gaps or clans names being clans theory You have to understand as well that not all of those names Though that list of names is very clearly going to be pointing in the direction of individuals because For one thing it refers to inoc who live what 365 years and then god took him up Not quite a resurrection, but just a you know rapture or what have you so yeah I mean it clearly refers to those people as individuals also Many of the names in the matthew or is it luke in the gospel accords the lineages They're listed as kings with uh reins. Excuse me Sorry find some here They are listed as kings with reins and those reins are given numbers of years And that's not a a client. That's just a It's presented as a historical fact as a timeline First of all I would trust bible scholars who know that he remains better than you and to say that that those names are The names of individuals like inoc You have no idea how much Hebrew I know or don't know by the way, Steve Uh, well, I know how much expertise you have in the bible by the way you represent things in the bible so But and I do spend frankly most of my time Reading people who are scholars that doesn't make me an expert, but I don't think you spend that much time doing so if you do fine Here's what I'm saying is that the men that are named May be the founders of clans enoc could be the founder or clan when he was a certain age I think 300 years old he became the father of matthew's law That is it could mean the matthew's law clan And therefore, you know, it doesn't tell us how long that clan existed Uh before died out and it's and the next clan came along or or took over But the point I want to make is this The the timeline that you're trying to get out of the gospels You you can't the timeline that's in the gospels. I'm not trying to get them out of there. They're in there I have to deal with me if you went because you don't know what you're talking about The gospels ad hominem ad hominem fallacious The gospels do give a list of names It follows the names of genesis one through 11 Copied from genesis one through 11, but then it gets into the story of abraham And and then when it gets to david, of course david was only a thousand years before christ And there's not a reason in the world to doubt that those kings reigned in the order that they are given Uh, no historian. I don't doubt it and there's been plenty of secular monuments that have found to confirm those kings existed So so if you if you say it doesn't fit the timeline you're saying well Jesus has to be from david. Well david existed and there's no problem with the time between david's time and jesus time Nor the the time from jesus time to now When we talk about christianity again, we're not talking about genesis one through 11. You are i'm not i'm talking about christ and the gospels Are have every credibility in saying that jesus descended from david We we have no reason to believe there are extra generations between uh, you know kings, although by the way mackey himself Knowingly leaves out a few generations of kings. There's about four of the kings. He leaves out to to make it shorter And uh, of course, he knew that anyone could test that out just by reading the books of kings or chronicles, which they had So in other words, they do leave out generations sometimes But they we don't have any reason to believe That that would be that they're making the time too short and that's your argument that the time is too short Not between david and jesus. It's not it's it's a perfectly realistic genealogy No, the time is too short from adam to david right, but that That most of that is genesis one through 11, which as I said Whatever I may believe about that many christians believe as you do about it. That is not true. What do you believe about that? That's not what i'm here to talk about. We could debate that someday Uh, what i'm here to talk about is jesus and you haven't shown me any evidence that the evidence that the records about jesus are not reliable I have shown you that the genealogy in the record of jesus as presented not with this ancillary Uh, you know gaps or naming of clans or whatever as presented taken at face value they appear to summarize that Jesus descended from david david descended from adam adam was the first person in the world and he walked the earth six thousand years ago Okay, I told you that what the gospel records say about history especially three um, abrahamic history, which is genesis one through 11 Uh, is not relevant to what they say jesus said or did because they weren't there when they why is it in there? Why is if it's not relevant? Why isn't in the bible? Because they accepted it. I accepted too by the way, right? But the point is that's not the issue here The issue is did they report accurately about jesus you want to you want to No, they didn't because they're not even on point But I we're here to debate one point we could debate dozens of things we disagree about that's not what this debate is about It's about one thing Is jesus we said he was and are the records we have about him reliable? If you want to say they're not i'd like to see the evidence I would say okay. I'll offer you the evidence. I'll offer you the evidence of why adam Was not the first person six thousand years ago that has nothing to do with whether the records of jesus are accurate the records of jesus imply That he has descended from adam Do they not matter if it doesn't matter to we were all descended from adam in that in that case But the point is who is jesus now you said if adam's not true Then you know, we we don't need jesus to die for our sins and you said the bible says that No, it doesn't know you're thinking of roman chapter five that does not say that that's how augustine Interpreted and the church followed it afterwards. You simply Need to know that the bible doesn't say everything that augustine said that the church followed the western church catholic and proxies followed augustine very closely I don't but the i follow the bible more closely But the point i'm saying is oh What other source material that augustine used for that for deriving that theology you said you followed the bible What was augustine following? He was following neoplatonism. He is a mannequin. He was a reforming. He is a Recovering mannequin and and those came from mannequinism. Yeah, and they relied on stuff other than the bible They weren't christians. They were they were nostrils. Yeah, they were nostrils And so, uh, you know augustine blended a fair number of monastic ideas into christianity And he became the most influential western church father catholics and protestants followed him Rather slavishly and you said that he was wrong and you're right Well, I don't agree with him. I guess that would say I think he was wrong But the point is and you think you're right on on a point of contention with this theology You think you're right and he's wrong. I do. Yeah, and one reason I do is because He didn't the greek. He didn't know the greek new testament. He only read the latin That therefore he was uh, some of his interpretations, especially in john five Excuse me romans five the very point you're talking about He was moving from the vulgate the latin vulgate and he himself said he didn't read greek But the greek text actually says something different than what he thought and therefore he made a false conclusion But the point I'm making is this you said that the need for jesus, uh atonement goes back to adam Not for me. It doesn't for me. It goes back to my beginning when I was born I sent because I sent I needed atonement Because you send you need atonement. It's what adam did is not relevant to to the need for jesus frankly So you don't believe in the doctrine of original sin meaning that we're all this inherited birthright of sinfulness derived from our original progenitor adam I don't believe we were born with the guilt of adam on us. No, I do believe we were born with a propensity towards selfishness I don't think anyone could argue against that Uh, so I mean if that's what you want to call original sin I I could say I believe in that is that is the doctrine of originalism sin the majority opinion held in christian them today In western christianity. Yeah, not the eastern church. That's right. Yeah, okay so one way that we could say to ourselves is christianity true is we could try to test the Claims and the doctrines generated by each sect of christianity and one reason that it proves that it's not true is because They each use their Sometimes they use their own methodology sometimes they use a different methodology But they each get these different conclusions all the time. It's not very reliable as far as producing something. That's testable And I understand that you think that testability is not necessarily a sign of veracity But it's certainly a utilitarian handy thing to have And atheism addresses questions like where did the world come from? You know, why are we here things like that that the big questions which christianity tries to answer as well Really all religions try to answer. We have a testable method One of the reasons why christianity can't be true is because it's unfalsifiable as far as theologies go Everybody uses the same source material But people have derived completely different Conclusions from it science atheism is self-correcting naturalism is self-correcting Because if we can't repeat it if we can't cite it we don't write it Really so can you make can you create life? Not yet Okay, so the so you shouldn't believe that it can be created So I say again You said if we don't if we can't prove it. We don't write it So you shouldn't you shouldn't agree that life was came into existence, right? We we have life existing right now So we can we can test that and we can prove that You have that as a historical and psychological phenomenon not as a scientific one because You don't how are you talking about If you give me a chance and I'll give you a chance to be more succinct perhaps Well, I'm not being less succinct than yourself now. Let me have a few minutes to speak if I could You said that science doesn't believe anything that it can't prove in a laboratory They can't prove that that life can be produced from non-life in a laboratory can't be done now not yet. I said Right, which means you can't at this point No, yeah, but we have a very good idea of how we do it You know we're working on it right now Oh, I know I've read a lot about it. You know, let me say this if Scientists can someday create life in a in a laboratory Will that prove that there's no god? Will it prove that that happened naturally or will it simply prove that it requires intelligent design to do it Since that's what scientists are bringing to the test it would depend that It would mean that it could happen naturally because we're we're it's not as if we're reproducing this in some Isolated system like we are part of the natural world. We're interacting with the natural world our experiments are naturalistic And we're trying to determine How does life happen not only that but we find the components of life Aminos and and tholins and They're called carbohydrates organic molecules way out there in space And we we find the ingredients for life. How did it happen? It probably happened here on earth because we are in the right orbit for water to exist as a liquid on the surface That certainly seems to help. All right I was just challenging your point that you said we don't say it if we can't demonstrate it Okay, you can't you cannot demonstrate that you hope to that's a matter of faith No, that's a faith thing for you. You can't demonstrate that life can come from non-life You hope it can and you hope someday to prove it And you know, that's a faith statement until you I don't I don't know if I use the word hope I mean We we hope to we want to be able to do that though certainly We have a methodology of how to do it We know how to go about performing that experiment Christianity does not seem to have an agreed upon method to verify whether or not whose Interpretations are true or not because you say that you're true But you go up against the majority of western christianity as you said and then the other guy the st. Augustine guy He's the majority of christianity Earlier you appealed to the majority where you said well 60 percent of christians reject the idea of a young earth Or that 90 percent of people in the world believe in some kind of superstition So you seem to rely on the majority opinion when it favors Your position and reject the majority opinion when it disagrees with your niche interpretation of scripture I give statistics when they when they undermine a false claim when you claim that believing in a literal Genesis one through 11 is the foundation of christianity and I say well no the majority of christians don't believe in it So it's not the foundation of their faith. It's the scriptural foundation of christianity It's at the beginning of the bible the bible is the book for christianity. It's in there. I'm not i'm not Obviscating by pulling at something irrelevant. It's in there atheist hate nuance, but you know bible scholars realize Apparently better than you do that there are different at home on them No, i'm saying that there are better ways There are let's just say different ways to interpret that material. You're assuming there's only one Well, if you assume there's only one you you're not very well read about the subject and i'm that's not ad hominem Can all of the ways to interpretation it can all of the interpretations of scriptures be wrong But only one be right Are they not all mutually exclusive They are and so to say how do we find the right interpretation of scripture? No one's presented that methodology or ability you want scientists to prove that life can arise spontaneously if given the right You know ingredients and setting and so forth We can do that. We know how to be able to do that scientists pretty young and christianity is pretty old and you for I mean christianity has failed to provide methodologies to reliably find a real truth or a real doctrine Because they haven't done it yet. They've had plenty of time to try it, but they haven't done it yet They haven't agreed on a methodology my way atheism has a way of doing that And we do things like build bridges and cure diseases and put people on the moon Okay Your your way has a way of proving that there is a god or is not a god. Is that correct? Uh, my way has it my way. This is a key point. Thank you for ringing up my way has a way of testing whether The claims made about that god I can't test whether there's a god or not, but I can test whether a god made a global flood all over the earth By looking for evidence of a global flood all over the earth very different. There isn't any Okay, so are you an atheist or an agnostic? I have not yet heard any convincing I am I am an atheist of the christian god just in the same way you're an atheist of like the norse god I say the god as described in christianity in the bible Cannot exist Well, your your disbelief in god is not comfortable to my disbelief in the norse god since nobody believes in the norse gods anymore Because again appealing to a majority or lack of one doesn't matter. I mean nobody believes it because modern Uh belief has outgrown it people can't go and find the norse gods. They can find christ They and people do people really? Where is he? Where's he buried? Well, that's out of torrent his no, no, no his his tomb is empty and that's an important point Listen, we can't find christ You make too many points at a time before I get a chance to respond. Let me respond to something that you said earlier you said that Christianity was flawed because there's different interpretations of it Well, I mean on the I mean I actually referred to you wouldn't interrupt me at this point, but there are different views about About evolution too. Frankly. I mean not all are darwin's anymore, but many are There were the punctuality, equilibrium and so forth. There's different views about darwinism That doesn't mean it isn't true, but it means that if it is it's possible to have different interpretations of the data Now when it comes to christianity Where where the christian denominations differ from each other is not on the fact of jesus christ And that's the historical fact what they disagree about is on philosophical questions of how one Interpret certain passages that are about esoteric things like the origin of sin or something that cannot be tested There's those are opinions. Those are opinions only and So what we're discussing here I I'd like to remind you is the historical question is jesus who he said he was And once we decide that we we'd actually have a ground point to discuss some of those other points But you're not really helping me there to figure that out Is there proof that jesus existed or should say did not exist or that he was not who he said he was That's the point you're making There is proof that Jesus was not who his biographers said he was because his biographers provide a lineage an ancestor An ancestry that is factually Very very very much in a contrast with the evidence we find for the lineage of the rest of history The rest of history Let me tell you this Matthew doesn't do that Matthew only takes the lineage back to abraham. Okay, so let's say we don't take luke's version Let's take matthew's version of it. I'd be happy to ignore one of the four gospels I think if we ignore one of the four surely we'll get to ignore all four of them eventually but go ahead and keep going Well, no, that's actually Irrelevant because most of the things in luke are also found in mark and in matthew And none of but not the not the genealogy back to adam. Okay, so if you don't like luke's genealogy for whatever reason We'll just keep that out of the discussion. Let's talk about matthew's genealogy It takes the ancestry of jesus back to abraham through david. Is that something you want to disprove?  It's in the discussion man. It's in the bible It's there. We have to face it. Okay. I don't know how you're gonna say you can just ignore it or ignore the genesis one through 11 Your problem is you don't know much about how to evaluate the evidence add hominem add hominem make an argument Not a fallacy. Give me a moment and I will Okay, you're taking the four gospels to be scripture And therefore if if anything in them can be found wrong Uh, you the whole thesis that they are what they are is thrown out I said we don't have to have a question about whether they're Scripture they are ancient historical records. Okay now ancient historical records need to be taken in their own right unless they can Be disproved And you haven't disproved any of them now If you if you want to disprove luke on the basis that he believed in adam Well, you can do that that leaves three records that were independently written that are independent witnesses That historians can look at to see whether jesus is who he said or not. That's the question we're discussing We're not discussing whether the bible is true. We're discussing whether the historical records Give us an accurate picture or not the historical records are the bible when you say historical records You're referring to the bible, right? No, that's not true not true No, the historical records are matthew mark luke and john and x those are historical records of the new testament Which are in the bible, right? They are now they weren't when they were written They were written as ancient individual historical documents That's you can't blame them if somebody later collected them and put them in between leather covers. That's that doesn't discredit them You're only finding fault because you're assuming that in the bible means Inspired by god and therefore if you can find anything in the bible that's not inspired by god You can't can't accept any of it. I'm saying anything in the bible is the scriptural basis for the doctrine of christianity Okay, well, let's not talk about the scriptural basis for that. I'm not using the scriptural basis I'm using the historical. Oh, you're not using this. Okay. Oh, I need to understand here You're not using the scriptural basis for christianity The gospels are part of scripture now the gospel The gospels are a part of scripture now. Yes, they had never been put there. They'd still exist and I could use them still Okay, great. So you'll still use the gospels because you're counting the gospels as well as scriptural evidence It's an accident of history that they got gathered into a collection and are now in what they call the bible They each have their own independent credentials And if that if the bible had never been collected, they would still exist as records to be reckoned with And let's reckon with them. Great Let's do that But you're saying that without using these scriptural records You want to use the historical records which you call the gospel records Which are in the scripture records You will say you want to ignore the scripture records and only use the historical records But you're just calling one thing I'm willing to think do you see the loop that you're making there? No, I don't think you see the loop you're bringing. I'm willing to take for the sake of argument I'm willing to allow for the sake of argument that matthew mark luke and john are not part of scripture Okay, that's your whole objection to them. Apparently is that they're part of scripture Well, for a long time, they were not Do you know how long it took to put the new testament together? It wasn't put together in its present form until almost 400 ad So for the first 350 years after christ These documents were independent historical documents floating around And they had to be reckoned with and we need to reckon with them that way too You know, if somebody would take all the historical records Of american history and put them in one volume say this is scripture now That wouldn't be an argument for rejecting all the history Just because you'd find some problems in one of them or something say, oh, well that scripture Listen, I'm not appealing to scripture. These books are in the scriptures, but that's irrelevant to my argument I'll leave it to the audience to interpret what steve made that just makes absolutely no sense because he just said I'm not appealing to scriptures. He's appealing to historical documents The ones he have named are in the scriptures The reason why they're I mean there and then he goes on to say well, let's just ignore the genealogy of luke If you like or the genealogy of matthew And then at the same time he says well, we have to reckon with them as historical documents And yet at the same time he chooses not to reckon with them So I mean, it's a really shaky foundation. I must say you're not listening very carefully Well, let's tell him that brings us to the end of our open discussion. However Um, that was that was a race to the finish there Really really, uh fascinating interesting stuff great discussion Who has more likes is are you able to ascertain that? Who has more likes? No, we're not we're not keeping score. Not like that. No, I was Um, just creating a game out of it in order to encourage likes But we've got room for a lot more in general. So if anybody hasn't hit that like button, uh The like button's right there. It's not too far away. Just give it a quick little Click and uh, we'll know that you're listening and that you'll like what you're hearing and what and what you're seeing Um, with that, we're about to go into our, uh closing statements with these gentlemen We're going to give them five minutes each. Um, and then we'll go into our q and a so If anybody has a super chat in mind and has a question for our debaters now is a good time to get that in there And I'll remind everyone after the q and a and I Relieved these fine gentlemen from the floor. I'll be coming back Uh to hang out share some information about modern day debate myself personally Um and answer any questions you may have so don't go anywhere because I'm also going to gift 20 free modern day debate memberships from my own pocket. So hit that like button. Um, who would like to I forget. I apologize. Who is going to go first for closing? I think we'll let Max go last because I think he'd like to it's usually the advantageous position So I'll go first. All right. I was actually going to offer up my closing argument just to five extra minutes of question time Okay, so Steve are you just happy to just go ahead and do a closing statement and we'll go right into q and a I would like to make a closing statement. All right Max I'll allow you the right to Take back those five minutes if you want to respond to his closing statement. I reserve my time. I reserve my time Go ahead Steve the floor is all yours Okay, um, well If you've been paying attention you've noticed that Um, what we're supposed to be talking about here is the question of is christianity true, which I defined at the beginning As is christ who he claimed to be or not? That's that's all that christianity was at the beginning. That's all it needs to be ever considered to be Although in the centuries it followed several religions developed out of it, which I don't make any claim to adherence to I'm talking about whether jesus is who he said he was or not And that is to be known really only from historical documents. I've told you we have four Generally understood to be reliable historical documents And they give every evidence of being true It would seem that when you have any historical documents about any historical thing written by people who were there at the time And know what they're talking about and don't give any evidence of being Dishonest people or have anything to gain by being dishonest We pretty much are stuck with believing what they say unless unless someone can bring up, you know Some something against them, which means the the burden of proof rests on whoever wants to say, you know, these guys are liars These guys can't be trusted And so that's what I was looking for. We didn't see anything like that Instead of any evidence for anything What max has presented is a list of things. He doesn't believe it Things that some christians believe many christians believe some of them. I actually believe but the question is not You know, are all these things true the question is is jesus true is jesus who he claimed to be To that all the evidence has been presented has been on the side of affirmative There is historical evidence for it Certainly, I've heard no Alternative explanation for how the tomb of jesus would have been reasonably empty and never his body never presented for refutation I mean, there's frankly You know the evidence is is pretty strong. Most historians have found it. So I actually many atheists. I could name at least four or five off top of my head Have set out to prove christianity is not true and have become converted in the process including c.s Lewis and josh mcdowell at least trouble peter stoner and others actual atheists who were trying to specifically prove christians are not true and by Doing something which I suspect max has not had the occasion to do And that is to spend concentrated effort looking at the evidence objectively and frankly Quite a few of them and not unintelligent men Uh have said well, I guess I can't say it's not true anymore And uh, that's the position that I take. I don't think anyone can say that it's not true And when you have some evidence for one view and no evidence for the other Then by richard docan's, uh, you know rule of Skepticism if someone says something is true as when max said christian is not true because atheism is Docan says well someone says that asked them what the evidence is for that and we've not heard any evidence We've only heard what sounds like um A longer list of things that max doesn't believe that some christians do believe That's uh, that's not quite the same thing as evidence now Of course, he can't give any because there is no evidence against the christian story in the gospels their Scientists can say that miracles can't happen and therefore can't trust their gospels, but they haven't proven that miracles can't happen I'd like to see some evidence of that They they don't believe there's a god to raise jesus from the dead I'd like to see some evidence for that if there is some to to present none has been presented And all that max has done has ventilated really some ridicule toward beliefs that some christians have historically believed And some of which I actually believe too, but they're not really on under debate today Um, and that's not the same thing as presenting evidence. It's not even the same thing as presenting arguments It's it's uh, it's simply stating opinions And that's all I've heard today from max or maybe something more he could offer on another occasion But he hasn't presented that tonight All right. Thank you steve Max there's five minutes there if you have a response to say some some christians believe those certain things Uh, because they're in the bible and that's that's the source that I attempted to analyze and attempted to to honestly and sincerely go through Again, just making a timeline of what the accounts the historical accounts scriptural accounts Whatever you want to call them just making a timeline and seeing if that timeline is feasible or not and and it's it's not So let's get to questions. All right, let's get those super chats flowing. Well, we'll get into those super chats then shall we so um As I've explained uh to the gentleman Uh before the debate started and I'll explain so our audience understands how I like to work it This is not a rule of modern day debate. I just find it to be fair. Um question is specifically directed to an individual Um The opponent can comment on it, but I like the last word to come from Um, the person who the question was for so you guys can discuss it if you want but The final play comes from the person who the question was meant for with that Our first super chat btf Wayne five dollars Jesus wasn't the only one to rise that weekend. So did many undead? Why are there no officially documented zombie uprisings in the first century scholars? So this sounds like it's a question for steve Yes, it is apparently Yeah, well the bible doesn't say that very many people rose from the dead The bible says some did when jesus rose and uh, these would be people who were not zombies They were people like lazarus who had previously risen said that he's not one of that many but there were people They're in the same class There are three people we know of that jesus raised from the dead all of them recently dead In in scripture as far as I know the others whose names are not given to us Were raised also uh in pretty much the same way. They were not long dead The bible doesn't actually it's matthew who tells us this to say there's no record of it Well, but that's that's begging the question. I think matthew is a record of it. So And there's many historical events that are only mentioned in one historical record Frankly because too many things happen For anyone to record all of them But all of actually all of the gospels record jesus raising some dead That particular case is not given but then the case of lazarus is only given in john and not in the other gospels That the gospels have to be selective With their with their parchment You know because they have like years of material they could record if they had unlimited time and and parchment But they select what they think is important to mention But certainly there's nothing about that particular Event that you're referring to which is in matthew 2850 and 51 and so forth. Um, there's nothing about that event that's Outstandingly different than the other cases of people who rose from the dead in jesus minister All right, thank you Yes, so unless you want to say something there max i'm going to the next question Go for it next question Gaius husky 499 Um, the 9 11 hijackers martyred themselves for their beliefs. Does that make their beliefs true? Um, they say no it does not do you agree to disagree steve? Uh, well people can die for any ridiculous belief I I didn't argue that the christians died for their beliefs I said they died for their witness for their testimony A testimony is different than a belief if you're in court and you say well, I heard somewhere that this happened They'll say that's hearsay. We can't accept that in court They want to know what you saw because they figure that you might be deceived by somebody else's words But you and you might even be deceived by your own eyes But it's much less likely if you saw something yourself and you say yeah, I was there. That's what happened. I saw it That is your testimony. That's your witness. That's different than your beliefs now Muslims die for their beliefs all the time so do frankly, so do christians and joseph's witnesses and and uh, actually Buddhists and and hindu's have often known to die for the boots Uh, no, it doesn't mean their beliefs are true But then as I said peak people can believe almost any nonsensical thing so much that they'll die for The question is will people die for a lie that they know to be a lie? And we know know historical cases of anyone who did that Joseph smith, he knew it was a lie and he died for it He didn't want to die. He was he was murdered in prison and he was trying to escape. Yeah, he didn't want to be a martyr all right next question from jay riviera 345 sends a 999 He says or they say It is very telling that matthew who wrote over 40 years after jesus Made up events like census to gain to get jesus in bethlehem Barad slaughtering newborns just to make it appear prophecy is being fulfilled I feel that one's targeted towards you as well against steve No problem. Well, you said that matthew made those things up, but you haven't demonstrated that he did Historians have not concluded that he made those things up The the slaughter of the infants by harrod Is very characteristic of the harrod's behavior that is known from the secular historians He was a murderous man. He killed lots of innocent people including his own sons Now that that story didn't have to be made up to explain jeremiah chapter 31 verse I think it's verse 15 for dark about rachel's weeping in her grave. In fact reading that that prophecy You wouldn't assume that it had anything to do with that kind of an event It's just that matthew recording that event as a historical fact Saw sort of a verbal similarity to that in the prophecy. So he he brought that up as far as making up the census There were many censuses and historians that have different opinions about that particular census and its date If you can show beyond question that no census occurred in the year 6 bc I'll be interested although i've actually studied that out and I don't think historians have any proof of that at all All right, our next super chat reads more like a comment. So I'll allow you guys both an opportunity to respond to it here The same viewer j river era 345 cents another 999 If you meet someone who sometimes tells you things that are true Sometimes false and sometimes tells you things that you can't verify how likely are you to trust this person? This is the bible Do either of you have a comment to? I'll throw in on that So just because a story or a story book or an element of a story refers back to historical things like a census or refers back to things like You know like a Passover celebration happening at a time and a place That doesn't make the rest of the story true Just the same way that sometimes someone who tells you someone who you know to be Sometimes honest and sometimes dishonest that I mean that's going to taint the Source a little bit and so you're going to want to take that with a grain of salt And so just because the bible might reference certain historical things Which are verifiable? Realities it doesn't make the rest of the stories true in the same way Anytime the bible provides a historical thing or historical fact like a lineage or an ancestry family tree thing That goes against the evident facts Then it it's going to be a good take in the other direction that that source is misinformed at least Okay, yeah, it's it's possible for historical sources to be misinformed But when they tell you what they saw and heard With their own eyes and spending years in proximity with a person hearing him speak and watching him do his thing Uh, they could be lying, but you'd have to have a reason for thinking their life I would think I mean if if you were doubtful of everything anyone told you Uh, you couldn't believe anything you ever hear and maybe you don't but I don't think infinite skepticism is called for Dawkins said we should wonder what evidence they have and when we see the evidence we should of course evaluate that That's what I have done to me the evidence is that the Writers of the gospels now now the the questioner said that's what the bible is Well, some parts of the bible are here say there's no question about that Not not all parts of the bible were written by eyewitnesses the gospels, however are written by In three cases eyewitnesses and in one case somebody who traveled with the eyewitnesses and knew their story as well That was luke of course, but the the point here is Uh to say well just because something he said is true doesn't mean the whole thing is true true a person might write Uh a fiction historical novel that has some historical facts woven into a fictional story But if that's what they're writing they kind of expect their reader to be aware of that When somebody writes what they claim to be a historical account Then if we want to say and let's say it's about things they actually know about because they were in the position to know Well, then to say that we would question their story would seem to be gratuitous All right our next super chat From charles linear 999 There's a word in this i'm going to have a trouble with and it's a question for max So bear with me max is it possible that your young earth like Uh her monotics Humanity of the scripture is what is keeping you from coming to faith Actually, it's a thing that led me out of faith. Uh, I I Tested the scriptures as the scriptures say to do I set out to show that that Jesus was who he said he was and that Jesus was who the scripture the gospel writers said he was and I Did that Tracing the the prophecy about fulfilling the king david line and all that and I I literally made just a timeline and the timeline Just did not jive up with the facts and I grew up in a situation in an environment where I was raised young earth creationist okay, I had I mean like the Uh answers and genesis that kind of stuff. So that's the kind of christianity the the faith tradition I grew up in and so when I got out of that bubble and I started to be able to test Those things those claims made by that branch of christianity. I was like wow My branch of christianity isn't correct and there are so many other branches of christianity They all disagree about stuff. I mean it was the beginning the beginning of the unraveling for me of christianity So I suppose, you know, if you were to unravel that Or re-ravel that unraveling go back and prove that The earth is 6 000 years old and that we all came from the survivors of a global flood and there's evidence for that flood and all that stuff Yeah, I I would definitely that would give me pause for sure. I could I mean it's it's uncomfortable Becoming atheist, especially when you're in a in a family that's as religious as mine I mean steve you cited that, you know people were killed or Or persecuted because of their witness or or belief or testimony I mean, I've not been killed or beaten or anything like that but it's caused me some grief in my life to to share my Journey with members of my family who are deeply deeply religious. So Yeah, I'd like to say something about that too I think what max just shared with us I was going to bring up anyway because I knew this about him He came from a very religious evangelical conservative family Which means he had only heard of one way of reading genesis 1 through 11 He'd only heard of one literalistic way of taking certain things in the bible And when he applied that he found it very difficult to find to be correct Uh, and therefore he rejected christianity now what I'm saying is there are many people Who reject that literalistic thing? The same thing would not see it the way that max's parents saw it Uh, but and they've rejected that literalistic approach But they haven't thrown the baby out with the bathwater because the evidence for christ Is on a very different level than the evidence for most other stories in the bible not that they aren't true But but as far as the weight of the evidence Is uh much more confirmed for the story of christ in the gospels I mean from secular evidence from roland historians satonius and Antacitus from josephus and even even the talmud, which is hostile toward jesus The jews actually confirm many of the things that he did They just say that his miracles were sorcery and things like that so we get their slant But but the fact is they inadvertently You know Demonstrate that they cannot deny that he did supernatural things. They just have to call them sorcery So in other words, we have hostile witnesses probably ambivalent witnesses And we have christian witnesses and they all give the same story all the basic facts of jesus life can be confirmed from I have about a dozen sources including about half of them are in the bible today And uh and about half of them are not they're not christian so um Yeah, I'm so in other words the evidence for christ is very very much different On a very different level than the evidence for most of the other stories in the bible Which does not to my mind Mean the other stories are not true. I believe most of the stories in the bible are in fact true, but um But I mean if I even if I didn't I have to look at the gospels through a very much more Uh critical lens because they make more claims and I find if I look at the Evidence outside of them that confirms it. I'd say well, these are about the best confirmed Uh ancient histories that we have on record anyway In fact, there's more in the gospels about jesus life than the historians have written about tiberius who was besieged or during During jesus ministry jesus wasn't of obscure Galilean who never left his country and he was a peasant Teacher and tiberius was the emperor and we actually have more written about him by people close to him and we have about tiberius So we have pretty good records available Anything to add max or are we good to carry on? I mean, it's uh No, I'm I'm just not impressed with The kind of well, I'm not it's not that i'm not impressed with the kind of evidence presented I'm just unimpressed with the content presented and that's to say i'm unimpressed because it When you try to test the content and the narrative presented in that evidence, it just doesn't add up All right, um, so just to give you guys Some heads up because i've been here before And and you guys haven't We're already about halfway through our q&a session and have like Answered five questions and there's probably 50 or so on deck So I know you guys love the topic and you could just go on forever But if we can keep the answers a little bit more succinct, uh, we can satisfy all of these questions. Okay Yes Thanks max Next question vtf wain two dollars genesis one. How did we have days before we had a sun sounds like it's for steve Well, we didn't have days before there was a turning earth and a source of light um I mean genesis doesn't claim that there was uh, there were days before there was a rotation of day and night Uh, you may not believe that there's any other source of light that could have provided this Then the sun and that's up to you. You you can believe that if you want to okay Megan marine 999. Thank you. Megan if christianity was true. Why does god make the truth? Quotations so unclear Many denominations have different views on what is true in christianity. Why doesn't god just clear things up if he is all powerful I'll let steve take that one. I'm gonna i'll be right back. Yep I would say because god is not, uh A trivialist the things that christian disagree about are relatively trivial compared to the things that are clear Uh, who jesus is what he wants from us Uh, what he did What his position is these things are not ambiguous every every book of the new testament and all the gospels and all christians agree about those Now that christians like to get into the nuts and bolts of little questionable things that god didn't bother to talk about Because he didn't think they were important enough to do so That's not his fault. That's ours. I mean, I think that If christians did what the early christians did and just affirmed the basic truths of christianity that they all agree on We wouldn't have all these doctrines. We wouldn't have all these churches All right, um, I don't know if mass can hear us where he went Uh, but i'm pretty sure this next one is more directed at you anyways steve From ozian talks five dollars. I didn't rule out supernaturalism prior to investigation I investigated and found zero evidence sufficient to demonstrate anything is supernatural well apparently historical records and uh, my witness testimony is discounted in your Exploration and that's your business it would support that that makes me think that your whole Exploration took place within a naturalistic world view. Although you said you were open uh The truth is that most historical event in fact virtually all historical events that happened before I was born I can only know about by historical records and by the testimony of people who are there There's certainly no lack of evidence of that kind if if what you're saying is There's not enough evidence to convince you that those records are reliable Well, then I'd like to know what kind of negative evidence you found or if you simply are slanted against them Because they don't follow the naturalistic world view that you favor Okay, uh next question max welcome back Um, and it's for max from charles Lander 499 max. Thank you for participating tonight very courageous and admirable I'd highly suggest you watch ip's genesis 1 dash 11 series I Ip like india papa I I can't I don't know it just says ip's genesis 1 dash 11 series. All right Hopefully a google will clarify um Same person charles Langer 999 there's a difference between believing It's true and believing it's true in the way that it was written to be understood Genesis as a more cosmic temple Inauguration makes more sense of scripture Well, this is this is coming from a person that such as I mentioned that person. I believe Is probably a christian. I don't know who they are but but they are saying that genesis 1 is not intended to be taken literally It's it's a cosmic temple interpretation. That's one of several ways that christians understand that differently than the literal way and You know to you know for them to do that removes Most of the ammunition that that max came here prepared with and therefore he wants to say No, you have to take it literally or and it has to be, you know, so so I can make it ridiculous Uh, but actually you don't have to take it literally Uh, and many people don't and that question is one who apparently does I don't accept his view By the way, I don't accept that question his view but there are many views that I certainly I certainly don't take it literally either In fact, it makes no sense if you take it literally The problem arises is that then you create this Rabbit hole of which parts of scripture can you take literally and which parts do you not have to take literally? Do you have to take the resurrection part literal? Do you have to take the creation or Noah's flood account literal? And it's very evident from internal analysis within the new testament authors that They certainly took it literal and so why shouldn't we and when we do take it literal We can test the claims that it makes and we see that it's in steve's words totally ridiculous in my words Uh inaccurate to say the least Okay, um to come back to a previous Super chat ip is inspiring philosophy is the youtuber and that name I have heard before so Yeah, I do know who inspiring philosophy is I didn't recognize them as ip so Next question pointless papi 999. How is self deletion better than killing your son?  How is that different than offering your own child as a sacrifice? I think it's world's different If a man falls on a hand grenade To save his friends who are standing around That's a very admirable thing if on the other hand he takes his son and and throws him on hand grenade That's a very different thing I think that that's addressed in john 316 for god so love the world He sent his only begotten son. It's a very clear indicator that god sent his son to to be sacrificed Okay, my final point on that is john also two chapters earlier said that that son was god in the flesh All right Next super chat from poi