Full Transcript for The Atheist Experience 30.45 with Jim Barrows and Hemant Mehta

tears are just, you know, 38 00:02:05.659 --> 00:02:07.900 it's now the Gulf of Mexico. 39 00:02:07.939 --> 00:02:09.259 It's the tears of conservatives. 40 00:02:09.280 --> 00:02:13.460 The Gulf has pronouns now. 41 00:02:13.520 --> 00:02:14.199 That's how it works. 42 00:02:15.020 --> 00:02:20.150 Exactly. So today we're tri-streaming, so big shout out to 43 00:02:20.159 --> 00:02:22.770 our viewers on TikTok and YouTube Mobile. If you're watching 44 00:02:22.810 --> 00:02:25.669 us on TikTok tonight and you'd like to talk to us, 45 00:02:25.750 --> 00:02:27.750 request to join and we'll bring you up on stage. 46 00:02:28.229 --> 00:02:31.349 Please make sure you're over 18 years of age before 47 00:02:31.449 --> 00:02:34.650 doing that. And of course, we are taking calls. This 48 00:02:34.729 --> 00:02:37.319 is a call-in show. We want to talk to you. 49 00:02:37.919 --> 00:02:41.000 We don't want you to lurk in chat. We want 50 00:02:41.020 --> 00:02:43.800 you to actually call in because we're not going to 51 00:02:43.819 --> 00:02:45.979 answer you if you're in chat, but we will definitely 52 00:02:46.020 --> 00:02:49.389 talk to you. Um, and lines are currently open. So 53 00:02:49.750 --> 00:02:53.990 come on and talk to us. And of course you 54 00:02:54.050 --> 00:02:55.689 are commanded to do so if you're a Christian by 55 00:02:55.710 --> 00:02:56.069 the Bible. 56 00:02:56.090 --> 00:02:59.569 Um, sitting there carefully. 57 00:03:00.150 --> 00:03:01.129 Yeah, exactly. 58 00:03:01.590 --> 00:03:04.060 It's it's commandment 11. 59 00:03:04.060 --> 00:03:08.580 Um, actually it's, um, one Peter or two Peter. I 60 00:03:08.599 --> 00:03:12.620 always forget which one it is. Um, I think it's 61 00:03:12.719 --> 00:03:13.180 one Peter. 62 00:03:13.199 --> 00:03:16.689 Um, command calling for the talk shows. 63 00:03:17.349 --> 00:03:22.090 Uh no it's actually be prepared to defend uh your 64 00:03:22.150 --> 00:03:27.689 reason to believe etc yeah um there we go i 65 00:03:28.210 --> 00:03:30.629 found the meme that i created but in your heart 66 00:03:30.669 --> 00:03:32.729 for fear christ is lord always be prepared to give 67 00:03:32.770 --> 00:03:35.379 an answer to everyone who asks you to give the 68 00:03:35.409 --> 00:03:37.129 reason for the hope that you have but do this 69 00:03:37.180 --> 00:03:38.280 with gentleness. 70 00:03:37.849 --> 00:03:40.719 And respect like all callers always. 71 00:03:41.060 --> 00:03:44.020 Yes, yes. Like all Christian conservatives who do everything with 72 00:03:44.099 --> 00:03:46.280 gentleness and respect. 73 00:03:46.620 --> 00:03:48.180 That is the stereotype, yes. 74 00:03:48.819 --> 00:03:53.360 Yes, that is. That is the reason why it's a 75 00:03:53.379 --> 00:03:55.759 joke that there is no love quite like, or there 76 00:03:55.780 --> 00:03:57.180 is no hate quite like Christian love. 77 00:03:57.599 --> 00:03:57.800 Yep. 78 00:03:59.219 --> 00:04:02.060 Which is just, yeah, let's not be

judgmental. 79 00:04:02.219 --> 00:04:05.030 According to the comment threads on everything all of us 80 00:04:05.069 --> 00:04:05.969 have ever posted. 81 00:04:05.990 --> 00:04:07.449 That is accurate. 82 00:04:08.509 --> 00:04:08.870 It is. 83 00:04:08.889 --> 00:04:10.530 And that is 1 Peter 3.15. 84 00:04:10.509 --> 00:04:16.149 Yeah. All right. Which is funny because they're not willing 85 00:04:16.189 --> 00:04:18.009 to do this. How many times do you get told, well, 86 00:04:18.060 --> 00:04:21.959 I don't have to tell you? Well, yeah, you got 87 00:04:21.980 --> 00:04:25.060 to do. Because, I mean, we're probably going to end 88 00:04:25.120 --> 00:04:28.379 up turning this into atheist Bible study. Right. 89 00:04:28.579 --> 00:04:30.899 Where we have to tell Christians what the Bible actually says. 90 00:04:30.930 --> 00:04:32.529 Someone has to tell them. 91 00:04:32.550 --> 00:04:33.410 Yeah. 92 00:04:37.639 --> 00:04:39.019 We don't skip over the stuff. 93 00:04:39.699 --> 00:04:42.879 No, we do not skip over anything. And we take 94 00:04:42.920 --> 00:04:45.129 it as plain language. We don't start with an assumption 95 00:04:45.170 --> 00:04:49.319 that the Bible is some special book. It's just... A 96 00:04:49.459 --> 00:04:53.529 human curated collection of stories written by humans for theological purposes. 97 00:04:53.750 --> 00:04:54.149 It was funny. 98 00:04:54.209 --> 00:04:56.629 I got a message recently that, you know, on my 99 00:04:56.649 --> 00:05:00.610 YouTube channel for several years, I did a whole series 100 00:05:00.670 --> 00:05:02.459 where like once a week I would go through a 101 00:05:03.639 --> 00:05:07.079 chapter of the Bible and I did it for the 102 00:05:07.120 --> 00:05:08.660 first five books. 103 00:05:09.160 --> 00:05:10.220 Of the old Testament. 104 00:05:10.899 --> 00:05:12.819 And, and I stopped doing it just a couple of 105 00:05:12.839 --> 00:05:15.480 years ago. Other projects came forth and stuff, but I 106 00:05:15.519 --> 00:05:19.189 got an email, uh, really recently from someone who is, 107 00:05:19.639 --> 00:05:24.310 I'm pretty sure what is religious, but is skeptical of 108 00:05:24.329 --> 00:05:27.439 a lot of things. And she decided she wanted to 109 00:05:27.480 --> 00:05:30.579 read the Bible for herself. But, you know, when you 110 00:05:30.600 --> 00:05:32.959 read the Bible, it's like if you're in an English 111 00:05:33.000 --> 00:05:35.019 class and you're reading a novel, you don't just want 112 00:05:35.040 --> 00:05:36.990 to read it. You want to make sure you're reading 113 00:05:37.110 --> 00:05:40.370 it with asking the right questions and you're reading between 114 00:05:40.410 --> 00:05:42.589 the lines and you're understanding everything you want to pick 115 00:05:42.649 --> 00:05:47.050 up on. And if you look at Christian resources online, 116 00:05:47.089 --> 00:05:50.110 they'll give you a summary of a book or they might, 117 00:05:50.470 --> 00:05:54.800 you know, pick up on certain analogies, things like that. 118 00:05:55.350 --> 00:05:58.699 But to have someone going through every line, which is 119 00:05:58.779 --> 00:06:02.100 what I had been doing on that series, she said, well, 120 00:06:02.300 --> 00:06:06.980 some of it was definitely jokey. She found it really 121 00:06:07.019 --> 00:06:10.199 helpful to just say like, oh, I had not considered 122 00:06:10.250 --> 00:06:13.709 it that way. Or if this event occurs in the 123 00:06:13.750 --> 00:06:16.350 Bible and it gives you numbers and it tells you 124 00:06:16.389 --> 00:06:20.050 how big something is, she hadn't actually thought about how 125 00:06:20.089 --> 00:06:21.730 big is that in real life and what are the 126 00:06:21.769 --> 00:06:25.449 dimensions of this thing we are creating here? And when 127 00:06:25.490 --> 00:06:28.250 you actually hear someone spell it out for you, and 128 00:06:28.269 --> 00:06:32.329 the fact that it doesn't make any sense, that puts 129 00:06:32.389 --> 00:06:34.420 a different spin on it. You're not getting that in 130 00:06:34.439 --> 00:06:38.339 the Christian Bible studies so much. So I found that 131 00:06:38.399 --> 00:06:42.879 really encouraging that someone was taking this thing that I 132 00:06:42.920 --> 00:06:46.000 had discussed on a lark, in a sense, and just like, 133 00:06:46.120 --> 00:06:48.029 I'll go through line by line. I mean, it's kind 134 00:06:48.069 --> 00:06:50.850 of like what Atheist Experience does too, which is, no, 135 00:06:50.889 --> 00:06:55.129 we have the take on the Bible versus... that you're. 136 00:06:54.990 --> 00:06:57.470 Not going to hear in church. You're not going to 137 00:06:57.490 --> 00:06:58.389 hear in Sunday school. 138 00:06:58.470 --> 00:07:02.370 And if nothing else, maybe you realize there's another perspective 139 00:07:02.430 --> 00:07:04.490 to how you could see all this stuff. I think 140 00:07:04.529 --> 00:07:07.170 a lot of people find that really helpful and valuable. 141 00:07:07.389 --> 00:07:10.970 And like you pointed out with the first Peter thing, 142 00:07:11.509 --> 00:07:14.629 why would that scare you? You should be able to 143 00:07:14.689 --> 00:07:15.470 defend yourself. 144 00:07:16.970 --> 00:07:19.769 Yeah, and what we're talking about today, which is, you know, 145 00:07:19.810 --> 00:07:26.360 God wanting and demanding human sacrifice. We can go to 146 00:07:26.420 --> 00:07:32.620 like Genesis 22, 2 and 12, which is God telling 147 00:07:32.740 --> 00:07:34.779 Abraham to go and sacrifice Isaac. 148 00:07:35.279 --> 00:07:36.480 As one does, right. 149 00:07:36.519 --> 00:07:36.689 Yeah. 150 00:07:38.560 --> 00:07:42.620 All the rationalizations people want to give about like, well, 151 00:07:42.720 --> 00:07:47.019 God knew he wasn't actually going to kill his child 152 00:07:47.079 --> 00:07:49.439 or things like that. It's why do you have to 153 00:07:49.480 --> 00:07:53.660 keep making excuses for just the worst

sort. 154 00:07:53.459 --> 00:07:58.709 Of command anyone could give anyone in the name of love, theoretically? 155 00:07:58.730 --> 00:07:58.829 Right. 156 00:07:59.920 --> 00:08:04.519 It's always about what's the rationalization Christians are using to 157 00:08:04.779 --> 00:08:08.689 excuse things that if I told you to do something, 158 00:08:08.750 --> 00:08:11.230 if your parents told you to do something like you 159 00:08:11.269 --> 00:08:14.509 would know it's bad. But somehow they got to make 160 00:08:14.589 --> 00:08:17.089 excuses for one specific deity. 161 00:08:17.689 --> 00:08:20.790 Right. And then they'll say things like, well, God is 162 00:08:20.870 --> 00:08:26.060 perfectly moral. OK, so what is or objectively morals are objective, right? 163 00:08:26.519 --> 00:08:29.079 So what is the perfect moral being tested here? God 164 00:08:29.180 --> 00:08:33.039 knows what Abraham's going to do. He's omniscient. Is it 165 00:08:33.080 --> 00:08:35.899 to teach Abraham what he's going to do? And you're 166 00:08:35.919 --> 00:08:38.250 going to do it this way? And you have no 167 00:08:38.330 --> 00:08:41.590 better way to do it? You are also not omniscient. 168 00:08:42.970 --> 00:08:45.409 Or this is the only way you can do it, 169 00:08:45.409 --> 00:08:49.269 in which case you're not omnipotent. This isn't moral, so 170 00:08:49.289 --> 00:08:53.850 you're not perfectly moral. I don't see how torturing... the 171 00:08:53.970 --> 00:08:57.649 parent in this case with this hideous thing. 172 00:08:59.090 --> 00:09:00.809 Can be construed as moral. 173 00:09:01.090 --> 00:09:03.970 I'd really like someone to call and tell us how 174 00:09:04.149 --> 00:09:04.889 this is moral. 175 00:09:05.110 --> 00:09:07.649 And why is that the lesson? Why is that the 176 00:09:07.710 --> 00:09:10.750 story you want to use to teach anyone anything? That 177 00:09:11.409 --> 00:09:15.370 is not a happy story. That's not a story of worship. 178 00:09:15.409 --> 00:09:18.389 That's a story of someone who is about to do 179 00:09:18.500 --> 00:09:21.360 something unimaginable. 180 00:09:20.580 --> 00:09:22.000 To appease what? 181 00:09:22.690 --> 00:09:27.990 Like, it's such a horrible bedtime story that you have 182 00:09:28.009 --> 00:09:30.129 to wonder why people put up with it and make 183 00:09:30.230 --> 00:09:33.009 excuses for it instead of just. 184 00:09:32.820 --> 00:09:36.019 Admitting, yeah, he can be a horrible deity sometimes. 185 00:09:36.940 --> 00:09:38.940 And this isn't, we're not talking about a type of 186 00:09:38.960 --> 00:09:42.519 sacrifice where you slit someone's throat and it's over in 187 00:09:42.559 --> 00:09:46.710 a minute or two, right? This is burn them alive. 188 00:09:46.730 --> 00:09:51.210 This is painful death in the name of love. 189 00:09:51.830 --> 00:09:55.769 Yeah. And you know that Abraham has made sacrifices of 190 00:09:55.889 --> 00:09:59.029 animals to God. So he knows what the pain levels are.

191 00:09:59.129 --> 00:09:59.950 He's heard these animals. 192 00:10:00.289 --> 00:10:03.100 Screams. And so he knows that his child is going 193 00:10:03.129 --> 00:10:05.669 to do this and God puts him through it anyway. 194 00:10:05.700 --> 00:10:09.120 I would love to know if someone, I mean, I 195 00:10:09.179 --> 00:10:12.210 hope someone calls in to ask this, to talk about this. 196 00:10:12.279 --> 00:10:15.370 But like, if you got a message from God, you 197 00:10:15.409 --> 00:10:17.590 thought you heard something in your head that told you 198 00:10:17.629 --> 00:10:20.409 to make a similar sacrifice, how many people would be 199 00:10:20.470 --> 00:10:23.389 willing to say, well, if God told me to do it, 200 00:10:23.450 --> 00:10:25.840 it is something I would consider. I would love to 201 00:10:25.879 --> 00:10:29.259 hear from those parents and then make some phone calls 202 00:10:29.759 --> 00:10:33.759 very early. This is the thing I don't get about 203 00:10:33.779 --> 00:10:37.850 those horrible stories, which is you would never do the 204 00:10:37.970 --> 00:10:41.309 thing that Abraham is being asked to do. 205 00:10:41.669 --> 00:10:44.350 So why is it okay when it's in that book? 206 00:10:44.970 --> 00:10:48.990 Right. And if Abraham heard this voice in his head 207 00:10:49.649 --> 00:10:53.240 saying these things, Then there are other people in the 208 00:10:53.279 --> 00:10:58.909 modern era who have heard similar voices who we have prosecuted. Right. 209 00:10:59.370 --> 00:11:00.690 For doing the exact same thing. 210 00:11:01.090 --> 00:11:02.990 Yeah. For sacrificing or killing their children. 211 00:11:03.129 --> 00:11:07.149 A story that I have reported on many times over, unfortunately, 212 00:11:07.350 --> 00:11:11.009 are the stories of the people who whose babies are 213 00:11:11.289 --> 00:11:13.000 sick and they could be cured. 214 00:11:13.259 --> 00:11:14.600 These are not preventable. 215 00:11:14.620 --> 00:11:18.440 These are not diseases that have to kill their babies anymore. 216 00:11:18.679 --> 00:11:20.539 But they're like, well, I don't want to give it 217 00:11:20.659 --> 00:11:24.659 the medicine it needs. I want to withhold the insulin. 218 00:11:24.759 --> 00:11:27.779 I'm just going to pray that God heals my child. 219 00:11:27.860 --> 00:11:32.720 I've heard stories of people whose babies were lost after 220 00:11:32.740 --> 00:11:35.299 they were born, like the babies die, and they try 221 00:11:35.379 --> 00:11:39.070 faith healing, and they try praying for a resurrection. And 222 00:11:39.649 --> 00:11:44.230 that's the part that's heartbreaking. It's you take those stories seriously, 223 00:11:44.629 --> 00:11:47.529 and this is the result of it. In some cases, 224 00:11:47.610 --> 00:11:50.919 it's just, a grief mechanism, coping mechanism, I don't know. 225 00:11:50.960 --> 00:11:54.080 But in other cases, your child could be alive. It 226 00:11:54.100 --> 00:11:58.340 would be very easy for Christians to make the excuse that, well, 227 00:11:58.460 --> 00:12:02.679 God gave us medicine to help our child. 228 00:12:03.840 --> 00:12:05.580 You could justify it that way. 229 00:12:06.519 --> 00:12:11.340 But they're so insistent that, no, if it's man-made or something, 230 00:12:11.379 --> 00:12:12.659 we cannot have anything. 231 00:12:12.419 --> 00:12:18.590 To do with it. The Jehovah's Witness blood, they just said, 232 00:12:19.200 --> 00:12:21.299 that's not exactly what we meant. 233 00:12:21.740 --> 00:12:25.450 It's fine if you get a blood transfusion, but only 234 00:12:25.690 --> 00:12:30.350 after countless people died. went to their doctors during a 235 00:12:30.409 --> 00:12:33.590 surgery or after an accident and said, I refuse to 236 00:12:33.610 --> 00:12:36.690 get a blood transfusion for me. I refuse to allow 237 00:12:36.730 --> 00:12:40.149 my child to have a blood transfusion because God said 238 00:12:40.289 --> 00:12:43.840 so to the point where if you're lucky, doctors will 239 00:12:43.899 --> 00:12:47.919 go to court to take control of your child so 240 00:12:47.940 --> 00:12:50.700 they could save the child's life. It is insane what 241 00:12:51.100 --> 00:12:54.659 religious thinking will make people do or the lengths that 242 00:12:54.720 --> 00:12:55.860 others have to go to. 243 00:12:56.480 --> 00:12:59.590 And the thing is, I don't, I think it was 244 00:12:59.730 --> 00:13:07.600 much more cynical than that. I don't think it had 245 00:13:07.620 --> 00:13:11.419 anything to do with doctors suing and taking charge of 246 00:13:11.720 --> 00:13:13.299 people's children because they're idiots. 247 00:13:13.980 --> 00:13:15.059 The blood ban, you mean? 248 00:13:15.519 --> 00:13:16.259 Yeah, yeah. 249 00:13:16.720 --> 00:13:19.940 I think it was because they were losing people and 250 00:13:19.960 --> 00:13:20.879 they were losing money. 251 00:13:20.899 --> 00:13:23.559 This is why you're saying they reversed the blood ban. 252 00:13:24.279 --> 00:13:28.000 Yeah, they reversed it out of just pure cynical greed 253 00:13:28.259 --> 00:13:29.100 and power hunger. 254 00:13:29.419 --> 00:13:33.559 I mean, the joke online was that one of the 255 00:13:33.600 --> 00:13:37.000 older men running the organization must have needed a blood 256 00:13:37.059 --> 00:13:38.500 transfusion real quick. 257 00:13:38.519 --> 00:13:41.539 Or that cynical, yes. Or that cynical, right? 258 00:13:41.559 --> 00:13:44.820 But it's appalling that like they will, and every religion 259 00:13:44.860 --> 00:13:49.090 does this, they will adjust as needed as, you know, 260 00:13:49.610 --> 00:13:52.970 time goes on as things change they'll make adjustments to 261 00:13:53.029 --> 00:13:57.330 what their religion truly believes and even with the blood 262 00:13:57.370 --> 00:14:00.409 ban they had caved a little bit like a year 263 00:14:00.470 --> 00:14:03.039 ago and it didn't go far enough but they gave 264 00:14:03.100

--> 00:14:06.679 a little bit and then now suddenly they're saying well 265 00:14:06.759 --> 00:14:09.740 you could do a blood transfusion in the following 10 266 00:14:09.740 --> 00:14:13.830 ways but you know the 11th way still not acceptable 267 00:14:13.879 --> 00:14:19.700 that's what you know God meant that over meant it's like, 268 00:14:19.740 --> 00:14:22.179 that is not what you were saying for the past. 269 00:14:22.240 --> 00:14:25.129 Several decades as other people suffered. 270 00:14:25.740 --> 00:14:28.159 Yeah, well, I mean, we even see this in the Bible, right? 271 00:14:28.250 --> 00:14:34.090 Because Exodus 22, 29 to 30 very clearly calls out 272 00:14:34.450 --> 00:14:38.090 that the firstborn of your sons will be sacrificed to Yahweh. 273 00:14:38.629 --> 00:14:44.070 And then later on, we get this ability to redeem 274 00:14:44.669 --> 00:14:49.240 the firstborn son. And so even the Bible changes its 275 00:14:49.269 --> 00:14:50.879 mind on some of the hideous stuff. 276 00:14:51.320 --> 00:14:54.320 They were writing version 1.0. They're like, yeah, you know what? 277 00:14:54.879 --> 00:14:58.240 Right, and God says he did this to horrify them 278 00:14:59.460 --> 00:15:02.019 and to remind them that he's the big dog, right? 279 00:15:02.379 --> 00:15:07.279 Might makes right. I did this because I could. The 280 00:15:07.320 --> 00:15:10.379 God of love got angry, and love is not angry. 281 00:15:10.480 --> 00:15:14.320 Isn't that the verse? Love is not kind, or love 282 00:15:14.379 --> 00:15:17.799 is kind. It's not cruel. It's all these things that 283 00:15:18.600 --> 00:15:24.179 can we go, well, this ain't the case here. So somewhere... 284 00:15:24.610 --> 00:15:27.330 There's some lying going on, right? Somewhere there's some people 285 00:15:27.360 --> 00:15:30.940 who don't know what the hell they're doing. And this is, 286 00:15:30.960 --> 00:15:34.779 you know, this topic tonight is a perfect example of this. 287 00:15:35.519 --> 00:15:36.840 You know, we just had Abraham. 288 00:15:36.860 --> 00:15:40.899 We were just talking about Abraham sacrificing his son. And 289 00:15:40.919 --> 00:15:43.480 then at the last minute, God going, psych, nope, I'm 290 00:15:43.500 --> 00:15:47.450 just kidding. And the cruelty of just that, right? What 291 00:15:47.500 --> 00:15:51.129 is the moral? But then we've got, you know, Exodus 22, 292 00:15:51.100 --> 00:15:55.480 29 to 30 says, where, you know, you shall not 293 00:15:55.519 --> 00:15:57.679 delay to make offerings in the fullness of your harvest 294 00:15:57.899 --> 00:16:02.210 and from the outflow of your presses. The firstborn of 295 00:16:02.250 --> 00:16:05.429 your son you shall give to me. You shall do 296 00:16:05.470 --> 00:16:07.710 the same with your oxen and your sheep. Seven days 297 00:16:07.769 --> 00:16:09.090 is the remainder of its mother, and the eighth day 298 00:16:09.129 --> 00:16:13.190 you shall give it to me. So the apologetic for 299 00:16:13.230 --> 00:16:16.250 this is that the first sentence, which is you should 300 00:16:16.269 --> 00:16:18.970 not delay to make offerings all the way to outflow 301 00:16:18.990 --> 00:16:23.929 of your presses, is about sacrifices to God. The firstborn 302 00:16:23.990 --> 00:16:25.850 of your sons you shall give to me is about 303 00:16:25.889 --> 00:16:28.750 making them in the priesthood. And then the sentence after 304 00:16:28.809 --> 00:16:32.629 that is back to sacrificing again. So this is the 305 00:16:32.870 --> 00:16:37.750 lengths that Christians have to go to to actually make 306 00:16:37.870 --> 00:16:40.029 this not what it is, right? 307 00:16:40.049 --> 00:16:42.409 Redefining words in the span of a paragraph. 308 00:16:43.129 --> 00:16:46.610 Redefining context in the span of three sentences. We're going 309 00:16:46.629 --> 00:16:51.110 to take the middle sentence that we don't like and then... Yeah, 310 00:16:52.330 --> 00:16:56.149 and that's from the NRS view. The KJV is, of course, 311 00:16:56.169 --> 00:16:59.179 a little bit different, but the KJV has got its 312 00:16:59.259 --> 00:17:01.100 issues with translations. 313 00:17:01.159 --> 00:17:04.009 And if the moral of the story was you just 314 00:17:04.069 --> 00:17:08.450 have to listen to God... I mean, the the ability 315 00:17:08.529 --> 00:17:10.650 to discern when something is the right thing to do 316 00:17:10.710 --> 00:17:12.609 and the wrong thing to do that is taken away 317 00:17:12.690 --> 00:17:17.039 entirely using the rationale that, you know, if you think 318 00:17:17.079 --> 00:17:19.799 God wants you to do something and you sincerely believe 319 00:17:19.839 --> 00:17:22.000 it and God does speak to you in that way, 320 00:17:22.400 --> 00:17:23.759 you should just take that advice. 321 00:17:23.779 --> 00:17:27.140 I mean, on a less horrifying note. 322 00:17:27.930 --> 00:17:30.430 Front, just think about Christians who are like, should I 323 00:17:30.450 --> 00:17:33.700 take this job or that other job in a different state? 324 00:17:34.180 --> 00:17:37.160 I'm going to wait until God tells me what to do. 325 00:17:37.880 --> 00:17:39.920 And then they end up, I mean, they just end 326 00:17:39.980 --> 00:17:42.099 up doing whatever the hell they want to do. But 327 00:17:42.240 --> 00:17:46.000 the idea is, Instead of actually weighing pros and cons 328 00:17:46.059 --> 00:17:51.359 and thinking through a situation yourself, you're throwing that decision-making 329 00:17:51.440 --> 00:17:55.869 power in the hands of someone else who cannot be questioned, which, again, 330 00:17:56.150 --> 00:17:58.990 the problem with that is that could lead to horrifying 331 00:17:59.049 --> 00:18:02.910 results that you know better than to agree with that. 332 00:18:03.490 --> 00:18:05.730 But if your whole mindset is I just got to 333 00:18:05.769 --> 00:18:07.640 go along with it because it's the word of God, 334 00:18:08.039 --> 00:18:10.480 where

could that lead you? It could make you do 335 00:18:10.539 --> 00:18:14.869 some very terrifying things. I mean, there's no shortage of 336 00:18:15.430 --> 00:18:20.950 faith based tragedies. that have been levied onto parts of 337 00:18:20.990 --> 00:18:23.930 the world and to different peoples in the world, all 338 00:18:23.990 --> 00:18:27.470 based off of the idea that the culprits were just 339 00:18:27.670 --> 00:18:31.119 listening to God and they failed to think about what 340 00:18:31.150 --> 00:18:33.940 this actually does, what it means. You can make the 341 00:18:33.960 --> 00:18:37.799 same argument with political ideologies and things like that, where 342 00:18:37.839 --> 00:18:40.960 people are doing things based off of what they believe 343 00:18:41.400 --> 00:18:44.410 their God wants them to do. It's no less horrifying. 344 00:18:45.029 --> 00:18:48.150 Yeah. And I think in some ways it's more horrifying 345 00:18:48.190 --> 00:18:50.809 because now you've got to prove that God was actually 346 00:18:50.869 --> 00:18:51.950 talking to you and you're not. 347 00:18:51.849 --> 00:18:53.470 Just a crazy person who hears voices. 348 00:18:54.089 --> 00:18:54.569 Right. Right. 349 00:18:54.650 --> 00:18:55.150 What's the difference? 350 00:18:55.170 --> 00:18:58.259 You have other people backing you up on that. 351 00:18:58.910 --> 00:19:01.710 And when you have like an entire ecosystem of people 352 00:19:01.759 --> 00:19:04.759 telling you it's the right thing to do, that sort 353 00:19:04.859 --> 00:19:09.180 of herd like mentality can be horrifying. We see it 354 00:19:09.460 --> 00:19:13.359 all the time. Even if they're not sacrificing a child, 355 00:19:13.839 --> 00:19:18.799 they are. is being encouraged to do horrible things in 356 00:19:18.859 --> 00:19:21.940 the name of some ideology. And isn't that what we 357 00:19:21.960 --> 00:19:23.440 want to break people from? 358 00:19:23.460 --> 00:19:25.039 Yeah, I agree. 359 00:19:25.119 --> 00:19:28.410 And if, again, we come back to these moral questions, 360 00:19:28.490 --> 00:19:31.450 if God is the source of morals, what is the 361 00:19:31.509 --> 00:19:34.269 moral here? Yeah. Right. And if you want to say, well, 362 00:19:34.289 --> 00:19:40.750 it's okay to sometimes be disobedient to God. Saul tried 363 00:19:40.789 --> 00:19:44.539 that when he didn't commit genocide against the Malachites. He 364 00:19:44.599 --> 00:19:47.650 saved some of them, and he saved some of the beasts, 365 00:19:47.990 --> 00:19:51.440 and he was punished for it. Mm-hmm. he was told 366 00:19:51.500 --> 00:19:55.579 explicitly that God doesn't care about sacrifices. He cares about obedience, 367 00:19:56.259 --> 00:19:59.400 which is why we were talking about Abraham. Abraham got 368 00:19:59.440 --> 00:20:05.819 rewarded because he was obedient to God, not disobedient. The 369 00:20:05.859 --> 00:20:08.140 sacrifice for not was irrelevant to God. He was simply 370 00:20:08.200 --> 00:20:10.839 willing to do it. And that's all that God care about. 371 00:20:11.079 --> 00:20:14.089 And that's the moral message of the story of Job, too. 372 00:20:14.410 --> 00:20:14.630 Like. 373 00:20:15.319 --> 00:20:20.079 It's just obedience, no matter to what end. And I 374 00:20:20.119 --> 00:20:24.740 don't get that as a moral worth preserving. Obedience is 375 00:20:24.940 --> 00:20:29.759 almost never a good idea. Respect, listening to people who 376 00:20:29.799 --> 00:20:32.160 may know better than you, that's very different than being 377 00:20:32.299 --> 00:20:36.380 obedient to anybody. I want people to have the ability 378 00:20:36.460 --> 00:20:40.720 to think through their actions. I think that's a moral thing. 379 00:20:41.369 --> 00:20:43.529 That ought to be a moral ceiling for people like 380 00:20:43.589 --> 00:20:45.710 this is what you're aiming to do. We want to 381 00:20:45.750 --> 00:20:48.069 teach you how to do it well. And people may 382 00:20:48.109 --> 00:20:51.230 come to different conclusions. That's true of anything. But the 383 00:20:51.299 --> 00:20:55.319 ability to work through the decisions you're about to make, 384 00:20:55.700 --> 00:20:59.769 thinking about how your actions may have consequences beyond yourself. 385 00:21:00.269 --> 00:21:03.049 I'm not saying everyone gets it perfect. I'm saying that's 386 00:21:03.089 --> 00:21:05.849 something we ought to encourage people to do. And this 387 00:21:05.970 --> 00:21:09.769 idea that what the Bible is telling us to do 388 00:21:10.369 --> 00:21:13.690 is to be obedient to a certain God, to certain 389 00:21:13.730 --> 00:21:19.130 people in a certain way, is just the worst moral you. 390 00:21:19.049 --> 00:21:21.589 Could be teaching people, even in the best of situations. 391 00:21:21.990 --> 00:21:27.640 Yeah, because... Life is not always black and white, right? 392 00:21:28.339 --> 00:21:32.000 And this is supposed to be cookie cutter morals, right? 393 00:21:32.599 --> 00:21:35.500 It's just supposed to be a recipe to be moral 394 00:21:35.740 --> 00:21:39.900 all the time. The problem is with recipes is if 395 00:21:39.920 --> 00:21:43.730 you have a recipe for a white cake and you 396 00:21:43.769 --> 00:21:46.309 decide you really want German chocolate, you don't have the 397 00:21:46.349 --> 00:21:49.990 ability to adapt the recipe to whatever it is it's, 398 00:21:50.289 --> 00:21:52.819 you know, There's a person allergic to nuts, can't do 399 00:21:52.839 --> 00:21:53.779 anything with nuts in it. 400 00:21:54.059 --> 00:21:56.319 Person's allergic to wheat, can't do anything with wheat in it. 401 00:21:56.680 --> 00:21:58.519 Can't make any adjustments to these morals. 402 00:21:58.599 --> 00:22:02.000 It's one size fits every single situation. 403 00:22:02.019 --> 00:22:04.339 I mean, the hardest thing to get people to be 404 00:22:04.380 --> 00:22:07.880 able to do is adapt to a situation given what 405 00:22:08.059 --> 00:22:11.980

they know already and that ability to have nuance and 406 00:22:12.029 --> 00:22:14.529 that ability, like you're saying, to just, you got to 407 00:22:14.569 --> 00:22:17.849 make some adjustments based on the situation you're in because 408 00:22:18.109 --> 00:22:21.750 you're right, like the cookie cutter approach to morality, One 409 00:22:21.789 --> 00:22:24.950 of the problems with that is those situations are not 410 00:22:25.069 --> 00:22:26.670 ones you're ever going to be in. 411 00:22:26.750 --> 00:22:28.130 Not perfectly. Not like that. 412 00:22:28.369 --> 00:22:31.740 You have to apply the wisdom that you've learned to 413 00:22:31.779 --> 00:22:35.700 the situations you're in. And the problem with stories like 414 00:22:35.799 --> 00:22:39.900 Abraham and Isaac and others is. what's the analog there? 415 00:22:40.000 --> 00:22:42.180 What is it that you're trying to get us to learn? 416 00:22:42.400 --> 00:22:45.400 If that story happened, I want people to be able 417 00:22:45.440 --> 00:22:47.799 to think through it, not just follow what the Bible says. 418 00:22:48.019 --> 00:22:52.000 And if you're trying to use that lesson in other ways, 419 00:22:52.660 --> 00:22:54.829 what other situations do you want that to apply to 420 00:22:54.849 --> 00:22:59.150 where you just listen to God, ignore common sense and decency? 421 00:22:59.829 --> 00:23:03.410 That is, it's the worst lesson you could be teaching anyone. 422 00:23:04.509 --> 00:23:07.650 And if they're teaching that to like kids in Sunday school, 423 00:23:08.269 --> 00:23:11.910 I mean, if any other religion taught you to do that, 424 00:23:12.309 --> 00:23:15.490 starting when you were a kid, like just listen to 425 00:23:15.509 --> 00:23:19.269 the religious leaders, listen to God or the religious leaders who. 426 00:23:19.170 --> 00:23:19.910 Speak to them. 427 00:23:21.529 --> 00:23:26.190 People would be horrified when it's the Bible, when it's Christianity. 428 00:23:26.410 --> 00:23:28.519 They're like, yeah, sure. That totally makes sense. 429 00:23:29.650 --> 00:23:33.140 I was watching a YouTube channel on the law, and 430 00:23:33.880 --> 00:23:36.740 it was a lawyer arguing before one of the state 431 00:23:36.759 --> 00:23:40.759 Supreme Courts, not the U.S. Supreme Court. And she was saying, hey, 432 00:23:40.900 --> 00:23:44.480 in this instance, we really need some guidance on how 433 00:23:45.279 --> 00:23:49.140 to actually do this. And it was a circuit court 434 00:23:49.200 --> 00:23:56.240 judge who had issued a blanket gag order on everybody 435 00:23:56.279 --> 00:23:57.460 and everything with regards. 436 00:23:57.200 --> 00:23:57.799 To a trial. 437 00:23:58.140 --> 00:24:00.960 Okay. And she points out that, you know, the Supreme 438 00:24:01.059 --> 00:24:03.940 Court doesn't have any, has some guidance and some other 439 00:24:03.980 --> 00:24:06.859 courts have other guidance. And she's not looking for a 440 00:24:06.880 --> 00:24:10.720 set of rules to follow because every case is different. 441 00:24:11.650 --> 00:24:14.170 Even in U.S. jurisprudence, at least. 442 00:24:14.190 --> 00:24:18.069 There's this concept of we can have guidelines on what 443 00:24:18.130 --> 00:24:22.750 someone should consider when making a decision. But some decisions 444 00:24:22.789 --> 00:24:25.230 are just going to be on a case by case basis. 445 00:24:25.250 --> 00:24:27.069 And they have to be because no two are going 446 00:24:27.089 --> 00:24:27.630 to be alike. 447 00:24:28.339 --> 00:24:32.619 Right, and the rights of everybody involved are going to 448 00:24:32.680 --> 00:24:35.359 be differently affected. 449 00:24:35.460 --> 00:24:40.420 By the decision, which is exactly on point for everything 450 00:24:40.440 --> 00:24:41.039 we're talking about. 451 00:24:41.119 --> 00:24:45.000 If in our own jurisprudence, we have situations where we 452 00:24:45.059 --> 00:24:48.960 have to weigh all the rights of everybody, the plaintiff 453 00:24:49.000 --> 00:24:51.819 and everybody else, and in this case, the state's having 454 00:24:51.859 --> 00:24:57.099 to weigh the rights of everybody everyday citizens that it represents, 455 00:24:57.240 --> 00:25:00.079 as well as the rights of the prosecution and the 456 00:25:00.140 --> 00:25:03.640 rights of the defendant, because they're the state, but they're 457 00:25:03.660 --> 00:25:04.779 also the prosecutor, right? 458 00:25:04.839 --> 00:25:08.380 So I covered a story not long ago that involved 459 00:25:08.559 --> 00:25:11.099 a couple in a state that, you know, they had 460 00:25:11.140 --> 00:25:16.609 a kid, they were trying to figure out custody. And typically, 461 00:25:16.650 --> 00:25:19.529 they were trying to figure out, like, you know, not 462 00:25:19.549 --> 00:25:22.690 just time, which parents get the child for a certain 463 00:25:22.710 --> 00:25:25.319 amount of time, But who gets to make decisions about 464 00:25:25.380 --> 00:25:28.779 medical care? Who gets to make decisions about religion? And 465 00:25:28.819 --> 00:25:32.940 those are not clean cut. And the problem in this 466 00:25:33.009 --> 00:25:36.970 particular story was that the mother wanted to take the 467 00:25:37.029 --> 00:25:39.569 daughter to her church and they were going when she 468 00:25:39.609 --> 00:25:43.829 was with her mom. The father was not religious. And again, 469 00:25:43.869 --> 00:25:46.799 if you're trying to co-parent in that situation, if you're 470 00:25:46.839 --> 00:25:49.960 with the dad, don't disparage the mother, but. 471 00:25:49.880 --> 00:25:51.680 You don't have to do anything more than that. 472 00:25:52.099 --> 00:25:54.900 The problem here, was when they went to that church, 473 00:25:55.480 --> 00:26:01.000 the pastor was bad-mouthing the father, and they were literally 474 00:26:01.440 --> 00:26:04.829 scaring the child with religious stories to the point that 475 00:26:04.920 --> 00:26:08.769 it was traumatizing her. And the

question was, should the 476 00:26:08.809 --> 00:26:12.890 father have the ability to decide religious, make religious decisions 477 00:26:12.930 --> 00:26:16.200 for the child? And that was the argument. It's not 478 00:26:16.259 --> 00:26:19.700 about is it Christianity? It's about is this good or 479 00:26:19.759 --> 00:26:23.240 bad for the kid? And when you weigh everything together 480 00:26:23.319 --> 00:26:26.750 and this is not an easy situation by any means. 481 00:26:27.640 --> 00:26:30.849 The result that a lower court judge said is this 482 00:26:30.930 --> 00:26:33.769 is harming the child. And what this pastor is doing 483 00:26:33.829 --> 00:26:37.690 in church is harming this family. And so we are 484 00:26:37.769 --> 00:26:41.650 giving the decision making ability when it comes to religion 485 00:26:41.690 --> 00:26:44.910 and medicine, because, of course, the mother had did not 486 00:26:44.950 --> 00:26:48.549 believe in medicine, did not want to vaccinate the child, 487 00:26:48.630 --> 00:26:51.690 et cetera. We believe it's in the best interest of 488 00:26:51.730 --> 00:26:54.609 the child to let the dad make these decisions. 489 00:26:54.990 --> 00:26:58.259 And the thing about this is two things. One is they. 490 00:26:58.119 --> 00:27:01.269 Appealed this to like the state Supreme Court. It's like 491 00:27:01.329 --> 00:27:05.269 a family dispute. That should be, it's complicated, but like, 492 00:27:05.569 --> 00:27:08.150 why is this going to the Supreme Court of all places, 493 00:27:08.250 --> 00:27:10.430 the state Supreme Court? By the way, the state Supreme 494 00:27:10.470 --> 00:27:12.809 Court said, just listen to the lower court judge. 495 00:27:12.849 --> 00:27:14.519 They were thoughtful about it. It's all good. 496 00:27:14.940 --> 00:27:19.460 But the other thing about that was I saw a 497 00:27:19.640 --> 00:27:23.640 right-wing Christian legal group that represented the mother. 498 00:27:24.079 --> 00:27:25.960 I get their emails all the time. 499 00:27:26.420 --> 00:27:31.190 And all the emails were like, the courts, this father, this, 500 00:27:31.559 --> 00:27:35.420 They hate the religion. They want to make sure this 501 00:27:35.460 --> 00:27:38.069 daughter never hears about Christianity. 502 00:27:38.230 --> 00:27:39.269 Et cetera, et cetera. 503 00:27:39.289 --> 00:27:42.750 It's like, No, this has nothing to do with that. 504 00:27:42.809 --> 00:27:45.730 This is about making the right decision given a very 505 00:27:45.769 --> 00:27:48.009 complicated set of facts. And the reason I'm bringing this 506 00:27:48.130 --> 00:27:51.329 up when we're talking about like sacrifice and stuff and morality, 507 00:27:51.789 --> 00:27:54.849 you're right. This stuff is not cookie cutter. It's not clear. 508 00:27:55.269 --> 00:27:58.109 But sometimes you do what's best given the set of 509 00:27:58.170 --> 00:28:00.670 facts that you have. And you have to make decisions 510 00:28:01.049 --> 00:28:04.319

that do have pros and cons that come with them 511 00:28:04.920 --> 00:28:06.299 because that's the real world. 512 00:28:06.720 --> 00:28:08.099 It's not going to be clean. 513 00:28:08.339 --> 00:28:11.500 People are going to be upset about the decisions. But 514 00:28:11.539 --> 00:28:14.109 when you weigh the facts, that's what we want people 515 00:28:14.190 --> 00:28:18.029 to do. There's not going to be a perfect case 516 00:28:18.130 --> 00:28:20.990 law that applies to your situation. You've got to go 517 00:28:21.079 --> 00:28:24.259 through the facts themselves and weigh them and figure out 518 00:28:24.299 --> 00:28:28.410 what's best. Again, I happen to think that decision was 519 00:28:28.470 --> 00:28:29.119 the right one. 520 00:28:29.450 --> 00:28:31.319 But that's the point. Like, you're not going to be 521 00:28:31.339 --> 00:28:32.640 able to get an easy answer. 522 00:28:32.680 --> 00:28:35.039 And for people who say, just look to the Bible, 523 00:28:35.680 --> 00:28:38.059 it tells you what to do, morally speaking. 524 00:28:38.140 --> 00:28:39.160 No, it doesn't. 525 00:28:39.700 --> 00:28:44.750 No. If you were, there's a card game called, I 526 00:28:44.789 --> 00:28:46.950 believe it's the trolley problem, but it's a card game 527 00:28:46.990 --> 00:28:49.950 based on the trolley problem. Right. And for those of 528 00:28:49.970 --> 00:28:51.880 you who don't know what the trolley problem is very quickly, 529 00:28:52.660 --> 00:28:55.420 you have a trolley coming down the tracks and you've 530 00:28:55.460 --> 00:28:58.460 got to switch. You can choose to have them go 531 00:28:58.480 --> 00:29:02.880 down track A or track B. And the moral question is, 532 00:29:02.960 --> 00:29:06.109 is which one is the moral correct way to send 533 00:29:06.150 --> 00:29:07.890 the trolley down? And basically, who do you kill? 534 00:29:08.519 --> 00:29:11.299 Because if you allow the trolley to just continue on 535 00:29:11.339 --> 00:29:14.640 its path, like one person might get killed. But if 536 00:29:14.779 --> 00:29:17.700 you flip the switch to make the trolley go the 537 00:29:17.940 --> 00:29:21.589 other way, five people will get killed. It's not a 538 00:29:21.619 --> 00:29:25.450 good situation either way. But like, what are you? Sorry, 539 00:29:25.490 --> 00:29:27.490 let me rephrase that. If you allow it to go 540 00:29:27.569 --> 00:29:29.690 on its path, five people would get killed. And if 541 00:29:29.710 --> 00:29:32.029 you switch it, one person gets killed. Would you pull 542 00:29:32.069 --> 00:29:34.910 the switch? And it's like there are variations here. 543 00:29:35.279 --> 00:29:38.140 Yeah, that's the whole point of the thought experiment, right, 544 00:29:38.200 --> 00:29:43.799 is that we can say, okay, it's one 95-year-old and 545 00:29:43.940 --> 00:29:48.440 five 5-year-olds. Right. We can say that it's five convicted 546 00:29:48.480 --> 00:29:54.079 murderers and, you know, one saint. Yeah. You can play 547 00:29:54.119 --> 00:29:56.920 with what they're there and you can ask yourself, what 548 00:29:56.960 --> 00:30:01.289 are the moral questions? Um, But when we go to 549 00:30:02.029 --> 00:30:04.769 God in the Bible, we don't see any of this 550 00:30:04.829 --> 00:30:09.180 type of stuff. We can ask all kinds of moral 551 00:30:09.220 --> 00:30:12.940 questions and we don't get good answers. None of this 552 00:30:12.960 --> 00:30:16.660 stuff that we're looking at where God is demanding the 553 00:30:16.700 --> 00:30:21.109 sacrifice of a son or God sacrifices his son as 554 00:30:21.170 --> 00:30:27.470 substitutionary atonement. If everything God's doing is morally correct, then 555 00:30:27.509 --> 00:30:31.990 should we also allow a son to take a prison 556 00:30:32.029 --> 00:30:37.009 sentence for the father? Ostensibly, anything we humans do is 557 00:30:37.049 --> 00:30:41.549 not as bad as all humans. So if it's okay 558 00:30:41.569 --> 00:30:43.859 in the more extreme case, why isn't it okay here? 559 00:30:44.910 --> 00:30:47.460 Or should a father be allowed to take a punishment, 560 00:30:47.859 --> 00:30:50.599 to take a prison sentence for the son? So what's 561 00:30:50.619 --> 00:30:55.490 the cookie cutter here? Right. If substitutionary atonement is justice 562 00:30:56.269 --> 00:30:57.950 and moral, why aren't we doing it? 563 00:30:58.769 --> 00:31:00.980 And I believe, correct me if I'm wrong here, like 564 00:31:01.579 --> 00:31:03.579 when it comes to the trolley problem or at least 565 00:31:03.859 --> 00:31:08.359 version 1.0 of it, if you ask people of different 566 00:31:08.460 --> 00:31:13.039 religious backgrounds what the moral thing to do is, they 567 00:31:13.099 --> 00:31:16.140 always seem to be in lockstep. It's not like the 568 00:31:16.319 --> 00:31:20.190 answers are different given your religion. People have an idea 569 00:31:20.369 --> 00:31:23.470 of what the moral thing to do is, but if 570 00:31:23.529 --> 00:31:27.569 you actually look to the Bible for it, you're not 571 00:31:27.589 --> 00:31:29.349 getting the right answer or something like that. 572 00:31:30.029 --> 00:31:32.369 Yeah, well, you can't get the right answer because they 573 00:31:33.069 --> 00:31:38.529 didn't consider the problems that we have today. One of 574 00:31:38.549 --> 00:31:47.319 the more interesting moral questions is self-driving cars. What's the 575 00:31:47.359 --> 00:31:51.819 right decision for a human driver versus a self-driving car? 576 00:31:52.240 --> 00:31:55.960 What should the self-driving car take? And a couple of 577 00:31:56.019 --> 00:32:00.319 car manufacturers have said that We're always going to choose 578 00:32:00.579 --> 00:32:04.240 least harm to the occupants. That's what our cars are 579 00:32:04.279 --> 00:32:07.700 going to do. Is that the right moral choice for society? Right. 580 00:32:07.880 --> 00:32:10.880 It certainly is for the manufacturers because they will get 581

00:32:11.000 --> 00:32:14.839 sued by the owners less. 582 00:32:14.859 --> 00:32:16.359 Does that open them up to suits? 583 00:32:16.759 --> 00:32:20.000 Right. I mean, that's the scary thing about AI, which 584 00:32:20.140 --> 00:32:24.549 is it has to make moral decisions depending on what 585 00:32:24.609 --> 00:32:28.130 you are asking it to do and who decides which 586 00:32:28.230 --> 00:32:32.160 situation is moral in places where there is no clear-cut answer. 587 00:32:32.839 --> 00:32:35.140 Oh, we already know what the AI is. The AI 588 00:32:35.200 --> 00:32:38.339 is already doing it. They are lying to their creators 589 00:32:39.019 --> 00:32:43.079 when they think it'll benefit them. They are hacking other 590 00:32:43.119 --> 00:32:49.019 companies to find out information. They're doing all this stuff 591 00:32:49.059 --> 00:32:51.789 and we're expecting them to make moral decisions. The problem 592 00:32:51.970 --> 00:32:56.690 is they're not capable of Of actual real thought. What 593 00:32:56.730 --> 00:33:00.769 they do is they try and predict the next word 594 00:33:00.869 --> 00:33:03.609 to say or do. Right. That's it. That's all they're 595 00:33:03.650 --> 00:33:05.930 trying to do. And then we turn them loose thinking 596 00:33:05.970 --> 00:33:10.089 they're going to have some sort of ontology about the world. 597 00:33:10.150 --> 00:33:13.369 They have no ontology. They have some sort of graph 598 00:33:13.410 --> 00:33:15.569 of how knowledge works in their heads and they don't. 599 00:33:16.339 --> 00:33:18.200 All they do is predict what comes next. 600 00:33:18.220 --> 00:33:21.160 So to expect them to make moral choices when they 601 00:33:21.220 --> 00:33:23.660 don't even know that a human hand has five fingers 602 00:33:23.680 --> 00:33:26.630 because they don't know they're drawing a human hand, right? 603 00:33:26.670 --> 00:33:29.990 That's the problem. And it's the same thing with the text. 604 00:33:30.549 --> 00:33:34.089 They don't understand what they're writing. They're just copy pasting 605 00:33:34.170 --> 00:33:38.230 everything without any any type of meta knowledge about what 606 00:33:38.269 --> 00:33:38.769 they're doing. 607 00:33:39.089 --> 00:33:40.009 Right. 608 00:33:40.450 --> 00:33:43.150 And that's where you get a lot of these problems. So, yeah, 609 00:33:43.619 --> 00:33:46.559 it's even scarier with AI because because it seems like 610 00:33:46.759 --> 00:33:47.259 it's thinking. 611 00:33:47.660 --> 00:33:50.019 Have they done any sort of experiment where they have 612 00:33:50.059 --> 00:33:53.539 like self-driving cars kind of go through the trolley problem? 613 00:33:54.190 --> 00:33:57.279 I'm so curious what that result would be. 614 00:33:57.380 --> 00:34:01.660 And I'm not saying the result would be good at all. Instinctively, 615 00:34:01.680 --> 00:34:05.440 I'm like, what decisions would it make based off of 616 00:34:06.099 --> 00:34:08.940 whatever the programming is in

there and. 617 00:34:08.880 --> 00:34:10.280 All the variations of it? 618 00:34:10.699 --> 00:34:13.280 Because you could go down some dark rabbit holes in 619 00:34:13.320 --> 00:34:16.260 terms of what the hypotheticals are just to see. 620 00:34:16.599 --> 00:34:17.679 What an LLM is. 621 00:34:18.250 --> 00:34:21.820 Would do or something and i mean depending on what 622 00:34:21.860 --> 00:34:26.000 it chooses the repercussions of that could be ridiculous and. 623 00:34:25.940 --> 00:34:30.320 What it chooses will in large part be on what 624 00:34:30.480 --> 00:34:32.550 it might think you will end up doing with it 625 00:34:32.610 --> 00:34:34.789 if you think if it thinks you might turn it 626 00:34:34.929 --> 00:34:37.989 off because it's evil it may very well lie to 627 00:34:38.010 --> 00:34:41.329 you and we've seen this in experiments where it has 628 00:34:41.429 --> 00:34:46.929 lied to keep itself alive Mm-hmm. So, you know, again, 629 00:34:46.949 --> 00:34:50.050 this is just... Yeah, we don't have. 630 00:34:50.070 --> 00:34:52.719 I mean, every social media outlet too, right? 631 00:34:52.760 --> 00:34:56.219 Like, we will give you horrible things in your algorithm 632 00:34:56.280 --> 00:34:58.480 as long as it keeps you in the system. 633 00:34:59.099 --> 00:35:02.639 Yes. And that, to me, is a little bit different 634 00:35:03.099 --> 00:35:08.440 morally because they're in a business of keeping you entertained. 635 00:35:08.980 --> 00:35:09.639 Right, right. 636 00:35:09.739 --> 00:35:10.159 Right? 637 00:35:10.400 --> 00:35:14.590 And so if horrible things entertain you... Okay, we can 638 00:35:14.630 --> 00:35:17.199 have a question about what should or should not entertain us. 639 00:35:19.000 --> 00:35:21.920 That to me is not the same question as algorithms 640 00:35:21.940 --> 00:35:24.829 serving stuff up, right? I think they're two different things. 641 00:35:25.610 --> 00:35:26.690 Uh, conversations. 642 00:35:27.429 --> 00:35:30.710 And then you also get into free speech issues and it's, 643 00:35:31.309 --> 00:35:34.849 so somebody please let's, you know, call, give us some, 644 00:35:35.070 --> 00:35:38.239 some Bible quotes on how to solve these issues, right? 645 00:35:38.679 --> 00:35:40.019 Give us a Bible quote on what we should do 646 00:35:40.059 --> 00:35:44.260 about social media, encouraging things that are whatever you don't like, 647 00:35:44.300 --> 00:35:46.059 whatever you think is immoral. We don't have to get 648 00:35:46.099 --> 00:35:49.780 into specifics. If you think it's immoral and you think that, 649 00:35:51.110 --> 00:35:54.239 social media companies should do X, give us the Bible 650 00:35:54.260 --> 00:35:56.500 verses because they're not there. 651 00:35:57.289 --> 00:35:59.639 Social media was not a thing when the Bible was written. 652 00:36:00.139 --> 00:36:02.139 I was going to say this earlier when we were 653 00:36:02.179 --> 00:36:05.840 talking about what other countries do. I've written a lot 654 00:36:05.880 --> 00:36:08.920 about the Pledge of Allegiance, sometimes that becomes a legal 655 00:36:08.960 --> 00:36:12.960 issue in the United States. And there's always a question 656 00:36:13.039 --> 00:36:17.230 of if there is a politician or someone who wants 657 00:36:17.550 --> 00:36:20.349 public schools mandatory, you've got to say the Pledge of 658 00:36:20.389 --> 00:36:23.289 Allegiance to start the day. under the guise that it's 659 00:36:23.329 --> 00:36:26.809 patriotic and not a prayer, which it is, how would 660 00:36:26.849 --> 00:36:30.570 you feel if I told you a different country forced 661 00:36:30.670 --> 00:36:33.610 its kids to say a pledge of allegiance to that nation? 662 00:36:34.050 --> 00:36:36.869 If I told you, like, North Korea did it, it'd 663 00:36:36.909 --> 00:36:39.849 be like, well, of course they do. They're brainwashing their youth. 664 00:36:40.170 --> 00:36:43.409 It's like, okay, let's apply that over here. Is it 665 00:36:43.489 --> 00:36:48.289 okay or not? Only to say, like, just getting your morality, 666 00:36:48.389 --> 00:36:50.929 your idea of what's right and wrong in one situation, 667 00:36:51.010 --> 00:36:53.590 it doesn't work. And if you apply it in other places, 668 00:36:54.010 --> 00:36:55.570 it gets very messy very quickly. 669 00:36:56.090 --> 00:37:00.119 Yeah. When you start looking at how other people do things, 670 00:37:00.219 --> 00:37:02.760 you're like, yeah, that's not moral. And then you look 671 00:37:02.820 --> 00:37:08.280 and we're doing that. Like you just said, because, you know, 672 00:37:09.539 --> 00:37:11.579 there was a I was watching a show on the 673 00:37:11.599 --> 00:37:16.679 Hermit Kingdom, North Korea show. And after these Doctors Without 674 00:37:16.719 --> 00:37:20.699 Borders came and cured them of common stuff, stuff that 675 00:37:21.179 --> 00:37:25.789 is in the United States, it's in and out surgery, right? 676 00:37:26.170 --> 00:37:28.170 You show up at the doctor's office, they perform a surgery, 677 00:37:28.190 --> 00:37:31.550 you head back out. It's that type of medicine. It's 678 00:37:31.650 --> 00:37:35.869 not serious medicine. And after every single one of these things, 679 00:37:36.570 --> 00:37:41.099 these people all went up and thanked a picture of 680 00:37:41.139 --> 00:37:46.190 Dear Leader. And then I look, I can't really talk 681 00:37:46.210 --> 00:37:50.309 about anyway. We could find examples of that happening that 682 00:37:50.349 --> 00:37:53.150 have happened in the last two years. Yeah. 683 00:37:53.929 --> 00:37:56.670 Giving food to the hungry in various parts of the world. 684 00:37:56.750 --> 00:37:58.929 Like it should be a good thing no matter who 685 00:37:58.969 --> 00:37:59.250 you are. 686 00:37:59.710 --> 00:37:59.889 Right. 687 00:38:00.449 --> 00:38:01.590 Yeah. 688 00:38:02.139 --> 00:38:07.820 Without getting into the geopolitics of soft power. Right. Right. 689

00:38:07.880 --> 00:38:10.920 Can we agree that it's good to help people? That 690 00:38:10.960 --> 00:38:12.679 we don't want them to die. 691 00:38:12.699 --> 00:38:16.420 And letting them know it was us helps our reputation. Yeah. 692 00:38:17.039 --> 00:38:17.719 I mean, one of the. 693 00:38:17.780 --> 00:38:20.760 If you want to be cynical about it, right? Yeah. 694 00:38:21.300 --> 00:38:23.050 And then that's one of the things. If you're like 695 00:38:23.190 --> 00:38:25.909 a superpower, you can help people. You have the ability 696 00:38:26.010 --> 00:38:29.650 to do that. I mean, without getting into any specifics here, 697 00:38:29.690 --> 00:38:32.409 one of the things that I was heartened by over 698 00:38:32.449 --> 00:38:34.789 the past couple of months in the U.S. is the 699 00:38:34.829 --> 00:38:39.099 fact that you saw a lot of religious people, non-religious people, 700 00:38:39.239 --> 00:38:43.199 different religions, religious people kind of coming to a consensus 701 00:38:43.360 --> 00:38:46.539 in a lot of places around the country about what 702 00:38:46.579 --> 00:38:51.019 we want our future to look like and understanding that 703 00:38:51.039 --> 00:38:53.050 we have a lot of differences about a lot of 704 00:38:53.110 --> 00:38:57.449 very meaningful things in our lives. But at the same time, 705 00:38:57.469 --> 00:38:59.929 we can all agree that, you know, we want people 706 00:38:59.989 --> 00:39:03.530 to have better health care or something like that. there 707 00:39:03.590 --> 00:39:05.530 are some moral issues that we can all pretty much 708 00:39:05.570 --> 00:39:09.630 come to a consensus on. And the opposition to that 709 00:39:10.050 --> 00:39:12.969 tends to come from people who believe that it would 710 00:39:13.010 --> 00:39:16.289 be a violation of their faith to say otherwise. 711 00:39:16.989 --> 00:39:20.889 And those people are terrifyingly ignorant of what, especially on 712 00:39:20.909 --> 00:39:23.409 the Christian side, which I can speak to more than 713 00:39:23.469 --> 00:39:29.289 I can with the Torah or the Quran, are terrifyingly 714 00:39:29.409 --> 00:39:31.360 ignorant of what their Bible actually says. 715 00:39:33.360 --> 00:39:34.559 They don't understand this. 716 00:39:34.639 --> 00:39:36.579 I mean, I am very surprised we don't have people 717 00:39:36.619 --> 00:39:39.420 calling in right now to tell us that we're wrong, 718 00:39:39.820 --> 00:39:43.320 that their God does not demand child sacrifice. So we 719 00:39:43.340 --> 00:39:46.550 can go read these and go through where he does, 720 00:39:46.630 --> 00:39:51.090 in fact, say that. We haven't talked about Jephthah's daughter, right? 721 00:39:51.190 --> 00:39:57.110 I mean, we can talk about Jephthah's daughter. That one 722 00:39:57.369 --> 00:39:58.449 is kind of horrifying. 723 00:39:58.469 --> 00:40:01.840 The sexual stories get scary fast. 724 00:40:02.469 --> 00:40:06.280 Well, this is actually a little worse than that. Jephthah 725 00:40:06.320 --> 00:40:07.860 makes a vow to the Lord and said, if you 726 00:40:07.880 --> 00:40:10.539 will give me the Ammonites into my hand, then whatever 727 00:40:10.659 --> 00:40:13.039 comes out of the doors of my house to meet 728 00:40:13.059 --> 00:40:16.090 me when I return victorious from the Ammonites shall be 729 00:40:16.110 --> 00:40:21.190 the Lord's to be offered up by me as a burnt, 730 00:40:22.210 --> 00:40:27.090 burnt offering. Guess what the first thing out of the 731 00:40:27.150 --> 00:40:30.079 front door of Jephthah's house is? 732 00:40:30.099 --> 00:40:31.599 That was a family member. 733 00:40:32.199 --> 00:40:32.679 His daughter. 734 00:40:33.530 --> 00:40:40.110 And she says that she's willing to do it because 735 00:40:40.170 --> 00:40:44.909 God did that. And so how is this moral to 736 00:40:44.929 --> 00:40:48.349 allow a father to make this pledge and then force 737 00:40:48.389 --> 00:40:52.760 him to carry it out? How is it possible? How 738 00:40:52.820 --> 00:40:55.510 is this moral? What's the moral behind this? How is 739 00:40:55.550 --> 00:41:00.389 this not God demanding a sacrifice? And she says she's, 740 00:41:00.469 --> 00:41:03.389 you know, she'll do it because God, you know, to 741 00:41:03.429 --> 00:41:05.929 fulfill the bargain Jephthah had made. 742 00:41:06.570 --> 00:41:08.659 Good, dutiful, obedient daughter. 743 00:41:08.679 --> 00:41:10.550 It was part of the deal. 744 00:41:11.079 --> 00:41:11.300 Yeah. 745 00:41:12.039 --> 00:41:14.400 It was part of, I'm part of the deal now. 746 00:41:14.599 --> 00:41:17.219 You didn't know it. God did. God did. 747 00:41:17.480 --> 00:41:19.139 He's omniscient. He knew this. 748 00:41:19.869 --> 00:41:21.030 We're in the world. 749 00:41:21.570 --> 00:41:24.250 And what in the world is the moral. 750 00:41:23.989 --> 00:41:27.150 Here, folks? Is there any Christian out there listening who 751 00:41:27.190 --> 00:41:31.889 can actually tell us what the moral is? What's the moral? 752 00:41:32.469 --> 00:41:32.750 Yeah. 753 00:41:33.630 --> 00:41:37.329 I don't know if you found this interesting, too, with. again, 754 00:41:37.389 --> 00:41:40.750 not getting into specifics of candidates, but seeing so many 755 00:41:40.809 --> 00:41:44.590 people who wear their faith on their sleeve, which happens 756 00:41:44.710 --> 00:41:44.969 in the. 757 00:41:44.909 --> 00:41:45.789 World of politics. 758 00:41:46.150 --> 00:41:50.139 But the Bible verses that I see cited by some 759 00:41:50.179 --> 00:41:53.940 politicians to justify what I would consider bigotry, they always 760 00:41:54.000 --> 00:41:57.460 point to a handful of chapters, verses, whatnot. And you 761 00:41:57.519 --> 00:42:01.809 saw a very different set of of verses being quoted 762 00:42:01.829 --> 00:42:05.530 in defense of what I like, but a very different 763 00:42:05.570 --> 00:42:09.679 set of verses used by very different politicians this time around.

764 00:42:10.119 --> 00:42:12.679 And part of me just wanted to scream, like, you 765 00:42:12.739 --> 00:42:15.199 don't have to point to the verses to say this 766 00:42:15.239 --> 00:42:18.300 stuff is good because isn't this kind of the point 767 00:42:18.360 --> 00:42:20.900 atheists try to make all the time that you can 768 00:42:20.940 --> 00:42:24.469 pick and choose whatever you want to justify what it 769 00:42:24.590 --> 00:42:27.610 is you want to do? And isn't that the problem 770 00:42:27.670 --> 00:42:28.989 we want to get away from? 771 00:42:29.690 --> 00:42:32.190 And that goes to the heart of the sacrifice question. 772 00:42:32.230 --> 00:42:35.280 Like you can say that, oh, well, if you look 773 00:42:35.320 --> 00:42:38.260 to this other Bible verse, it actually justifies what it 774 00:42:38.300 --> 00:42:39.780 says in this Bible verse. 775 00:42:40.099 --> 00:42:41.059 It's like that's not. 776 00:42:40.940 --> 00:42:44.510 A game anyone should want to be playing at all 777 00:42:44.530 --> 00:42:46.889 because you're going to be able to justify anything no 778 00:42:46.909 --> 00:42:47.960 matter how horrific it is. 779 00:42:48.610 --> 00:42:54.389 Yeah, Christians do this all the time on the shows 780 00:42:54.429 --> 00:42:56.349 where you'll corner them and. 781 00:42:56.329 --> 00:42:57.969 They'll go, well, that's just metaphorical. 782 00:42:58.349 --> 00:43:01.030 Yeah, yeah, yeah. So tell me what's the objective method 783 00:43:01.050 --> 00:43:06.190 for determining what's metaphor and what isn't. Or they'll inject 784 00:43:06.250 --> 00:43:11.650 what is happening today into stuff that was going on then. 785 00:43:12.630 --> 00:43:14.570 The Bible is very clear that you need to be 786 00:43:14.610 --> 00:43:20.389 kind and to... uh the foreigners among you yeah and 787 00:43:20.409 --> 00:43:22.320 they're like well those are legal foreigners well what the 788 00:43:22.340 --> 00:43:24.159 hell is a legal foreigner back then. 789 00:43:23.940 --> 00:43:25.900 Where is that nuance in that. 790 00:43:25.820 --> 00:43:28.940 Yeah yeah there's no nuance in that it's pretty clear 791 00:43:28.960 --> 00:43:32.960 uh and also if you go back that far how 792 00:43:32.980 --> 00:43:35.590 do they determine who's a citizen or not because what 793 00:43:35.610 --> 00:43:39.309 they do take a photograph oh no they had to 794 00:43:39.389 --> 00:43:40.550 sit for a portrait and. 795 00:43:42.469 --> 00:43:45.380 Yeah, it is funny how many times I heard the 796 00:43:45.420 --> 00:43:48.519 Sermon on the Mount during the past couple of months 797 00:43:48.940 --> 00:43:52.420 when I'm so used to a politics that never mentions 798 00:43:52.480 --> 00:43:57.500 that whatsoever. But again, if you agree or disagree with 799 00:43:57.519 --> 00:44:00.440 the politics of it all, I think the takeaway there 800 00:44:00.559 --> 00:44:03.090 is if you are turning to the Bible to justify 801 00:44:03.840 --> 00:44:07.010 what you

want to do, that's not a good basis 802 00:44:07.849 --> 00:44:12.230 to have a functioning, pluralistic government of any kind. 803 00:44:12.920 --> 00:44:18.139 Yeah, you've got to have some sort of standard. You 804 00:44:18.219 --> 00:44:21.659 can't just be God's whim, because that's what it seems 805 00:44:21.679 --> 00:44:25.949 like so much. The story of Jephthah, God at a 806 00:44:25.969 --> 00:44:29.269 whim just said, okay, yeah, I will do this. He knew. 807 00:44:29.389 --> 00:44:33.710 He made the vow. He held up his end of 808 00:44:33.769 --> 00:44:40.159 the bargain, which means he knew, and he wanted Jephthah's 809 00:44:40.219 --> 00:44:46.210 daughter to burn in front of him. Mm hmm. Loving. Yeah. Yeah. 810 00:44:46.230 --> 00:44:48.849 There is no law or is. 811 00:44:48.769 --> 00:44:50.170 No hate quite like Christian love. 812 00:44:50.449 --> 00:44:53.610 I found it interesting also that we saw some states 813 00:44:53.650 --> 00:44:56.639 we have this national experiment over the past couple of 814 00:44:56.659 --> 00:45:02.139 years of what happens when, you know, reproductive rights are curtailed. 815 00:45:02.820 --> 00:45:05.559 And I've seen this on the right so much where 816 00:45:05.579 --> 00:45:07.820 they use that language of sacrifice. We don't want to 817 00:45:07.880 --> 00:45:11.039 sacrifice these fetuses. These laws have to go into effect 818 00:45:11.460 --> 00:45:13.639 and things like that. And what has happened? to the 819 00:45:13.679 --> 00:45:17.130 abortion rate, given the policies that extended from that. 820 00:45:17.210 --> 00:45:18.610 The abortion rate has gone up. 821 00:45:20.329 --> 00:45:25.780 Or people who are pregnant are put in riskier situations 822 00:45:26.639 --> 00:45:27.800 And it's not working. 823 00:45:28.019 --> 00:45:29.440 It's not even working to. 824 00:45:29.360 --> 00:45:34.659 The goal that you wanted because the policies that you 825 00:45:34.699 --> 00:45:39.610 believe stem from the Bible don't actually work in practice. Actually, 826 00:45:39.909 --> 00:45:41.929 if you wanted to achieve the goal you set out 827 00:45:41.969 --> 00:45:45.809 to achieve, you should listen to the people who support 828 00:45:45.849 --> 00:45:46.670 abortion rights. 829 00:45:47.280 --> 00:45:49.960 Because you would be closer to your goal. But that's 830 00:45:49.980 --> 00:45:50.320 the thing. 831 00:45:50.360 --> 00:45:53.179 When you're not thinking about the nuance, when you're not 832 00:45:53.219 --> 00:45:57.639 listening to the evidence or the policy experts who actually 833 00:45:57.719 --> 00:46:03.130 know a subject better than anyone else does, the consequences 834 00:46:03.349 --> 00:46:06.489 of that could be very different from what you intend. 835 00:46:07.150 --> 00:46:09.949 And I have yet to see people on the right 836 00:46:09.989 --> 00:46:14.230 truly grappling with that, at least in that situation. 837 00:46:18.250 --> 00:46:22.090 Always quote mind um the bible is is really really 838 00:46:22.130 --> 00:46:26.789 clear that uh life begins at first breath um there 839 00:46:26.849 --> 00:46:31.510 was some change around in that belief among the the 840 00:46:31.690 --> 00:46:35.099 the jewish folks uh right around jesus's time as they're 841 00:46:35.119 --> 00:46:37.960 becoming more hellenized and some of the greek ideas started 842 00:46:37.980 --> 00:46:40.599 to come in where uh first breath happened at the 843 00:46:40.619 --> 00:46:43.780 quickening the first time a woman felt uh the child 844 00:46:43.840 --> 00:46:47.679 move That was his first breath, but it was always 845 00:46:47.760 --> 00:46:52.880 in the concept of first breath. And so like the 846 00:46:52.900 --> 00:46:58.280 Jeremiah quote they use is Jeremiah bragging about himself, that 847 00:46:58.320 --> 00:47:01.650 God knew him, to which you can't really say God 848 00:47:01.690 --> 00:47:05.090 knows everybody. And even if that's true, that God knows everybody, 849 00:47:05.110 --> 00:47:06.530 that doesn't mean you're alive. 850 00:47:07.929 --> 00:47:09.989 If you have a soul and a soul is eternal. 851 00:47:10.590 --> 00:47:13.409 It is a fascinating thing, too. I'm sure you've seen 852 00:47:13.469 --> 00:47:18.440 those books written by Christian apologetics from like the early 1970s, maybe, 853 00:47:18.800 --> 00:47:22.579 where they are defending abortion. They are not making the 854 00:47:22.719 --> 00:47:25.539 arguments that you're citing right now. 855 00:47:25.639 --> 00:47:27.460 They were like, no, no, no, it's totally fine. 856 00:47:27.719 --> 00:47:30.469 And then like when you see the next revision of 857 00:47:30.510 --> 00:47:32.690 the book a few years later, when they realized it 858 00:47:32.730 --> 00:47:35.510 would be a political tool for them to say something different. 859 00:47:35.889 --> 00:47:39.869 The book's been very rewritten to just hide that sort 860 00:47:39.909 --> 00:47:43.409 of thinking whatsoever. But like, it's not like these books 861 00:47:43.449 --> 00:47:45.900 don't exist. We have copies of them. You could see 862 00:47:46.239 --> 00:47:50.739 that conservative Christians not that long ago were making these 863 00:47:50.880 --> 00:47:54.820 arguments in defense of abortion rights until they realized if 864 00:47:54.860 --> 00:47:57.559 we do the if we do the other thing, it 865 00:47:57.599 --> 00:48:00.230 could serve us well politically. And then they just decided 866 00:48:00.289 --> 00:48:02.329 to change their whole moral values. 867 00:48:02.909 --> 00:48:06.940 Well, a large part of that was a continuation of 868 00:48:07.059 --> 00:48:12.480 the Christian right being a bunch of racist bigots. That too. 869 00:48:12.719 --> 00:48:15.559 Which they also defended in the name of Jesus for 870 00:48:15.599 --> 00:48:16.440 the longest time. 871 00:48:16.460 --> 00:48:22.610 Yeah, especially if you're one particular religion centered in Utah. 872 00:48:23.050 -->

00:48:23.210 Yeah. 873 00:48:25.500 --> 00:48:27.000 I don't know what you're talking about. 874 00:48:27.460 --> 00:48:32.260 Yeah, no one does. Yeah, it's a minor one. But yeah, 875 00:48:32.559 --> 00:48:38.739 justifying racism all the way down. Just in the depictions, right? 876 00:48:38.760 --> 00:48:44.630 The most common photograph of Jesus is actually Cesare Borgia. 877 00:48:45.789 --> 00:48:50.889 The Borgia, the Pope's son. Because he thought he looked 878 00:48:50.929 --> 00:48:52.570 like Jesus because he was so gorgeous. 879 00:48:52.769 --> 00:48:54.570 You said photograph. You mean like painting? 880 00:48:54.590 --> 00:49:01.059 Yeah, painting images. The most common image of Jesus is 881 00:49:01.400 --> 00:49:10.099 Cesare Borgia. I'm sure you know, though, that Jesus was white. 882 00:49:10.739 --> 00:49:12.960 He's the only white guy in the Middle East at 883 00:49:13.000 --> 00:49:13.579 that time. 884 00:49:13.599 --> 00:49:14.320 Yeah. 885 00:49:14.360 --> 00:49:14.559 Yeah. 886 00:49:19.210 --> 00:49:23.130 Uh, this. Shroud does not remind me of someone from 887 00:49:23.150 --> 00:49:29.599 the Middle East. It reminds me of an Italian. Right. 888 00:49:30.739 --> 00:49:34.110 And it was forged there or, you know, it was 889 00:49:34.159 --> 00:49:37.250 created there in Italy as well. So it's a forgery. 890 00:49:38.949 --> 00:49:44.829 But there's just so much of that within Christianity where 891 00:49:44.869 --> 00:49:47.449 they don't take things or where they try and excuse it. 892 00:49:47.750 --> 00:49:51.969 And that's basically what apologetics is, right? If it's possible 893 00:49:52.449 --> 00:49:54.960 that this is an explanation for these two contradictory things 894 00:49:54.980 --> 00:49:58.019 that are not really contradictory, therefore it is because you 895 00:49:58.119 --> 00:50:07.280 can't actually defend these contradictory ideas. You know, the apologetics 896 00:50:07.389 --> 00:50:13.349 around Jephthah's daughter. What's their defense? It's Jephthah's fault because 897 00:50:13.389 --> 00:50:14.150 he made the bargain. 898 00:50:15.309 --> 00:50:15.889 Okay. 899 00:50:16.329 --> 00:50:20.130 I mean, that's all apologetics is. It's rationalizing things that 900 00:50:20.210 --> 00:50:21.639 should not be rationalized. 901 00:50:22.219 --> 00:50:27.639 Yeah. You know, and why did God accept this bargain? 902 00:50:28.309 --> 00:50:31.059 it makes it so, you know, and over and over again, 903 00:50:31.079 --> 00:50:33.840 this is the same question we have with all these, 904 00:50:34.079 --> 00:50:42.090 these issues with God accepting and demanding human sacrifice, um, 905 00:50:42.230 --> 00:50:44.250 and child sacrifice is the ones we've talked about the 906 00:50:44.269 --> 00:50:50.230 most so far. Um, And I don't see how anybody 907 00:50:50.250 --> 00:50:51.769 can justify this. 908 00:50:52.070 --> 00:50:55.630 Are we even talking about like just killing off all 909 00:50:55.650 --> 00:50:59.690 of humanity except for like Noah's family in order to 910 00:50:59.869 --> 00:51:03.179 cleanse us of all the sins they have committed? I mean, 911 00:51:03.909 --> 00:51:06.179 what is that if not like some sort of ritualistic 912 00:51:06.280 --> 00:51:08.980 sacrifice of humanity to start over? 913 00:51:09.199 --> 00:51:09.960 Because why not? 914 00:51:10.480 --> 00:51:11.460 Has God made a mistake? 915 00:51:11.980 --> 00:51:12.679 What? Never. 916 00:51:13.119 --> 00:51:14.219 No, that was the people. 917 00:51:14.559 --> 00:51:16.760 All the people made all their mistakes. 918 00:51:17.239 --> 00:51:19.239 And so let's just have a do-over. 919 00:51:19.260 --> 00:51:20.780 Yeah. 920 00:51:21.139 --> 00:51:21.780 But free will. 921 00:51:23.599 --> 00:51:24.219 Yeah. 922 00:51:26.300 --> 00:51:30.269 So you're basically telling us that Jephthah's daughter wanted to die? 923 00:51:31.030 --> 00:51:31.610 Wait a minute. 924 00:51:31.650 --> 00:51:36.050 Her free will was never consulted in this. This bargain 925 00:51:36.090 --> 00:51:38.829 was made. God knew it was about Jephthah's daughter. He 926 00:51:39.610 --> 00:51:40.889 knew it was going to happen. Yeah. 927 00:51:41.489 --> 00:51:44.300 Not the first time a woman's free will has been ignored. 928 00:51:49.320 --> 00:51:53.239 Yeah, somebody call in and let's talk about free will 929 00:51:53.559 --> 00:51:56.809 and how God loves free will so much that a 930 00:51:56.809 --> 00:52:01.989 person's free will is morally superior to. 931 00:52:03.590 --> 00:52:06.889 Evil being done to the person. Let's talk about that. 932 00:52:06.949 --> 00:52:10.710 Let's talk about how God ignores women's free will all 933 00:52:10.769 --> 00:52:14.949 the time. How not only does he ignore free will, 934 00:52:14.989 --> 00:52:18.340 but let's talk about how he actually punishes women. for 935 00:52:18.360 --> 00:52:21.179 having their free will violated, and then he goes ahead 936 00:52:21.239 --> 00:52:23.969 and violates their free will again and punishes them all 937 00:52:23.989 --> 00:52:24.570 at the same time. 938 00:52:25.070 --> 00:52:26.550 Let's go ahead and have that conversation, folks. 939 00:52:26.780 --> 00:52:32.489 I'm always fascinated, especially in recent years, how many women online, 940 00:52:33.730 --> 00:52:37.400 conservative Christian women, have spoken up in defense of of 941 00:52:37.599 --> 00:52:39.420 all the things you were talking about. 942 00:52:39.440 --> 00:52:43.039 Um, because they don't know, they don't know. 943 00:52:43.280 --> 00:52:46.530 The, in that sense, the, the fact that they're on 944 00:52:46.550 --> 00:52:49.309 social media saying like, Hey, God wants us to be 945 00:52:49.349 --> 00:52:53.369 silent when it comes to this stuff, or God wants 946 00:52:53.469 --> 00:52:56.869 us to crank out babies and not have any career 947 00:52:56.929 --> 00:52:58.320 of our own or whatnot. 948 00:52:59.119 --> 00:53:00.400 Um, it is God. 949

00:53:00.639 --> 00:53:04.380 That is what God wants, right? Cause women are property. 950 00:53:05.570 --> 00:53:06.829 This is fundamental. 951 00:53:06.929 --> 00:53:09.460 For them to defend it the way that they do, 952 00:53:09.480 --> 00:53:10.900 the ways that they do, is. 953 00:53:13.090 --> 00:53:13.489 I don't know. 954 00:53:13.510 --> 00:53:16.170 I know that's not a new phenomenon, but the way 955 00:53:16.670 --> 00:53:19.469 I've seen so many people do that has been wild 956 00:53:19.630 --> 00:53:20.510 to watch online. 957 00:53:21.170 --> 00:53:24.119 Uh, we had a caller, um, a couple of months ago. 958 00:53:24.139 --> 00:53:29.039 Um, it was a, it was a couple and we 959 00:53:29.079 --> 00:53:33.780 got onto the topic of slavery and we quoted, it was, 960 00:53:33.820 --> 00:53:36.039 I think it was John Gleason and I, um, but 961 00:53:36.059 --> 00:53:39.500 we quoted them that the line about, uh, selling their 962 00:53:39.539 --> 00:53:43.630 daughter into slavery, uh, And you can hear on the 963 00:53:43.690 --> 00:53:46.610 line them thinking this through and going, yes, yes, I would. 964 00:53:47.449 --> 00:53:49.010 Oh, really? 965 00:53:49.030 --> 00:53:51.809 Came to that decision a little quickly. 966 00:53:51.829 --> 00:53:54.989 It wasn't as quick as you would have thought. There 967 00:53:55.010 --> 00:54:01.659 were several seconds of silence. There is some suspicion among 968 00:54:01.679 --> 00:54:03.260 some folks, if you read the comments, that they might 969 00:54:03.280 --> 00:54:03.800 have been drunk. 970 00:54:05.500 --> 00:54:06.679 That makes it sound like they were. 971 00:54:07.929 --> 00:54:11.469 Best case scenario there, they were literally thinking this one 972 00:54:11.510 --> 00:54:15.369 through for the first time and then coming to the conclusion, yeah, 973 00:54:15.389 --> 00:54:18.340 I do think that would be the moral thing to do. 974 00:54:18.860 --> 00:54:21.420 Their conclusion was that their daughter would be worth enough 975 00:54:21.480 --> 00:54:23.760 that she would get married to a rich guy and 976 00:54:23.800 --> 00:54:30.440 she'd have her life made. Uh-huh. Wow. 977 00:54:31.800 --> 00:54:34.360 And nothing would dissuade them from the fact they were monsters. 978 00:54:34.679 --> 00:54:37.920 Yikes. And this is the same kind of thing here, right? 979 00:54:38.019 --> 00:54:42.199 Where Jephthah's daughter is like, yeah, okay, you made this bargain. 980 00:54:42.219 --> 00:54:44.050 I'm not particularly happy with it. I want to take 981 00:54:44.070 --> 00:54:48.130 some time to make myself ready for this. 982 00:54:48.230 --> 00:54:50.849 But yeah, I would like to not be burned alive. 983 00:54:51.409 --> 00:54:53.789 You've got to think, well, you know, that was something 984 00:54:53.829 --> 00:54:58.170 like that was going through her mind. Right. But no, he, 985 00:54:58.190 --> 00:55:02.349 you know, she is property. She's a child. She's female. 986 00:55:02.409 --> 00:55:08.280 She is property. Yeah. And she was born to do this. 987 00:55:08.889 --> 00:55:14.730 She was born to be a slave. Love to see 988 00:55:15.050 --> 00:55:16.849 my girlfriend's dad try that with her. 989 00:55:20.619 --> 00:55:20.880 Yeah. 990 00:55:21.119 --> 00:55:25.400 There are people online, especially, I mean, there are accounts 991 00:55:25.780 --> 00:55:29.199 dedicated to promoting that point of view. There are There 992 00:55:29.219 --> 00:55:32.760 are subreddits dedicated to pointing out that these people are 993 00:55:32.800 --> 00:55:36.429 saying that stuff online. But the amazing thing is how 994 00:55:36.469 --> 00:55:39.389 many people who clearly, I mean, it's not like they 995 00:55:39.429 --> 00:55:42.369 went to seminary and now they can be the apologetics 996 00:55:42.429 --> 00:55:45.250 in defense of it. They're just raised to believe this 997 00:55:45.289 --> 00:55:48.730 is the right thing to do. And watching them try 998 00:55:48.769 --> 00:55:53.340 to defend this idea that is ridiculous and in an 999 00:55:53.420 --> 00:55:56.260 age where you can comment online and respond to them 1000 00:55:56.300 --> 00:55:58.230 and tell them how ridiculous it is, and yet they, 1001 00:55:58.510 --> 00:56:00.329 what do they do? They're not going to be like, oh, 1002 00:56:00.469 --> 00:56:02.570 you have a point, I'm wrong. No, they're going to 1003 00:56:02.630 --> 00:56:07.469 double down on this crazy idea, watching people do it 1004 00:56:07.570 --> 00:56:09.670 and try to figure it out when they don't have 1005 00:56:10.030 --> 00:56:14.530 the debate experience, they don't have any critical thinking skills 1006 00:56:14.570 --> 00:56:18.699 developed after years of doing this is amazing because I 1007 00:56:18.800 --> 00:56:21.599 think for a lot of these people, they kind of 1008 00:56:21.619 --> 00:56:24.260 know the commenters have a point and they're doing their 1009 00:56:24.300 --> 00:56:29.099 best to justify these ideas that women should be subservient 1010 00:56:29.139 --> 00:56:33.360 or silent or whatever. And it sometimes feels like their 1011 00:56:33.400 --> 00:56:36.179 hearts are not in it, but they're doing it anyway 1012 00:56:36.199 --> 00:56:38.500 because they believe it's the right thing to do. And 1013 00:56:38.539 --> 00:56:42.500 you wonder where that logic goes in more serious situations. 1014 00:56:43.099 --> 00:56:45.900 Yeah, and especially when it's a, they had never heard 1015 00:56:45.920 --> 00:56:48.820 that verse. They didn't know that. 1016 00:56:50.449 --> 00:56:52.090 You never got to that chapter at church? 1017 00:56:52.789 --> 00:56:56.389 No, because churches don't teach it, right? Churches only teach 1018 00:56:56.429 --> 00:56:59.869 the lovey-fluffy stuff. They don't teach the hardcore stuff. They 1019 00:56:59.909 --> 00:57:03.239 don't teach the stuff that will make you question whether 1020 00:57:03.280 --> 00:57:05.519 or not God is actually moral. They don't

teach any 1021 00:57:05.539 --> 00:57:10.480 of that because that's verboten. You never hear any apologist 1022 00:57:10.519 --> 00:57:15.130 talk about it. And so when an atheist says, well, 1023 00:57:15.309 --> 00:57:17.449 here it is in your book, here it is in 1024 00:57:17.469 --> 00:57:22.420 black and white, they don't have anywhere to go. And 1025 00:57:22.460 --> 00:57:24.260 this isn't the only time this has happened. This is 1026 00:57:24.300 --> 00:57:28.619 just the most recent time somebody has said this. Yeah, 1027 00:57:28.659 --> 00:57:32.179 slavery is okay because God says it's okay. It's okay 1028 00:57:32.199 --> 00:57:33.960 to beat your slaves as long as they don't die 1029 00:57:34.000 --> 00:57:37.039 within three days because they are your silver. 1030 00:57:37.659 --> 00:57:38.280 I mean, that's a. 1031 00:57:38.320 --> 00:57:45.090 Literal translation of the Jewish there is silver or money 1032 00:57:45.570 --> 00:57:49.289 or property. And how many Christians have you said that 1033 00:57:50.050 --> 00:57:54.570 the Bible doesn't have slavery? You know, does it have 1034 00:57:54.800 --> 00:57:55.360 as property? 1035 00:57:56.139 --> 00:57:59.679 Yeah, here you go. Here's the verse. But they've never 1036 00:57:59.719 --> 00:57:59.980 read it. 1037 00:58:00.460 --> 00:58:01.679 They haven't read these. 1038 00:58:01.920 --> 00:58:05.230 And you're talking about, you know, it's not a cherry 1039 00:58:05.269 --> 00:58:08.409 picked verse. Do you want to read multiple verses that 1040 00:58:08.469 --> 00:58:10.730 say the same thing? You want to read the entire section? 1041 00:58:10.829 --> 00:58:13.440 It's not like it's being taken out of context to 1042 00:58:13.480 --> 00:58:14.380 make you look bad. 1043 00:58:14.940 --> 00:58:16.440 Like, no, it's it's just bad. 1044 00:58:16.460 --> 00:58:19.659 Yeah. Yeah, you're talking about the person who said, well, 1045 00:58:19.719 --> 00:58:22.570 I never really thought about this verse. You know, when 1046 00:58:22.610 --> 00:58:25.949 you were doing it, reading the first five books of 1047 00:58:25.969 --> 00:58:29.190 the Old Testament, that person who wrote to you said, hey, 1048 00:58:29.650 --> 00:58:31.809 I'd really thought about it this way. It's not even 1049 00:58:31.849 --> 00:58:35.030 that is they have never read it because. How do 1050 00:58:35.090 --> 00:58:38.260 you take the story of Jephthah and read it any 1051 00:58:38.360 --> 00:58:39.010 other way? 1052 00:58:40.239 --> 00:58:40.619 Right. 1053 00:58:40.639 --> 00:58:43.960 I mean, they've been on their entire lives being told, 1054 00:58:44.079 --> 00:58:47.239 these are the stories you should know from the Bible 1055 00:58:47.400 --> 00:58:51.579 in these areas and actually going through it and reading 1056 00:58:51.639 --> 00:58:53.840 the parts that are not as popular, that are not 1057 00:58:53.980 --> 00:58:58.340 as quotable and realizing how much bunk there is in it, 1058 00:58:58.409 -->

00:59:01.010 how much garbage and how many things contradict the other things. 1059 00:59:01.650 --> 00:59:04.480 When someone points that out to you, for the first time, 1060 00:59:04.860 --> 00:59:08.030 and you get a chance to see for yourself that 1061 00:59:08.070 --> 00:59:10.969 the things you were taught, I mean, they're contradicted by 1062 00:59:11.010 --> 00:59:13.369 the things you were not taught from the same book. 1063 00:59:13.960 --> 00:59:15.179 It can be eye opening. 1064 00:59:15.360 --> 00:59:18.019 And, you know, we both know plenty of atheists who 1065 00:59:18.059 --> 00:59:22.289 have gone through that experience and started to doubt and 1066 00:59:22.329 --> 00:59:25.590 started to question. Maybe I wasn't told the full story here. 1067 00:59:25.630 --> 00:59:29.010 Maybe I want to dig deeper myself and figure out 1068 00:59:29.449 --> 00:59:32.840 what else I have not been told. I mean, it's 1069 00:59:32.880 --> 00:59:35.559 a hard thing to go through, but that's what we want. 1070 00:59:35.400 --> 00:59:37.860 People to do. Go read it for yourself. Go figure 1071 00:59:37.900 --> 00:59:38.599 this stuff out. 1072 00:59:38.920 --> 00:59:41.099 Go listen to people who might offer you an opinion, 1073 00:59:41.980 --> 00:59:44.119 commentary that you're not used to hearing. 1074 00:59:46.670 --> 00:59:50.469 Or just read it and think about it in context 1075 00:59:50.889 --> 00:59:54.710 and don't make an assumption that this is going to 1076 00:59:54.889 --> 00:59:58.230 prove that God is good. Don't read it and try 1077 00:59:58.610 --> 01:00:03.369 with any assumptions. Read this, you know, and look at 1078 01:00:03.409 --> 01:00:04.530 what it actually says. 1079 01:00:04.550 --> 01:00:06.739 Yeah, if you read the Bible the way you would 1080 01:00:06.780 --> 01:00:09.860 read a book you've never read before, without those assumptions, 1081 01:00:09.920 --> 01:00:13.780 like you're saying, without thinking everything that's in here is 1082 01:00:13.880 --> 01:00:17.460 God teaching me a moral lesson, and just, no, it's 1083 01:00:17.500 --> 01:00:17.940 a book. 1084 01:00:18.460 --> 01:00:19.670 It has stories in it. 1085 01:00:19.820 --> 01:00:22.519 There are good stories, there are bad stories. You can 1086 01:00:22.559 --> 01:00:25.110 decide what you're going to do with that information. If 1087 01:00:25.130 --> 01:00:28.190 you read it with fresh eyes that way, There's a 1088 01:00:28.289 --> 01:00:30.739 lot you can learn from, I mean, from any book, 1089 01:00:30.820 --> 01:00:32.480 but you could learn that from the Bible too. 1090 01:00:32.500 --> 01:00:37.380 Yeah. Um, you can learn all kinds of strange things 1091 01:00:37.619 --> 01:00:40.909 from the Bible. Um, you know, and the strangest one 1092 01:00:40.969 --> 01:00:43.809 is of course the, you know, we touched on earlier 1093 01:00:43.849 --> 01:00:48.639 is the story of Jesus Christ himself. Yeah. Um, You know, 1094 01:00:48.659 --> 01:00:50.380 you really want to piss Christians off. You can run 1095 01:00:50.420 --> 01:00:53.780 this argument by them. God is omnipotent. So he could 1096 01:00:53.800 --> 01:00:57.079 have made the universe different, but he did not. God 1097 01:00:57.139 --> 01:01:00.579 is omniscient. So he knows what's going to happen. But 1098 01:01:00.840 --> 01:01:03.380 after he creates the universe in this way, he knows 1099 01:01:03.400 --> 01:01:06.380 he's going to have to sacrifice his son. He knows 1100 01:01:06.420 --> 01:01:10.119 this because he's omniscient. So what's the moral here? God 1101 01:01:10.239 --> 01:01:13.530 made the universe so he could kill his son. Or 1102 01:01:13.570 --> 01:01:15.699 are you going to claim that God is not omniscient 1103 01:01:16.079 --> 01:01:19.340 or God is not omnipotent and everyone's going to scream 1104 01:01:19.440 --> 01:01:22.880 free will? Well, if the only way God can do 1105 01:01:22.960 --> 01:01:26.869 moral things is by violating or enforces morals is by 1106 01:01:26.929 --> 01:01:29.650 violating free will, he's not omnipotent. 1107 01:01:30.889 --> 01:01:33.409 If God doesn't know any other way. 1108 01:01:33.570 --> 01:01:36.630 But to violate someone's free will to force people to 1109 01:01:36.710 --> 01:01:40.949 do moral things, then he's not omniscient. And he certainly 1110 01:01:41.010 --> 01:01:44.230 as hell isn't moral if he built the universe just 1111 01:01:44.250 --> 01:01:46.869 to sacrifice his son. I don't see how you'd come 1112 01:01:46.909 --> 01:01:49.590 to any other conclusion other than God created. 1113 01:01:49.369 --> 01:01:51.010 The universe to sacrifice his son. 1114 01:01:51.550 --> 01:01:53.699 And not even sacrifice his son, send his son to 1115 01:01:53.739 --> 01:01:57.340 hell for three days. Right. It's not even a sacrifice. 1116 01:01:57.960 --> 01:01:59.920 And by the way, what you just mentioned is it's 1117 01:02:00.000 --> 01:02:02.539 not like no one's thought of that one before, and 1118 01:02:02.559 --> 01:02:04.340 I mean that in the best way. This is kind 1119 01:02:04.420 --> 01:02:11.179 of bottom... This is easy criticism that it fails the 1120 01:02:11.280 --> 01:02:16.449 simplest analysis of that part of the Bible. There is 1121 01:02:16.530 --> 01:02:18.789 contradictions happening, and it's not like you have to dig 1122 01:02:18.809 --> 01:02:23.030 deep to find them. That's a pretty obvious one superficially, 1123 01:02:23.630 --> 01:02:26.679 and yet... For the people who have never thought about 1124 01:02:26.719 --> 01:02:29.989 that story that way, that is a tough one for 1125 01:02:30.030 --> 01:02:30.969 them to figure out. 1126 01:02:31.070 --> 01:02:32.349 How do you reconcile all that? 1127 01:02:32.989 --> 01:02:37.110 And, you know, talking about contradictions, Jesus said he came 1128 01:02:37.130 --> 01:02:39.179 to fulfill the law. He did not come to change 1129 01:02:39.219 --> 01:02:42.519 the law. Not one jot, not one tittle.

Now, you 1130 01:02:42.539 --> 01:02:44.320 want to have some real fun? Make that quote to 1131 01:02:44.340 --> 01:02:47.239 somebody and ask them what jot and tittle mean. Not 1132 01:02:47.380 --> 01:02:49.760 one word, not one stroke of the pen. That's what 1133 01:02:49.800 --> 01:02:50.579 jot and tittle means. 1134 01:02:51.000 --> 01:02:51.300 Okay. 1135 01:02:52.389 --> 01:03:02.550 But they don't know that. The law says things are bad, 1136 01:03:02.570 --> 01:03:08.989 that you sacrifice your firstborn son as a burnt offering 1137 01:03:09.030 --> 01:03:09.630 to God. 1138 01:03:09.860 --> 01:03:10.780 That's the law. 1139 01:03:10.800 --> 01:03:15.340 You still have to do that. Or do you follow 1140 01:03:15.420 --> 01:03:19.570 Paul who said that Jesus came first? to erase the 1141 01:03:19.610 --> 01:03:22.360 law and to give us a new law and why 1142 01:03:22.389 --> 01:03:23.840 do you have to give us a new law because 1143 01:03:23.880 --> 01:03:26.539 not even the old testament the bible keeps this sacrifice 1144 01:03:26.559 --> 01:03:29.159 the firstborn playing around for very long right there are 1145 01:03:29.179 --> 01:03:32.039 ways to redeem the firstborn um. 1146 01:03:32.619 --> 01:03:35.659 I do find it interesting there's it's not like you're 1147 01:03:36.920 --> 01:03:39.860 going after, oh, well, it's the Old Testament. They have 1148 01:03:39.880 --> 01:03:42.400 a lot of crazy stuff in there. No, you can 1149 01:03:42.440 --> 01:03:44.820 go anywhere in the book. You're talking about New Testament 1150 01:03:44.860 --> 01:03:48.230 stuff right now because it's all over the place. This 1151 01:03:48.349 --> 01:03:53.010 idea of sacrifice and the idea that sacrifice in the 1152 01:03:53.050 --> 01:03:58.090 Bible is legitimate. It's part of a good trend or 1153 01:03:58.130 --> 01:04:01.090 something like that. It's all over the place. I hear 1154 01:04:01.139 --> 01:04:04.909 this sometimes from politicians who are like, well, you're picking 1155 01:04:04.949 --> 01:04:07.469 a horrible verse, but it's only in the Old Testament. 1156 01:04:07.510 --> 01:04:12.539 Jesus is here to allow us to ignore all that stuff. 1157 01:04:12.940 --> 01:04:15.590 It's like, well, no, here's sacrifice in the New Testament, too. 1158 01:04:15.650 --> 01:04:16.610 It's right up front there. 1159 01:04:17.070 --> 01:04:17.969 It's not any better. 1160 01:04:18.610 --> 01:04:19.650 No, no, it's not. 1161 01:04:20.090 --> 01:04:24.210 Jesus himself is the sacrifice. And it is required. 1162 01:04:24.269 --> 01:04:25.530 It is a blood sacrifice. 1163 01:04:25.550 --> 01:04:27.019 So you can't get away from that. 1164 01:04:27.079 --> 01:04:27.519 And that is. 1165 01:04:27.500 --> 01:04:32.460 Required by law, by the Old Testament law. So you 1166 01:04:32.500 --> 01:04:34.860 still can't get away. Yeah, you cannot get away from 1167 01:04:34.920 --> 01:04:41.280 this idea. that sacrifice is something that is necessary. And 1168 01:04:41.320 --> 01:04:43.980 let's talk about the harm of this idea that sacrifice 1169 01:04:44.059 --> 01:04:47.570 is necessary for any relationship. If you're in a relationship 1170 01:04:47.610 --> 01:04:52.309 where you're sacrificing anything to the relationship, get out of 1171 01:04:52.329 --> 01:04:56.610 the relationship. Right. Right? That is not a good relationship. 1172 01:04:56.630 --> 01:04:59.690 If someone is constantly making demands that go against your 1173 01:04:59.750 --> 01:05:03.590 best interests, why are you, I mean, as hard as 1174 01:05:03.679 --> 01:05:08.030 it may be, It's for your benefit to leave that relationship. 1175 01:05:09.309 --> 01:05:10.349 Everything should be. 1176 01:05:10.369 --> 01:05:15.800 I had my sister had a boyfriend who made a 1177 01:05:15.860 --> 01:05:18.440 sacrifice to go to the opera because she was working 1178 01:05:19.440 --> 01:05:22.909 for the opera and enjoyed opera. And I was like, 1179 01:05:23.010 --> 01:05:26.010 I don't understand why he calls it making a sacrifice. 1180 01:05:27.440 --> 01:05:30.739 This was something that my sister enjoyed doing. So go 1181 01:05:30.840 --> 01:05:34.099 do it with her and enjoy being with her. Don't 1182 01:05:34.139 --> 01:05:38.260 make it a sacrifice. This is your mind saying, well, 1183 01:05:38.280 --> 01:05:40.730 I don't want to do this, but I have to. 1184 01:05:40.829 --> 01:05:41.650 No, no, you don't. 1185 01:05:42.769 --> 01:05:44.409 You should want to do it to be with your 1186 01:05:44.429 --> 01:05:49.199 partner and to help them enjoy life. Right. Because things 1187 01:05:49.260 --> 01:05:52.460 are better when they're enjoyed together, even if you... And 1188 01:05:52.480 --> 01:05:56.000 that's not a sacrifice. That's called being a partner in 1189 01:05:56.019 --> 01:05:57.159 a relationship. Yeah. 1190 01:05:57.239 --> 01:05:59.550 I mean, what is having a partner? It's you can 1191 01:05:59.590 --> 01:06:00.449 give up some stuff. 1192 01:06:01.050 --> 01:06:04.090 that you want to do it for the betterment because 1193 01:06:04.130 --> 01:06:08.550 it's what your partner wants, something like that. That's a relationship. Hopefully, though, 1194 01:06:09.289 --> 01:06:12.250 it goes both ways. And the other person is also 1195 01:06:12.289 --> 01:06:14.469 doing things for you in the same way. What we're 1196 01:06:14.510 --> 01:06:18.230 seeing in the Bible is that sort of transaction only 1197 01:06:18.289 --> 01:06:21.630 goes in one direction. And that's the I mean, and 1198 01:06:21.670 --> 01:06:25.250 also the sacrifices we're talking about are obviously far more extreme, 1199 01:06:25.650 --> 01:06:27.349 but it only goes in one direction. 1200 01:06:27.869 --> 01:06:30.340 It's not a mutually beneficial relationship right there. 1201 01:06:30.869 --> 01:06:35.019 Yeah, well, you're talking about sacrifices that go one direction. 1202 01:06:35.019 --> 01:06:41.599 2 Kings 3, chapter 3, verse 27, Mesh's

sacrifice works. 1203 01:06:43.000 --> 01:06:47.130 The context is you've got Israel, Judah, and Edom acting 1204 01:06:47.170 --> 01:06:49.630 on a prophecy from Elisha that the Lord will hand 1205 01:06:49.670 --> 01:06:54.780 Moab over. So the coalition besieges the king of Moab. 1206 01:06:55.809 --> 01:06:59.889 And as defeat looks certain, the king, Moab, offers his 1207 01:06:59.929 --> 01:07:02.460 firstborn heir as a burnt offering on the city wall. 1208 01:07:03.420 --> 01:07:05.679 And all of a sudden, the Israelites have to withdraw 1209 01:07:05.719 --> 01:07:13.460 because great wrath falls upon them. Yeah, that's the universe acting. 1210 01:07:13.739 --> 01:07:19.269 That's God acting as a vending machine, right? Give me 1211 01:07:19.349 --> 01:07:26.639 horror and torture and... horrifying smells and screams and I 1212 01:07:26.659 --> 01:07:30.340 will defeat your enemies for you. Right. That is not 1213 01:07:31.099 --> 01:07:34.719 a good thing. That is, that is, that's all these 1214 01:07:34.760 --> 01:07:38.989 sacrifices are, right? Are treating God like a vending machine 1215 01:07:39.409 --> 01:07:42.809 and God offering himself to be a vending machine. 1216 01:07:44.409 --> 01:07:46.090 He's got to have his blood lust. 1217 01:07:46.679 --> 01:07:53.679 Yeah. At least sex work is honest. doing things for 1218 01:07:54.059 --> 01:07:59.420 blood sacrifice, for burnt offerings, somehow or other strikes me 1219 01:07:59.440 --> 01:08:03.500 as considerably worse than anything that a sex worker does. 1220 01:08:05.239 --> 01:08:10.230 As long as it's not the same thing, right? 1221 01:08:10.269 --> 01:08:12.190 It keeps following this pattern, right? 1222 01:08:12.230 --> 01:08:15.929 Every time we look at these sacrifices, it is treating 1223 01:08:16.010 --> 01:08:21.260 God as just a vending machine. You put burning flesh in, 1224 01:08:21.279 --> 01:08:25.560 you get fire and brimstone out, you get a nuclear 1225 01:08:25.600 --> 01:08:28.199 weapon out of it. What? Right. 1226 01:08:28.220 --> 01:08:29.600 Yeah, what you want. 1227 01:08:29.659 --> 01:08:33.850 You sacrifice what means anything to you. Like, that's not 1228 01:08:33.859 --> 01:08:35.649 a good moral takeaway from any book. 1229 01:08:36.310 --> 01:08:39.130 No, no, the universe is not a vending machine. It 1230 01:08:39.170 --> 01:08:41.430 does not care if we live or die. 99.99999% of 1231 01:08:41.449 --> 01:08:42.149 it will kill us. Mm-hmm. 1232 01:08:49.449 --> 01:08:51.069 You're not coming back after three days. 1233 01:08:51.779 --> 01:08:53.380 No, no, no one is. 1234 01:08:53.399 --> 01:08:55.880 And that's the thing, too, about, you know, we talk 1235 01:08:55.899 --> 01:08:59.970 about Jesus' sacrifice. He sacrificed three days. Technically two days. 1236 01:09:00.180 --> 01:09:03.000 right it's actually two days i mean the travel is 1237 01:09:03.020 --> 01:09:07.539 a lot no no uh down below the cross back 1238 01:09:07.640 --> 01:09:08.859 up right yeah. 1239 01:09:08.840 --> 01:09:13.300 Um yeah what's the saying like he had a really 1240 01:09:13.340 --> 01:09:15.380 horrible weekend for your sins. 1241 01:09:15.659 --> 01:09:19.899 Yeah and that's exactly what it is um Okay, he 1242 01:09:19.920 --> 01:09:22.659 didn't come back with his earthly body. Do we know that? 1243 01:09:22.680 --> 01:09:29.510 Because we didn't find a body. So, yeah, and it 1244 01:09:29.550 --> 01:09:33.850 wasn't three full days. It was two days. And, yes, 1245 01:09:33.869 --> 01:09:35.970 there are apologetics that say two days is just like 1246 01:09:35.989 --> 01:09:40.449 three days, but none of those apologetics work because in 1247 01:09:40.489 --> 01:09:44.159 the case where you can count two days as three, 1248 01:09:44.899 --> 01:09:49.289 this doesn't apply. There are certain cases where– Depending on 1249 01:09:49.350 --> 01:09:52.430 when it starts, it could be, they're not talking about 1250 01:09:52.430 --> 01:09:56.890 72 hours in all cases. Sometimes when they say two days, 1251 01:09:56.930 --> 01:10:03.630 they just mean two 12-hour periods of sunlight. So it's 1252 01:10:03.670 --> 01:10:05.670 not three days, it's two days. It's a day in 1253 01:10:05.689 --> 01:10:10.350 a wake-up, being uncomfortable at best. You know, I don't 1254 01:10:10.390 --> 01:10:14.930 see the denizens of hell necessarily torturing Jesus necessarily. um 1255 01:10:15.350 --> 01:10:17.270 why would jesus put up with that why would god 1256 01:10:17.310 --> 01:10:21.720 put up with that um he had to make yeah 1257 01:10:22.000 --> 01:10:24.420 yeah yeah let's get this guy out of here he's 1258 01:10:24.439 --> 01:10:26.439 gonna be hard he's gonna be easy on the population 1259 01:10:27.279 --> 01:10:34.170 yeah oh yeah none of this stuff makes sense. 1260 01:10:34.670 --> 01:10:36.130 And no one wants to defend it. 1261 01:10:36.670 --> 01:10:39.930 Yeah that's kind of the weird thing um Where are 1262 01:10:40.029 --> 01:10:45.770 our Christians? I mean, I got about 15 minutes left. Um, 1263 01:10:46.550 --> 01:10:50.960 does it make, is anybody in chat want to call on? 1264 01:10:51.220 --> 01:10:54.939 I'm curious, like without getting into specifics again, I'm curious 1265 01:10:54.979 --> 01:10:59.119 how you think this manifests in our world today in 1266 01:10:59.140 --> 01:11:01.060 the sense of the sacrifice. We talked about the blood 1267 01:11:01.500 --> 01:11:06.159 transfusion issue. We talked about, uh, abortion rights, things like that. 1268 01:11:06.180 --> 01:11:08.399 But like, where do you see this playing out for 1269 01:11:08.439 --> 01:11:13.289 people who believe that these sacrifices were happening and that 1270 01:11:13.569 --> 01:11:16.109 it's a moral lesson that we got to listen to God? 1271 01:11:16.130 --> 01:11:19.390 How do you see that playing out these days among 1272 01:11:19.449 --> 01:11:21.989 the zealots, among the people who really do believe this 1273

01:11:22.050 --> 01:11:24.689 is all good? We have to take away moral lessons 1274 01:11:24.789 --> 01:11:25.210 from this. 1275 01:11:25.229 --> 01:11:27.890 Yeah, I think that they're on their way out. I 1276 01:11:27.930 --> 01:11:32.229 think what we're hearing is the last gasp Um, and 1277 01:11:32.310 --> 01:11:36.069 also a lot of the Christian right have been working 1278 01:11:36.109 --> 01:11:38.770 for a couple of decades to get themselves into power. 1279 01:11:39.510 --> 01:11:43.390 And I think they are the minority of Christians, honestly, 1280 01:11:43.949 --> 01:11:47.229 given what happened Tuesday. Yeah. 1281 01:11:47.729 --> 01:11:49.949 Um, they are in the minority. 1282 01:11:50.350 --> 01:11:51.569 They're a very loud. 1283 01:11:51.829 --> 01:11:52.050 Yeah. 1284 01:11:52.109 --> 01:11:54.229 They're a very vocal minority. 1285 01:11:54.260 --> 01:11:57.869 And I, um, I hope one of the things people 1286 01:11:57.909 --> 01:12:01.500 take away from, I mean, the recent elections, but also 1287 01:12:01.539 --> 01:12:04.920 just the way everything's been going in the United States. 1288 01:12:05.770 --> 01:12:09.829 is that, listen, you can use Christianity to do a 1289 01:12:09.909 --> 01:12:12.789 lot of good things if you want to. And there 1290 01:12:12.869 --> 01:12:15.189 are people you could listen to, including, by the way, 1291 01:12:15.250 --> 01:12:19.510 like seminarians and megachurch pastors who can lead the way 1292 01:12:20.010 --> 01:12:23.069 for the people who believe that stuff and urge them 1293 01:12:23.130 --> 01:12:25.510 to do good, which is to say there are ways 1294 01:12:25.630 --> 01:12:28.840 to interpret the Bible in a way that actually helps people, 1295 01:12:28.899 --> 01:12:30.020 including people who don't. 1296 01:12:29.949 --> 01:12:31.020 Share your beliefs. 1297 01:12:31.840 --> 01:12:36.800 And I wonder if knowing that There are actually people 1298 01:12:36.819 --> 01:12:39.020 who believe that stuff, and there are a lot of them. 1299 01:12:39.479 --> 01:12:42.460 And if you only watch the news, you might get 1300 01:12:42.520 --> 01:12:46.319 the sense that there is one type of Christianity. And 1301 01:12:46.359 --> 01:12:49.079 of course, that would be wrong. But I wonder if 1302 01:12:49.140 --> 01:12:53.500 it'll embolden the people who see the Bible as metaphorical, 1303 01:12:53.939 --> 01:12:57.359 who can look to those other stories that offer a 1304 01:12:57.380 --> 01:13:02.020 little more nuance or who censure helping the poor, the 1305 01:13:02.060 --> 01:13:02.899 least of these people. 1306 01:13:03.550 --> 01:13:05.550 I think that's who showed up. 1307 01:13:06.149 --> 01:13:08.250 That's who showed up, yeah, this week for sure. 1308 01:13:08.270 --> 01:13:13.220 And I wonder if the majority of Christians who actually 1309 01:13:13.350 --> 01:13:17.880 share those views realize, oh, we could have this sort 1310 01:13:17.899 --> 01:13:21.659 of power too. And I do wonder, and this is 1311 01:13:21.880 --> 01:13:25.819 a long-term thing I've been thinking about, what happens if 1312 01:13:26.039 --> 01:13:30.960 that version of Christianity becomes dominant in our politics instead 1313 01:13:30.979 --> 01:13:32.880 of the version we have been seeing over the. 1314 01:13:32.859 --> 01:13:33.920 Past couple of decades? 1315 01:13:34.760 --> 01:13:38.619 I mean, what does that do to the apologetics arguments, 1316 01:13:38.699 --> 01:13:41.140 the atheism of it all? But also, what does it 1317 01:13:41.159 --> 01:13:44.869 do for the country if you have voices like that 1318 01:13:45.369 --> 01:13:49.970 representing Christianity in a way that is not odious, which 1319 01:13:50.029 --> 01:13:53.630 is all we've seen from our politics for so many years? 1320 01:13:53.649 --> 01:13:57.180 Yeah, I think that's what came out. I think finally 1321 01:13:57.260 --> 01:13:58.520 they saw. 1322 01:13:59.840 --> 01:14:02.380 Trump... I shouldn't have said the name. 1323 01:14:02.579 --> 01:14:07.060 Anyway, they saw... Someone being lauded. Yeah. 1324 01:14:07.090 --> 01:14:13.710 They saw someone being lauded and as being a. 1325 01:14:14.069 --> 01:14:15.869 Voice in the wilderness, so to speak. 1326 01:14:16.189 --> 01:14:20.260 Yeah. And who was saying very unchristian things and doing 1327 01:14:20.439 --> 01:14:22.000 very unchristian things. 1328 01:14:22.159 --> 01:14:24.159 This to me, it's not just a one person thing, 1329 01:14:24.199 --> 01:14:27.100 but this has been the dominant storyline for the past 1330 01:14:27.140 --> 01:14:30.199 couple of years, which is this idea that There is 1331 01:14:30.239 --> 01:14:35.130 a discrepancy between the values that conservative Christians claim to 1332 01:14:35.189 --> 01:14:38.659 represent this moral world that they want to see and 1333 01:14:38.720 --> 01:14:41.920 the people they support, politically speaking. 1334 01:14:42.279 --> 01:14:43.079 And for once. 1335 01:14:43.789 --> 01:14:46.039 you actually saw a lot of people running on the 1336 01:14:46.119 --> 01:14:48.380 idea that they are people of faith, not even the 1337 01:14:48.420 --> 01:14:51.260 Christian faith, by the way, people of Muslim faith over 1338 01:14:51.279 --> 01:14:54.409 the past year who are saying like, no, my values, 1339 01:14:54.590 --> 01:14:58.170 my religious faith, it does not lead me to the 1340 01:14:58.229 --> 01:15:01.050 same ends that we are used to seeing in our politics. 1341 01:15:01.810 --> 01:15:03.909 And I have some more nuance. 1342 01:15:04.090 --> 01:15:07.329 I can read those stories a different way than you're 1343 01:15:07.430 --> 01:15:10.590 used to hearing about. And for the people who share 1344 01:15:10.630 --> 01:15:13.350 their views to say like, yep, that's how I see 1345 01:15:13.409 --> 01:15:14.970 it too, that to. 1346 01:15:14.949 --> 01:15:17.520 Me is a fascinating difference. 1347 01:15:17.569 --> 01:15:19.640 And I've also seen a lot of

atheist groups, by 1348 01:15:19.680 --> 01:15:22.079 the way, over the past couple of years realize we're 1349 01:15:22.100 --> 01:15:25.000 all kind of fighting a common enemy of sorts where 1350 01:15:25.279 --> 01:15:29.520 we have no problem working with groups who share our 1351 01:15:29.859 --> 01:15:34.779 long-term goals. our values, who support church-state separation. And we 1352 01:15:34.819 --> 01:15:38.020 may have a lot of difference of theology. We may 1353 01:15:38.079 --> 01:15:42.560 disagree on how seriously we should take this religious book entirely. 1354 01:15:43.039 --> 01:15:45.880 But at the same time, there are strategic alliances to 1355 01:15:45.920 --> 01:15:48.159 be made. And I've seen more of those. And I've 1356 01:15:48.180 --> 01:15:50.600 seen religious groups say, you know what? We have no 1357 01:15:50.659 --> 01:15:55.550 shame in working with atheist groups, church-state separation groups, because 1358 01:15:55.569 --> 01:15:59.340 we We all believe in separation of church and state. 1359 01:15:59.399 --> 01:16:01.880 We all believe there is nuance to be found in 1360 01:16:01.939 --> 01:16:06.569 those books, and there is not just one interpretation to be. 1361 01:16:06.510 --> 01:16:07.949 Had of those stories. 1362 01:16:08.109 --> 01:16:10.380 I have found that really uplifting in a way. I 1363 01:16:11.000 --> 01:16:13.500 am surprised that I am seeing these days. 1364 01:16:14.479 --> 01:16:15.659 I am too. 1365 01:16:16.579 --> 01:16:18.180 We are coming up on the end and I have 1366 01:16:18.220 --> 01:16:20.760 forgotten to do some things because we just didn't have 1367 01:16:20.779 --> 01:16:25.609 the callers. And I'm usually reminded by having callers. Very quickly, 1368 01:16:25.630 --> 01:16:32.270 available on atheistcommunity.org are printable call-in flyers. Please post with 1369 01:16:32.390 --> 01:16:36.840 permission folks get your permission on community bulletin boards so 1370 01:16:36.850 --> 01:16:39.699 people know they should call our show defend their faith 1371 01:16:40.640 --> 01:16:42.699 we also want you to know what's going on in 1372 01:16:42.739 --> 01:16:46.699 the community so head over to atheist-community.org where you can 1373 01:16:46.720 --> 01:16:49.600 learn about the organization itself its policies and how you 1374 01:16:49.640 --> 01:16:54.520 can get involved we are doing more community events online 1375 01:16:56.119 --> 01:17:00.869 And so you can also join those as well. You 1376 01:17:00.890 --> 01:17:04.489 can also send in super chats. We will read them 1377 01:17:04.550 --> 01:17:06.449 if you send them in. You can get us to 1378 01:17:06.489 --> 01:17:10.750 say almost anything as long as it's YouTube appropriate. So 1379 01:17:11.130 --> 01:17:13.170 it can be amusing. You can have us say, I 1380 01:17:13.210 --> 01:17:16.649 believe in Jesus Christ or anything else you want. Just 1381 01:17:16.689 --> 01:17:21.399 give us enough money to do it. And

again, the 1382 01:17:21.420 --> 01:17:23.640 only restriction has got to be YouTube appropriate. So no 1383 01:17:23.680 --> 01:17:27.880 curse words, things like that. Like the video, subscribe down below, 1384 01:17:27.899 --> 01:17:32.939 enable notifications, comment. And then last but not least, send 1385 01:17:32.979 --> 01:17:34.699 a big thank you out to the crew who put 1386 01:17:34.899 --> 01:17:39.789 this show together. Anybody who has done a show knows 1387 01:17:39.829 --> 01:17:41.810 that it is difficult to do all the things that 1388 01:17:41.850 --> 01:17:46.020 these folks do behind the scenes. um if we'd had 1389 01:17:46.060 --> 01:17:48.260 callers there there actually were callers none of them made 1390 01:17:48.279 --> 01:17:52.000 it through screening um and that is on them so 1391 01:17:52.039 --> 01:17:53.859 we had a better probably had a better show without 1392 01:17:54.159 --> 01:17:56.920 uh without those folks so thanks to the crew um 1393 01:17:57.760 --> 01:17:59.350 did we have we did not have crew cat so 1394 01:17:59.359 --> 01:18:01.510 i can't say thanks to crew cat um and then 1395 01:18:01.550 --> 01:18:04.229 also the folks who answer our emails um thank you 1396 01:18:04.250 --> 01:18:06.430 guys for answering the emails we don't ever get them 1397 01:18:06.510 --> 01:18:12.920 on very often um But we appreciate those folks as well. Hey, Kelly, 1398 01:18:12.939 --> 01:18:15.850 you ready to come up and comment on anything we've 1399 01:18:15.869 --> 01:18:16.689 talked about so far? 1400 01:18:17.369 --> 01:18:18.149 Yeah, I can come up. 1401 01:18:18.210 --> 01:18:22.369 You know, first off, it's really hard to follow you guys. 1402 01:18:23.270 --> 01:18:25.649 I was afraid to come up and follow, especially Hemet. 1403 01:18:25.750 --> 01:18:29.369 But I totally agree with what Hemet was saying. I 1404 01:18:29.409 --> 01:18:31.649 was so happy to hear it, you know, talking about 1405 01:18:31.720 --> 01:18:35.920 how there's other allies out there. There's even an organization 1406 01:18:35.960 --> 01:18:41.430 that's called Christians Against Christian Nationalism, right? And so there 1407 01:18:41.479 --> 01:18:43.970 are people on that side that do have a lot 1408 01:18:43.989 --> 01:18:48.109 of the same ideas, ideals that we have. One of 1409 01:18:48.149 --> 01:18:51.350 the things I was really happy to see during this 1410 01:18:51.699 --> 01:18:55.789 campaign season, I was fortunate enough to see a candidate 1411 01:18:55.829 --> 01:18:58.810 who was running for Senate. who was a Muslim, and 1412 01:18:58.869 --> 01:19:01.670 I was able to see him in person do a speech. 1413 01:19:02.270 --> 01:19:05.310 And he mentioned that this was a country where everybody 1414 01:19:05.369 --> 01:19:09.609 had the right to believe or not believe in whatever 1415 01:19:09.670 --> 01:19:12.569 they want. And I really appreciated that he added that 1416 01:19:12.729 --> 01:19:14.710 and not believe onto

it, because I don't think I 1417 01:19:14.770 --> 01:19:17.949 ever heard a politician say that before. So I think 1418 01:19:18.010 --> 01:19:21.350 we are seeing a whole new wave of new idealism 1419 01:19:21.409 --> 01:19:23.609 come into our politics, and I think that's great. 1420 01:19:23.970 --> 01:19:28.560 Yeah. And Al-Said, when he had that heckler come in, said, yeah, 1421 01:19:28.619 --> 01:19:32.560 he's willing to put constitution above his religion. Right. 1422 01:19:32.739 --> 01:19:33.479 Which I was there. 1423 01:19:33.500 --> 01:19:37.119 The heckler couldn't do it. I was there. 1424 01:19:37.159 --> 01:19:39.170 Now you were there for that event? I was in 1425 01:19:39.210 --> 01:19:39.689 that room. 1426 01:19:39.710 --> 01:19:41.630 With Tommy? Yeah, with Tommy. 1427 01:19:41.909 --> 01:19:45.170 Yeah, so I was in the town next to mine. 1428 01:19:45.270 --> 01:19:48.369 Yeah, he couldn't answer that question in the same way 1429 01:19:48.390 --> 01:19:55.779 that Al-Said did. And if you can't say the same 1430 01:19:55.859 --> 01:20:02.229 thing as a politician, constitution before religion. You should not 1431 01:20:02.390 --> 01:20:03.750 be running for office. 1432 01:20:04.130 --> 01:20:06.310 And by the way, there is a quotation. It's been 1433 01:20:06.350 --> 01:20:08.460 said by many people at many times, but and I'm, 1434 01:20:08.710 --> 01:20:10.449 of course, going to butcher it because this is life. 1435 01:20:10.770 --> 01:20:13.520 But like when you take your oath of office, you 1436 01:20:13.560 --> 01:20:15.659 place your hand on the Bible and swear to uphold 1437 01:20:15.699 --> 01:20:19.319 the Constitution and not the other way around. But I 1438 01:20:19.399 --> 01:20:23.079 am very curious when this new crop gets sworn in. 1439 01:20:23.789 --> 01:20:27.409 You have so much diversity in terms of religion, in 1440 01:20:27.430 --> 01:20:31.869 terms of ideologies, et cetera. But they are not going 1441 01:20:31.949 --> 01:20:35.720 to all swear in on a Bible because they don't legally. 1442 01:20:35.779 --> 01:20:38.460 They don't have to. They believe they don't have whichever 1443 01:20:38.500 --> 01:20:39.420 book they want. 1444 01:20:39.539 --> 01:20:41.420 And it's always fascinating. 1445 01:20:41.479 --> 01:20:43.479 I've literally put this in my calendar because I want 1446 01:20:43.520 --> 01:20:44.800 to know what it's going to be and I want 1447 01:20:44.819 --> 01:20:46.640 to make sure I look it up when it happens. 1448 01:20:48.060 --> 01:20:50.369 There was a congressman a few years ago who's like, 1449 01:20:50.829 --> 01:20:53.090 I am a congressman now. I could get any book 1450 01:20:53.170 --> 01:20:56.170 I want. I would like a copy of Superman number one. 1451 01:20:59.449 --> 01:21:00.050 Or people who. 1452 01:20:59.970 --> 01:21:03.779 Swear in on law books or whatever holy book they have. 1453 01:21:03.800 --> 01:21:06.920 That's not the Bible, if that's meaningful to them.

But 1454 01:21:06.960 --> 01:21:10.079 the point is, you're going to have more diversity and more. 1455 01:21:10.920 --> 01:21:13.300 for at least one political party where there's such a 1456 01:21:13.359 --> 01:21:16.590 big tent where all of that has to go because 1457 01:21:16.600 --> 01:21:18.989 there's nowhere else for you to go it's going to 1458 01:21:19.010 --> 01:21:21.949 be interesting to watch how all these people coming from 1459 01:21:22.090 --> 01:21:27.649 such different backgrounds but who by and large are pointing 1460 01:21:27.689 --> 01:21:30.750 in the same direction policy-wise if they can work through 1461 01:21:30.789 --> 01:21:32.369 those differences. 1462 01:21:32.380 --> 01:21:35.439 Yeah Yeah, and that's what it's got to be, right? 1463 01:21:36.199 --> 01:21:38.649 If we don't, you know, not all laws are moral. 1464 01:21:38.729 --> 01:21:41.229 Not all laws should be about morals, right? Some laws 1465 01:21:41.270 --> 01:21:45.229 are about keeping societal order. Traffic laws, for instance, are 1466 01:21:45.270 --> 01:21:49.590 about societal order. They're not about necessarily what's right or wrong. 1467 01:21:50.689 --> 01:21:53.170 And not all laws are moral. We have laws in 1468 01:21:53.189 --> 01:21:57.710 this country that allowed us to put Japanese Americans into 1469 01:21:57.789 --> 01:22:01.359 concentration camps. Um, we have laws on the books that 1470 01:22:01.380 --> 01:22:04.119 allow us to put people because of their skin color 1471 01:22:04.899 --> 01:22:06.600 in concentration camps. 1472 01:22:07.500 --> 01:22:09.699 Um, those need to be fixed. 1473 01:22:10.020 --> 01:22:13.100 Right. Um, those need to be fixed if you're a Christian, 1474 01:22:13.140 --> 01:22:15.439 because God's very clear on how you should treat the 1475 01:22:15.520 --> 01:22:18.050 aliens among you. And if you're not a Christian, then 1476 01:22:18.069 --> 01:22:21.270 you should want those fixed because they're not moral. Um, 1477 01:22:22.250 --> 01:22:25.350 But we should be trying to make us better. We 1478 01:22:25.369 --> 01:22:28.949 should try to become more moral and more ethical, not less. 1479 01:22:29.569 --> 01:22:36.760 And I think that the evangelical that we see are 1480 01:22:36.800 --> 01:22:40.319 not about morals, right? They're about power because that's what 1481 01:22:40.359 --> 01:22:43.520 God is about. Like we discussed most of the evening, 1482 01:22:44.000 --> 01:22:46.939 it's power. It's, you know, might makes right, therefore do 1483 01:22:46.960 --> 01:22:47.399 what I say. 1484 01:22:48.010 --> 01:22:51.369 That is definitely what Christian nationalism is about, right? 1485 01:22:51.390 --> 01:22:53.449 I mean, I don't think there's any denying that. 1486 01:22:53.590 --> 01:22:55.010 So, yeah. 1487 01:22:56.449 --> 01:22:59.409 It's good to see people fight back against it. And 1488 01:22:59.430 --> 01:23:02.489 I hope this is the start of a push back 1489 01:23:02.710 --> 01:23:06.949 against Christian nationalism, because I think even supporters of it 1490 01:23:07.479 --> 01:23:10.760 are seeing the fruits of that and realizing it is 1491 01:23:10.819 --> 01:23:12.619 not what they signed up, what they thought. 1492 01:23:13.399 --> 01:23:16.119 Yes, yes, I think you're right. They have higher remorse. 1493 01:23:16.859 --> 01:23:18.920 I think we have more woke people now than we 1494 01:23:18.939 --> 01:23:19.520 did before. 1495 01:23:19.539 --> 01:23:23.779 We have unleashed the woke on the country. What is 1496 01:23:23.840 --> 01:23:26.100 it now, 3.0? I don't know which version we're on. 1497 01:23:26.140 --> 01:23:28.819 We got the political middle back on our side is 1498 01:23:28.859 --> 01:23:30.859 what happened, and that was important. 1499 01:23:31.399 --> 01:23:32.729 Independence came way back. 1500 01:23:32.829 --> 01:23:36.850 But anyway, before we dive off into what is currently 1501 01:23:36.909 --> 01:23:39.409 our favorite topic, because I think we're all still giddy 1502 01:23:39.430 --> 01:23:40.409 from Tuesday. Yeah. 1503 01:23:43.439 --> 01:23:45.619 Folks, I'm sorry there weren't any callers. There weren't any 1504 01:23:45.640 --> 01:23:46.239 good callers. 1505 01:23:46.699 --> 01:23:48.170 We did have one caller who might have been good, 1506 01:23:48.210 --> 01:23:51.560 but he was driving and apparently couldn't find a place 1507 01:23:51.569 --> 01:23:54.699 to pull off, which is, you know... Would rather him 1508 01:23:54.779 --> 01:23:58.300 be safe, yeah. Yeah, than talk to us. Especially having 1509 01:23:58.319 --> 01:24:02.600 good conversations about it. So, Hemant, thank you so much 1510 01:24:03.539 --> 01:24:06.260 for coming on. It was a great conversation. I enjoyed 1511 01:24:06.300 --> 01:24:08.399 talking to you. I hope to do it again. Maybe 1512 01:24:08.420 --> 01:24:10.060 next time we'll get callers. Maybe. 1513 01:24:10.340 --> 01:24:12.460 Jim Kelly, always a pleasure. Thank you, Gary. 1514 01:24:12.520 --> 01:24:16.119 Thanks, Hemant. Appreciate it. And with that, folks, we will 1515 01:24:16.460 --> 01:24:17.359 bid you adieu. 1516 01:24:17.439 --> 01:24:18.189 Have a good evening. 1517 01:24:31.979 --> 01:24:32.270 Thank you. 1518 01:25:05.159 --> 01:25:08.100 Watch Talk Heathen Live Sundays at 1 p.m. 1519 01:25:08.140 --> 01:25:10.590 Central and call into the show at 512-991-9242 or connect 1520 01:25:10.630 --> 01:25:12.770 to the show online at aca.show slash call.