Are the miracles of Jesus unbelievable? Michael Shermer vs Luuk Vandeweghe

[Music] it's great to have you with us here for the final what I'm calling the pH de resistance of what we've been doing today we're really excited with the two guests who are going to be joining me on stage in a moment just to reiterate this event the whole of today has been generously sponsored by quilting Bible Church so again if you're able to donate yea dude do you give them a round of applause if you're able to donate anything as you leave that would be generous that would be gratefully accepted but more than anything we hope you've had a good day and and that it's giving you plenty to think about I think there'll be plenty more as we go through the course of this evening just a reminder that I am Justin Bryan I host this faith debate show that broadcasts on Christian radio in the UK and around the world as a podcast and and so what we're going to be doing tonight is actually going to be recorded and broadcast on that that that radio show in the podcast in a couple of weeks time so you are going to be part of an international audience around the world who are who are taking part and listening and engaging with tonight's dialogue and so before I introduce my two guests for this evening why don't we give our international audience a big squid welcome let's go for it [Applause] it is an absolute pleasure to be with you here in scrim I was you know when I first was received this invitation I started calling it sequin I don't know if I'm probably not the first person to make that mistake but it's great to be in scrim to meet the people and and thank you so much for coming out tonight but this dialogue if you would like to join me Michael and Luke do come up and take a seat we've got a really interesting debate for you tonight we're asking are the miracles of Jesus unbelievable I'm going to be giving some long longer introductions to both my my guests in just a moment's time but dr. Michael Shermer is well known as the founding publisher of skeptic magazine and we'll hear more about him in a moment of time Luke vanderway who I will also introduce at more length soon is really the person who's brought together the whole of today so Luke's done a wonderful job in bringing this all together and really tonight is is a really important debate because at the end of the day Christians or non-christians it all comes down to who was Jesus and did he do the things that the Bible claims he did there's really important question I'm sure you'll agree for us to debate and discuss there will be another opportunity for you to be involved if you'd like to text any questions in during the course of the debate then we'll try and include as many of those as we can in our kind of discussion time after we've heard from both Michael and Luke so again make sure you've got your program to hand it's got the number on there to text do drop down any questions text them in and we'll try and include as many of those when we come to the discussion section as we can the way this will work is that both Michael and Luke will give about a 20-minute presentation each from each of their different perspectives on this question of our mirror oh oh there I'm back going back then we'll have two ten-minute rebuttals from each then we'll have some discussion time and then we'll have some final summit summing up thoughts so I hope you enjoy what we've got in in store for you today let me first of all invite you Michael to take the stage if you'd like to go up with what we're going to see from Michael is a little bit of a taster of what he gets up to by the art of video please welcome Michael Shermer why must things be debunked because there's a lot of bunk there's a lot of nonsense bed science voodoo science pathological science non science and played on nonsense it's all over the place where's one of those probes from the - I don't say probe where's one it's not more mysterious by the way where you go after you die then where you were before you were born why does nobody get all up about well where was i before I was born how can you tell the difference between you know it's right it's wrong you know how do you know what happens is is you you arrive at beliefs for non rational non smart reasons and then you back into it after the fact with rational reasons to justify it we call this the confirmation bias why would aliens look like this well that's these are my comes from television and that kind of error that false positive that's superstition that's magical thinking that's assuming a is connected to B it's a true pattern and it isn't and you're wrong once that became the image of what aliens would look like that's what people began to see in their dreams in experience the point here is you want to have a mind open enough to accept radical new ideas but not so open that your brains fall out the only way to tell really the difference between these true patterns and false patterns is science really really yeah most of the universe is just stars all they're doing is converting hydrogen into helium under great pressure and heat that's it they're not sitting there thinking I got to give Michael Shermer some purpose here because you know if if I don't he's gonna kill himself or something no the application of science and reason to solving political problems economic problems social inequalities and so on we're using reason to solve those problems rather than the which theory well of course students should be exposed to whatever the cutting-edge ideas are and in science that's what the best science is and you have to be able to sell your ideas to other scientists in journals you'd be have to be barking mad to not think that the life is not designed it is designed but it's designed from the bottom up by a natural process of evolution what intelligent design off is not a scientific explanation it's just a statement that we can't figure out how to explain this through science so let's just say an intelligence did it but that doesn't explain anything cause I insist the best tool ever devised for understanding how the world works the scientific method requires that we look for natural explanations for natural phenomena there is no such thing as the supernatural or the paranormal there's just the natural the normal and all the stuff we can't explain yet and it's OK in science to just say I don't know in that case it's ok to just call take the stage if you would Michael and let's see your hope thinks thank you can you hear me now yeah ok good thank you thank you so much for having me it came up from Los Angeles this morning and when I heard there was a two hour drive from the airport to here I envisioned the 405 in the LA Haven the back and now it's a beautiful Drive it's a beautiful part of the country I've been to Seattle many times I've been through Washington many times I've ridden my bike three times from Seattle to San Diego in the 80s so I know that I've never been up here so this is really nice to see you all and I'm not in the least bit squeamish about it I know you've never heard that one before are the miracles of Jesus unbelievable yes thank you oh did you want more yeah okay I'm actually sure what I'm doing here I'm pretty sure most of you are Christians right good show of hands how many of you call yourself self identify as Christian right okay look at the time now I do appreciate I tweeted this out to come on out to my skeptics friends up here and I think a few of you came here so thank you I I think there's very little chance I've got to like convert anybody here tonight to skepticism or whatever it's not even what I do really I'm just pro science Pro Ruiz and I want to know what's true the way the world really is I've changed my mind on a great many thing so to me it's you know evidence counts reason counts and so forth miracle is a tricky one for scientists to think about so I'm gonna tell you how I think about it how scientists think about miracles and you can just draw your own conclusions just just plant that in there this is just give it some thought now most people think of a miracle colloquially as in you know it was a miracle that I won the lottery or you know my cancer went away it was it was miraculous or if you're a hockey fan and you remember the 1980 Olympic game when Al Michaels proclaimed at the end when the US team was ahead of the Soviets and the clock ran out do you believe in miracles now this is the usage of kind of intuitive highly improbable events but clearly not impossible sometimes sports teams finally wins like the Boston Red Sox or the Chicago Cubs or whatever it is these these things do happen statistically you go to the phone to call your friend you're just about to pick up the phone the phone rings it's your friend well what are the chances of that admittedly not good but is it miraculous no because how many times did you code go to the phone to call your friend your friend didn't call how many times did your friend call you weren't thinking about them so when you add up all the possibilities given enough time the highly improbable will happen or given enough events the law of large numbers tells us that highly unusual things will happen given enough possibility so for example just back of the envelope calculations you're walking around reasonably alert and a 12-hour day let's say information is flowing through your senses into your brain about one bit per second so you use a computer analogy well that's forty three thousand two hundred bits of data per day or one point two nine six billion our millions are a 1.2 million bits per month even if 99.999% of those were not particularly interesting there was no unusual connection that still leaves 1.3 million notes sorry 1.3 miracles per month or 15 miracles a year by which I mean million to one odds okay so we can't mean that by the way I also did this calculation for another query often get about death dreams you know I had a dream last night that my grandmother died and the next morning you know my mom called and said grant grandma passed last night oh my god what time but the time I had this dream what are the chances of that happening that seems miraculous okay so here's how a scientist would think about that so we each averaged about five dreams per night that's 1825 dreams per year let's say you remember only a tenth of your dreams one out of ten that means you're gonna have 182 remember dreams per year now when I did the calculations about 300 million Americans say 300 million adult Americans dreaming every night produces fifty four point seven billion remember dreams a year now sociologists tell us that we each know about on average 150 people reasonably well so that makes a network rate of 45 billion personal relationship connections and then I took the average annual death rate all causes all ages at point zero zero eight is the death rate that's 2.4 million Americans die every year all causes all ages it is inevitable that some of those fifty four point seven billion remember dreams will be about some of those 2.4 million deaths among the three hundred million Americans and their forty five billion relationship connections in fact it would be a miracle if some death premonition dreams did not come true here is a show you will never see on television next on Oprah or Ellen we have a woman who has these incredible death premonition dreams so far not one of them has come true but stay too because this could be the one okay so of course we only notice the ones that are highly unusual and connected but if you do a calculation like that you see that can't be what we mean by miracles because they will happen without any divine intervention now in the ancient world miracles were all over the place free scientific biblical times miracles were signs and wonders that apply to just about everything that happens from the ordinary to the extraordinary from normal births to virgin births from rain'd day illusions from famines to feasts clearly this will not suffice either because if everything is a miracle then nothing is a miracle if God just performs miracles every five minutes then nothing's going to particularly stand out there's no natural law that's just grinding away and God periodically dips into the world to stir the particles to make something happen it's just happening all the time so that's not going to quite cut it let me introduce you to David Hume the great Scottish Enlightenment philosopher who wrote the first modern treatise on miracles in his book on it was just the section was called on miracles in his book on on knowledge and reason it he defined a miracle as a violation of a law of nature or a transgression of a law of nature by a particular volition of the deity or some invisible agent in other words a miracle is an event caused by God so it has to be highly improbable so that it's not happening at every five minutes I think if God healed every cancer patient there'd be no cancer there's no miracle so they can't be that it's got to be highly improbable but not just highly improbable like the phone call or the death screams got to be some something else some intervention into it now Hume asks is the only long passage I'll read from a philosopher because these guys didn't write all that clear in the 18th century these long paragraph sentences anyway so he asks himself the plain consequence is and it's a general maxim worthy of our attention that no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle unless the testimony be of such a kind that it's also it would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavors to establish when anyone tells me he saw a dead man restored to lies I immediately consider with myself whether it be more probable that this person should either deceive or be deceived or the fact that which he relates should really have happened I weigh the one miracle against the other and according to the superiority which I discover I pronounce my decision and always reject the greater miracle if the falsehood of his testimony would be more miraculous than the event which he relates then not until then can he pretend to command my belief or opinion and quote okay so here's what he's saying in modern my own calculation okay so there's about seven and a half billion people alive today how many people have ever lived well demographers have given us a fairly reliable number you take it back to about 50 thousand years ago or so when our species had migrated around to most places around the earth about a hundred billion people have lived and died before us a hundred billion not one has come back from the dead maybe one so what are the chances that that hundred billion to one miracle happened or that the stories we heard about that none of us thought of it that the stories we've heard told from stories from other stories from eyewitnesses who told other people who told other people or allegedly eyewitnesses and so on all right which is the greater miracle now Hume said a wise man proportions his belief to the evidence this is another way of saying as Carl Sagan put it so poignant Lee in his cosmos series extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence is the evidence for miracle stories from history commensurate with the evidence I say no I say it's far more likely that the stories people tell they've misperceived exaggerated you tell the story over and over and over it grows in size we all are familiar with the whispers game I whisper to you you whispered here and all the time against the back is completely different story we know how that works and since Humes time we know that human memory is research and cognitive psychology is not reliable there's no video recorder up there that you playback the video on the theater the screen of your internal theater no such thing like that you know memories are constantly edited and changed you have memories of memories of memories you have a memory of your fifth birthday from when you were 10 when your mother told you about your 5th birthday when you were 10 when you were 15 and the photographs and this and that saw it there's no there's no perfect recording of your fifth birthday or any other memory like that it's a constantly edited process now let's look at some of these miracles that were interested in talking about as you know about 2,000 years ago a remarkable man was born in a remote remote part of the Roman Empire a supernatural being informed his mother that the child she was to conceive would not be a mere mortal but would be divine and she gave birth to him in a miraculous way as a young man he left home and went on an itinerant preaching ministry urging his listeners to live not for the material things of this world but for the spiritual this man collected disciples around him who came to believe he was the son of God and he did miracles to prove his divinity he healed the sick he cast out demons and he even raised the dead for these miracles he was persecuted by the Roman authorities and at the end of his life he ascended to heaven later some of his followers wrote books about him I'm speaking of course about Apollonius of Tyana the pagan philosopher contemporaneous to Jesus and widely known in his own day in fact it was said of his biographer who wrote a couple decades after his life that there were debates between the followers of Jesus and the followers of Apollonius arguing over who was the true son of God and these are not the only miracle working sons of God in the ancient world there were in fact a number of them most people at the aging world were polytheists he was not at all unusual for God's to come to earth the gods to have sex with human females and offspring are half deity half human or people die and they go to heaven and become deities this was knowledge at the time here's what the early church father Justin Martyr said when defending why he believed what he believed about Jesus to the Romans when we say that the word who is our teacher Jesus Christ the first born of God was produced without sexual union then he was crucified and died rose again and ascended to heaven we propound nothing new or different from what you believe regarding those you consider the sons of Jupiter Jupiter was the supreme Roman deity in other is this was fairly common as were many of the biblical miracles miracle floods were common amongst people that lived on large bodies of water that you know flooded periodically like the epic of gilgamesh which predates the noachian flood story by several centuries miracle virgin births myths were also common among those alleged to have been conceived without the usual assistance of the male lineage where Dionysus Perseus Buda ADUs Krishna Horace Mercury Romulus and of course Jesus considered the parallels between Dionysus the ancient Greek god of wine and Jesus of Nazareth both were said to have been born of a virgin mother who was a mortal woman but were fathered by the king of heaven both allegedly returned from the dead transformed water into wine introduced the idea of eating and drinking the flesh and blood of the creator and to have been the liberator of mankind even resurrection myths were not that uncommon Osiris is the Egyptian god of life death and fertility and is one of the oldest gods from whom records have survived Osiris first appears in the Pyramid Texts about 2400 BC by which time his following was already well-established widely worshipped until the compulsory repression of pagan religions in the early Christian era Osiris was not only the redeemer and merciful judge of the Dead in the afterlife he was also linked to fertility most notably and appropriately for the geography the flooding of the Nile and the growth of crops the kings of Egypt themselves were in a strictly connected to Osiris and death such as when Osiris rose from the dead so that they would in union with him and so forth Joseph Campbell wrote a book about this called the hero with a thousand faces this is a very common hero journey you go out into the world you face challenges you grow you learn you come back and salvage your people this has a lot to do with oppression and redemption I call this the oppression Redemption myth it's very common in history fast forward eighteen hundred years to upstate New York man by the name of Joseph Smith claimed that the angel Moroni visited him and told him that there were gold plates buried near his backyard in Palmyra New York now according to Joseph Smith eleven of his shall we call them disciples saw these gold plates if you look on the first page of the Book of Mormon it's an affidavit signed by these eleven guys saying we up we saw the gold plates now the gold plates were chiseled in this ancient hieroglyphics that had to be translated into English how he did this you don't know the story he had these seer stones these stones you could sort of see through they put him in his head he put his face in his hat and he translated these gold plates into the Book of Mormon among other things he believed that Jesus not only was resurrected as our Savior but that before he ascended to heaven he stopped by America and he visited the Lamanites and the other group the Nephites and Lamanites who were part of the Lost Tribes of Israel this story goes on and on and on if you really want to get it fully go see the Book of Mormon it's one of the best musicals you'll ever see it's so good the Mormons themselves by advertising in the playbook for them for the UH for the Opera for the to the musical it's very accurate what they believe now as crazy as this story sounds alright to our modern ears I argue it's no less improbable than any of the other stories including the Jesus story we can continue off these in the 1890s on the plains in North America there arose a divine Savior a Paiute Indian named wovoka who during a solar eclipse and fever induced hallucination received a vision from God with all the people who had died long ago engaged in their old-time sports and occupations all happy and forever young is a pleasant land and full of game revoke his followers believe that in order to resurrect their ancestors bring back to Buffalo and drive the white men out of the Indian lands they needed to perform a ceremonial dance that went on for hours and days at a time this became the famous 1890 Ghost Dance in the federal government the United States was not amused these Indians were not staying on their reservations they sent out troops and you all know the tragic ending to this at Wounded Knee and that was the end of the Native American culture at that time around that same time that will VOCA was resurrecting the dead and North America another spiritual guru and Saint who millions of people believed him to be the incarnation of God who's performing miracles in another part of the globe miracles witnessed by and attested to by millions of people including his ability to levitate read minds perform exorcisms cure the dying and even raise the dead I'm talking about Shirdi Sai Baba the Indian spiritual guru saint and fake here who many millions of Hindu and Muslim believers today believe is the incarnation of the Lord Shiva October 13th 1917 that's e ma Portugal 50,000 people saw a cosmic miracle of the Sun during which the Sun began to spin wildly and tumble down to earth radiating indescribable beautiful colors this was attributed to the Virgin Mary now you all know the story that five hundred people witnessed after his death 500 is nothing this is 50,000 saw this do you believe that the Virgin Mary came to Attica dadima Portugal and made the Sun stop and tumbled down to the sky it's not a lot of Catholics here I have a Catholic joke coming up so of course you don't curse you don't believe this it's you're thoroughly modern thinkers you're critical thinkers you're skeptics like me 1984 a thousand people saw the Virgin Mary appear near a waterfall in Pattaya Venezuela including doctors lawyers psychologists and psychiatrists okay let me just wrap this up here and then I'll have a few more comments along these lines at my 10-minute rebuttal so you're all as skeptical as I am on these things No okay okay all right well we have much to discuss tonight then well let me ask you if I told you that the bolognese sauce I put on my pasta last night after I sprinkled some latin phrases over it was the blood and body of Jesus and that I consumed this as part of my ritual you would think I had lost my mind right but if I did this with wine and a cracker you'd say oh sure Marie's a Catholic that's the difference between the bolognese sauce and the wine and the cracker and some pasta right you're skeptical of the one but not the other but why well you're used to the one the one has a long deep history reaching back into the mists of time you don't see how it unfolded the Mormons you can kind of see how that unfolded and not buying it Scientology that's two recent we know exactly what happened that's not likely to make a world religion that's the problem thank you thank you very much Michael thank you very much yes dudu take a seam like so thank you very much so Luke is gonna take this stand now let me just give a brief introduction to Luca no show real for you Luke but I can say that Luke is a PhD candidate at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland he holds graduate degrees in theology and biblical studies and his recent work accepted for publication in the bulletin for biblical research Luke has debated other popular atheists on issues of faith reason and the historicity of Christian truth claims you can find some of Luke's debates online Luke we look forward to hearing your case for the biblical miracles of Jesus thank you Justin thank you Michael for that opening statement tonight I want to tell you a story it isn't just any story it's a story that happened in history it's a story about those people who actually knew Jesus in person those who walk with Jesus those who follow Jesus those who saw Jesus perform miracles those who experienced a radically unique person and changed everything they believed from what they learned growing up right this is the one message I want to communicate to you tonight the one thing this is what I want you to remember they were liars and they weren't fooled I will show you an unbroken chain of evidence right we'll work backwards it's gonna end with the trial of Jesus but it begins in a garden party in Nero's Palace now here's a picture of Tacitus Tacitus is a first century Roman historian not a Christian right he he writes histories for the Roman Empire and because Christianity is a part of that history he writes a little bit about Christians toss paints a picture of what it's like to be a Christian in 80-66 there's this crazy guy named Nero Roman Emperor he loved to take Christians nail them to crosses and burn them to light his garden parties now this is 80-66 in other words the time between this garden party and when Jesus lived is about the difference between today and the debut of The Oprah Winfrey Show in other words it's certainly within living memory right now imagine you are in the Colosseum in Rome in 80 66 before you is your child or maybe it's your mom or your friend you told them about Jesus someone you experienced or perhaps you believed in Jesus because of the testimony of Peter right someone who knew Jesus or perhaps this person before you your family member is being killed because they knew Jesus or they knew one of the early apostles right you're watching them being covered in the skins of beasts why so that they can be torn to death before your eyes by wild dogs that's literally what Tacitus tells us the Romans did to Christians around this time now all you have to do to save your child this person that you love is to get up right say hey this isn't true it's just an ancient mythology right it's not real I never bet Saul you have to do just get up and say it's a lie I'm the person who convinced this individual to do this I knew Jesus he wasn't who I said he was but you know what Tacitus tells us Christians gain the sympathy of the people because they never did this they suffered they endured and they won over the hearts of Rome during that era because they never went back on their testimony early martyrs weren't liars right and they weren't fooled I mean perhaps they had known Jesus like I said eaten the bread of the 5000 that Jesus multiplied perhaps they'd known Jesus's brothers we'll talk about one of those in a little bit Peter ministered in in Rome for several decades they'd likely would have known Peter but at this time in 80-66 while these Christians are burning in Nero's garden Peter isn't there why well in 80-66 Peter is already dead let's back up two years 28064 standing before you is a man he's being lifted up to be crucified people were most the time crucified naked right crucifixion is one of the most shameful horrendous deaths ever invented by mankind crucifixion kills you slowly through suffocation crucifixion is what inspires our word excruciating right that man before you is Peter now according to all the earliest sources we have Peter is the man who inspired Mark Wright as gospel in other words the word in the Gospel of Mark are largely the words inspired by the Apostles by the Apostle Peter in his early preaching right well what does the Gospel of Mark say about Peter I mean who hears read the Gospels okay we got a bunch of Christians good you read your Bible good does the paint Peter as this awesome guy but Peters an idiot right you like always says the wrong thing at the wrong time right now if you were Peter right why would you make up a gospel that talks about you like that and then as a reward die in excruciation one of the worst deaths ever invented by mankind why would you do that well maybe because Peter wasn't a liar Mark's Gospel from Peter is actually one of the earliest accounts we have of Jesus what is the gospel of our filled with miracles 40% of mark's gospel or miracle accounts this is the key that is the story Peter died for now was Peter a guy who was in a position to know if that story was true if it really happened of course it was Peter was part of the inner circle he couldn't have been fooled now you know Peter sure no scientist right he wasn't a scientist this is a pre-scientific age but Peter wasn't an idiot I mean realized Peters probably seen more dead people than any person in this room right probably more than dr. Shawn George who's two individuals died on his table in the hospital many times right during this era of history women had to have like six children just to keep the population going in other words Peter nuba dead people look like Peter knew something about dead people they generally stay dead right you don't have to have a Doctorate to know that you don't have to be a scientist to realize hey a few loaves of bread doesn't feed 5,000 people cripples don't get healed instantly blind people don't suddenly see again but Peter met somebody not just anybody not just any regular guy that's ever lived somebody named Jesus of Nazareth and Jesus before his eyes instantly completely and publicly healed people and Peter changed everything he thought about reality because of that experience and he died in excruciation without ever denying it was true now Chuck Colson was the guy who uh he worked under Nixon and went to prison actually for the Watergate scandal and I really like what Chuck Colson sounds about this he says you know I was involved in the scandal that that him it involved 12 of the most powerful men in the world and you know what they couldn't keep alive for three weeks that's it all right you're telling me 12 apostles keep alive for 40 years and die for that chuck colson says I don't care what David Hume says that is impossible they weren't liars and they were fooled let's go back to the cross and there's Peter before you let's zoom out a little bit right in the crowd there's somebody watching this is a plausible scenario I'll paint for you it's a traveler he's a close companion of a very good friend of Peter named Paul he's watching Peter die alright this is not this guy's first experience in fact this person traveled around with Paul throughout the Roman Empire as Paul was stoned beaten persecuted and eventually put in prison for preaching about Jesus now Luke watched many of his friends suffer right what did Luke do well he wrote history Luke is a doctor he's an investigator Luke is actually a top-notch historian he goes around the interviews married Jesus's mother all these individual disciples have followed Jesus in fact if you go through the Gospel of Luke oftentimes just see a miracle account as it's got someone's name there and now if Luke followed typical historiographical practices every indication is that he did likely many of those individuals are the informants they are the sources of what he's telling you he interviews everybody he can find this is what he himself says and you know what they all said the same thing Jesus did this Jesus performed miracles right Luke's investigation provides his unbroken line of evidence spans over 50 years from the birth of Jesus to his ministry to his martyrdom and the martim of those who followed him let me give you a taste of Luke's accuracy as a historian here's a map of 80-59 right now Luke in the book of Acts he travels around with Paul's eye so that's when he meets all the all the early apostles and he's he's travelling with Paul Paul gets involved in an unfortunate voyage and a shipwreck on his way to prison right during this ship Lucca recounts the journey Luke mentions seven tremendous facts for example he mentions there on an Alexandrian grain ship he correctly identifies its size its route the kind of ship that it is right beyond that Luke were accounts all kinds of what we call in Greek effects lagana these are unique names only found in this particular text why are they unique to their nautical terms right they're not just nautical terms with the Third Point beyond this is that they're actually latinized Greek words well why would that be because we now know those individuals who would have been involved with Luke would have gone on this kind of route would have ended up in Rome well these ships were owned by private contractors in Rome and the sailors would be Roman that explains kind of the Latin jargon they had Luke gets all the wins correct compared to the distances that they travel right now at some point in time Luke recounts there's a small island named pada this is significant Luke is the only ancient historian who gets the location of this island correct yet other guys who were geographer study the elder Ptolemy they're about 90 miles off Luke is the only guy who correctly locates this island there's the guy who was a he was a scholar it was a sailing expert in the 1800's he went around and he he tried to mimic Luke's routes kind of the kind of winds he would be an accountant kind of ship he would have had and he took this trip from Crete to Malta which is where Paul's ship were polish ship wrecked and given the conditions that he estimated in the winds that he figured for Luke's journey it took him 13 to 14 days well how long does acts 27 tell us it took their journey 13 days this what lucre counts is the most meticulous accurate voyage and shipwreck of all antiquity Luke is a first-rate historian meticulous thorough careful accurate but once again and this is this is the thing I'm getting to with all of this what is the stuff of Luke's message what is the stuff what is that thing his closest friends are out there dying as they proclaim it why does he watch them die why does he watch them suffer because of the miracles of Jesus right you're on Luke he doesn't get anything back for writing all this doesn't get any metal he doesn't get any honor his only prize is truth Luke wasn't a liar and he wasn't a fool that's my point you know Luke tells us about something else he tells us about an individual named James now a Jewish historian named Josephus also mentions James Josephus give you a little bit of context how am i doing that I'm Justin you've got another six minutes okay thanks I went 22 yeah maybe seven eight eight nine all right let me give you the lower back on that about Josephus Josephus is also 1st century story you just Jewish historian who writes on behalf of the Roman Empire my point being he is not biased toward Christianity right Josephus also tells us James is stoned right to give a little bit more context we can taken all of our earlier sources together James wasn't just stoned but as was the customary practice for for those who were incredibly antagonistic to the Jewish leadership they took him to the pinnacle of the temple and they pushed him off they threw him off the building then they stoned him and beat him to death this individual was called James the just why because James was a he was balanced he was a leader he was clear-headed in fact he was once a skeptic about the miracles of Jesus but James came to believe Jesus was God in the flesh she worshipped Jesus this guy died for Jesus James thought Jesus was the perfect sinless Universal way that anybody could be forgiven right but one more minor detail about James James with Jesus's brother let me stop now think about your brother many of her brothers in here okay if your brother wasn't sinless don't you think you'd know that right you'd know that wouldn't you now this is imagine how this was you you're about to be thrown off a building it's gonna get real squishy on the way down right not the way you want to go down no pun intended right you only have to do one thing not to endure that kind of horrendous death you just have to deny that your brother is the sinless miracle-working son of God that's it James never did that he never did that he could not have been fooled clearly he wasn't a liar right what do we do with that then and I realized this those who threw James off that building also likely knew Jesus I mean they certainly knew Jesus's disciples are throwing one of him off a building in fact this particular group who killed James also killed Jesus let's go back to the trial of Jesus I want to read a portion of the Babylonian Talmud this is a compilation of sacred traditions coming from the ancient Jews this particular texts aren't to a rabbinic expert Cambridge goes back to jesus' trial around 83 or 33 this is the summary chart of Jesus of Nazareth from his Jewish enemies an eve of Passover they hung yaesu for sorcery and for enticing Israel and notice the word sorcerer they're Jewish rabbis were actually quite sophisticated in distinguishing illusion or magic from Supernatural they would never kill somebody in their words it was not a capital offense to be an illusionist right or be able to perform minor works of magic this word sorcery implies supernatural power right now that's very embarrassing for them because this means that they believed something about Jesus they killed him for that he had supernatural power and this is the remarkable thing because it means going back to James that the man they were throwing off that temple James Jesus's brother and the man whose hands grab hold of him to cast this man to his death actually both believe the same thing that Jesus was capable of performing miracles now that's very weighty isn't it if they can believe that those who were closest to know those who believed so much they killed and died for it if they can believe that certainly it's reasonable for me to believe that if they can believe it so can i and let me add some context perhaps I have a few minutes left to go to 2 or 3 minutes let me add some context to how weighty and unique this evidence is and I'm gonna bring my first witness up and it's gonna be someone you're familiar with now Apollonius of Tyana right realize I'm familiar with this story because this is the guy everybody brings up who's skeptical right he's the best parallel to the historical Jesus that we have and I realize there's only one problem in the area where it really matters evidence early evidence weighty evidence the difference between Jesus and Apollonius is worlds apart crap low Gnaeus we have one source one source a hundred and fifty years later Jesus and Apollonius were supposed to live at the same time the earlier source that we have from Apollonius is towards the end of the second century by the way philosopher church that's the name of the author who writes this source also talks about fire-breathing dragons over an Indian stuff it's not particularly credible story but you know what's the most interesting is that philosopher dis he didn't die for this of course right he was paid for it now while I was uploading I was philosopher just paid I write about a Polonius well he was paid by a pagan Empress you know what why she want him to write it because she was sick of the spread of Christianity in the Roman Empire now if any source borrowed from another witch what do you think that when if anything a felonious is a witness how strong the evidential basis is for Christianity because the best alternative that the opposition can come up with is obviously the historical counterfeit or let's think about Josephus for example I've argued tonight that the earliest disciples they weren't liars and they weren't fools let's think about Jesse Joseph Smith excuse me let's think about Joseph Smith well that document that Michael referred to with the eleven individuals who sign that both some minor problems with that for example one of those three guys Martin Harris claimed he saw the golden tablets with a spiritual eye it's kinda nice to have these babies and we're talking about miracles right minor detail also the earlier three witnesses we're actually excommunicated by Joseph Smith because Joseph Smith thought they were a bunch of liars now let's talk about Joseph Smith for a moment this is gonna sound harsh Joseph Smith is a treasure-hunting liar right the guy had she went out publicly and spoke against polygamy for example right we had 27 wives ranging from age 14 to 17 now anyone who thinks he can hide 27 women is a fool is a liar right and if that's some of the best alternatives we have to Jesus that to me is it shows us hey maybe there is extraordinary evidence here maybe it's weighty maybe it's believable maybe you should take it seriously tonight thank you thank you very much Luke and his ten minute and buckle let's hear from Michael well thank you that was all very interesting make a comment on this story about Luke first of all the Gospels Matthew Mark Luke and John we we don't most biblical scholars don't think there were four authors named Matthew Mark Luke and John these were names given to the books by the anonymous authors that's what most biblical Scott on most biblical scholars think mark was most likely written first around 65 to 70 then Matthew and Luke and then John about 95 John is quite different from the other three that we'll get to the that may be in the discussions but but let's just take whoever Luke was he was an accurate historian navigated around the Mediterranean accurately described what he did where he went found this island more accurately than anybody else and so forth it's my contention that that's largely irrelevant when you're talking about the description of a highly unlikely highly improbable divine event which is how I defined a miracle so for example I mentioned earlier I I came up here from LA I live in Santa Barbara my flight was canceled this morning so I got to sleep in an extra hour and then a connecting flight through San Francisco landed at sea-tac my friend Bob picked me up we drove south on the five jumped over through Tacoma went across that Narrows Bridge that crashed in the thirties or whatever it was that was pretty exciting but we made it across there went up through these little fishing villages on that we were on highway 19 I think and then highway 104 and then 101 and right at the junction of highway 104 and 101 a bright light hovered over our car and we were abducted by aliens into spaceship that took us to the Pleiades where I met the pleadians who told me about what we need to do to save the earth they brought us back through the miracles of time travel we didn't lose any time and we had time for dinner we ate at that restaurant the Worf nearby here at the John Wayne thing on the lake whatever it was great had the bouillabaisse drove here Here I am now that's an accurate description most of it of what really happened are you buying the abduction part no force them all right you don't need a lot of evidence that the rest of the story is probably accurate because it's typical it's not unusual it's not an extraordinary claim so you don't need extraordinary evidence you know the highways I just called out you can picture it yeah he probably did that the abduction part not so much why because it's an extraordinary claim aliens are not just popping in and out all the time we never see them so sure Murray you need to provide extraordinary evidence for that an extraordinary claim well but my friend bob was there he saw too and anyway you get the idea of course I just made that up as an example that alone is is irrelevant now let's talk about the suffering now crucifixion was designed to make the victims suffer as long as possible before they died although sometimes they broke their legs so that they would die sooner from not being able to breathe but really I don't think the Romans had anything on the medieval Inquisition if you've ever looked at their instruments of torture they were designed to do just that make the victim suffer for as long as possible without killing them and then kill so capital punishment in medieval Europe designed and implemented by the Christians of the time part of the ink was addition was to make them suffer as long as possible the suffering part isn't really not that unusual by historical examples lots of people go to their deaths believing so strongly in another person a cause a belief and ideology that we can just rattle them on Battlement on Jim Jones David Koresh Charles Manson I mentioned Shirdi Sai Baba Shoko isara I'm sure Eco cult Marshall Applewhite Joseph Dammam bro Mohammad Atta Mohamed Atta you know who that is the hijacker American Airlines playing into the World Trade Center I am quite confident his moral module was dialed up to 11 believing he was doing the most just and moral thing a human could possibly do and he was going to be rewarded in heaven 72 virgins etc okay you know the story people do this absolutely they'll suffer for their and you know it doesn't even have to be believing in God there are atheist Marxist revolutionaries in the 70s who gladly died in the name of this ideology people do this it's insane but they do we're trying to understand it psychological one of you why people do that but the idea that well our guy our guys that support our belief they did that so what lots of people do that that's not evidence speaking of Mohammed the other one if you're impressed with the numbers of people that have been moved by Jesus's life over 2 billion in the world today it's impressive to be sure but there are 1.5 billion Muslims in the world today they will surpass Christians about the year 2050 2060 depending on fecundity rates and so forth so the numbers are also irrelevant because I presume most of you here you raised your hands Christians so you're not Muslim but Muslims believe that Mohammed performed numerous miracles they attest to it there was eyewitnesses people said they saw it they signed documents to support it so he split the moon booms put the moon caused blindness to some warriors who were assembled at his door to assassinate him he caused the horse of an enemy pursuing him to sink into the mud before the Battle of Badr he accurately predicted where the enemy Chiefs would be killed he quenched the thirst of thousands of his soldiers he caused two trees to move at his command B and E if you're gardening he caused a barren u to produce milk he caused it to rain during a drought in Medina stones and trees would greet him during his prophethood he could understand the language of animals he did not cast a shadow he could hear the voices of the Dead in their graves he could heal the sick and cure the blind only by touching the patient and of course most famously he flew on a winged horse from Mecca to Jerusalem and then to heaven apparently did not stop by America way okay so I mean crazy right but that's what 1.5 billion people believe now he wasn't claiming to be God or the Son of God the last prophet unless you're Mormon then you have latter-day saints and more prophets and that's your Scientology and you get one more and so it goes now if you think this is different somehow it's it's not if you were an anthropologist from Mars you come to study the beliefs of humans and you didn't know the names of these things just here's one set of beliefs here's another set of beliefs here's another here's another which one's the right one all of the arguments I just gave you they're indistinguishable I mean yes they're different of course the details are different but in the main there's no one that stands out is like well that's the accurate one and this is these are all a bunch of baloney you have only to ask yourself why don't choose accept Jesus as the Messiah as this miracle worker same book but the Old Testament anyway they believe in the same God that you believe in almost always lumped in the same name Judeo - Christian Judeo Christian they don't they don't accept Jesus as the Messiah they know all the arguments you can't say well you know those crazy Jews well Christians used to say that that thankfully stopped in the 20th century but and you can't say well they don't really know the arguments if they knew the arguments they'd convert no they know the arguments the great rabbis these are super smart well-educated telogen people they know the arguments their version of the Messiah in the Old Testament is not somebody who's captured and crucified it's a triumphant warrior who becomes the leader of Israel you might say it's almost a trumpian version of john mccain i like a messiah who's not captured sorry i just had to go in there why not cuz they don't is there aren't any good arguments for it if there were they'd convert everybody would if it was obvious we'd all be christians right so it's a different kind of belief system religion than other forms of knowledge it's not reliable justifiable knowledge in the same way as other knowledge claims are it very much depends on a whole other host of factors that are not based in evidence and empiricism and reason but other things that I'll address in our discussion thank you thank you very much Michael and Luke you're gonna do a 10 minute rebuttal before we go into some Q&A just a reminder feel free to text in those questions and we'll try and include as many as we can after Luke's finish speaking well I think I'll try to address the most relevant objections at this point and then perhaps as Michael indicated we can talk through some of these other things in the informal section perhaps we'll begin by just addressing this idea you have extraordinary claims where you need extraordinary evidence I do think that the evidence for Jesus miracles is extraordinary it's extraordinarily weighty that was the point of my opening statement I don't actually think this is a good slogan though even to begin with I mean many atheists also believe extraordinary things don't they that life came from non-life unguided right consciousness from non consciousness the universe nothing far from a multiverse whatever now that those aren't the issues up for debate tonight but certainly those are extraordinary claims but there's no good evidence to think they're true let alone extraordinary look at evidence beyond this I think the objections Michael has to my case generally miss my point so for example Michael mentions that people die for lies all the time I agree with that right the the Muslim jihadists they did die for a lot but there's there's a significant distinction there in one case people are dying for what they believe is something they were taught right in another case in the disciples of Jesus they died for something they experienced publicly as adults right that also sets apart very powerfully Michael's illustration with Bob from Jesus and the apostles we're not talking a little lone event that could be explained by some kind of hallucinogenic mushrooms right we were floating around in for a century galley while Jesus was doing these public miracles and what kind of miracles did he do once the Republic and verifiable we have multiple witnesses independent witnesses individuals who are willing to change their lives and die for that now if Michael hoop can produce a parallel like that my faith would be shaken right cuz that's the key to that kind of evidence that's what it would take to try to match the evidential basis for Jesus's miracles you know be all this there's something I would really like to talk about if I had a chance with Michael which is the Gospel writers Michael claims that they're the majority of scholars think they're anonymous obviously if they were that would severely undermine my case perhaps like if a few indicators why I certainly don't think they were and then I'd love to develop this more in our discussion because I know for many of you that's probably a big deal to you right you've based well let's face it your eternity on what Matthew Mark Luke and John tell you so we should probably cover that ground pretty well let me just give you a few positive reasons why I take the gospel account seriously I'll start with just a little fun piece of internal evidence my internal evidence is just stuff within the document that seems to confirm its claims right if that's going on that's a good sign as something authentic so for example you take the word phallus ah this is the Greek word for C right in mark and in Matthew and in John they love to talk about this 13 mile long lake as the C par excellence all right Hollis this this is there see and then there's Luke and Luke refers to it as for the lake of Tiberias right now why would one author call the lake of Tiberias and these three authors strangely call it the sea par excellence well that's strange but a natural obvious explanation is that Luke was the guy who we've always thought he was he's a met Rainey and Gentile to him it's a pond I think it'd take two guys like like Peter was behind Mark's Gospel or Matthew or John well they were - those three were fishermen this will really spend their lives do you spent your life on that on that Lake that was to you see par exellence just take a little piece of information like that right you can look at it and it's a piece of internal evidence now the external evidence for the for the Gospel writers being whose we think they are is incredibly strong right it's uniform among the early church fathers the manuscript evidence is uniform from the beginning that's powerful evidence these were the that's important because we have to establish these were the individuals who really did experience Jesus and really did die for the things they came to believe I have a few more minutes so let's talk about this idea of mythology if you want to try to argue that somehow the Gospel writers were influenced by mythology you get massive problems historically right first of all Palestinian Jews right there's zero evidence they were influenced by mythology right there's absolutely no evidence to support that claim they were obsessed with one book the Old Testament for us the Hebrew Bible right the New Testament is full it's filled with quotations about that but nothing from pagan sources in fact the Jews even in Galilee were incredibly hostile to Hellenism so like the influences from the Greek world like their mythologies so for example in that area that was a unique place with a Roman said hey let's not print any more coins let's not make any more coins with the pictures of Emperor's on them why because those crazy Jews think they're like you know some kind of some kind of evil pagan mystic idolatry and let's not do that that's unique to that area why because they strongly resisted hellenism and Hellenistic influences right so you have to you have to construct a a view that ignores all the evidence to think they had borrowed from mythology now if all Michaels saying is there's parallels to the story well that's actually maybe in evidence that it's true and maybe that sounds strange to you there's a guy named C is Lewis who knows this is Lewis right I know Michaels read all CS Lewis's works right he was actually a historian he was that a historian but he was a student of mythology this was his love he loved mythology you realize that all these separate myth logic stories there were these these pictures of kind of like the hope of humanity expressed an individual figure not historically mythology was never seen as history during this time added that they're writing about Jesus but these ideas of Hope resurrection Redemption life after death that there's more to life right we experience that as human beings I see us Lewis said and this is a story I see across all humanity but here in this one point in time that story seems to have become history and it was actually that realization that made CS Lewis realize Jesus didn't just fulfill Old Testament Jewish prophets ease that's a discussion we can have in detail Jesus actually fulfilled the hope of every human heart and it was that realization that actually let loose to become a Christian right so the parallel them to any mythology that we have doesn't necessarily undercut the historicity that I've been discussing perhaps as I'll wrap up here and we could talk a little bit perhaps in our discussion about how memory might influence the gospel writing in fact I have some time to do that maybe I'll address that now in order to make the claim that faulty memory would undermine the history of historicity of the Gospels right you'd have to believe they miss remembered quite a bit especially since 40% of the of the Gulf earliest gospel is miracle it was the modern study done it was a it was published by a robert McIver in the context of the eyewitnesses of jesus about how trustworthy memory is and it was unique over in British Columbia there was a violent crime right worst case scenario for a good memory by the way whenever this weapon focus or a quick event like that that's where you that's where eyewitness memory is the worst wrecks it's in a tense situation well in this situation there was 13 witnesses it happened quickly and with it because of the unique situation there are the researchers they went in and they and they asked these people hey what do you remember about all these details they went over 17 295 details in total 13 witnesses the next day their memory was about 82% correct which is pretty good and then they witnessed him after a long period of time three months you know what a drop to 81 percent in other words sure people make mistakes about especially in certain situations about lighting about names right about what day it is and I'm pretty forgetful sometime especially today being stressed out I remembered like I did I misremembered about 20 things I didn't stop remembering who my wife was right that's the kind of level where they'd have to misremember the miracles of Jesus right that's not the kind of level we miss remember in fact for those kind of situations that are change our lives that are meaningful that are personal those are our best memories because they form who we are as people right those are lasting those are the kind of memories you live for and the kind of memories I've been arguing you die for maybe all as I wrap it up Michael mentioned a few issues he has with a Bible the Inquisition maybe it leads Christians to do bad things and perhaps will kind of tack onto that whole Michael Bob scenario right let's say my I'll just close my talk of a question for Michael let's say they're driving back to Seattle tonight alright and oh what do you know their car breaks down alright in fact at the same time you know Bob is really stressed out he has a heart attack and Bob's dead there is Michael the tragic it'll end on a good note there's Michael he's in an alley in Seattle in the dark with a broken-down car and a dead guy all right now down the alley is a little group of giant men coming his way right big guys this is my question to Michael if he thinks the Bible so horrible and bad would you or would you not be happy to learn they had just come from the Bible study [Music] [Applause] right great stuff what a great set of opening statements and rebuttals thank you both Luke and Michael for those really interesting really entertaining as well okay so we're coming to a time when we're going to just have some open discussion between the three of us and we'll throw in as many questions do we have some questions is anyone gonna pass me a sheet from any bit of well I'll wait for someone if they do come up with anything they may they may pass me some but looks like someone's bringing some now okay so you'll answer the question would lady of mine a part of what you were saying obviously the question of you know Christopher Hitchens this question and it's rattle off the number of cities he'd been around in the world where he would definitely prefer they not be coming from a religious gathering and I'd have to agree with that depends on the religion okay is the Christian Church and see in Seattle yeah okay I'm sure they'd be flying but you know it depends on the context yeah I do want to say something about the mythology is an interesting topic I've been thinking a lot about recently as I've gotten to know Jordan Peterson a little bit maybe you've heard of Jordan Peterson he's become pretty famous in public intellectual now and it's not clear that he's a Christian or non-christian seem to think he is they want him to be sure he is he's hard to pin down question he said I live my life as though I'm a Christian okay all right well which again is kind of difficult to pin down well let's think about that because he says you know like the resurrection okay what is this mean well it represents the suffering of life and life is hard and you have to bear your bird you have to bear your cross you know so get up in the morning make your bed clean your room work hard you know and face your your demons with courage and so on it's like yo Kim I'm behind all that I make my bed clean my room you know I work out every day I face my demons yes I'm right on board with you but that's different than saying did somebody actually die and come back to life that from a scientist perspective that's a separate question so I'm talking about mythology are we talking about you you know empirical truths or metaphorical truths so someone like a Nietzsche or Jane Austen Shakespeare you know great novelists they they write about human truth truths about human nature and society and good and evil and they touch deep deep truths that we are you know that we gather information from that's separate from say a scientific book or something saying these are the six characteristics of human nature whatever so depends what we mean by what you brought up to some extent that this whole issue it towards the NSCs Lee was talking about the mythology that exists and he sort of came to understand Christ as the true myth they true right the historical myth they're myth coming true as as it were so in that sense I guess Lewis was saying it's it's more than just a meaning or a psychological kind of truth it's it's something deeper than that perceivable yeah from actually from Richard Swinburne's book I think I think Bradley Bowen decided that work he talks a little bit about that and this idea of mythology and how it developed and also Gregory boy talks about in the genius legend and they both point out that historically speaking they're really two different ways to understand mythology one way is to say oh mythology is something fabricated like it's made up right and in that sense of course I don't think Christianity's mythology I think its historical another way and this is actually a more traditional Greek way it is daddy it's unveiling of something that's beyond like Universal right the kind of Universal things we tend to live for that that more that's something else right and it might wrap up certain ideas like stuff that Doron Peterson might want to highlight and I think in that sense Christianity is the ultimate myth that actually became true in history and now since it's the unveiling of the universal truths found in God that we all tend to reach out for and if we believe in Jesus low evangelistic plug here if you believe in Jesus we find can I can I throw a question to you Michael and this this came from someone in the audience said is there any context in which you would believe a miracle claim and I've got a little request as well I read a fascinating story you write about the the thing that came closest to being a miracle it involved a faulty radio set you know you might want to share that because it's just an interesting story yeah so I mean it's a good question that we should ask each other you know what would have taken to change your mind absolutely or falsify your belief you mentioned a hint of it there in your rebuttal that you know if there were other historical parallels I thought I'd provided one reasonably close with with Mohammed in Islam although he didn't claim to be the Son of God so yes you're gonna find differences but that seemed like a pretty good argument and I've talked a lot of Muslims that I'm at my office with Tom Cruise you know telling me this this is absolutely the gospel I mean there goes and you know I remain unconvinced still so there's death yeah the property like would answer that now feel free I do want to get to the question of what would convince yeah well let me just because I forgot to address that I'm glad you brought it up so the key difference for me would be once again I go back to the history so as my case demonstrated what's important for me is eyewitness memory right living memory he said the guys who really actually knew Jesus these guys who lived and died for this that's key for me so with Muhammad for example in the ad if you're talking about like one hundred hundred fifty year gap that's the difference for me so it's one thing to say a guy performed miracles and our earlier sources are distant right and the very earliest sources in the Quran don't have any kind of miracles in that sense that's very different than saying here's the Jesus tradition at the very core we didn't address this but actually at the very core the very earliest Jesus tradition is actually better the from first Corinthians 15:3 to eight and many skeptical scholars including bar Herman girl uttama and John Dominic Crossan date that Proclamation that Paul quotes about the resurrection of Jesus and Jesus appearing to James and the Peter some of the guys I mentioned that core according to these skeptical scholars and of course the evangelical scholars goes back to us in one to three years of Jesus's death I look at that and I say that is early that is living memory that is convincing that to me is a totally different world than saying here are some miracles 150 years later in the hadith right that's very different that's what I would draw that to see whenever Islam to them yeah so for example Bart Ehrman you mentioned you know he makes the point that that when Matthew talks about the Virgin the virgin birth you know he was operating from a Greek translation of the Book of Isaiah but the Hebrew original Hebrew book of Isaiah doesn't say virgin it says young maiden or you want to you know loose it a little bit that it was a woman who was a virgin then she was going to have a son who would be Emmanuel and special and so on well of course if fact you started off as a virgin and you have a have a child you're no longer a virgin I mean you know that's it so that changed so anyway Barts point is that he thinks and not just him but a lot of biblical scholars that the Gospel writers whoever they were were writing theology not history they were sort of tying up the loose ends from the Old Testament to make it fit what they thought the story should be which would be much like the prequels to Star Wars tying up the loose ends in this original Star Wars movie because the writers are you know writing to have a coherent narrative arc thread there that this is an exact UV of what's happening with all the miracle stories and the Gospels is quite like this characterization liars or fools that's to black and white it's to not nuanced enough about human nature people are genuinely honestly trying to understand the world and they just misunderstand or misperceived we know this happens and there they're not lying they're not idiots or fools neither one of those is quite right what is happening in your view then but well okay so if you're gonna apply any of those criteria then why not accept the sanema story about fifty thousand people saw the Sun stop and tumble to fifty thousand that's not like one person hitting on magic mushrooms if you're gonna apply that standard why would you not accept it or maybe you do I don't know couple of things then to respond to that yeah briefly so is it just a theological account then kind of trying to make a theological point and inventing things like virgins and whatever and yeah what about these other kind of claims that people have said you know well thousands of people saw the arrival of Fatima's oh well starting with the virgin birth idea and the fact that there seems to be according to Michael perhaps a weak prophetic link there right is even really even fulfilling this or didn't Matthew reinterpret what the Old Testament text said I mean if that was the case actually for me if I just step out of my I'm an an errant wrist so I that's just a position I step out of that and I take up just a strictly historical view that wouldn't undermine my key point that they experienced a radical person named Jesus had changed their world because if anything what that's saying is here's Matthew and he believed Jesus was born of a virgin for other reasons and then he goes back and he tries to make the Old Testament text mix with that so if it points to anything from a critical perspective it does before point back to the core of something experience right and so that that would be my just meant off the top of my head one response I might take as far as the apparitions of all kinds in general you know I do think there are certain situations and this is what the published literature has revealed where where it is less easy to conclude that a miracle has happened and issues that would actually influence how we interpret those things miraculously so for example something very distant something very vague something that could be interpreted different ways something that is expected right so especially the Roman Catholic apparitions they expected to see it wasn't it was it environment were they were almost waiting for that kind of vision I think when you just take those kind of criteria and you take it back to the miracles of Jesus that's where the liars and fools things comes in for me the kind of things they experienced right we're against what they expected culturally in fact during that time the Messiah was at the claim Jesus was wasn't even expected to be a miracle worker right and then they have somebody they experienced up close and personal they knew they're in the inner circle they talked with him right they walk with him that to me is it in a different category than a distant vision or apparition maybe they did see something out there right now I don't have to agree I can agree with that and say I don't agree with their interpretation of that I think that's much more difficult to do with the disciples of Jesus because the relationship is so close and real to the actual events it's so personal I would draw that distinction between those I think the answer your original question what would it take a miracle would be something not just highly improbable but they just could not have happened naturally so for example when people tell me stories about you know cancers that went into remission after they prayed okay what about all the people that were Christian and prayed and their loved ones died anyway you know the problem of evil and all that but you know cancers do go into remission periodically so you got to know the whole data set and the long tail of highly improbable four standard deviations out from the mean of survival rate of pancreatic cancer or whatever but turns out 1 out of 1 million people with stage 4 pancreatic cancer last ten years and your guy last 8gc took I call dr. Sean joy never happen and so here's our example of this a amputee growing a new limb okay all right so would that be something you did that when you saw that happen now assuming David Copperfield wasn't in the room does I've seen Penn and Teller walk on water I've seen Penn & Teller change water into wine I'm even seeing them raised the dead you know teller is in this water tank and he drowns while Penn's trying to find the card in the deck and he can't find it but if you could be shown I have to go it yes no nothing like me but you know you and you and all of us there it is you know it's a wounded warrior back from Iraq or Afghanistan blowing up in an ie the missing his limbs he's a Christian and so on they pray over him and the limb just grows back and got it on video everybody can see it okay you'd be in church well I mean okay so you'd be impressed and I did want to hear this story because I just think that would be an interesting segue into what counts and what doesn't catch yeah so this is one of these highly improbable events it probably has a natural explanation who knows I don't care but you know for almost 18 years I had a monthly column in Scientific American so for one of them I wrote about this unusual event on my wedding day my wife's from Cologne Germany and she was raised by a single mom and so as we were dating in deciding you know we're gonna be together she's shipping stuff out to California from Germany and so one of them included this radio from a grandfather raised by a single mom and a grandpa so it was this little 1977 Phillips transistor radio and she loved this and and I tried to get it to work you know and I it was dead I put new batteries in and I did the old yeah you know that usually works I did nothing and anyway so you know then she moved to California be with me which I still can't believe anyway and so then we decided to get married and we went to the Beverly Hills courthouse and then we did a thing at my house and Altadena at the time and just had friends and family over the last minute thing let's just do it and and so she had nobody there so she was feeling pretty bad about this like I have nobody here it's just you and your family and so she needed a moment alone so we go back into the back bedroom and we hear music playing so and I don't have a stereo stereo system in my house I thought well I must have left my laptop iTunes open no it was it Mike you know as at the phone and and then it's like it means that the neighbors know it seems to be coming from the drawer where I put this radio anyway bottom line I pulled the radio I pulled the door and there's a radio and it's fun and it's Blaine perfectly tuned to a station plane is beautiful I don't remember what the song was played beautiful love music and you know Jennifer is like oh my god you know no she's an atheist she's just thinking of grandpa's floating around whatever but but but but here's here's the point you know and I wrote about this and I said I have no explanation for it it was particularly you know emotionally poignant and meaning and for us and that's what love is all about is finding those kind of connections between people and remembering your loved ones and so on and of course I got deluge with mail Oh tremors the transistor of the capacitor of the okay maybe there is a natural explanation you know maybe but but but the timing and the dialed right in and we let it play all night the next day the radio went dead and it's been dead ever since like periodically I do the batteries in still doesn't work and so again I'm not just like saying I'm no longer the mr. skeptic and I now think ghosts and ESP and psychics the whole thing is real no but but there is a lot we can't explain there's a lot of anomalies and mysteries nobody has an answer for and it's okay to just say I don't know it's all right okay such an interesting story thank you for sharing it um I don't if you want to respond to that story but but certainly the the issue of what it would take to convince Mike what do you think about his sort of level of evidence okay don't give me your emission stories don't give me the you know that stuff happens show me something like an arm growing back a limb growing back yeah well I wonder if you asked over the question there as you're as you level changed everything there I listen to your podcasts and in the past it seemed like you were indicating that you can imagine any kind of evidence that would cause you to believe sometimes it depends on your mood we're talking about now miracle would be slightly different than say does God exist okay like Woody Allen's famous line because he's an atheist too and you know what would it take he said you know a large cash deposit in a Swiss bank account under my name ten million dollars that'll do it again I'm not a hundred percent sure it would have to be something along the lines of a miracle some some evidentiary thing because we don't know the origins of the universe yet you know there might be multiple first universes there was maybe a thing before the Big Bang that causes debate we just don't know so there I'm just I just say you know I don't know at some point we shift from science to kind of metaphysics or whatever religion something you know we just thought we just hit up an epistemological wall where we just don't know and you know you have your answers and theoretical physicists have their answers that are if they're not testable they're not physics it's not science it's it's sort of whatever it is speculation so they're you know God question I I really I'm not sure and here's why because if you define God is really truly omniscient omnipotent and omni-benevolent it can't just be an a super advanced extraterrestrial intelligence that's able to say genetically engineer life-forms or whatever because we can practically do that with just a century of technology and so say you had 50,000 years of the rate of technological growth in science growth we've had any sufficiently advanced extraterrestrial or far future human would be indistinguishable from what we think of as God so your God is I conceived it because I used to believe in this God would have to be different than that not just a material natural being that's super smart okay so outside of space and time okay if God is outside of space and time how can I access him oh Jesus dr. Christian so but what your point is that periodically god reaches in to stir the particles in this case okay now here we have a problem was okay this is a this is legitimate debate was Jesus always God and then just came down and became man for a while but that's not what not all the Gospel writers think that something he became God when he was baptized oh you read that into the turd that's reversed or when he was resurrected or Luke or John thinks he was always God for eternity I think though but the other guys know I think the other Gospel writers think he became God when I was either born baptized or a quick quick response on crystals there's a lot of things to go back to the beginning perhaps you shared your story and then you mentioned the cash deposit into the account and so perhaps I'll give a little anecdote myself and then I will try to address why I think at least the miracles of Jesus don't blend comfortably to the future alien explanation I can call it that so you'll tell you a little anecdotal story I know you kind of this is not very scientific but I know a guy and he wouldn't want me to tell you the story actually about the group as a as a nominal Christian or an atheist by any means right and spin his whole life just focused on the world right focused on making money right that kind of stuff group is a skeptic in his forties certain kinds of evidence became the challenge namely Christians that he met and they seemed intelligent and they seemed reasonable and he thought these people aren't idiots right they're not fools and so I started to look for the evidence now part of that process was actually something very unorthodox and and this kind of goes into the somewhat problem Michael story although there's a religious context here he prayed a prayer to God not a prayer I would advise anyone to pray one night he said you know God if you are real I'm searching for you okay you dig in the stocks very wealthy retired when he was 40 years old so if you're real if you help me make a whole bunch it's not a very good prayer if you make me if you help me make a whole bunch of money this week I will I will take the next step in his seeking you more alright and that week I made 40,000 dollars in the stock market well everyone else lost money right and actually did lead him to become a Christian I know that because that guy's my dad and and what I now the point that story is I'd like you to invest it what I'm saying is that I do think when we are open to entering into a deeper relationship with God and we're serious about that obviously it shouldn't take this particular kind of situation that's not recommended but I do think for those who are open to the evidence God provides enough for those individuals to believe but I also think the alternative is true as a Christian because I believe in the teachings of Jesus Jesus for example taught in parables not so that not because we loved stories and we understand it better but Jesus's reasoning was I teach them in parables so that those who are really interested in seeking wanted to go deeper will go deeper and find me in that and those who aren't interested can just go their other way right and I think at the bottom of my issue with the amputee desire right is that it assumes something of God but I don't think the Christian God would ever want to give if Christianity is true in fact I think it involves at least three assumptions I simply disagree with right one of those is well if God were good right then he would take away all of our paint now if we live in a sin cursed world right maybe it's God's desire to sue our free choices to use pain to draw us into his kingdom and this was actually my the testimony of my grandparents who also grew up as non-christians and my grandma got a brain tumor and through that experience my grandparents both became Christians my grandma my grandpa became a a radical evangelist what I'm saying is God isn't about just making all of our illnesses go away in fact I think if God started he all amputees the result of that would just be in health or wealth gospel which is the very thing Jesus wouldn't want us to believe right so that's the first time perhaps I can finish the second assumption that I think is simply incorrect is that if God were real he would have to do miracles in the past like he does today and I think if you follow you take the Christian worldview and you follow the biblical evidence even in the scriptures you only see these kind of instantaneous complete undeniable miracles and certain phases of what we call redemption history because the point of these miracles in the exodus and time of Jesus was to solidify a particular message that was really a message about risk and choice and love and holiness right the kind of thing is that what I think be undermined by the kind of obvious miracle claims that Michael wants to believe in but those are actually the kind of things that we find the most value within our own lives if I think about myself one of the greatest risks ever took was choosing to marry my wife based on less than extraordinary evidence right that was a risky choice best choice I ever made most meaningful choice I ever made and I think at the end of the day powerful just so I'm not going on and on I wrap it up with this I do think God wants something more for us and I think he exists like this table exists I think if all that God wanted to do is to show us that he existed he would go and you would heal amputees good right Michael Shermer you're a great guy I love you Yahweh on the stars right that would do it that would do it thank you Michael I just don't think that's the kind of God that exists he's real I don't think it's the kind of God I should expect if Jesus performed miracles happen when somebody's beloved mother or whatever the cancer goes away and they declare they prayed and they give God credit right this happens a lot many of you have experience where you prayed and something good happens and you thought God really intervene okay yeah so so this would be an example of this this didn't just happen 2,000 years ago the most Christians think it happens all the time but not all the time so here's the problem what about all the times you prayed and it didn't come out well God had a different plan for me okay in other words when something good happens who gets the credit God when something bad happens who gets to blame not God well no so you think any late so tails tells you when heads you know who's bad bad and this is a common sort of objection it's sometimes called confirmation bias as well you know every time we see something good and we say yeah God did it and if it doesn't happen we kind of ignore it or maybe make a an explanation or something and I can understand when when Michael comes from that point of view because I think there is a natural tendency maybe for us to want to see if we do have a particular belief that right the the good bit the pros and rather than the cons yeah well couple things I think on one level I actually do kind of agree with Michael that answers to prayer that's why I don't go up I don't give my case for Christianity based on modern answers to prayer because I do think it's simply such a difficult situation to determine when did God really do right and if god my mom had had a brain aneurysm a year in Africa she's disabled right why you know what why didn't my mom why didn't God answer that prayer about my mom and then my answer that was a Christian that by the way I think Christians do deeply struggle with God's existence and goodness when people suffer I do think that's true you know and they're not that easy letting got off the hook I think I think there's a wrestling that goes on there but I do think it's more complicated I do think in a sense I think you're right Michael I don't think we should attribute our subjective experiences of how God has answered our prayers for something like the validity of Jesus miracles too easily and too readily and that's why for example with dr. Shawn George you know we didn't fly him out here to have him talk about his miracle story just because it was an answer to prayer or there were certain other factors involved there wasn't a naturalistic explanation and it happened to take place and in a deeply religious context and we grilled him for like an hour and a half maybe the end of the day there were even some Christians who thought I'm still not sure about that right and what I want to say is that as as powerful as this story is I put the miracles of Jesus on a different plane and that's the case I came out with tonight I think one of the reasons is because there is that confirmation bias element of Prayer so in a way I agree with can we go to another question just just this look the first question I posed was you might like there's actually three questions all really similar for you Luke and I think this is an important one part of your case was built on the fact that those early followers of Jesus were willing to die all this faith now a few people mention this one person says Christian tradition has Peter crucified upside down but scholars don't simply accept such traditions on critically do scholars agree that it is an established historical fact what's the evidence and other people ask why do you think the claims of martyrdom are true and another ask do scholars agree that Jesus disciples died as martyrs I don't see historical facts are there so so I think people are just looking for okay great to hear those stories do we have good evidence that these people really did die for their for their faith yeah I recommend a book before I answer a Sean McDonald who's been on your show he did his PhD on this and went into the historical evidence behind the claims about martyrdom for the early apostles I take Peter for example Clement riding at the end of the first century notes that Peter and Paul were martyred right and he's a very early source and in fact for for Peters death yeah John chapter 21 which actually seems to foreshadow Peters death by crucifixion quite clearly right and there are two options either it's prophetic if you're a Christian you think you know that's part of John's original gospel or it's put in later like at the end of the first century either way you take that account it's evidence that that it's significant evidence for the truth of Christianity either it's a real prophecy and Peter died that way or you know this happened and then it was put in the text was interpolated later beyond that we have a Irenaeus he's a disciple of John O'Reilly a disciple of Polycarp it was a disciple of John we have comment of Alexander that's Peters death and you can make similar cases for for example the the death of Paul or the death of James those three are very concrete historically and then you have later embellishments of that like Peter being crucified upside down probably not that's just a later embellishment you could you can tell even by the fact that it's a strange story by the way right that would be a hand and this is actually a later edition it's fantastical right and because it's later that I wouldn't trust that but I would trust wasn't multiplied tested early is there anything you wanted to add to that when I was at Pepperdine University as an undergraduate I was originally in a major in theology mainly wanted to be a college professor because it seemed like a great gig get summers off and and theology was my thing because I was a I was a born-again Christian at the time and and so I took courses in as you know in the writings of CS Lewis life of Jesus the New Testament the Old Testament and so on but to get to be a college professor you have to have Paige do you have a PhD in theology you have to master Hebrew Greek Aramaic and Latin and I could barely get to Spanish so I realized oh boy it's pretty rough going I guess as you know and but I also realize digging these courses you really need to read you know the Hebrew not the King James Version or whatever you really got to read the original as old as we could get because those words that you know much turns on how those words are translated and what they originally meant in the context they were used boy you could get lost into the wee of this whole business of you know which gospel and who said what I was translated and so on and anyway I haven't looked at a lot of that material in a long time I took some of Bart Ehrman's courses at teaching company courses they're great I feel like listening to him that he's trying to present it fairly like this is what some theologians say other here it seems like that way to me but maybe you don't feel that way but anyway my point is this that at least some of this stuff is clearly debatable amongst just within Christian theologians the Christians who are agreed Jesus is my Savior I accept him and so on we're right on the same page there but you and I disagree on that passage right there and how you interpret that word that has to be okay to have those discussions and I think that kind of interchange does happen on exactly the kind of scenario you're describing what is that particular word right but not for example the martyrs of Peter and I sometimes to the Linguistics of a particular text if you understand that I can actually add to your view of its authenticity so for example I didn't even mention Josephus's account of Jesus's miracles josephus the jewish four century historian also mentions that Jesus is a miracle worker right and there's discussion about that particular text one of the reasons I didn't bring it up that maybe this is a later Christian interpolation for example okay and Josephus calls Jesus a a doer of marvelous works now if you understand the Greek there for example okay what Josephus is calling Jesus is actually paradox on or honpo a days right and what's interesting is paradox on that's actually uniquely Josephus is way of referring to a miracle it's a paradox right but what do the biblical writers the Christians always called Jesus's signs semion or tear-offs their signs or their works of God so and that's just one illustration of how understanding the text actually shows this text from Josephus why he's talking about Jesus's miracles is actually very likely originating with Josephus because he uses what we call Josephus as idiolect Josephus is word whereas if a late Christian would be interpolating that text they would use obviously the Christian language and so for me and this has been my and my experience going into scholarship the more you dig into the roots of this it continues to strengthen the case that there are many early multiple many multiple witnesses to Jesus and doesn't undermine that let me pose a question to you Michael one person asks aren't you effectively saying miracles can't happen so they don't happen what's well are you kind of saying from the outset they don't know they can't happen therefore whatever you think happened it wasn't America okay so well I gave an example of what it would do for me you know think would it take a change of mind so no not quite on the other hand we would always be curious to know well how did the limb grow back because we know salamanders can do this so there's a there's a genomic sequence that can happen that causes cells to turn on and start multiplying and growing into that particular limb structure this happens embryologically in in fetuses it can happen we know it can happen we've seen it how did it happen I'd be curious to know how did God do this okay I mean did God reach into the limb or if it's God cured the cancer did he go into the tumor but you know now we have this virus you can inject into tumors this is how Jimmy Carter is still alive they injected this virus as polio virus into his brain tumor and it reprogrammed the cells to die just the tumor cells and not the surrounding cells in his brain okay is that what God does something like that well you live with a woman right Michael I live with a woman I believe in love I don't understand that okay oh no a bit okay you know what you call love without evidence stalking my point is you know I mean as a Christian I'm content believing that Jesus can perform miracles and I'm content not being able to understand exactly why that to me seems this completely logical and reasonable if Jesus is we said he was he's got incarnate right if if he created the universe right I'm like an ant compared to him right I don't I wouldn't expect an ant walking across my lawn to understand physics right in the same way I don't think I have to understand how God does something in order to believe that he does something right I go to the dentist I expect him to fill my cavity I trust them to do that I have no idea how they do that right I don't need to understand how they do that to trust them that they will in the same way I think with Jesus you have all this evidence and the evidence points to the fact that you can trust in him I don't know how God does that but I can still trust a based on the evidence that I have I think this is a good place to wrap up and can we give a big round of applause did I do we're gonna have a chance for just some final thoughts from you babe so we've just got five minutes of peace if you want to use five minutes you've got five minutes shall we go in the same order we began in if you'd like to take these yes you can you can do it from your seat just some final reflect on the debate I told my Catholic joke and know this rabbi priest and a minister walk into a bar and the bartender goes what is this a joke okay so all right I think it's highly improbable that Jesus miracles are believable to me they're unbelievable so I mean that's that was the debate point okay why now let's talk about what is truth Pilate famously asked Jesus what is truth he famously did not answer or perhaps could not answer so let's talk about truth so there are different kinds of knowledge statements or claims that people make that we can try to determine if they're right or wrong or true or false or undecidable if I say there's 357 people here tonight well we can determine if this is true or false count them up on the other hand if I say something like dark chocolate is objectively better than milk chocolate now I think I can prove this but I have a feeling I can't really it's more of a sort of an opinion if I say you know stairway to heaven is the greatest rock song of all time now I know what you're saying Freebird yes it is great I'm not as good as okay now these are rather subjective claims that you know cannot be verified I don't know what's going on in your head our how you feel the problem of other minds I don't know what that is if I took ayahuasca and discovered as some of my fans want me to do try the ayahuasca you will see Shermer there is this whole other spiritual world there this opens the doors of perceptions in this other world okay let's say I did this my wife absolutely insist I do not do this by the way I have to go to Costa Rica to do this anyway but let's say I did it and I and I come back I go you're not gonna believe it I was completely wrong there is this whole other spiritual world and you too can find the truth about this if you just take the ayahuasca okay now I think most of you would agree yeah no probably not it's probably just you know a brain thing you know it's twisting your neurons around and you're having these hallucinations right okay so you know you kind of go through these different claims then it gets a little fuzzier I mean then there's like political quasi religious type playing you know I believe in a progressive tax now I believe in a regressive tell you how do we settle that we vote okay so I mean there may not be objective truths in that sense and so let's get to the point for tonight so Jesus was there was there somebody named Jesus yes probably I think from what I've read yes was he crucified probably the Romans crucified everybody now mark makes the claim by the way or the observation I'd love to get your thoughts on that that the Romans did not put common thieves who were crucified into a no one grave they usually heaved him into an unknown pit for grave so how would the disciples know where to go that's a separate question and so those I think are historical questions we can't answer and agree or kind of largely agree or most people agree yes lived crucified was he resurrected and died for our sins okay did he die for our sins to me this is a purely religious faith-based assertion that cannot be verified one way or the other you either believe it or you don't now the resurrection is kind of in the middle there you know it's a it's an actual claim that you know 100 billion people have lived and died and none of them will come back but maybe one of them came back okay what's the evidence for this probably most extraordinary claim ever made and you heard that evidence you heard it so how do we decide on that so for me I returned to my previous example the fact that Jews and Muslims who are pretty close to you especially Jews don't accept the evidence not to mention Buddhists and Hindus and and so forth don't accept that even when you present that to them or they know the evidence I don't think it's that good I don't think it's clearly in the realm of objective knowledge reliable knowledge that we can clearly say yes these are these are reasons why I should believe that I think it's more along the lines of if you already believe or you're committed to that faith tradition and that's part of the tradition and you accept it for that reason that's fine but it's not in the same category of this sort of objective knowledge factual check check checking the empirical type college you know this just to give you two examples in your side Ken Miller is a Catholic he is one of the most famous biologist at Brown University he was testified in the Dover creationism trial against the intelligent design creationists they're wrong and he shows why they're wrong but he he fully believes jesus is the savior he was resurrected he did die or his sins our sins and so on and francis collins another friend of mine who was the head of the National Institutes of Health he was the head of the human genome project he is a born-again Christian he writes about this experience when I pressed both of them but but is it true and this other this kind of this way this empirical way the same way you study the genome or no it's just my faith tradition that's it okay then we can have mutual respect for each other I knowledge that that's fine that it's in a different kind of category so that's how I think about these questions thank you very much and Luke's gonna bring us his final state I'm gonna go up here behind my podium because I usually talking to church he's just more comfortable I really want to thank you Michael for coming out and having this discussion um I didn't grow up in a Christian home I've references several times I told you guys about the story with my dad how are you pursuing evidence and you prayed this prayer to make a lot of money in it that's of course not the whole story in fact he prayed their parents I got if I do make money I'll give every penny I permit to charity and he did that and part of my faith is more than evidence it's also seeing my mom and dad struggle through the difficulties of what that means for us as individuals becoming a Christian is a lot more like a relationship between a child and a father right than it is like some kind of abstract idea and I made my main case tonight on this single issue historically the earliest people who knew Jesus embrace the hardship of that relationship because of what they saw cuz the evidence how far did they go they committed all the way I they weren't liars they weren't fools they did believe in Jesus and suffer and die for him and you know I was a I'm making this cabin I'm trying to make a little bit of money I don't make a lot of money because I'm part time post graduate student part-time contractor and kind of put a little air B&B together and I was talking to an insulator the other day and he said you know I do this all the time at night I go on Netflix and I just like scroll down all the shows I never make a decision and then I get tired and I fall asleep right I heard a guy say you know you know that is the defining feature of this generation right where we like keeping our options open right open doors and I want to say life it's kind of like a hallway with a thousand doors right nobody wants to be stuck behind a closed door that's kind of the mantra of our time but nobody wants to live in a hallway even right I want to say perhaps the most radical thing one can do as a human being is to commit to one thing to one person and above all else forego all other options and you live completely and totally for that something what I want to say is what Jesus's miracles provide is a context that's hard right it's a risk it's a choice right but there is a choice worth making and it's a choice based on excellent early extraordinary weighty evidence what I hope my case has done for you if you're a Christian is to take the choice you've already made and anchor it into history so that you can know as you suffer and walk with Christ it won't be easy that's not the world we live in right it'll be meaningful they'll be strong and you can endure that to the end if you came here as a skeptic I hope my case will challenge you I do I hope you'll actually read the Gospels as eyewitness accounts to the life of Jesus right that's been my desire too nice to come and give you this evidence I want to thank you for taking the time to do that as well as many of you who are here this afternoon and it's my hope and it's my prayer that you will consider that radical act of committing to someone based upon good evidence and then you take the miracles of Jesus seriously what they're worth right which is weighty authentic life-changing thank you Nikki moving well thank you so much for spending the day with us today for coming tonight and look out for this on the unbelievable podcast and the video feed as well I will be trying to get out in the next couple of weeks time and all I simply has left for me to do is to say thank you once again to organizers to Wilson Bible Church and to everyone who's made today possible have a very safe journey home and we'll see you another time thank you

Channel: Premier Unbelievable?

Views: 55,878

Keywords: unbelievable, justin brierley, premier christian radio, christianity, atheism, philosophy, faith, theology, michael shermer, luuk vandeweghe, miracles, jesus, apologetics, debate

Id: AgVCo5Jeq3U

Length: 119min 10sec (7150 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 18 2019