Do His Methods Cross the Line? You Might Change Your Mind

[Music] [Applause] thanks David wood for joining me on capturing Christianity it's a pleasure to have you here well let's just jump into the interview shall we so what we're doing is we're gonna have three sections in this interview we're gonna have some general questions for David then we're gonna talk about reaching Muslims and apologetics some more basic questions on what islam teaches how we can sort of respond to it and in that kind of thing so Muslim apologetics and then we're gonna talk about your methods David the mocker is what we've said we've titled that section a lot of people have issues with McMaster McMaster yeah David the McMaster well a lot of people have issue and take issue with the way that you engage Muslims but what we'll engage with that in the in the later portion of the interview but let's just jump right in do you have any advice for Christian philosophy students such as myself and that's not me particularly we had our we asked our patrons what some questions to ask you and that was one of the ones that they asked what advice do you have for a Christian philosophy student well if it's a kind of depends on what their what their their goal is if they ultimately want to use that as part of their Christian witness then one would be kind of deciding which branch of philosophy to go into right you want to go into metaphysics or epistemology or so on so it's kind of thinking about what your what your what your goal is real quick where's your degree in just in philosophy but it's what was the focus yeah it was kind of a overlap between philosophy of religion and epistemology because I my doctoral dissertation was on the Bayesian argument from evil so it deals with Bayesian confirmation theory and but did you work with all draper stuff and everything - yeah Paul Draper was the main topic addressed in my dissertation that's great yeah so uh so one kind of figure out what what you want to do and then go into it to you know figure out what classes you can actually deal with Christian topics on so I just loved if the if the class was on let's say Immanuel Kant mm-hmm thinking okay what what did what did Immanuel Kant say about the existence of God our arguments for the existence of God at various stages in his career because his position changed over time and so could actually find something interesting like like but like an before the critical turn before he came up with his fully developed philosophy he actually had a very interesting argument for the existence of God that people today called something like the possibility proof or something like this but it's it's he basically argued that if anything is possible then God exists because God is the ground of possibility and so you can always find topics like that that are of interest and use to Christians in almost in any almost any area of philosophy so I would encourage Christians to focus on topics that are actually relevant to them even if it's something that's critical of something they're interested yeah yeah and then just sort of go deeper for that direction so this is another question David could you please compile into a book or phone application a collection of references to trusted Islamic source passages that you've used to refute the various beliefs within itself as well as your commentary and logic behind the refutations I feel like that piece of work with your personality added would be an edifying and entertaining benefit to people wanting to speak the truth and refute what is false so not technically a question but yeah my most of my material is is kind of random and that the video will be on a on a topic and then my next video might be on a completely different topic that's not well organized but yeah I've been planning for years to come up with something more systematic to take people through things step-by-step and to you know here's the material here are here are the quotations you'll need to make this point here are the objections that will be raised about the point you've made and here's how you can respond to those objections something kind of systematic like that I haven't gotten to it but yeah hope I eventually I'll climb like that just to jump back quick to what you said earlier about your your dissertation in Bayesian ISM what got you interested in that and the problem of evil and dissertation because you I've heard you say well you're a diagnosed sociopath right and so what got you interested in the problem of evil the bayesian forms of it if you're you know you don't have those sorts of since feelings yeah well I guess is so I I don't have you know I don't I don't feel anything about you know human or animal suffering like that in fact when I was an atheist I actually had a kind of reverse arguments my argument was if God exists that he would just annihilate us all because of it because the the things that human beings do he would just wipe us all out he hasn't wiped us all out so God doesn't exist that was that was actually my thinking and a very human beings were just disgusting to me back then so but except yourself were you disgusting to yourself except myself I was the exception okay but uh yeah so as far as the argument from evil yeah it's kinda it's kind of ties into what I was just mentioning stuff that's actually relevance to Christianity so along the way of my graduate work I did lots of papers that have to deal with the existence of God and so on but you know at the end of the day that is kind of the strongest argument against theism the the argument from evil so I kind of wanted to you know at the YouTube level or at the popular level you see arguments but you know as you're studying in graduate work you you realize a lot of stuff has been refuted and dismissed years earlier and the the the fights the battles actually on a completely different Hill now and so I noticed over time that that more recent arguments had already dismissed not just the logical version of the argument right people who study the argument from evil at all nowadays know that you know almost no one takes the argument from the logical argument from evil seriously anymore they focus on evidential versions but most people don't know that that now even the classic William Rose style evidential evidential argument from evil has been rejected by Maine defenders of the including roe himself including Roe himself Paul Draper yep and so I kind of wanted to say okay well what is what is like the most developed modern form of the arguments yeah because if you've got that then what else what else is there right if the logical argument was flawed and the William Roe style inductive version is flawed and now the more recent most up-to-date Bayesian form is flawed then what is what is the problem I mean what I mean what is the argument that refutes our belief enjoys I don't want to deal everything up to the most up-to-date version of the argument okay that's what I need [Music] let's move on to the next section of our interview we're talking about Muslim apologetics how to reach Muslims so this is another question we have from our patrons what line of reasoning or argument do you find to be the most effective in moving Muslims closer to accepting the gospel well Muslims are individuals Muslims are individuals and so it if I'm having any discussion with a Muslim I'm usually going to start with a lot of questions to try and you know feel out where this particular person is at and so I would normally what kind of like theological beliefs they have about Islam well yeah I mean it this is actually very easy and you don't even really need to have a background studying Islam to kind of get started along these lines but if Christians keep in mind that your average Muslim would love if he takes his religion at all seriously would love to talk to you about his religion he believes that you're on the wrong path and that he's supposed to invite people to Islam it's sort of 16 verse 125 invite all to the way of Islam but also your average Muslim especially the West believes that we've all been we've all been given a false picture of Islam because we see so much you know about terrorism and so on in the news they think we have a false picture of Islam so they would love to tell us what they what they actually believe it so you kind of need to do is open the door for them and just say hey you know tell me what you believe yeah and so you'll get a kind of a quick picture of Islam we believe in one God we believe in this net and so I would follow that up with with more more specific questions what do you believe about God what do you believe about Jesus what do you believe about the Bible and so on go through a bunch of those questions in eventually as you're after you've gone through all the basic questions about what they believe eventually transitioned into some from into some why questions why do you believe that about the Quran why do you believe that about Jesus and at that point you're getting some of their reasons for believing certain things and so most of its gonna go back to the Quran itself right or the Hadees yeah and really really for your average Muslim it's going to if they're honest it's going to go back to what their parents taught them or what their mom taught them which most likely goes back to to the Quran or the hadith but it's it's through its it's through the people who have influenced them and the same with lots of Christians and so on that we get our beliefs you know oh yeah bring our families and so on right real quick I think it's important to note that like just to explain some of these terms because I was not really familiar with Islam at all until very recently I started to read a couple books on it and so any mom is like it's almost like a priest but anybody can be in a mom that's something that I learned it doesn't matter who it is yeah you don't have to have any official training or anything yeah you just have to what be able to recite the Quran is it yeah it's so you have something like a sheikh which that can just refer to an old respected person but in a scholarly sense that's someone who supposedly has has really studied your mom is just someone who's who's leading the local congregation at the mosque but it's mainly to a sense of like prayers and stuff like the prayers and so okay so it's not it's not uh doesn't require a lot no you do have Imams that are very well educated and so on but so you had you know yeah your your your average Muslim is influences main influences were his parents as he's growing up his local Imam and then if he was at all interested in apologetics or something like that probably would have been done online watching soccer night clips and so on so if you're asking a Muslim questions about what he believes and then why he believes then you start getting the particular reasons in therein and and why this is good and why I said you don't actually have to have a lot of knowledge about Islam in order to get started is once a Muslim has given you his reasons for believing certain things about Jesus or the Quran or something like that then that allows you to focus on studying that topic right you don't have to study all know all of Islamic apologetics or something like that you can say hey so you said that the Quran has been perfectly preserved I've never really studied that before would you mind if I you know went home I'm gonna study that and look up some articles on it and stuff would you mind if we got together next week to kind of run through that and you can tell me you know we can discuss what what what I found and see if you actually have have evidence for that and so that allows you to go focus on that topic and so on and then and then but are you making an individual base like it's depending on that person what they believe and how they came about those beliefs yeah and so uh basically the the the overall thing that that's generally going to apply is if you really go through the evidence and I'll bring I'll tie this with Nabil because the Biel is where I where I learned this I spent years giving evidence to Nabil right we'd have discussions about the reliability the New Testament Jesus death his death for sins his resurrection his divine nature and so on and abby'll didn't tell me this until a little later but what he was thinking whenever we were going through the evidence for Christianity he was always thinking after we after we'd gone through it at first he thinks there's just nothing there but after we actually go and open up the sources and watch debates on it and so on and go through our arguments he said he was always thinking you know Christians actually have good reasons for believing what they believe here they have good reasons to believe this but he said there was a qualification you would say even though Christians have good reasons to believe this I have better reasons for Islam and you would say even if they show me with 99% certainty that Jesus rose from the dead I'm still 100% certain of Islam so unless that particular Muslim has already had some reasons to doubt Islam most of the time you are gonna have to eventually deal with some some of that person's reasons for believing in Islam to kind of shake that faith and so that he might he might take what you're saying seriously now fortunately for people who don't want to blast away at Muhammad or to blast away at the Quran there's an easier way to do this that that's much more comfortable ground for Christians and this is an argument we call if I could change one thing in the world of apologetics it would be to get Christians to understand what the Quran says about the Bible because once Christians understand what the Quran says about the Bible they're in a very good position for any conversation for for any doctrine of Christianity that you can defend from scripture that conflicts with Islam the Muslim is going to have to say well your Bibles been corrupted jesus never said that but once you understand that the Quran affirms not only the initial inspiration of the Jewish and Christian scriptures but the preservation of the Jewish and Christian scriptures and the authority of the Jewish and Christian scriptures then whenever the Muslim says oh your Bibles been corrupted you've got a problem you can point it out as a critique of his religion without getting into Muhammad for people who don't want to talk about Muhammad or something like that without wanting to upset the on the topic that they bring up the corruption of our scripture you can show from his sources that our scriptures are according to his God and His Prophet authoritative revelations that have never been corrupted and once you do that you kind of put them in a dilemma and so that the dilemma is basically either Christians have the inspired preserved authoritative Word of God or we don't yeah something corrupted or otherwise if we have the inspired preserved authoritative Word of God then Islam is false because Islam contradicts our book on basic on basic doctrines so that's one possibility the other possibility if we don't have the inspired preserved authoritative Word of God Islam is still false because the Quran affirms the inspiration and the preservation and the authority of our scriptures so if Christians have the Word of God Islam is false if Christians don't have the Word of God Islam as false either way Islam is false and so that's that's what I mean when if Christians just learned that if they learned what the Quran says about the Bible then in any discussion with Muslims once the Muslim said no Jesus didn't die well I show you right here where Jesus died oh that's been corrupted or if whatever the topic is as long as you can defend it from the Bible and the Muslim has to say the Bible's been corrupted he's kind of opened the door for what is simultaneously a defense of the Bible from an Islamic perspective but also a critique of Islam because once your book affirms scriptures that contradict your book your religion has just self-destructed you just don't know it and so it's simultaneously offensive and defensive yeah that's earned that I think it's great so there's a right over here we had a we had a Muslim uber driver and we talked a little with with him about his faith and one of the things that he said I found interesting we were talking about Jesus and whether he was crucified so he said that he was crucified but that he just didn't die on the cross and was sort of taken into the tomb which was interesting because the Quran says specifically that he was not crucified so a lot of Muslims think that there was someone else that took on the likeness of Jesus and that person was crucified so it was interesting to see him sort of accept that he was crucified but that he wasn't he wasn't killed yes so my question is how would you you have responded to him in this conversation once he said there there are multiple ways there because that that is there are Muslims who believe that it's because there are Muslim apologists who have held to that position so Zakir Naik I don't think really believes that but when he's presenting to a Christian audience he argues for that he sorry er he argues that according to the Bible yes Jesus was crucified but he survives crucifixion somehow it'll actually make arguments like that but people like Shabbir Ali believe that Jesus was nailed to a cross but just didn't die and so there are Muslims who believe that and the way they reconcile that with the Quran which is that this probably the first point I would challenge Aman show him where it says was wasn't killed and wasn't crucified it says they didn't kill him nor did they crucify him right exactly they have to sort of give a specific interpretation of crucified there is a crucified means killed by nailing to a cross so you can't just be nailed to a cross that's not crucifixion you have to die which makes it redundant it's like he wasn't killed nor was he killed by crucifixion if he wasn't killed he obviously wasn't killed by killed by crucifixion so it and kind of make the passage redundant but so I would deal with something like that but after that I would I would kind of lay it aside because they're stuck with the same the same problem either way but notice that the benefit of the classical Muslim position which is which is substitution theory right Jesus was substituted by someone else yeah the classic that classic position the benefit of it was that nothing happened to Jesus right Jesus escaped safely to to heaven and someone else was crucified in his place well if now you say that yes he was beaten tortured nailed to a cross but he just happened to survive well he kind of lost even that slight benefit so you say okay well why didn't a lot do that other thing that Muslims have traditionally believed in rescuing Jesus is like he's he's letting him go through all that torture and there's there's no point at least in Christianity there's a point so oh I would I would kind of go with that and and then there are other issues you can bring up but uh yeah that is a position yeah so so moving to another question from our patrons do you think Islam as a belief system is compatible with Western civilization I don't mean Muslims in general there are lots of very good Muslim people I mean the actual belief system is is the the belief system of Islam compatible with Western civilization yeah right I guess they're thinking of like Sharia law is it compatible or maybe not even Sharia law I'm not sure exactly I would say yes and no obviously Islam does not affirm things like freedom of speech and so on so you couldn't simultaneously have both as ruling forces in society right you couldn't have you know Western Western beliefs and Western documents about rights and so on as authoritative and also have Islamic sources as authoritative but basically uh according to Islamic court and Quran hadith the Sira that taps here and so on jihad proceeds in stages and when Muslims are completely outnumbered when Muhammad was completely outnumbered in Mecca and had about a hundred followers couldn't have hoped to win a physical confrontation with unbelievers he was told to preach a message of peace and tolerance so God's gonna judge you in the future but in the meantime let's not hurt and let's not hurt each other later when he was able to form alliances with very various tribes he left Mecca and went to Medina he had more followers than the message changed his revelations changed to revelations about defensive jihad so if someone's persecuting the Muslim community or someone attacks the Muslim community then you can fight defensively but not offensively so you can in this they have a broader concept of what what counts as an attack so even if you criticize Muhammad that was an attack and you could you could physically each yeah Chris I so so that but that that was defensive jihad but the bottom line is other people had to kind of start it but that wasn't the final revelation either later when Muslims were the dominant force in society they had the biggest army then it was fight those who do not believe in Allah you subjugate everyone everyone has to be under the authority even if you're juror Christian who remains Jewish or Christian then you you still had to be a second-class citizen under Islamic rule so that sort so sort of full-fledged Islam completely incompatible but here's what you could say this is I think this is the best thing you could say apart from apart from saying what you've already pointed out there tons of peaceful Muslims who obviously live perfectly normal lives here in the United States I've known many Muslim families they live you know some some of them have some of the best families right that I've ever known but as far as Islam the ideology here's what you can say as long as the Muslim population is a is a small minority of the population like one or two percent they aren't supposed to get violent they aren't supposed to try to overthrow they aren't supposed to they're not supposed to be doing those things but there's because what's in the best interest of the Muslim community at that time is not to be in conflict with everyone else so what you can say is as long as the Muslim population is a small minority of the population in a place like America in theory it's not supposed to it's not supposed to be a problem in society and so it could exist like that forever if the population didn't grow to the point where they're supposed to enter another stage of jihad let's move to our last question before we move on to two methods and David the I forget what what you called yourself but so this one is how would you defend the Trinity against a Muslim who is saying that the Trinity is either incoherent or doesn't make any sense what's your typical response about the Trinity well there it's going to depend on the situation and the person because some some people will say that it's a logical contradiction yeah three can't be one yeah some will say well if you're saying God is one in essence but three in person is not technically a contradiction but it's just not true in which case you have two persons not calling it a contradiction so you actually argue that it's true but so a couple ways you could go about it one if you can defend the Trinity from Scripture mm-hmm then from the Bible then the Muslim is going to have to say well you Bible's been corrupted you could go the Islamic dilemma route and show him no your book actually affirms my book if the Muslim is just saying that it's incoherent which is more common there you know Christians have a tendency to start giving analogies and so on right I would want to if you want to use analogies which I don't have a problem with as long as you clarify the role of the allergy you're not saying this is like the Trinity you're saying this is an example of how something can be won in one way and more than one in another way which is what you're saying is a you know a contradiction for me or something like yeah so I might bring that up if you've actually got some time to lay some things out there are some interesting things that you can bring up from Islam to help show the Muslim that if you're saying this is a contradiction for me you've got a bigger problem here so for example the Quran talks about Allah of course Iran also talks about the spirit of Allah and the spirit of Allah proceeds from within a law if the spirit of Allah is not something that a lot creates outside of himself when Allah creates something he says B and it comes into existence the spirit of Allah is breathed out by Allah and is that by which he creates and so the spirits in a different category right it's originating from Allah and it's what gives life but the Spirit is also sent by Allah to do things and the spirit can actually take on human form so the spirit of Allah actually takes on human form it appears to Mary and she's worried that it's a rapist she says you know hey what are you doing here I'm innocent so you've got something that proceeds from within Allah is a person and yet is not created like other like other things so it's important to bring that out the the role of the Quran or the Word of God in Islam Muslims believe that the Quran is eternal so notice what you've got here you've got Allah you've got the eternal word of Allah which proceeds from Allah and you've got the spirit of Allah which he breathes out notice you've got a you've got a rough parallel to the Trinity already your average Muslim has not thought about how to reconcile his belief in the Quran with his his idea that you know you can't associate any partners with Allah and Islam is purely monotheistic you you have kind of three eternal things already and the command the spirit actually takes on the form of a person and and communicates with people so it's personal so you have that but also you can take this a step further because the the word of Allah so the word of Allah the Quran according to the hadith also appears as a man will appear at will appear as a pale man and judgment to testify about how Muslims have read it and recited it faithfully and so on so now you've got the Quran which at least that the judgment is going to become personal and so wait you've got three personal things here which are eternal and are sounding an awful lot like like kind of like a copy of of what the of what Christianity teaches so I would point out hey you first of all before you're going to criticize the Trinity explain these things to me explain how you reconcile all of this because Christians were confronted with some of the same things right you've got the word which is God but you've got the father and you've got the Spirit which has the attributes of God how are we going to reconcile all of this the doctor and the Trinity Muslims have a lot of the same things in Islam they don't reconcile it they just pretend that those things aren't there so it kind of it helps to bring these to the surface and say how do you reconcile that without something like the doctrine of the Trinity apart from that one more thing that's and I'm only saying this because there's a lot in the Muslim sources that Christians need to bring out that would help in these conversations one of the I need to make a video on this because it's such a cool thing the Quran I've already mentioned that the Quran is eternal sorry has one of the at least one of the attributes of Allah Muslims well systems will say that the Quran is an attribute of a lot its his speech is an attribute something like that but we've a beach is an attribute that's that's that's the response of that's then trying to reconcile how the Quran can be Co eternal with Allah without being separate from Allah they'll say oh well if it's one of its attributes then it's not something separate from him it's an attribute so that's just uh that's just a response to an objection of having two eternal things so the the Allah is eternal speech becomes a person takes on the form of a pale man and and testifies and so on but according to Muhammad in multiple passages individual chapters of the Quran appear as flocks of birds which also communicate and testify whether you've recited that how much you've recited that chapter how am I how faithful you've been in doing what you're supposed to do as a Muslim no notice what you have here individual chapters of the Quran appear at the judgment and they have memories they remember everything you've done they communicate they speak they speak to Allah they can talk to you they've been watching you and so you've got these individual chapters of the Quran which have their own conscious consciousnesses right and there's 114 chapters of the Quran at least the Quran we have today right so there 114 of these individual consciousnesses within the Quran that speak communicate remember so they have the characteristics of persons and yet according to also according to Muhammad the Quran appears as one unified pale man so wait a minute you've got one Quran that appears as one man but also you've got 114 individual personalities within this one Quran if you have a problem with three divine persons in the Trinity what do you do with 114 divine persons within the one Quran so in other words if you if you're if you're complaining about the Trinity you have to reject Muhammad now because that is way more confusing [Music] okay so this last section is David the mocker and what sparked this is that you've done so sort of your method in engaging Muslims is very satirical and even sometimes just outright mocking right you're as Lama sighs me series was was a pretty abrasive some people would describe it that way so well let's let's take a step back first and just say how should Christians think about being winsome to their target audience right because this is what you're doing you're saying that this method is the best way to be winsome for this target audience your target audience being Muslims but your target audience is not necessarily other Christians so well so how do you approach that question of how to be winsome to your target audience now how important is that to you well it depends on it depends on the situation right if I'm if I'm talking to a Muslim you know I'm gonna try to consider that Muslims personality some Muslims will only respect and an aggressive approach and approach that comes right at them right and and I thought that's just a cultural difference right I mean in America were all very timid and we don't want to be my first saw this with Nabil we watched we watched a debate we watched William Lane Craig versus Jamal bata we and I thought Craig absolutely demolished Bathory if I were to score it I would have scored it like 95 to 5 I was watching that with Nabil when he was still a Muslim and we you know by the end of the debate bata we was flustered he started yelling and you and I would be looking at that going you're yelling because you're frustrated you're defensive you know you're losing and you're getting angry and it's coming out Craig is calm because he knows he's making all his points he knows he's refuting your arguments he has nothing to worry about right we finished the debate I said so would you think of that and the bill goes out about a week clearly one I was like whoa I can understand there are people who will just side with their debater automatically Nabil is smart Nabil was really really really smart so I did not expect that from him so what what are you watching it took me years to unpack it but eventually for him when he saw bada we yelling this was because bada we was passionate he's passionate for God he's has a righteous anger because this other this other debater is leading people astray and blaspheming God so he's excited about what he's saying he's passionate and this is actually evidence that deep down he's confident that he's right he's confident that he's right because he know he's he has great arguments so if his his yelling is actually some sort of confirmation that he's right Craig was calm because deep down he doesn't believe what he's saying he knows that these things can't be true about God so we're watching the exact same thing and interpreting it completely differently so I saw that about Nabil and eventually I started seeing it about more and more Muslims when I started debating when I was you can go back to some of my early debates but when I would present information about you know Muhammad and I shouldn't so if the debate was about Muhammad I would want to present all of this information but you've got little nice old Muslim ladies sit in the front row and I'm talking about Muhammad having sex with a nine year old girl I would present it very gently and meekly and okay well this is in your sources so I have to present this but I would present it like that and Muslims would leave the debate haha he's so weak right and so eventually after after a couple debates I got annoyed and I just start going how can you believe in this look I was presenting the same information but I'm going what is this what is this and they're going he's destroying our religions like that's what you're looking for your that's what you're paying attention to you're paying attention more to how I say something so how I communicate it than the actual content I'm sure you are paying attention to the content of every debate no matter how no matter how they're speaking but it's just something that I had to pay attention to that there are Muslims who it's like it's like they're not paying attention to how nice you are how loving you are that doesn't how forceful you are how confident you are and the more forceful and confident you are the more likely it is that you're that it's true if you look at places like Pakistan there's a reason that when someone says something negative about Islam they'll have riots in the streets and be tearing stuff down in their culture that's actually evidence that their belief is true how passionate it makes them and how passionate they are for the for the truth it's it's they're sending a message that you you you can't do this to us because we know that this is the truth and so you just have to take those cultural differences in mind and I'm trying to basically I'm trying to get kind of a bow here and the balance is I want to be forceful I want to be aggressive about Mohammed but ultimately I'd also like it to be kind of funny and light-hearted and silly so that you know speaking of balance we actually have a question from our patrons how does David navigate that balance between effectiveness and gentleness and here I think they're referring to first Peter 3:15 beer always ready to give a defense of the hope that is within you but do it in gentleness and respect yeah well uh that's that versus actually is actually perfect for this because notice it's it's do it with given answer with gentleness interest and respect right to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that you have right so this is a person who's saying hey why do you believe this well it will show me someone who says hey David why do you believe in Christianity and I just start blasting and insulting I don't do that right so in those kinds of contexts where you actually have someone who's interested in something to someone who's genuinely seeking information of course you should you should respond with with gentleness and respect but I believe that Islam is kind of in a different category it's not it's not just a religion it's it's a it's a political ideology that calls for the violent subjugation of the world and so there are people who think I'm too mean and too aggressive as far as I can tell you need to deal with the ideology you need to deal with this at an ideological level yes you have government agencies and so on trying to deal with the threat of terrorists and so on but as long as the ideology is there they can't the government's are not going to are not going to protect you in the long run i Aslam is growing and the more it grows the more aggressive it becomes and so you have to deal with it as an ideology I'm looking at that and saying I don't want to just keep pushing this off to the next generation to have to deal with if I can do anything to confront the ideology I want to confront the ideology and that's not to be mean that's because I don't want to see some epic bloodbath 30 years from now right I don't want to see that if we can avoid the epic bloodbath 30 years from now by dealing with it peacefully I think we should and so I'm a fan of using any peaceful means necessary to criticize a dangerous ideology so that's not just my way it's not I'm not saying hey Christians need to do what I'm doing in blasting away at Mohammed in in in ruthless fashion I don't think most Christians right but I think someone does need to do it it's just always been my position if someone needs to do it in its and it's us and it's hard to do it might as well be me just because I'm wired to do things like that so so here's here's another question from our patrons I really think that your content reaches Muslims and opens their eyes to the lies that they believe my question is asked with love and respect do you think your content draws them enough to the truth of Jesus and as gospel centered or is it all about opening their eyes to the lies they believe PS I read seeking Allah finding Jesus and how God used you to bring Nabil to himself so praise him for for this yeah this kind of goes back to the point I made earlier where Nabil was admitted to me later that he was always thinking hey even though they have good reasons I'm still more certain of Islam so so some Christians need to be doing both right when the Christian tells me hey I just preached the gospel to Muslims I say good because they're Muslims need to hear the gospel and just need to hear the gospel that's great but someone needs to be blasting away too Muslims have been given a false confidence in their religion and the the religion has been propped up by reasons that are just absurd if you investigate them so if we never come after those reasons and we never respond to them and refute them and show just really the the the silliness of some of the things Muhammad said and some horrible things that he did upon which their confidence is based then they never have any reason to think about any alternative so I I kind of I kind of view them as both important again not each individual Christian needs to do these things just like not each individual Christian needs to witness the Muslims we're a body here so but but someone needs to be blasting away at the foundations here or Muslims will always have that 100% confidence that that Islam is true there's a the last question we have from our patrons please ask him if he thinks deeply at all about how his satire is christ-like it seems to go too far he isn't just mocking ideas I'm at times even embarrassed that he is one of us I really think that if I were to say some things that Jesus said directly out of scripture to anyone in the world today I think Christians would be embarrassed how dare you say this that if I were to mocking yet like like like like Jesus if when Jesus is saying you know you whitewashed tombs you brood of vipers if I were to say that's anyone if I were walking down the street and I saw some I saw some people who were non-christians and I'm sitting there going you brood of vipers you whitewashed tombs like Christian suits my gosh you can't talk like this that's not loving now I view that as loving because I view that as exactly what those people needed to hear mm-hmm I believe that as the iview that is the most loving thing Jesus could say to them at that point that's actually a really good distinction between like okay so you can mock but if you're mocking out of love that's a different situation yeah but the the the difficulty I guess is being able to do that in love I think that that's what a lot of people have have issue with so would you say that when you do mock and you do this kind of satire that you're doing it out of love and how do you how do you like maintain that you see it seems kind of don't know that that is I mean you know I look at this I it's Lamas eyes me as a perfect example so we did an entire series trying to bring out all of the the silliness of Muhammad's teachings and keep in mind keep in mind everyone this is not this is not us mocking Muslims this is us we are mock him we are mocking but we're mocking Muhammad and his teachings and you find the same thing with someone like Jesus when he says to the scribes and Pharisees you you strain out a gnat let's swallow a camel he's mocking them because they sit there and they strain their water through little strainers and stuff to make sure that they don't swallow a net it's a it's a tiny unclean creature gonna make sure that they don't swallow that but they're committing horrible and Justices and what they're doing to two people they're saying your straining out a nap you're swallowing the camel they're not actually swallowing the camel he's mocking them for their their meticulousness and trying to observe the law while violating the law and much more much more serious ways so again I believe that Jesus is being as he was telling them exactly what they needed to hear as far as maintaining love and in something like Islam asides me we're we're we're showing how silly Muhammad's teachings were that was that wasn't that was basically inspired by a true story vocab was friends with a with a jihadi a guy who went out and died trying to kill Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller he was on his way he had his guns and he got shot in the process this was a convert to Islam he believed in Islam and he believed after he studied Islam that his main job is to go out and kill unbelievers in the name of Allah so he concluded that and vocab had talked to him guess what the guy didn't believe the gospel and I just think I really believe someone like that and so I mean Christians think about this you've got jihad ease going around the world believing that their greatest job in life is to slaughter unbelievers in the name of Allah killing Christians and churches killing Christians and hotels the teachings that give rise to that I think if anything is worthy of mockery then those teachings are and if and if mockery will help those what will will help someone see that that's the thing the guy did not respond to the gospel if I if someone had laid out all of Mohammed's silly teachings to him one I don't believe he would have converted if he had if he had been aware of those things before he converted to if he were already a Muslim and he really saw all of these odd things that the vast majority of Muslims know nothing about their leaders do not present these things to them we bring them out if that was actually something that Nabil pointed out in his book is that like a lot of the stuff that he was learning from you and everyone else is of it no one had ever told him any of this stuff because even his dad was like well go read this book you know and they'll address it there yeah so what so once that once all of that information is presented yeah he might remain he might leave Islam or he might remain a Muslim he might leave Islam and he might be more open to the gospel now he might remain a Muslim but what you're hoping is that even if he remains a Muslim that by knowing all of that stuff maybe he'll have some doubts and if he has some doubt maybe he's not gonna go on and wouldn't want to die for it so basically I view you know satire and things like that as one peaceful way that's not killing anyone among many different ways of responding to a dangerous ideology as far as doing this in love that's the purpose you look at someone like that when when there's a terrorist attack it shouldn't just be oh look at the victims it's gosh look at this guy who was who was manipulated by an ideology into thinking that his God wants him to go and slaughter all these people you know should be thinking gosh what happened to that guy and so I you know that's the point right it's stopping all of that and like it or not the the satire the mockery that is an effective way we find it in we find in the Bible we find Jesus doing it we find Paul doing it we find in the Old Testament we find it in the New Testament it's normally for certain situations and the most common the most common scenario where they use it as religious leaders who are misleading other people right that's what you see Elijah with the prophets of Baal that's what you see Jesus with the Pharisees they use it when it's it's mainly when it's someone a religious leader who's leading other people astray and if that's sort of the biblical picture of when this method is appropriate if it's acceptable with anyone it's acceptable with Mohammed because there's no one in all of history that I can think of who is misleading more people in a more dangerous way than that guy so if it's acceptable anywhere got to be acceptable there so if we can get a little technical for just a moment so this strikes me is almost like a utilitarian reason for thinking that this is an appropriate thing to do it's like it for the overall good for the most amount of people this is what we should be doing but that strikes me as like a sort of practical or utilitarian reason for doing something but as I think that you subscribe to utilitarianism is false we shouldn't just do something because it's going to bring about the greatest good for something else we should do something because it's the right thing to do so how would you interact with that and your well this this isn't a utilitarian view of ethics I think that practical considerations are valour like when Paul says you know to the Jews I became a Jew and he's talking about hey there there are certain things that are more effective in certain situations and we need to be we need to be aware of that so the the the basic idea is hey if this approach works and it does there several years ago when I would actually skim through my youtube comments every morning I would take a screenshot of people who were leaving Islam and becoming Christians and so on I take a screenshot and I would share it on Facebook and I kept this up for about a month and a half but I was posting between one and three short testimonies of people who were either leaving Islam or leaving Islam and becoming Christians but I was posting between 1 & 3 a day just by reading my reading through my daily comments how many of those do you think you're genuine and were made up because I have a atheist I think they're atheists commenting on my videos saying well you know now I'm an atheist because I watch this debate and this guy got crushed and so now yeah III believe that that that most of them are genuine authentic because for a Muslim it's embarrassing to say that a Muslim has left Islam so I don't think Muslims are doing it you could always have an atheist or something like that or or a Christian who wants to have a false Testament Christians that we shouldn't be doing that an atheist might just to be just to be just to be playing but they genuinely they generally seem to be sincere and a lot of them came from people who have been arguing for Islam previously for four years and so on people who say you know I really hated you for years and hey you can go back and look at my comments but I just want you to know that I'm a Christian now and so you you you do see it again that was years ago I only stopped doing that just because it was too time-consuming to go through all my all my comments but I've heard from tons of people who have left Islam some of them have not become Christians many of them have become Christians but they over and over again they say hey you know I really was mad at you at first you enraged me I couldn't stand you I hated you a lot some of them I wanted to kill you but thank you for ultimately sharing sharing that with me so how do you handle death threats like that I'm technically a psychopath so it doesn't those it doesn't affect you at all no it's whatever what about your head you said it's amazing I said it's amusing oh yeah so well well okay well now you have a family right you have kids and everything and so does that affect you now that you're having to take care of other people as well not just your your yourself or worry about yourself essentially it is a it is a concern because you know look if you want to chop my head off chop my head off you know I don't I don't have a problem with it but yeah you know I am as I do have a moral obligation to look out for my family so yeah I hope they don't get killed but someone basically has to go out and and deal with Islam so there we just have to be in danger yeah and you feel like this is what God has called you to do essentially I mean otherwise I don't think you'd be doing it Yeah right so do you have anything else to add on this topic of mockery and satire and and your approach to it oh yeah I mean I would just you know keep in mind the context in the situation because I've actually heard from people online and they'll say hey David I just want you to know I met some Muslims and so I went after them like you an effing know I'm on YouTube like this I'm not talking about some individual in a conversation yeah you got to pay attention to the situation but you know at the end of the day this can be an effective method of making points in certain context and so but you shouldn't reviewing it all the time no no I don't do it all the time yeah I'm doing it a lot because I think it needs to be done and someone needs to be doing it and so it's kind of like someone needs to have done this so that I mean there's terror it's growing we're kind of an emergency stage so someone needs to be doing it a lot but I don't think most people should be doing it so practically I think it needs to be done and that it's something that can be effective so that the blocker for that would be if it's unbiblical because even if it's practical it's unbiblical you shouldn't do it but we looks in the Bible and especially in the context of religious leaders who are leading people astray you do find that in the Bible and so again if anyone should be subject to mockery and ridicule it's Mohammed because he's like a more extreme version of the people who are mocked and ridiculed in the Bible this brings up something else that I think people probably accused you of are you making these videos just for views to get like more views and subscribers on YouTube no I mean I could be doing all kinds of things if I just wanted you I think if I made a really awesome philosophy channel where I've wanted to do for years that's you know make cool philosophy videos but make them really cool I think I think that would do well I think I could do all kinds of things that would be effective on YouTube it's really at the end of the day it's just the reason I'm dealing with Islam I'm not interested in Islam as far as what I would like to be studying there are a million things I would rather be studying than Islam I would rather be studying any branch of science I would rather be studying any branch of philosophy including continental philosophy which I despise I'd rather be doing any of that than studying Islam it's just I read the Muslim source and I just want to go take a shower from all the horrible things in there so it's not that I get enjoyment out of this it's just I'm looking around at what I think is is missing and there you know in apologetics everyone's most of the population of Christian apologists focusing on on dealing with atheist objections and so on and not nearly enough people dealing with Islam so it's okay I'm going to deal with Islam because there's there's there's a there's not enough people dealing with this I'm gonna deal with it because this needs to be done and then within the realm of Christian apologetics dealing with Islam someone needs to be going after Muhammad in a in an aggressive fashion and so I'm going to do that and so all of this is just me looking at what needs to be done that's not being done and I'm going to do that eventually if other people are doing it then I would I would much rather be doing something else well thanks for coming onto capturing Christianity it's been a lot of fun and maybe one of these days we can do something and kind of peek your other interests that you have for instance the problem of evil I think that'd be a cool discussion to have and kind of give you a break from all your Muslim apologetics but thanks for coming on again and hopefully have you on again soon all right 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Channel: Capturing Christianity

Views: 113,417

Rating: 4.8352814 out of 5

Keywords: capturing christianity, cameron bertuzzi, apologetics, god, atheism, David Wood, David Wood Islam, David Wood Muslim Apologetics, Acts 17 Apologetics, David Wood Sociopath, David Wood Muslims, David Wood Debunked

Id: Xce-7zYYwrg

Length: 49min 49sec (2989 seconds)

Published: Mon May 04 2020