Dave Rubin & John Lennox • Is God dead? Faith, culture and the modern world PART 1

thank you very much that is a great welcome thank you so much well welcome to tonight's big conversation filmed live here in Costa Mesa California the big conversation is produced by premier Christian radio in partnership with the Templeton religion trust and it's a series of video discussions between thinkers across the religious spectrum looking at some of the biggest questions in life who are we what's it all about looking at science faith philosophy what it means to be human I'm delighted to say that certain tonight we're going to be sitting down and hearing from two people that I've really been looking forward to bringing into conversation together we're going to be looking at the question of is God dead it's a conversation on faith culture and the modern world where are the next generation turning to in an increasingly Pro post Christian society is God dead as Nietzsche once declared or is there space for a renaissance of religious belief in the modern world John Lennox who is here on my left is emeritus professor yeah give him a brand [Applause] just to give a brief intro John is emeritus professor of mathematics and the philosophy of science at Oxford University he's a leading Christian thinker and he's engaged many of the world's leading atheist voices as well his latest book is called can science explain everything and it is available as well after Dave Rubin is my other guest let's have a round of [Applause] now save hosts the Reuben report it's an online talk show that reaches millions of people every week David's gonna be telling us about his religious background and where he's at now so I won't sort of label him at this point but he regularly hosts conversations with leading cultural and religious thinkers on his show so I'm really looking forward to and he's going to be bringing to this conversation today he has a new book out it's available for pre-order don't burn this book is the title thanking for yourself in an age of unreason so I do recommend you go and get that if you can on pre-order as well so one more time just please give a warm round of applause to my guess [Applause] well welcome gentlemen both to tonight's discussion I'm really looking forward to what we're going to be covering tonight because I've had you on the show before John and very often I've put you in conversation with maybe a quite firm atheist someone like a Dawkins or an Atkins or MIFA ruse but I think tonight's gonna be a little bit different because I'm really looking forward to hearing your story Dave we haven't met before factored tonight was the first time but I've watched your stuff and I've seen some of the people that you've increasingly been talking to and being influenced yourself and and it'll be fascinating to hear where you're at now in terms of both the cultural and religious aspects of view well I've never had anyone give me an intro and say we'll label him later so I'm feeling really undue pressure right now and I'm the only one here from SoCal let's see what happens well whatever those labels may be I'm really looking forward to what you're gonna bring to us tonight perhaps we'll we'll start with you first of all they tell us a little bit about who you are growing up I know that you came from a pretty religious family so do you want to tell a little bit about that and where you found yourself as you grew up and as regards sort of faith and so on sure first off I just want to say what a pleasure it is to be here you know I'm usually on the other side of the interview and the reason I'm particularly excited about tonight is that I don't talk about this sort of thing from a personal perspective that often you know I've sat down with tons of atheists you know Sam Harris and Michael Shermer and Peter Bogosian and that whole crew and I've talked to plenty of people of faith like Bishop Aaron and rabbi Whoopi and plenty of other people that come from from different political perspectives and personal perspectives and I always find that I go into each interview with with no agenda other than hearing their thoughts and seeing how that shakes out around my worldview that being said I'm excited to be here because I can sort of tell you a little bit more about about where I come from and sort of where I'm at so I grew up in a conservative Jewish sold in New York we kept kosher we did Shabbat on Friday nights while all the big holidays but there was a strong secular belief within that and as I was telling you sort of backstage you know there's a there's an interesting piece related to Judaism that I think is a little different than other religions in that the ethnic tied to it at least in a modern way is for most Jews more important than the religious nature of it specifically let's say beliefs specifically because John is we were talking about there are many many Jews especially in sciences and in mathematics that aren't believers per se but have a real cultural affinity and I would say that that's sort of where I'm at or at least where I've been over the last couple years I actually am now in the last few years and this has to do a lot with being on tour with Jordan Peterson for a year Jordan and I did about a hundred and ten stops in one calendar year in about 20 countries it was pretty amazing and when you spend that kind of time listening to a true innovative thinker I mean truly the guy that I think is is the world's most important public philosopher and lets say you know talking about his biblical lectures and talking about his perspective on life and that there has to be a bedrock of something that is real and true outside of us and then how he relates that through the biblical stories it moved me it moved me over the course of of the year that we did this together so I would say I'm secular basically in my life but I definitely in the last year have found that there has to be something outside of us the rest of this makes no sense I mean the part very briefly the part that you know I'm really known for is the political part that I was lefty and the difference between leaven I had a political conversion I had it right so I'm usually much more comfortable talking about my ass then a religious one but but I would say this that consistent with me talking about sort of what's happened with the postmodern left with the progressives and we see this now where there's sort of nothing that's empirically true and any any given day you can feel anything about any particular topic there's a reason for that and the reason is they've disconnected everything their whole worldview is disconnected to anything that came before them so that that could be God or a religious set of ideas or something like that so I'm really really fascinated by that at the moment and it's it's changing how I live my life I just did it was Yom Kippur which is the holiest day in Judaism I was at a service that was actually at a church in in Pasadena in Los Angeles hosted by by Dennis Prager that I'm sure many of you guys know about Dennis Prager many of you know so I'm sort of I would say I'm in it the way you guys are all in it well trying to find some truth in the madness I'll be interested to tease that out a little more in Jude course I mean one one thing I did notice is I I have seen just watching some of your videos that there definitely been a progression in your thinking on this and and probably if you go back a few years I think you had said along the lines of you probably thought of yourself as an atheist but evidently that's not quite the case anymore well I had a bunch of atheist high-profile atheists on the show in a row starting with Sam Harris who I admire and he's a good friend of mine and Michael Shermer and Peter Bogosian and I really love the intellectual side of that I really really do love it and that's not at the exclusion of anything else actually but what I found was that I had had a series of atheists on in a row and then people online just can't kept saying that I was an atheist right and and then I sort of just said it one day without it didn't it didn't mean anything to me sort of one way or another it was almost it just sort of came it just sort of came out of my mouth one day and then two years ago you know I do this off-the-grid August thing right literally locked my phone in a safe and I don't look at any news or television I am completely offline and I really disappear and I try to let my brain reset and two years ago when I did it one of the thoughts that I kept having sort of in my in my piece was that I'm not an atheist and I came back and I said it in a very casual way and I just did this live stream where I just sort of said it very flippantly that I just don't like the word atheist it doesn't it doesn't fit what I believe I do believe in something else even if I can't completely articulate what it is I think Jordan has gone a long way to articulate the type of thing that I believe in and I got a lot of a lot of hate for that one because you know they theists they don't like a converted person either so you know you got to watch out for that too so you know we all have our own trappings but what I'm most interested in is is talking to people from all walks of life and figuring out what the common stuff is and what I like to frame that around is a conversation about freedom and how do we how do we limit governments so we can all believe what we want to believe and think what we want to think and be part of a society that's pluralistic and decent for all of us John let's have a bit of an introduction to you for those who aren't familiar with you tell us about your own faith journey up to this point you now obviously speak to many people all over the world about Christianity but but where did it all begin for you that began for me let me say as well her delighted I am to be back in Costa Mesa and I've enjoyed in the past some marechals with Justin and I'm just fascinated by what's going to happen in the conversation tonight but I grew up in north of Ireland which isn't always the best start to discuss religion because it was a divided community and there was a lot of terrorism that was connected in a very complex way to Christianity of both versions Protestant and kin but the important thing was that my parents were very unusual for that kind of cultural context they were Christian convince Christians but they weren't sectarian and that was very unusual my father had a small business we lived in a small town fifteen thousand or so and he tried to employ people from both sides of the community no way did he do that I once asked him I said dad it's so risky and he was bombed for doing this my brother nearly lost his life and he said look he said I believe that every person whatever they believe is of infinite value because they're made in the image of God going back to the Hebrew Scriptures and therefore I will employ across the community and that is stuck with me and it's been very important when you're discussing as I often do with people that do not share my worldview that always comes to my mind here's a person in front of me and it relates to what you were saying about freedom I would connect with freedom value that here's something outside of my parents that gave every human being dignity in value that was point number one the second thing was that they allowed me to think now northern islands often associated with religious bigotry extreme fundamentalism all this kind of thing and my parents were not highly educated but they really gave me space so my first encounter with Christianity was not mind closing it was mind expanding and I remember when I was about 14 my father came alone he says here's a book you need to read it was Marx's Das Kapital I said dad have you read it he said no so why should I read it you need to know what other people think I never forget that it was sent a compass bearing the third point is their Christianity was credible morally credible they actually lived what they believed so in that sense I had a hugely privileged background that didn't compress me into a narrow-minded bigoted person and it was noticeable when I went to Cambridge in 1962 not 1862 I know anything but when I went to Cambridge in 1962 many of my contemporaries from merit of the moment they got out of the country that was the end of any Christianity because they'd never made it their own they'd never thought about it but I'd been encouraged to think about and that sort of said the the compass bearings there's one further point that really shaped my life I was challenged in Cambridge very early on by student at table at night and he said asked do you believe in God and then he said oh sorry sorry sorry I shouldn't have asked you that you're Irish all you Irish believe in God and you fight about it I'd heard that many times but somehow it was different and I thought gosh yes you know I've never really met atheist you know in Ireland people divided the Protestant atheist and Catholic eight they're not really really thin sighs so I thought what I'm going to do is to start today and befriend people to friend them that's important that do not share my worldview and I'd spent my whole life doing it so that's not really sense the the scene I think so neech famously declared god is dead now he may have been a bit premature in that but maybe he's finally you know his thoughts are coming true in 21st century West because we are living in an increasingly post Christian age people say increasingly the number of people who take the census box that says none no religious affiliation is going up and so on I mean you're you're engaging with this kind of demographic all the time on your show Dave what's your feeling do you do feel like people are genuinely less religious now to what extent are the some of those friends that you made early on in your show people like Sam Harris and another well-known atheist responsible for people moving away from you know the religious bearings that they once had so obviously I don't want to speak for for Sam or any of those guys what I have found in the conversations that I've had with non-believers and with believers is that at a micro level you can be a non-believer and be absolutely moral and decent and well good and a productive member of society and all of those things as I believe those couple people that I mentioned are what I think is becoming the problem and I think this was really where Jordan Pederson hit on something is that societies can't organize around that that it can sort of work for a while and there's you know most of the things that I believe in and I you know I I talk about the individual all the time and why believe that classical liberalism is the best sort of framework for a political system that we should have they almost can't exist without that underlying bedrock and so your question sort of gets to what I was saying earlier which is that the reason that the secular world feels so out of control right now I mean just just yesterday I'm sure some of you guys saw the CNN did this quality Town Hall last night and it was like you know everyone has to mention their gender pronouns and you have to admit that there are more than two genders and all of these things that you know these conversations are not being had there are settled science debates that went on for a long time that we know we know what facts are and yet we find because this has now become untethered to anything other than how you feel that now everything is up for grabs and that's why it sort of feels like that there's something sort of godless happening here or something like that now trust me that is a that is a hard thing for someone like me to say you know as someone that really might my beliefs really are rooted in the Enlightenment and Enlightenment thinkers and this is a real debate amongst people who talk about the Enlightenment could they have done it could they have reformed religions and first liberalism in a positive way forward without some religious belief behind it I don't know the answer to that exactly I don't know that we'll ever really know the answer to that but I would say that the reason I first said that I'm happy to be here with you guys is that in the last year we're now I've virtually only get invited to events by conservative groups or you know libertarian groups for surebut groups on the right let's say but I often get invited to churches I often get invited to places of faith now I know we can go through a litany of political disagreements that we may or may not have and I absolutely know that everyone in this room would be happy to do that and there would be nobody fighting there would be nobody screaming we could explore those ideas as far as we can and then we would put it down in front and either agree to disagree or maybe maybe we'd move each other one way or another and would be wonderful and I don't think that's a coincidence I don't think it's a coincidence that you guys here and that generally believers right now are more tolerant they are it's just the reality the people yeah give yourselves a round of applause that's I mean that really is true who are the most intolerant people in society right now it's the people that are constantly telling you how tolerant they are that's the that's the irony it's the people that tell you you're a bunch of racists and bigots and homophobes in the rest of it and and that's the real bizarre flip that we have happening in society and I think that is linked to either however you want to phrase it either a post-christian world or a post judeo-christian world or or a postmodern world however you want to define that I mean to what extent do you agree with Dave's analysis there of what's going on especially I suppose of that academic level and in terms of the the kind of conversations now that you are and aren't allowed to have almost I think it's a pretty accurate analysis and that's what I experienced out there I'm always interested in the phrase God's dead because it seems to assume he was alive once and of course I hear Richard Dawkins kind of saying which God and I think that's a question worth addressing because the God that I believe in that is the God of the Bible is eternal and that raises problems for the deadness doesn't it good but there's a sense in which Nietzsche was a very accurate prophet and what to my mind is very important with him was that he could see where many contemporary atheists cannot see that if you abolish God you wake the ground under any solidity on which you can base on morality human dignity freedom all those values he saw that connection and he says if you get rid of God you've no right at the end to value said you notice where the values are relied in our society they're mostly values that go back to the judeo-christian tradition and I think therefore to bring that back into the discussion I like the idea and I think it's very important start where there's something more there's something outside of us that's the start it seems to me of coming back to something around which society can be organized because otherwise everything is subjective and you mentioned postmodern and it amuses me that so many a but it's sad that so many of these people will tell you as an absolute truth that there is no truth urges sheer nonsense yeah because it's a contradiction in terms yes I mean you you obviously spend quite a lot of time speaking especially to actually a lot of young people here so know many of the events you do John do you find that there's a kind of people are looking again for a source of meaning for something to hold onto absolutely I think that well we it's it's country-specific because there are parts of the world of course and where for example Christianity is growing like wildfire but in the UK and in the US I find that young people find the world that is presented to them by people like the old New Atheists or the naturalistic philosophy is too small to live it it doesn't give them any kind of solid foundation so they're looking again and just what last week I spoke to central hall Westminster 1500 young people starting at the age of 13 to 18 absolutely fascinated spending a whole day thinking about these big ideas that I find enormously encouraging when young folks start asking these questions and I find I hear response around the world but it's self-selecting you know it's very difficult for me to give a global and fair assessment I mean it strikes me David that you did this hundred city tour with Jordan Peterson and it strikes me that the crowds that have flocked to hear him talk about meaning in a meaningful way I have been quite young they're kind of proud that you kind of might have expected more to be turning out to hear that Sam Harris's and the Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins and so on what what what's changed why why in a sense is the conversation we've done from well we all know God's dead - well what's going to happen next I suppose well it's really interesting because if you were paying attention to the the media around Jordan during the year the implication somehow or the condemnation I should say from the media was that somehow this was for young straight white men that he's only talking to straight white men as if inherently that's somehow an evil thing right so that was the idea that he's gives somehow he's really broken that straight white men are showing up to his events and that's somehow inherently evil now of course that's absurd if it let's say he was talking to all straight young white men if he if he happened to have been giving them something positive that could have put a little order in their life away from the chaos as he would put it that would actually be a wonderful thing of course the irony is that that actually wasn't even true at all because the crowds were wonderfully diverse and I usually thought they were about 60/40 male to female an age range all over the place and all that but to answer your question specifically I think that we got as politics and the media and social media and the fact that we're all walking around with a phone in our pocket that has the world's knowledge and you can connect with somebody you know literally across the world in a split second I think we have no idea how this information or G basic yeah I think we have no idea how it's affecting our brains our ability to think clearly about things it's doing wondrous things right we're all here because this this is a podcast right we're disseminating this through the digital world this is incredible but it also has destabilized sort of basic beliefs and I think then Jordan stepped in and said we have to be able to get some meaning out of this so that's why he wrote twelve rules he thought these are twelve rules in a modern sense he wasn't handing down the Ten Commandments again but he was saying in a modern sense these are twelve things you can do stand up straight with your shoulder back with your shoulders back clean your room clean your room before you clean the world these are basic things where now we have people that want to fix the world constantly that can't fix themselves they're doing it backwards but but just very briefly on the the underpinning of some sort of belief that can lead to freedom and that's what sort of what I was talking about about the Enlightenment think about you know the the founding documents of this country I think are the greatest man man written documents let's say political documents at least and what did the founders say they said these are god-given rights they're self-evident we did not give you these rights the right of freedom own of free speech all the things we can protect these things but we didn't give them to you because they came from somewhere else that is so deeply important and and in many ways very unique to America and that's why there's such a bizarre assault on freedom of speech right now and actually almost everything in the bill of rights and it comes mostly from the secular world that that is a really sad twist that truly I would not have expected a couple years ago even as someone that saw this coming I mean right you know five years ago I was waving me the flag going guys there's something happening here on the left this progressive thing this is no good but even it's gotten so crazy that I'm still a little surprised myself to some extent it's almost as though that the meaning crisis has almost created this vacuum and people are finding all kinds of crazy things - oh yeah they're looking anywhere you can look - you can play video games all day you can you can do whatever it is to fill up that hole if it's an existential hole or a hole in belief or whatever it is but there's a lot there's a lot of ways to fill that hole I think Jordan Jordan in my opinion has given the best set of beliefs that take from a religious tradition and blend what I would say our enlightenment values are basically secular values judeo-christian values and he's blended them in the most effective way I mean as we're on the subject talking about Jordan Peterson I know that you're somewhat familiar with some of what he's been doing as well John what's your take on what he's put his finger on that obviously so many people are responding to and and yeah well how does it relate in your view to to the Christian faith in you home I think people are longing for sense and you mentioned connectedness that is almost replaced meaning but it's not real connectedness and I was reading a book on artificial intelligence just recently and it was a warning that people will die if they're not connected to the Internet because all the meaning has been placed there and they think what Jordan Peterson is doing is putting a nuclear bomb in the middle of that and saying this is not good enough you've got to get outside of that and you're right it is rewiring brains the the psychologists tell us it's messing people's brains up especially if they try and use two machines at once and therefore I just think that there's an underlying and from where I sit people are looking for this because although they often don't believe it or even I've never heard of it they are made in the image of God they're beings who've got eternity in their hearts and a kind of materialist universe without meaning just won't satisfy them because they're actually made for something bigger and CS Lewis put it years ago if if you find a longing in you that's not satisfied in this world many there is another world at which it could be satisfied and then apply that to the world of ideas so I really think he's hit a nerve and interestingly if you read his book 12 lose for life and he's done yes I guys mm-hmm there's he's drawing a great deal on the Bible especially the Old Testament sure he is especially the Old Testament and it has intrigued me that he has concentrated his lectures of the Bible on the Old Testament but that to me resonates completely because i as a Christian have been for years trying to communicate to people that they got to begin to take the Jewish Scriptures seriously because there you've got the foundation the foundation story and people are looking for a story that's big enough to fit their lives into and there's the start of the big story creation human beings made in the image of God and what that means for their dignity and their freedom and everything else if we just get that one fact I remember in Siberia where I used to go quite a bit and I give the first lecture in 75 years on these issues and the University of Noah's DeBeers and I made the point I said just think of the one statement human beings made in the image of God and I said if I believed that they wouldn't murder one of you let alone the hundred million that's talented and it absolutely erupted the place of course they'd never heard it before it was totally new to them and I think our society needs to hear these truths in Jordan Peterson is moving into that area because he's actually going back to the book and not being ashamed of it I'm more power to them I say yeah and just very briefly just from from being on tour with Jordan I told you this backstage but I never saw the guy break one of the 12 rules I mean try to imagine how chaotic his life was in the course of this becoming a massive star traveling all over the world the book sales the celebrity the entire thing and he never broke one one of those 12 rules just 20 seconds we were at a we were at a dinner party at Douglas Murray's house with Maajid Nawaz and and Jordan you may know those guys and one of the rules is that if you see a pet if you see a cat in the street you should pet it and Douglas had a cat and we're there for about three or four hours we're having dinner we're having a great time and I'm looking at the cat the whole time and I'm looking at Jordan I'm going the guy hasn't pet the cat like you know what am I on tour with this guy for the whole thing is it is he a fraud you know what's going on here I swear to god I was thinking at the entire time and then as we were walking out the door Jordan literally and you can sort of picture Jordan is he's very tall and he has long limbs and he's slender and he basically sat down in the cat's bed with the cat and and stroked the cat for a good five minutes and I thought all right he's the real deal we should probably talk about someone other than Jordan Peterson tonight yeah the I mean I'd love to key in a little bit more on your story because it sounds like you have been on something of a a journey of discovery over the last year or two and obviously very much influenced by the way Jordan has brought alive in his lectures and so on so I mean you obviously now are seeing more and more the value of religion what what does that cause you personally to do in terms of maybe is it causing to rediscover your own Jewish roots a bit more and the religious aspect of that well I would say there's two things here as I said at the beginning there's sort of just the cultural affinity and the understanding of the history of the people that came before me which you know unfortunately in the case of Jews is a pretty brutal often almost unimaginably horrific history and I you know I grew up around Holocaust survivors and I know that that though the pain of your ancestors or whatever the the history of your people is can't be the thing that defines you going forward I would say as I've sat down with believers and non-believers alike I've genuinely found I guess sort of this would get to what you were saying John I genuinely found the believers not only more welcoming so like in a situation like this but more more open actually happier less less dependent on things outside of themselves more self-reliant let's say so I don't think that means I'm going to be religious per se tomorrow that being said as I said I went to this Yom Kippur service that Dennis Prager hosted and I found it incredibly moving and you know Dennis gave a sermon that you know he talked all about judeo-christian values and sort of what's happening in our country right now and how it all seems to be becoming untethered and he used some religious backing to give some value there and I thought well this is value this is something a real-world way that I could come somewhere once a week or build some community around or friends that would have value so I can't say I'm you know it's like if ultimately I can see in your eye you want me to be like yeah yeah Jesus let go I can see if there's a guy back there waving a Jesus sign at me god I see you well if you insist yeah let's put it this way I have no problem with Jesus I like the guy you know I mean like the message of Jesus that all of the things that we've talked about here on stage and backstage I love these ideas I think that if my life becomes a continuing conversation about these things and I can incorporate the best parts of that to be a better person well I'll tell you this I I know for a fact I am a better person today than I was before I started this journey with Jordan but those things and that doesn't mean i prescribed at the Church of Jordan Peterson that is just that this guy who is communicated the bedrock ideas that we're talking about here by me listening to that and hearing that and incorporating some of that in my life I'm a better person so that had that means something you know any comments on on Dave's journey so far feel like this is my life haha do it you're on there right so I kinda night well I think what struck me just listening was you're being moved by Yom Kippur I'm not Jewish by background but I owe everything to Jews and the history of the Jews has been enormous ly important to me and when you mention the Holocaust as you do and I've been in Auschwitz many times and I've wept every time and I have many Jewish friends who lost everybody and that raises huge deep existential questions and therefore just thinking of the big picture the big biblical story and I love it because although there are all sorts of twists and turns and difficulties I see the Jewish history the history of Israel the law the prophets as pointing towards something big because at the heart of Judaism many Orthodox friends who still expect tamashii arcs and Messiah to come there is the difference in that I believe he has come and Yom Kippur means a huge amount to me because in those Jewish festivals and I've been at many of them I see I know what to put a crudely but a thought model that has been fulfilled in what Jesus did and I find Yom Kippur moving because I see in him the fulfillment of it and here is a person who actually died the day of atonement it's an atonement to deal with now here comes the point that what happens when you start with a creation story of people made in the image of God that's wonderful but we know that something has happened a bomber said the human race a huge problems and we long for a solution we long for justice we long for to freedom we long for true values and we've got to therefore face the problem of human rebellion against God no the sin word is not popular these days but it seems to me that there's a fulfillment within what Jesus did and taught of fulfillment that everything that Judaism stood for and stands for powerfully and therefore I feel a close affinity here the whole Judeo tradition is immensely important to me because there I find these fundamental values but they raise a big question and it's the fulfillment of that the whole history of Israel its sacrifices the institution's the prophets looking forward to massage who will deal with the basic problem of human rebellion and so that's clearly a difference between me and Judaism but I wouldn't under emphasize the huge contribution that it has made to the rock on which I believe I stand today if that makes sense well it does make sense and if I could quickly I actually do want to answer your question a little more specifically now that I had a moment to think it through so this year I went my parents live in New York still in the same family home that I grew up in and I went to the temple on Rosh Hashanah and Rosh Hashanah is the beginning of the new year and it's it's about creation and then basically you have the week or so between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur where you're supposed to think about your life the things that you've done the good things that you've done the bad things done apologize to people if you've done you know whoever you may have done harm and I really did so this is this is the real answer your question I really did that this year I really did think about it probably didn't fully get there on Twitter throughout the week I probably did drop the ball a couple times on Twitter but I but I really was very aware of that and and I tried you know just a few days ago at services I really was trying to be cognizant of it doesn't necessarily matter if I believe in all of this all of it fully but there is value in this this story that has been told by my parents and my grandparents and my great-grandparents going way back when there must have been something that kept this thing alive and there must have been some reason behind it and for me to pretend that I'm so enlightened that I have figured out something that is so brilliant that I could that I could just set all that aside that it to me that strikes me is the worst sort of like egomaniacal hubris that you could have so I would be happy to do this again next year and we can continue the conversation but Jesus guys still waving IIIi I'm finding this fascinating because obviously there has been something of a spiritual awakening and and I think yeah it sounds like you're saying I'm not quite sure what that looks like exactly but I want to start to investigate and live into this kind of tradition more that obviously your forebears have done so I mean there's there's a lot of people out there you know he would say come on wake up it's the 21st century we all know that these are just superstitions and everything else and you need to get on the bandwagon of reason you're about reason Dave land and if we just think straight work things out with science and logic then then that's the way forward that's the way you religion is kind of the way we used to do things not anymore yeah well I think the counter to that would be that everything that Jordan has talked about not not to bring this back to Jordan but the counter of that is that well look sort of where the secular world is at where we can't figure out whether you're male or female anymore we have to now debate that I you know I don't it's sort of like I don't like using that one because it's so easy and it sounds sort of sort of glib and I don't mean it to be that way but that is where this is all leading if there is nothing outside of ourselves then John as you said everything else is subjective and we will debate every little thing debate dude depending on how we feel about it on any given day and that that will lead there is there's a reason why right now the idea of socialism is suddenly popping up in America which is the fourth genuinely the worst set of collectivist ideas that you could possibly ever have that hundreds of millions of people have died in history under and it's popping up because if you listen to what's happening on the left right now politically because they've outsourced God imagine if one of those people on stage said that they were a real believer imagine if any of them maybe Biden could do it but but but really the rest of them can they would never really say that they're a believer now I don't know what they are and I wouldn't want them to say anything that's not true to themselves but they would be mocked by by everything mainstream everything mainstream would mock them the way that everything mainstream mock's any Christian that happens to be could they're usually on the right they happen to be conservatives but look what they're offering us now their answer is oK we've removed God from the equation and what do we get we get government and they they now pray basically the government they think that they can figure out somehow by sitting in a room with a bunch of other politicians and bureaucrats the worst sort of people that exist they I didn't even mean that to be funny I mean but that's what they think they think that they can rejigger all of humanity in a way that will be so much better than everything that came before them and not only can't they they are going to do the complete reverse so that if for no other reason if for no grand revelation or something like that that would be a reason to be respectful of people that are believers because they can fight that in a way that secularists can't the good liberals don't have enough juice in and of an in and of themselves they don't have enough juice to fight that that's why liberalism has collapsed in the name of progressivism yeah I approach this in two ways the first one is your comment that secularism is collapsing and one can analyze the defects of Atias of more leads to and the millions of people that died in the last century but coming over to the other side what you're saying Justin you see I am a scientist and one of the fascinating things is that science is a direct legacy of the judeo-christian tradition you were saying we're all scientists now and all this is no it is not and let's start absolutely basic in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth Hebrew Bible written millennia ago knew there was a beginning it was in the early 60s before scientists caught off of that and the Bible was right and Dawkins said well there was a 50/50 chance when I debated him and I said at least the Bible got it right but more seriously than that you see the fact that I'm a mathematician and interested in science I just think about that the fact that mathematics can describe what goes on in the universe is a matter of huge wonder Einstein once said the only incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible and he saw the problem why does it work well it's not an incomprehensible thing if you start from the idea that there's an intelligent God who made us in His image and therefore we can do science and that's exactly what the early pioneers of modern science starting with Galileo and Kepler and Newton and so on and so forth they were all believers in God and therefore when I hear that kind of question I'm not remotely ashamed of being a scientist or a Christian because I want to argue that it was Christianity gave me my subject and CS Lewis put it brilliantly [Laughter] I'm glad you understood at the end CS Lewis said men became scientific because they expected Lord nature and they expected Lord nature because they believed in the lawgiver and I think we're getting to the stage now for serious atheist thinkers are beginning to reexamine the kind of naturalism that produces everything to physics and chemistry and one of them lives in New York his name is Thomas Nagel and he's a brilliant philosopher and he says something's going wrong because if everything is reducible to physics and chemistry then so is your mind but then why would you trust your mind in other words atheism taken to its logical conclusion undermines the very rationality you need to trust to do science and I'm not in for accepting a worldview that undermines the foundations of any kind of argument or discussion whatsoever so I think that in the 21st century we can push back on that very naive notion that God's art we do science now no science actually brings God back in it's very interesting I mean all of this leads me to want to ask you at this point you sitting down with John here tonight obviously a Christian believer someone who gives evidences for God and I know that on your show you've you've had people like we should perón and I think Ravi Zacharias is gonna be featured shortly and where does this leave you on if you like that God question because one level I can absolutely see the way in which there's a kind of utility and a kind of sense in which meaning Mamina from doing the religious things the rituals and so on but at the end of the day and I asked this of Jordan Peterson once it was an interesting answer do you believe in God do you feel like that's where you've got to at this point in your life you know it's funny when we would do the Q&A at the shows with Jordan for the first few we would let people come up to the microphone and what usually happens is that people start telling their life story and they they would want to get therapy session in front of strangers and it started getting very weird so we decided we decided a better way to we used an app to do it and when Jordan was on stage basically I would go through the best ones and I'd find some funny ones and some serious ones and everything else but what always came up no matter how many times Jordan answered it was do you believe in God and he and as I'm sure he said to you he finds it to be sort of the most annoying question so I think I would answer it I mean I would answer it in a similar way that Jordan would that look I think I've I've sort of laid out a set of beliefs here that show the utility of believing in something outside of myself and I do I do believe in that so if you want to call that God that there is something outside of me there is something that is connecting all of us that has nothing to do with the material world there is something that drives us that that is the driver of humanity that is something good I believe that I don't I can't yeah I believe that but could you put a name on that something at this bed I told you I wanted to label you be Jesus I I guess I I mean in a sense I I hear what you're saying do I get a cookie at least that income out of people what are you doing here I I guess I guess it's kind of like what are the particulars of what would that look how is that gonna make a difference I suppose in your life is is there a sort of sense in which you feel now any new obligations given this kind of new sense that there's there is something beyond you know I think we're all sort of wired differently right I think some people can really really flourish just sort of on on their own set of ideas that they create in the world and I think that can really work for some people I think some people need some order outside of that some people need more of a community some people are real loners all of those things I think perhaps but I but I truly mean what I said before I'd be happy to do this every year with you and continue continue these conversations and I'll continue them on my show obviously I think for me the adventure of discussing this and seeing what kind of people that I bring into my studio that I interact with that events like this what type of people I want to be around that really is the proof that that is what well that's what makes this right that's what makes this so I don't know so again I can't what you're I get the question I respect the question truly and it's and it's a it's the question right I mean it's like saying what's the meaning of life right that's the big one I would say I'm on the adventure to finding that out and and I'm really ok with that you know I hope that doesn't sound dismissive of the question or or like I'm trying to evade it I'm really not I like B and maybe this is just a function also of what I do for a living I mean I get to sit every week with people that in most cases are smarter than me who have spent years working through all of these issues as you have John that is an incredible privilege that I have so I would like to see how far I can take this sounds like we're not gonna convert him tonight you're doing your best yeah working overtime over there I'll say that much but it's wonderful to hear an open description of a journey and I try to figure way into this that getting around these ideas is really big stuff I mean coming the way you've moved from the little I've understood of it just meeting you for the first time it's most interesting to me the way that movement is going now from where I said there's another element comes into it what I mean by that is this there's the things that we can think about existentially as you're doing and that's vastly important to me as well the kind of people you like to be with thee evidence of that you like this if you feel there's something I'd side yourself and so on and so forth but then it comes to a couple of questions one is could it be that something is actually personal you're Jewish Hebrew Scriptures would say exactly so because that's how better Sheikh Genesis starts with a God who sees who blesses who speaks and one of the most interesting things to me both as a scientist and a believer in God is the simple description of creation and God said let there be light and God said and God said there's a sequence as you know but the most exciting one is the one you never hear it's the final one and God said to them and that opens up a whole world of possibility that what is being claimed at least is there's a God that speaks to me and that means that opens up the possibility of revelation where it's not simply me investigating the people I know that things I hear the arguments philosophically and so on but there's another sight to it but if this is true then God is interested in me and he's wanting me as a discussion partner he's wanting to talk to me and if what is open to that possibility it seems to me to open a huge new dimension to this and the more I think about that this is a word based universe scientifically and religiously in that sense and and therefore the idea that there's something there that's fantastic there's more than the material world but if that more is personal and can speak to us it's worth testing the claim at least because it runs right through the whole of the Hebrew Scriptures the New Testament that's the fundamental thing is a speaking God not dead we I should say I mean we normally never on on my show get to this point because most of the time the person sitting opposite someone like John is a confirmed atheist and and it's really God is always going to be debated in the abstract John John you kind of come to the point we're saying well let's look at where the God could be personal here that whether God could speak to us again I feel like we're grilling you tonight but I guess no it's fine nice thing I did I generally I love this there's nothing you could ask me I don't think that would that would offend my you I really I'm grateful for you being an open book tonight because I suppose my next question simply who could it be do you think that it's possible that there could be a God who is personally interested in you who listens to your prayers who is interested in the way you live your life who wants the best of you you know is that something that's on the table as a possibility for where your journey might take us but if he walks out on food right now I would get baptized okay like if that's like like a you know Maury Povich and yes well my basic answer would be yes why would I why would I rule that out what why would I rule that out well I as you said that so eloquently would I be like no you know it just that just doesn't stand to reason and that again goes back to why I said I love having these conversations and I don't I don't even though this is a little different for what you do usually I don't take offense by it or anything like that like that that's interesting to me but and by the way I think that this is sort of where we're Jews maybe have done something a little bit differently where it always has been about this sort of battle about what God is there you know you talk about science and mathematics you can go to most of the like the Jewish hospitals in New York City where they have you know the best doctors in the entire world many of them are Orthodox Jews who actually won't press the elevator on Shabbat because they don't want to use electricity don't rabat so they have the they have the elevators that go to every floor on saturdays now from an outsider perspective you weren't really thinking about it that way you'd go well that's completely crazy how are these people of science and math doctors how would they possibly care in this in this crazy superstition if if you come from that discipline of science and math and yet they those people don't find it to be in conflict so I don't see any of this in conflict actually if anything I feel like this is really what it's about this this ability to to play because I know that there are plenty of you guys out there that are at some level of where I'm at with some of this stuff it's not like everyone that walks in these doors is going this is absolutely what I believe and we believe the same thing and I want to convert everybody to believe in the same thing I do I just I don't believe that I'm not gonna poll you don't worry but but I know that's true and and we're all on those journeys to the others so I so of course I don't dismiss could God be a personal you know do we all have do we all have that piece of us behind us that that knows what's right when when you when you make a bad choice in life yeah up those my I shouldn't have that drink or shouldn't do this or whatever it is I don't know is that a personal relationship with God when you have that other thing or some would say is that just the voice in your head what is that what is that thing I mean philosophers have been debating this forever I think that's a really great place just to draw this part of the conversation to a close so why not watch the audience Q&A next it's even better and if you want more top quality debates updates and bonus content sign up at the big conversation dot show

Channel: Premier Unbelievable?

Views: 242,390

Keywords: unbelievable, justin brierley, premier christian radio, christianity, atheism, philosophy, faith, theology, God, apologetics, Jesus, debate, dave rubin, john lennox, the big conversation, calvary chapel, costa mesa, jordan peterson

Id: m0Ov4HBperc

Length: 60min 48sec (3648 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 15 2019