Atheist Debates Christian Students, Then Reveals True Identity

i'm bringing my friend sean up to speak today he's got his phd in philosophy and he teaches out in california at ucla and he had told me a while back that he was going to be here in florida for a convention of philosophy at um and i thought if you could come by and pretty much do what i do to you guys every week in apologetics class and just press you on what you believe and why you believe it but this time it's not just going to be someone pretending and so i hope you guys are up for that challenge he's going to share some of his story with you and then also take a few questions from you guys so as he's sharing his story uh have a few questions ready maybe a few objections uh waiting but pretend you're in my class at this moment because uh it's gonna kind of feel like apologetics in here to some degree because again we've got skeptic and believer so if you would give a great round of applause for my friend sean as he comes out hey thanks for having me this is a unique opportunity i teach at a school in southern california at a university so obviously work with university students normally but when the opportunity came to come to a christian school which is obviously very different than where i teach at ucla i was like sure i'll share my story a little bit and then we have two mics that'll roam around you can ask me anything you'd like to ask me so i teach philosophy but i'm not a christian i didn't make this sign but that's fine atheist encounter i'm an atheist i don't believe in god now i'll tell you a little bit about my background i grew up in a christian home in northern california kind of outside of san francisco i used to go to church i went on mission trips where i live mission trips would like go down to mexico help the kids who are less fortunate there i would read my bible i would share my faith i even would get ten dollars tithing or no i get 10 allowance each week and i would tithe like a dollar in the allowance trade because that's what i was told 10 percent to be a good christian young man i believe this story but when i got to the university i started encountering people with very very different world views who had ideas i had never thought about before and who were actually really smart in what they believed and i had a conversation with a student i was a freshman and she pressed back and asked me a couple questions i had never thought about before as a christian my first thought was well this is what my pastor taught me well this is my parents taught me this is what the bible says but then my fourth thought for me is what i would call a game changer my fourth thought was honestly i really don't have a clue the answer to what you're talking about i just been told what to believe i'm going to actually go research this read both sides and see where the truth leads to make a long story short after i started to read people of different world views i came to conclusion there's no good scientific evidence that god exists there's no reason to think the bible is true let alone inspired i mean there's far too many contradictions and errors and mistakes in the bible not to mention things like misogyny and slavery and genocide to come from a holy god and frankly i'm not sure jesus existed he might have but i think the christian story is better explained as being patterned after these dying and rising gods of the ancient near east so i became an atheist now i don't know maybe some of you here are not christians i'm not going to ask you to raise your hand i know what it's like to be in a community when everybody else believes something different from you so i wouldn't ask you to to to do that but you could probably imagine if you stopped believing the things your parents and community believed that would upset the apple cart wouldn't it like it wasn't easy to start telling people hey i don't believe in god i'm an atheist many were disappointed in me many thought like they had failed certain things and i said look it's not your fault mom and dad i didn't blame my bible teachers i just have to follow what's true and i don't think christianity's true in fact i think it's harmful and dangerous and damaging to the world now i guess i look at it like this i'm guessing in your english and history classes how many of you have studied like the ancient greco-roman gods like zeus and poseidon you know these stories are okay good almost all your hands went up so like when the ancient greeks couldn't explain something like say earthquakes what did they say was the cause the gods are gods are angry right or they couldn't explain something like say rain what did they say was the cause the gods are crying no gods don't cry the goddesses were crying that joke actually worked before the wonder woman movies but doesn't work anymore bottom line is for the ancient greco-roman stories they didn't understand why the ground moved they lacked a scientific natural explanation so they inserted god as an explanation when they lacked a natural one the problem with doing that it's called god of the gaps is as science advances what happens those gaps get smaller and smaller and smaller now where people used to think god acted we could now explain it naturally i think this is true for miracles i think this is true for the stories of jesus etc i don't believe in the supernatural now just so you it look if christianity was true i would believe it i teach philosophy so i train people how to think how to recognize good thinking how to follow truth how to recognize bad thinking so if christianity were true i would believe it i'd love to believe in an afterlife some kind of heavenly state i just can't talk myself in a belief something for which i don't find good evidence and i find good evidence against it now i can keep talking about my classes my life but i actually think it'd be more interesting your beloved teacher told me that you have interactions where he kind of role plays different world views so you're used to this dialogue i'd be happy to just take questions what would you like to ask an atheist philosophy professor and i'll do my best to respond so if the two of you i see you over there i see mr o'neill over here if you hold your mic up they'll just come follow you anything you want to ask a professor is fair game and i'll do my best to respond if you guys will spread out we'll get as many questions as possible let's do it hi so you like to talk about philosophical arguments correct so i would like to know what you think about the world and its creation as a whole philosophically and how the world if it's so fine-tuned to its creation how something bigger or outside didn't create it okay so i heard the first part what do i think about the origin of creation repeat the second part for me again very quickly so fine-tuning right i'm sure you know what that oh fine-tuning yes fine-tuning so if the world was so specifically made and we assume that a greater force out there had created it what is your philosophical argument against that okay so let me jump in so one is the question of say the origin of the universe creation now i don't think the universe was created i don't believe in creation because that word implies a creator and a mind that's the very thing i'm not convinced that actually exists so i actually think the data shows while our universe had a beginning when you look at string theory you'll find what's called the multiverse and if you're following the you know the shows like wanda vision and other in the flash like they toy and the multiverse in science fiction but there's actually good reason to believe sorry if i ruined it for some of you too bad you had time um do you know who saved endgame can i ruin that one for you i'm kidding i won't the multiverse i think string theory points towards that reality so our universe had a beginning but i don't think the multiverse did it's eternal and it's always been here and there's reasons for that we could go into fine tuning if this were the only universe that existed then i think we would be surprised that it happens to be so seemingly exquisitely fine-tuned to allow life but since it's not and there's more probabilistic resources in the universe i don't see why fine tuning is a problem in fact if there is a multiverse we wouldn't expect to find ourselves the universe that's not fine-tuned because we couldn't live in such universe we'd expect to find ourselves in the very kind of universe that we do find ourselves in oh she can go again i don't i didn't i have no power here i didn't mute you yeah no i i was just gonna have a follow-up question so you pick specifically on the word choice of creator creating so whether or not we see that as god or something else i just don't understand where you're coming from in the sense that thinking that this world isn't created whether that be this universe or the multiverse as a whole well i don't think the universe had a beginning the multiverse that's really what i mean by the universe i don't think it had a beginning hence it doesn't need any cause outside of the universe now if you say that the universe needs a creator then why wouldn't the creator need a creator why could the creator just exist but the universe can't that would be my question so if you're going to be consistent either they both need some kind of cause or they both just exist you believe god just exists i believe the universe just exists so minimally we're at an impasse good question anybody else i see one up here any others spread out even while they're cooking there's one mr stewart you're supposed to be the the downstairs guy but i guess i'll do both mr stuart all right let's we'll try to get in as many as we can so keep your hands up and they'll come to you shh go ahead so you said earlier you don't you weren't even sure if jesus was a real person i'm not talking about like if he was god or like anything like you said he wasn't you weren't sure if he was real he he might have been i think the evidence is late and contradictory and legend filled so i'm not fully convinced so the legend filled would that be like the roman who believed in the like his gods and everything else would be blasphemy and he'd hate everything even him saying that he was a real person is based on legend that's what i just wanted wait jesus saying he's a real person would be legend no so the romans saying jesus existed and jesus was a person well there's no good early roman source that does josephus josephus was jewish for one it was roman historian second uh he was writing for rome but he was not roman josephus was jewish josephus mentions 33 people by the name of jesus 33 people have you read the antiquities of the jews i have not read that yet okay so listen that's all right i would encourage you to read it it's like saying somebody referred to mike or john today jesus was a very common name in the jewish world because it refers to joshua like a savior so yeah he refers to a bunch of people by the name of jesus but that's hardly reference to the historical biblical jesus second reason i don't trust josephus is in antiquities of the jews chapter 18 josephus allegedly refers to jesus as risen on the third day crucified performing miracles and being the messiah would any jew believe that the answer is no jew by religion josephus is not quoted for the first eight centuries of the church it's not an it's really the 10th century that any church historian quotes josephus because the passage that allegedly refers to jesus was tweaked and interpolated and not actually written by josephus yeah hey good question that's okay i appreciate you you're thinking you guys are wrestling with these ideas here i commend you for that go ahead so i have a question about the union so um you said the universe wasn't created but how do you know that it wasn't created if we know that it it is constantly dying like we knows that universe is expanding right so an energy is dispelling every second um like how do you know that it is sort is the microphone so weird it's fine sorry um how do you know that this is endless if um the universe is constantly dying okay let me let me jump in for a second because the echo makes it kind of hard to hear state your question distinctly and clearly and the first one was if the universe is expanding wouldn't it have had a beginning well there's two things that can be said to this number one is there's good reason we believe we have an expanding and a contracting universe kind of like a xylophone and how would we believe this because as we look out further into the universe we see red shifted stars which tell us on the longer wavelength of light that the universe is expanding we also have some blue shifted stars which tells us that there's also contraction so yeah the universe expand but i think it's also contracting uh as well but if it's expanding should it be from the one point like from a single point it should expand from somewhere why did the universe have to come from something then you have to ask that question for god where did god come from well it should come from somewhere like we can't deny that the universe was created and then it started expanding from one point i'm not sure i'm fully tracking maybe because of the sound but we have reasonably the universe is expanding and contracting if there was a beginning to this you're still only dealing with our universe not the multiverse so it doesn't get us all the way to an explanation that would require god that's my question good all right i see some i see a hand down here i see a few in the back again just if if you don't mind get as quickly to your question and distinctly as you can please okay so um earlier when you're addressing madison's question let's take while we're talking go ahead and pull your mask off then we can hear it so earlier while you were addressing madison's question you noted that the multiverse had to be an eternal type thing in order for the beginning of our universe to be created so um going off of that do you believe that the components of something created needs to be in that which created it so like for example with the creation of our world we have intellectual minds and from that with the multiverse how did the intellectual minds come like initiate or develop through something that didn't have that property okay so if i understand you're asking the question of consciousness how did a universe that seemingly at the beginning was physical do things like minds emerge through that process yes did i capture your question yes okay good so yes the universe is physical wait don't leave yet because she might want to follow up but there's certain capacities for what are called emergent properties at the right level of complexity and diversity to emerge so take for example hydrogen and oxygen there are two physical molecules or elements you put them together and you have water now a new property emerges called wetness it doesn't exist just in hydrogen doesn't exist just an oxygen but somehow when these two physical properties emerge you have these two elements emerge you have this new property develop out of it i think the same is true when it comes to the emergence of consciousness that at a certain level of complexity this new element it's an epi phenomenon of consciousness emerges like wetness and what's interesting is you look throughout the evolutionary history of our world and you can see simpler organisms aren't really conscious but there's a basic awareness of pain and then you have consciousness and then you have self-consciousness you have this complete increasing complexity to go on as the evolutionary story unfolds all right we're going to jump up here go ahead if you if you don't follow an afterlife or a sort of meaning of life right now a sort of greater purpose where do you personally and where do you suggest others find vocational motivation that's a good question so let me answer this in a couple ways i would presume correct me if i'm wrong you believe purpose is top down that god has made this world he infuses it with purpose and we find our purpose in god in some fashion is that fair fair yeah okay i think purpose comes from the bottom up i don't think there's a god i don't think there's a grand design but as we look at this amazing story of evolutionary history we have things like friendship we have good food we have knowledge we have freedom these are all good things that give our lives purposes even if there is no god that exists and i think as we look at human beings across different cultures we find this common recognition that our lives can be purposeful even if there's no afterlife or they differ about god so say if everything dies if everything eventually will end then why continue at all why continue it all because i don't win in the end correct okay think about it this way how many football players do we have here let me see your hands let me see hands football players okay if we said tomorrow we're having a scrimmage against the kansas city chiefs even though you're going to lose actually they got smoked you might beat them let's go with the buccaneers okay if you're gonna play the buccaneers is there any chance you're going to win the answer is no you effectively have zero chance of winning maybe maybe negative chance how many football players would be like i don't care i get to get on the field with tom brady and with the buccaneers i'm playing anyways how many of you would still play because you want to get on the field with those guys right that'd be awesome so even though you can't win so to speak in the end it doesn't mean that experiences are not valuable in fact i would actually say as an atheist my life is finite it's not infinite so i think this life has more value because this is all i have so i don't get this morning back i don't think i live for infinity and i spent it with you guys that tells me i think there's something important about thinking and relationships and growing so not believing in god i think actually makes life more purposeful and meaningful over here i want to make sure people can follow up with their questions uh as well i don't want to filibuster here oh okay go ahead um so if the bible contains hundreds of prophecies fulfilled after they were written even being fulfilled like as of now in the 21st century how would that be possible without a omniscient god so give me one example of a prophecy you think like the virgin birth or something or which no like uh the measuring of israel and the end times which one measuring of israel and the end times the in the okay we can't deal with something in the end times because it hasn't been fulfilled yet well it's being fulfilled now so give me an example of a prophecy prophesied ahead of time that was distinctly fulfilled that you think is supernatural i mean you could go with the birth of jesus or the crucifixion of jesus birth of jesus or the crucifixion of jesus okay let's go to the birth of jesus okay since you started there um when that prophecy was written according to you before jesus came in the scene in the book of micah correct i believe so it is correct so jesus claims to be the messiah would he have been aware of this prophecy are you asking me the question yeah um i mean i guess so yeah well of course he was right in luke chapter 2 jesus knew the law so well even the leaders reflected upon this okay i don't think jesus is real i'm telling the story from your perspective jesus would have known this prophecy so if he's trying to proclaim himself as the messiah do you think by the time he's 33 three decades removed from this he would start telling people that he's from the area of bethlehem and later followers who believe this would start telling that as well the answer is of course so i would need some actual proof that he's from that area and didn't invent this like he did other prophecies to believe it's really supernatural and the evidence that jesus is from bethlehem outside of the gospels only emerges in the 3rd century 300 years removed so i don't i just i don't buy it you give me another example we could talk about it but either the prophecies you have people writing the new testament reading back on the old testament pulling things out of context like the virgin birth if you actually read isaiah 7 on the virgin birth it has nothing to do with the messiah and the hebrew word is for a young girl not even a virgin and the new testament writers apply that as if to jesus when it was never implied that way in the old testament or people like jesus intentionally try to fulfill him because they're aware of him and he's trying to convince people he's the messiah but you also have some false prophecies we could talk about if you wanted to as well like when jesus says you know his return people in this generation will see it well we're at least 20 generations after this plus and jesus still hasn't come back so i don't buy the positive prophecies and i think there's examples of false prophecies that's loud hi i'd just like to say thank you for being here i appreciate it and from here it looks like you have a wedding ring on are you married am i married this is getting really personal just answer just answer wow yes sir what is your standard for love if you have no foundation in jesus i see no reason to love people at all so what's your standard well okay i can tell you my standard is not jesus because despite what people say he did and believed a lot of things we all know are not loving and i'll give you some examples of this supposedly there's demons wait don't leave she might want to follow back up don't leave her i want oh you do have the mic um supposedly there's demons and instead of casting them out he runs them into a herd owner's pigs and sends what was it 2 000 pigs into the ocean like why would jesus if he was god he didn't have to ruin the guy's herd that didn't sound very loving to me second jesus believes in the old testament and you look at a lot of the violence in the old testament that's hardly the kind of thing a loving god would do so i don't look to the bible for love now are there some things jesus taught that were good sure like loving your enemies that's a pretty powerful teaching jesus thought he taught i'm okay with that my standard of love doesn't come from some ancient book written 2 000 years ago it comes from common sense and reflection on how human beings best flourish so i just look at my wife and i say what words can i say that are kind to her how can i treat her respectfully how do i be a good husband how do i be a good dad how do i be faithful to her like these you might say these are christian values but they're also buddhist values they're also hindu values that's because they're human values so i don't need an ancient book to know what it means to love my wife in fact i think that ancient book wouldn't help me because the way it treats women but separate issue go ahead are you done or did you want to come back are you married definitely not so if you believe in things from a scientific standpoint you do right like scientific i couldn't quite make that out do you believe in things from a scientific perspective like the creation and life you based around science i i honest for some reason the echo i believe what do you believe in creation from a scientific perspective do i believe creation from a scientific perspective i don't believe creation from any perspective okay well then what are your thoughts on just like the law of conservation of matter and how things can't be created or destroyed you said how you think the universe is constantly expanding uh okay so slow down the first law of thermodynamics which you call the law of conservation of energy says that matter is neither created nor destroyed correct yes yes who believes matter was created you or me well i was thinking you because you know i i just said i don't believe matter was created because that implies a creator are you a christian you believe in god yes so you believe matter was created the first law that you cited says matters neither created nor destroyed that's not a problem for me i don't i don't think it was created or destroyed i say yup that's scientific fact you're the one who believes it was created so how do you think the universe is expanding without matter being created how is it expanding you said how you thought the universe was oh that's that's easy put buttons on a balloon if you expand the balloon what happens the buttons get further and further from one another there's not more matter it's an expansion of the existing matter so it's just more empty space growing well yeah you i mean you could look at it that way it gets more precise than that but yeah it's not the constant creation of matter for the universe to expand it's a different relationship of the existing matter that's it okay hey good questions by the way very thoughtful back there go hi um my name is olivia it's very nice to meet you um okay so you have said repeatedly throughout today that you believe in science yes uh broadly yes sure broadly okay so we'll take that um so i was wondering when a trial or tribulation per se comes into your life how do you explain the origin of that and how do you endure that as an atheist a trial or tribulation if something happens let's say a death or something that you can't really or like you know explain something totally unforeseen like a pandemic or something like that how do i do it so because i embrace science as a means of knowing the world doesn't mean i only embrace science as a means of knowing and experiencing the world that's what's called scientism i don't embrace scientism i think it's a testable powerful way that's given us medicine communications transportation etc so when something like a pandemic hits i don't go to the bible i turn to science because science is giving us vaccines science is testing whether masks work it was scientists who at the bubonic plague said this isn't a condemnation from god maybe there's a scientific explanation viruses bacteria let's figure it out that led to helping mankind now personally what do i do i turn to family i turn to friends i turn to other human beings who help us through this and we have helped each other that's what it means to be human to be a collective species okay so if you don't believe because i believe i mean i think a lot of us believe in science in addition to what we personally believe just as you do so then what else do you believe in because you said that you turned to your family and your friends and everything else but i believe that there is something that can't be verbalized about humanity there is something that we feel that's a little inexplicable and i i'm being a christian i believe that has christian origin what do you in addition to science believe to be an explanation so i understand the religious sentiment where i teach ucla i will have buddhist students who will say i feel this deeper spiritual sense i'll have muslim students who will say that but the way you described it a feeling is ultimately a physical thing so i have awe at the universe i have awe at certain natural processes i have all when a child is born we live in a pretty amazing place but i don't see any evidence that there's a transcendent being outside of the universe that exists that's where we differ so i have feelings of awe i believe there's something bigger than humanity that's going on but not in an immaterial spiritual sense i don't find any evidence for the existence of such a being so i think maybe that's where we differ i also believe in history believe in psychology sociology there's a lot of ways of knowing things about the world outside of science but i don't believe there's a personal god in that spiritual sense and mainly because of the problem of evil but i could talk about that if someone wants to who's got the mic up top go oh right here and then we'll come to the top so i have two questions for you the first one is in relation to the multiverse theory right so that theory has not been proven and so if you're you're going to use that for your answer to the fine tuning correct and it's not a proven theory okay slow down so how do you know the multiverse has not been proven how do you know i know it's in a situation in a speculation where it cannot be proven as well no no i'm asking how do you know by the way i wouldn't use the term prove because in philosophy that implies 100 certainty but the consistent evidence points towards a multiverse for example from string theory so it is currently the best explanation of reality embraced by virtually all cosmologists and philosophers okay so it's the the best answer as of right now well yeah look i mean this is life we have to reason things together and make assessments from them just because something's not 100 certain doesn't mean it's not reasonable so then do you take out the fine-tuning when you're looking at that and so you disregard that and saying so if this theory isn't proven because it's not 100 certain then are you just not going to look at the fine-tuning because that proves evidence as to their being a creator as opposed to look at this theory of the multiverse which cannot be proven completely did you hear anything that i just said yes you said yes you said it's the best answer as of right now i mean honestly knowledge does not require certainty and we know from string theory have you read the grand design by stephen hawking that that evidence points towards a multiverse if you could give me better evidence against it i'd be happy to give that up and not believe it i have no problem with that but you can't say uncertain equals not proven therefore we don't know that's not how philosophy and knowledge works so there may be fine-tuning but that fits within the multiverse scenario because we couldn't observe ourselves in universe that we're not fine-tuned so it fits perfectly within within the theory that i've laid out okay and i my second question for you is about the supernatural so different things as opposed to just supernatural events that occur in the bible but that have occurred in modern day times and like think because i've grown up as a pentecostal christian so i've witnessed several times the casting out of demons and prophesying and so um i've witnessed prophecies have been fulfilled and i've witnessed the several times the casting out of demons with the same reaction through several people so what would be the best answer through that okay so when somebody says they have a personal experience obviously because i wasn't there and none of this is documented there's no way i can give an honest assessment of that event that's impossible to do with any integrity but what i can tell you is every single time somebody has shared a testimony with like this i say give me the evidence show me that the person wasn't schizophrenic didn't have a mental disorder that there's not another explanation for this never is the supernatural left standing why doesn't somebody film it and put it on youtube why doesn't somebody get a peer-reviewed journal article from it that's all i'm asking for so i can't assess your personal experience i wasn't there but i would say your worldview of believing in god is going to shape the way and this is true for me as well it's going to shape the way you process that experience strip that world view out of it i think you're going to find very solid naturalistic explanations for it but if you can send me data i'd be happy to look at it okay good questions let's go up top we're just going to go with one each because of time oh good afternoon are you familiar with the shroud of turin with the shroud of turin yes could you explain why you believe that the shroud of turin is not physical evidence of the resurrection of jesus christ yes because the most recent carbon dating dates it to the middle ages about 1500. but what what do you say to the objections that the carbon dating is incorrect due to the neutron absorption theory so if there only were carbon dating on the shroud and we had reason to doubt it then i would find that a legitimate point carbon dating works to about six to ten thousand years and back that's all that works back so you can't date things older than ten thousand years through carbon dating so that's a fair question that you're raising but the shroud at most is 2 000 years old so i don't find any reason to test to question that of the shroud plus pollen from the middle ages has been found on other parts of the shroud and it can't be dated in existence before 1500. but i believe there was pollen found that dated back to the first century as well you believe that or you actually know that and can give me some evidence for that i'm i'm fairly certain so that's not gonna do it for me as a philosopher professor i'm gonna need some evidence okay so there was pollen found on the shroud from the first century because the pollen retains its molecular form um it remains stable over long periods of time so there was pollen found on the shroud from the near eastern area that would correlate to pollen found in israel which okay so listen very carefully i've read the recent data from a jewish scholar named dan scherbach and he's not convinced that it can date to the first century uh for a number of reasons and these pollen things are very very questionable one question he raises is there could be material preserved from the first century doesn't mean the shroud itself was imprinted in the first century that's one question that he raises but he says that idea that pollen from then is very very skeptical and breaks down that was not assessed through carbon dating that was assessed through another means now at most the shroud would simply say that some figure who matches the description of jesus existed and was crucified at most that's all that would follow from it but i'm still not even convinced that that can be traced like in the chain of custody in a police event you can only use evidence if you can trace where it's been right back to the crime scene when it comes to the shroud there's questionable dating and there's no way to trace it back within the first few centuries so i'm just not persuaded by it but if you know some good evidence for shroud i'd be happy to entertain it who's got the mic go so earlier when we were talking about love you used the story of jesus casting out the pigs but he never sent them to the pigs all he did was cast the demons out of the man and they fled in fear of jesus into the pigs and ran off the cliff the story you told made it seem like jesus basically sent the demons to possess the pigs and killed them so that story doesn't really work as an example of jesus not being loving because you didn't tell the actual story okay i'm not following you maybe it's because the mask let me ask you very quickly is do you believe jesus is god he is the son of god yes or no is jesus god yes could jesus have cast out the demons without killing the thousands of pigs that that man owned yes or no god has given everything or no could jesus have casted out those demons without killing the man's pigs yes or no you're limiting the question to two answers that aren't necessarily the only two answers no actually these are exclusive options either jesus could have done it or he could not have done it there is no third option could did jesus have the power let me answer it for you if jesus is god he can cast out demons without sending them into a bunch of pigs who agrees with that let me see your hands if jesus is god he can cast out demons without sending him into pigs who agrees with that it's not very hard and so given that he could have done something without harming the man's property and he didn't at least raises the questions of his loving actions towards that man if you own those pigs i think you'd felt very differently the demons fled he didn't cast them out they saw jesus and they knew who he was they were afraid they ran away god has given living things free will so he can't force them to do something uh sure he can all right tell me how he does it all the time when you're reading the scriptures he forces demons out of people he could kill a demon if he's god he's god it's not that hard now you're right they recognized him but that was at the beginning at the end he could have sent them anywhere so if they were going to go back into that man could he have stopped them from going back into that man yes yes then i think you answered your question you didn't answer the question about jesus being loving you just keep avoiding the questions people ask wait jesus i didn't answer the question about jesus being loving no you we've asked you how you define love and all you did was tell us a mixed up story about how jesus cast out demons and sent them to pigs okay i'm not sure you were listening she asked me how i define love and i said define it i don't define it by the bible i don't look to jesus because of stories like this and then i went on to explain how i know what it means to love somebody independently of the bible that was the point so to love somebody is simply when you care about that person's emotional and physical and their life development that's what it means to love somebody i don't need an ancient bible to tell me that that's common sense and i apply that in my relationship with my wife so i did answer the question all right also you've asked a few no also let's go to someone else that was one let's do one go noon um i'm wondering because as a christian i base my morality and like objective beliefs by the ethics jesus taught so i'm wondering as an atheist what you perceive right and wrong as and if you judge it based on what you personally view is right and wrong what gives you the right to punish criminals or people who commit genocide if they're acting upon their own will and what they perceive as right okay so i think i heard you when i'm done if i didn't answer come back the question is how do i define morality and what gives me the right i don't think i have the right morality is made by societal judgments as a whole based upon what behavior brings flourishing and freedom for the society i never said i'm an individual relativist who decides right and wrong we can actually look at certain behavior sam harris lays this out in his 2011 book the moral landscape that certain behavior contributes towards moral flourishing and some behavior takes it away we can assess this it's not opinion it's actually fact so if it's based on what society deems right and wrong like you're saying no i didn't say that i thought i didn't say that i thought you just said it was based on what society deems right and wrong i never said that i said i don't have the right to punish somebody societies and governments have that right how's that right by the way even if i were a christian i would believe that because of what paul says in romans 13. so it's not an individual assessment morality is determined by looking at human behavior and seeing its outcomes and flourishing or lack of flourishing with others so i'm not a societal relativist even though society carries out that moral duty just like society gives us education society has other roles and responsibilities um so my question is that you keep saying that you're not sure if jesus was real or not okay so let's take out that part and i just wanted to say because the whole basis of christianity is the resurrection how would you sean mcdowell disprove christianity with your so-called evidence how would i disprove christianity the resurrection i mean um let me see what time it is 12 okay so this is a fair question to one degree okay the burden of proof is not on me to disprove christianity any more than the burden of proof is on you to disprove every other religion who claims to have the truth if somebody says christianity is true show us that it's true and give us the evidence for the resurrection you see how burden of proof i'll answer your question but you see how the question is not on me to disprove it the question is first on you to prove it if you want anyone to take it seriously that's how it works now growing up i thought the christian story was unique that there was only a resurrection i was told in christianity but if you actually look at these ancient pagan mystery religions osiris adonis isis mithras you find an incredible similarity the same kind of details you find in the christian story so mithras was born of a virgin mithras had 12 disciples claimed to be god was a teacher and was resurrected on the third day so as you start to look at these stories and the parallels in the christian story and the lack of positive evidence you start to realize this is just another mythological story that more people believe from the ancient world that's the quick take but go ahead did you want to come back we're good um it's because there has like when you come and you talk about these myths um it's just like you said it these myths are just trying to explain natural phenomena so i don't think that you could compare these myths to christianity in that sense why not like that's your opinion there's just the similarities that i showed you why can't i compare them across these different religions you find all of these common threads why can't i compare them all right good good question all right so here's here's the deal we're we're running out of time um so i'm gonna take the last 15 minutes and uh tell you about what i really do i'm not a philosophy professor i'm not an atheist i'm not an atheist i actually teach at a christian university in southern california a private school called biola and uh i teach at a private christian school part-time as well high school bible i am married to my high school sweetheart first met her in third grade so i'm not a bad guy i do this a lot at different schools usually i set people up and let them know i'm a christian first but you're bull where are you where are you mr stewart so oh he left he's like i'm out of here now that he's revealing the truth oh there you are we're like let's just see what happens if we set them up and make them think that i'm an atheist first see if that changes the nature of the dynamic so i'm a christian i'm actually an apologist this is what i do i've written i don't know 15 or 20 books i uh teach apologetics at a graduate program at biola university i speak and i debate atheists and others because i think it's fun how many of you honestly were like i knew it no you weren't like six or seven of you all right all right all right okay so here's the deal we only have about 15 minutes to go and then i got to let you go i want to make you think about a few things all right first off don't answer this why don't you reflect in your heart a little bit just personally as a whole how do you think you treated your atheist guess there's probably a mix i heard somebody shout out terribly okay now i've done this youth groups of 12 students i did this at a church in the philippines with 8 000 students and i think that was too many actually come to think of it and your response was pretty typical in fact a few of you i was actually encouraged try to be like hey thanks for coming tried to be like how do i ask this question in a cordial fashion which i like okay here's the deal the more i do this with people here's how i find christians respond how many of you felt like maybe you're a little bit defensive a little bit testy a little bit upset if you couldn't see it i could see it in a lot of your eyes by the way some of you are like i'm ready for this guy to leave which is okay here's one reason why i'm convinced we get a little bit defensive part of it is if we don't know what we believe and why we believe it and somebody starts challenging us what happens we we get defensive right we get upset do you understand why knowing what you believe is so important then we don't get threatened when people challenge our ideas i don't if somebody challenged my ideas i don't get defensive it at least i try not to get defensive because i know why i think christianity is true i've thought about it and i think there's good answers for it you see i'm a christian for one reason one reason alone it's not because it makes me feel good it's not because my parents are christians it's not because i teach at a christian school i'm a christian because i actually think it's true i actually think christianity is true and best explains reality if i didn't think it were true i would give it up i would give it up so i think you should only be a christian if you actually think that it's true that's the best reason to be a christian okay now with that said i was doing this event in texas a number of years ago and i spoke and these students got really defensive and testy this girl kind of the back left middle stands up and she goes mister i just want to read you something i said okay what do you want to read me she said it's from the bible the holy word of god i said you know i'm an atheist i don't believe in the bible she goes i don't care listen up she's going to be a great parent someday she reads to me psalms 14 1 which says the fool says in his heart there is no god i said so you're calling me a fool she goes you're full the bible says it that settles it i believe it sits down her friends jump up they're like got you fool and they start pointing at me well when it was done students surrounded me for a while because they had a ton of questions and this girl waited till everybody was gone and she came up to the front she was 17 years old she told me and she goes thank you for doing your best to defend atheism i was like sure why are you thanking me she goes well i'm an atheist i said really you're at a christian camp that's great you're here how did you get here she said well i am a leader in my youth group i said i feel like i'm missing something here she said i grew up in the church i i can't remember if she went to christian school or not christian family i've been told this stuff my whole life i started to realize i have questions and my parents and family they just deflected my questions i started to realize i don't believe this anymore i said well have you told anyone she said you're the first person i've told i said why haven't you told anyone else and i'll never forget what she said she said because i'm afraid they'll treat me like they just treated you and i was like oh my goodness i don't think we realize as christians the stories we tell the attitudes we have the jokes we laugh at what it often communicates to people who are not believers so i just i just want you to reflect upon this i have no stake in this game maybe you don't believe in god but if you were not a believer in god and you're watching this what would your impression of christians be that's worth asking christians are thoughtful they're patient they're gracious they love atheists or would it be something else i don't know the answer that but that's what i want you to think about i was speaking at a conference in duluth minnesota and there were 1500 students i turned around to start my atheist role play because they knew i actually was a christian and this group of students go boo boo go home mr atheist and you've passed your shouts out you're going to hell like he shouts it out and so i went off script i was like whoa wait a minute i was called to share my atheist story like why would you boo me and i started laying into these students i said wait a minute keep in mind there's like 1500 students i said you think jesus would boo an atheist guest or treat him that way like jesus was accused of being a friend of sinners jesus actually said to love your enemies i said what about paul first corinthians 13 says if you speak in tongues or you speak words of prophecy but you have not love you have nothing i mean this stadium was silent which proves there's a god because junior hires were present the next summer i was speaking one or two summers later in salt lake city and i turned around to start my atheist role playing this group of students go woohoo we love you mr atheist and that like took me by surprise so afterwards i was like why were you cheering for the atheist and they're like well we were part of the group that booed you in minnesota and instantly i thought they got the point they got the point you see friends when it comes to communication there's two things there's content and then there's the way we communicate that content there's the message and the medium there's a truth to christianity but there's also a way we are supposed to communicate it jesus came in grace and he came in truth we are supposed to speak the truth but do it in love truth in love what does our culture lack today grace patience kindness you're growing up in an unbelievably divided culture where there is hate and vitriol across the political and religious isle what's going to set christianity apart number one christianity is actually true but number two they will know you by your love proverbs says a soft word breaks a bone scripture says a gentle word turns away wrath in fact it's in romans where paul says it's your kindness that leads to repentance now i realized with some of you i was pushing buttons and twisting your words i get that i understand as a whole you ask some very thoughtful questions which i love and i think you're like trying to do this in a cordial relational way so give yourself some grace on this but instead of standing up here today and saying hey let's love our neighbors i want to make you feel a little bit uncomfortable so you'd ask yourself how do i navigate conversations online or offline do i just want to win an argument do i want to sound smart or do i actually want to love somebody because that's what jesus said is the greatest commandment love god and love other people i take my high school students every year in a trip and we often go to berkeley california which you might as well call berserkly it's one of the most secular places in the u.s and beyond and we do bring in atheists we brought in gay activists we brought in people with very different worldviews to speak to our students and i tell my students i'm like ask them the best questions you can we want to know truth but not to sound smart not to win an argument but do it in a way that shows love to somebody now we have we literally have five minutes are there one or two questions of things that i said don't ask me about calvinism versus arminianism are there arguments that i made as an atheist that you want christian sean to answer before i let you go meaning is there anything the atheist said that made you think for a second like you brought up prophecy the existence of jesus josephus shoot your hand up very quickly go it has to be something we talked about go so you were talking about like the whole sciency stuff about the multiverse and all of this like stuff which is like it was i couldn't even understand it i was i was able to it's fine because it was just too much so why would somebody believe all of that if they just is it easier for them than believing in a god because like they're guilty or okay so let me make two points here number one you might have noticed sometimes instead of answering a question i was like string theory multiverse complex words act as if you answer something but really didn't i played that card a few times second when you ask why somebody believes something now you're talking about motivation and people can have very deep reasons for their motivations so it could be intellectual that somebody just doesn't think christianity makes sense it also could be moral i had a friend of mine he looked me in the eyes he said i think jesus is god but i can't believe and when i pressed him he basically said i'm texting 10 girls and i'm going to sleep with him why would i give that up for some belief and i kid you not he said if that sends me to hell so be it and i got a chill down my body in other words his motivation was not intellectual it was moral motivation can also be relational some people have been treated poorly by christians and hurt by christians so the idea of believing in christianity is like why would i want to embrace this religion that the people who represent it have treated me poorly it can be psychological so scriptures say what proverb is it it says a man's purposes are deep and a person of wisdom is able to draw it out so when i'm in conversation with somebody i always want to know what's the root of the issue because let's talk about that sometimes it's intellectual sometimes there's something else driving it that's a great question yes my man you did a good job by the way pull your mask down so i can hear you and you're gonna have to be fast what is your opinion on the shroud of turin you wanna know my honest opinion i think the shroud of turin might be genuine but i'm not certain i've talked to some experts on it i've watched some videos on it and i think oh there might be something here and you were raising a good question in the back about some of the testing they did test the shroud of turin and dated to the middle ages but they tested a patch that was put on not the rest of the shroud as a whole so i would be happy to say it might be genuine and some of the experts that i talk to are like i am 80 90 confident that it's true but even if it's true all it proves is that jesus existed and was crucified but i believe those things anyways because josephus does talk about them he's jewish and my whole story was completely made up separate issue actually not completely made up but i don't buy it so i think the shroud is the shroud is a part of a larger case for the historicity of jesus that adds to it but i don't think it stands on its own apart from the scriptures early church fathers and jews like josephus romans like tacitus for the existence of jesus great question um what are your thoughts on theistic evolution on theistic evolution okay so here's what i think if evolution is true and jesus rose from the grave then christianity is true the heart of our faith is who is jesus is he actually god did he rise on the third day if that's true and some kind of evolutionary story is true i'm a christian and i believe in the resurrection i teach an entire class on this by the way because i think the evidence is very compelling that jesus lived he died he was put in a tomb and appeared to a whole bunch of people to the women to the 7 to the 12 to peter to paul to james and they were willing to suffer and die for their belief that they had seen the risen jesus so i do believe the resurrection is true and i think it's compelling on its own um my mind just went blank what was the start of your question oh theistic evolution so when it comes to theistic evolution the idea being typically that the modern story of evolution is true and somehow god used that i have christians who hold that position and i think in the bigger broader christian position that's one option to consider but it raises very important theological questions such as the historical adam and i also am just not convinced that the evolutionary story is true because of things like the fossil record and the cambrian explosion so bottom line to answer your question is i'm not a theistic evolutionist because i don't think the story behind evolution can explain what people think it does but if i did become convinced that evolution was true i wouldn't give up my christian faith i would give up my christian faith if i didn't think jesus rose from the grave that's my broad answer though are we out of time oh we are out of time hey throw my website up really quickly if this is helpful so you can know who i actually am this is actually my website um i actually just did somebody asked about paranormal phenomena i haven't posted it yet i just did an interview yesterday with a leading doctor about near-death experiences absolutely fascinating story of people medically dead resuscitated back to life and have information they could not possibly have known in the state they were in documented cases which i think confirms there's life after death i haven't posted that yet but on the top so i have a youtube channel if you want to know apologetics theology i'm doing one in two weeks on marijuana and christians like just an interesting topic um scroll down a little bit there's so i have a uh that's my blog on the right side it was on transgender sports that's a new book i didn't talk about on sex love and dating just in time for valentine's day um we have a podcast but keep scrolling down at the bottom that's what will interest you keep going keep going uh boom on the very bottom facebook twitter instagram and tick tock i'm on tick tock my son is 16 years old and by the way he's a shoe reseller that's where i got these jordans check him out he's not only cute good basketball player but he resells shoes and he has like 70 000 followers on tick tock it's scott resells seriously check him out he's awesome but i'm on tick tock he told me he's like dad if you want to reach my generation you got to be on tick tock so i don't do like stupid cat videos sometimes i do stuff that's i think it's funny and my kids kind of think it's funny but it's like one minute apologetic or world view answers so you have awesome bible and apologetic training here i was really encouraged by that but tick tock and instagram in particular if you want to stay in touch and just amidst the nonsense that comes through that if you want some positive world view ideas now and then and stay in touch that'd be a cool place to do that i i really hate to cut you off we got to get you guys to lunch in just a second but here's what's really neat we have had the second and third best apologists in the country to youth on this campus because the first is our very own mr stewart of course let's give him a huge round of applause he had this he had this idea and i think it was tremendous no in all honesty we have had the number one and the number two best christian apologists on in this country to people your age and adults of all ages and sean mcdowell and jay werner wallace the cold case christianity guy back in back in september here's what is very important know what you believe and why even if it's not christianity pursue hold on just a second pursue truth we could we could have this conversation going for for hours i know i could be here but we can't do it continue those questions in mr stewart's class on the website you guys are dismissed

Channel: The King's Academy, WPB, FL

Views: 39,723

Rating: 4.1463413 out of 5

Keywords: Atheist, Christian, Debate, High School, Apologetics, Apologist, King's Academy, Kings Academy, Kings, TKA, West Palm Beach, WPB, Florida, FL, 2021, Brutally Honest Valedictorian

Id: gipTs96JImI

Length: 72min 37sec (4357 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 17 2021