Atheist Scientist tries to challenge Ravi Zacharias (unedited with reaction)

hey everybody and welcome to Absolute apologetics today we'll be talking about one of the most popular clips that we've ever posted on this channel which is an encounter between a supposed atheist scientist and Robie Zacharias now there's been such a flood of comments about this particular video that I felt it necessary to post the unedited version and give my thoughts if you enjoy this video consider subscribing if you want to help me keep making videos just like this you can click the patreon link in the video description don't forget to hit the notification Bell so that you don't miss an episode let's get [Music] started hello my name is Ethan Kaiser I am a Scientist and an atheist and um my uh question is since the Bible has been scientifically disproven as far as all the claims you know the evolution the theory of evolution archaeology you know Noah's Arc Adam of eve since we know this didn't happen because of our science I guess science nowadays um my question is how do we have according to the Bible how do we have free will if God is this omniscient being that knows everything about us everything we will do and he pretty much knows our outcome before we're even created so he creates us knowing everything we'll do since we can't surprise him by our actions we are in we have no free will our choices have been predetermined and that the act of judgment is completely immoral because he knows what we're going to do nothing can surprise him that's my question thank you for the question and uh before you go into an auditorium if you give a sheet of paper and ask us to write 20 possible questions that'll come we've never heard a new one in all of these years that go by they're pretty much the same questions it's interesting that you began by saying as an atheist all of this has been disproved and so you live with scientific materialism as your worldview I studied under John poking horn at Cambridge University you probably know the name one of the world's leading Quantum physicists who came to exactly the opposite conclusion you did while being the dean at Queens College Cambridge as a Quantum physicist taking the same data you did so obviously for a man of his intellectual ability to come to a different conclusion one would either have to say he's totally stupid to come to that conclusion or else his empirical basis please don't keep shaking your head let me finish so you can come and talk afterwards so you allow us to concentrate what we saying here I want to read for you what David berlinski says about the scientific naturalistic worldview do you know who he is one of the world's leading physicists who is an agnostic borders on atheism but took issue with Richard Dawkins book The Day The God Delusion and wrote a book called The Devil's delusion here's what he said has anyone ever provideed a proof for God's in existence not even close has Quantum cosmology explained the emergence of the universe of why it is here not even close have the Sciences explained why our universe seems to be fine-tuned to allow for the existence of life not even close this is berlinsky talking are physicists and biologists willing to believe in anything as long as it is not enough not religious thought close enough as rationalism and moral thought provided us with an understanding of what is good what is right and what is moral not close enough secularism in the terrible 20th century being a Force for good not even close to being close is there a narrow and oppressive Orthodoxy of thought and opinion within the Sciences close enough does anything in the Sciences or in their philosophy justify the claim that religious belief is irrational not even in the ballpark is scientific atheism of frivolous exercise in intellectual contempt dead on now I didn't say that all right I'm not quoting myself please give me your name sir Ethan Ethan yes Ethan what you're wrestling with is not uncommon many people from a scientific and materialistic worldview will say what you've said and come to that conclusion the problem is what you mispositioned was your concern between determinism and Free Will I was your application could have gone in many different directions but you came to that one for some reason which I was unfortunate I think at Cambridge I listened to a talk at the lady Mitchell Hall in 1990 by Steven Hawkins as you know he can't speak he uses a speech synthesizer his whole talk was on determinism and freedom and you know what he concluded that the tragedy with scientific materialism if we takes it to St its assumptions is that we are not free we are totally determined that was the world's leading physicist at that time saying the very thing you're asking of the Christian faith he pinned on your back a scientific materialists you can go right online and and trace it lady Mitchell Hall 1990 somewhere on March April May that time I was tenants and he said the only Escape I have is since I don't know what has been determined I may as well not be the whole Auditorium moaned and groaned with an escape hatch that he gave for himself after telling us that we were completely determined that's Bur in's issue that is actually even what people like Dawkins will concede or Pinker you read Steven Pinker and the others so totally determined so the question is were you free to ask this question yep um I don't believe any of us actually have free will because we are strictly material so you're actually as a machine automaton asking me this question we are all made up of our past experiences okay but you're not free that you're not free you're not making a truth statement my true statement I mean what I'm saying is our memories and our states no no no no hear me carefully okay if you're totally determined yes you're pre-wired to think the way you do nature versus nurture yes sorry nature versus nurture nature versus nurture yes regardless the nurture May provide a different environment but the nature is your hardwired to come out with the sudden conclusion out of flux nothing but flux you know what you put into the computer ultimat is going to out but you have to ask yourself are you making a truth claim if you are making a truth claim you're Rising above the bondage of total subjectivity and the moment you claim a truth claim you're violating determinism and so I just leave you with that and let's let's meet afterwards hey Ethan we want to chat with you you know you're the kind of guy we come here for so afterwards you you come here and we'll sh with you come here give me a shake bless thanks buddy thank you so a ton of people were skeptical of the claim that this guy trying to challenge ravie Zacharias was an actual scientist some going as far as saying that he was just a plant who was put on the microphone just so Ravi could have somebody easy to respond to funny enough the man who tried to challenge Ravi named Ethan Kaiser actually showed up in the com comment thread of the video turns out that at the time he was just a student who was studying computer science which kind of confirms everybody's suspicions regarding him presenting himself as a practicing scientist and an atheist at least in the formal sense of the term now today he is working in the field of AI technology so I guess we can give him that much anyways one of the most common objections from Skeptics in the comment section was basically this that Robbie didn't actually answer the guy's question and so I've rewatched the video trying to figure out what they were talking about but I'd like to just break it down into a question and response format so we can see if any of these claims are actually true now firstly Robbie's initial response was to Ethan's claim that the Bible has been scientifically disproven as far as all the claims through the theory of evolution and archaeology now to this Robbie took time to quote David berlinsky uh famous scientist showing that there is not a consensus in the scientific community that Evolution or naturalism has proven the Bible to be untrue to the contrary Ravi wanted Ethan to see the words of berlinsky a much more qualified scientist than him who concludes this Ravi quotes does anything in the scientists or in their philosophy justify the claim that religious belief is irrational not even in the ballpark is scientific atheism a frivolous exercise in intellectual contempt dead on I think Robbie did well in deconstructing the opinion that the Sciences have disproven the Bible by not appealing to his own opinion as an apologist nor to Ethan's as a young undergrad student but rather to someone much more qualified to say whether or not religion and science are incompatible such as David berlinsky now in my opinion Ravi is not committing the appeal to Authority fallacy but he's rather showing that if Ethan's claim is true that the scientist science has disproven the Bible then berlinsky would not be saying the exact opposite as a qualified scientist the main question that Ethan asked in addition to this was how do we have free will if God's omniscient and knows everything about us and everything that we'll do and pretty much knows our outcome before we're created to this question question Ravi answered by saying so the question is were you free to ask this question if you are totally determin you are pre-wired to think the way you do but you have to ask yourself are you making a truth claim if you are making a truth claim then you are rising above the bondage of total subjectivity and the moment you claim a valid truth claim you're violating determinism here Ravi gets to the bottom of of the issue by showing that the evidence that we have free will is found in our ability to ask a question about Free Will freely in the first place in other words if Free Will does not exist then your question has no essential meaning because it's just predetermined biological processes causing sound to come out of your vocal cords this absurdity shows the irrationality of believing that Free Will doesn't exist because if we're claiming for this to be true then we're assuming the freedom to make such a truth claim in the first place if all we have is biology making noise out of our mouth then how can our claim that Free Will doesn't exist be considered true in the first place I find these kinds of arguments to be intriguing mainly because they show that you must assume the ability to freely discover and make claims about truth before ever making an assertion that can be considered valid in the first place now to break down Robbie's argument a little further let's look at it this way number one discovering and claiming truth requires Free Will number two we are able to discover and claim truth number three therefore Free Will must exist now we've already shown the reasonability of the first premise by showing the absurdity of the idea that biological processes producing noise from our vocal cords can be considered a valid truth claim the second premise that we are able to discover and claim truth can be shown as reasonable also by simply considering how reason itself could not exist in a world where we cannot discover and claim truth therefore since discovering and claiming truth requires Free Will and we're able to discover and claim truth then it necessarily follows that Free Will does in fact exist I believe this is a sound argument given by Ravi in response to Ethan's objection to the existence of free will and I'm not sure how those who commented on the video saying Ravi didn't answer the question didn't see the part where Ravi actually did answer him quite brilliantly in my opinion it's also important to understand that since we can demonstrate the existence of Free Will Ethan's original Point regarding God's forn knowledge of our Free Will decisions really is irrelevant because forn knowledge of a free will decision doesn't change the fact that it is a free will decision nonetheless I want to thank you for watching absolute apologetics if you enjoyed this video consider subscribing if you want to help me make more videos like this you can click the patreon link in the video description don't forget to hit the notification Bell so that you don't miss an episode we'll see you next time [Music]

Channel: Pastor Kyle Bailey

Views: 1,845,603

Keywords: ravi zacharias, Atheist Scientist tries to challenge Ravi Zacharias, ravi zacharias ben shapiro, dr. kyle bailey, ravi zacharias passion 2020, ravi zacharias debate, ravi zacharias q&a, ravi zacharias mormon tabernacle, ravi zacharias international ministries, free will, determinism, religion and science, determinism vs fatalism, rzim, ravi, ravi zacharias sermons, dr ravi zacharias, ravi zacharias 2019, christian apologetics, veritas forum, ravi zacharias evolution

Id: vo7jkIcvFHI

Length: 13min 42sec (822 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 17 2020