Is There a God Who Speaks?: A Debate on the Existence of God

all right so what we want to do today is talk about whether there is a God who speaks namely is there a God now I'm taking a little bit of a risk here at least at risk as far as I can see because I think and I won't necessarily argue this point tonight but I believe that the question of God's existence is a question that's philosophical philosophical question so I'm going to give a philosophical argument in due course and the risk I'm running is that when I teach my courses I have the luxury of time of sort of teasing out the categories over the course of 14 weeks 3 hours a week we don't have the luxury of time tonight obviously so I want you to just pay special attention not that it's above your intellect but we're just going to track fast with the categories as we go through Time magazine back in this 60s in the late 60s mid 60's really cover story is God dead and it was putting its finger on movements both theological and secular that were arguing that the concept of God had past its functionality and usefulness for particularly American society interestingly though it had an article follow-up about three years later is God coming back to life which this one doesn't get quoted as often as I and the literature as the first one does not quite as sensational but it was talking about the way various theologians and even lay Christians were trying to respond to the goddess dead movement and sort of get the question of God and more particularly the Christian message back into the lives of people now most of the time in my experience as an apologist and a philosopher you run into a number of contemporary arguments I'm not going to give these arguments I just want to tell you what they are but and if Dan wants to respond to them that's fine but I mean these aren't my arguments but I want you to see where my argument fits in and/or contrasts with what you find most often for example you hear arguments to the effect that God is the cause of the beginning of the universe so you'll see an argument like this and I'm not given this argument I'm just telling you what the argument is I'm not defendant universe began to exist whatever begins to exist as the cause of its existence therefore the universe has a cause of existence and typically the literature is going to focus on the second premise whatever begins to exist I'm sorry I'm sorry it's first premise I highlighted a wrong one that the universe began to exist it's going to focus on that and in doing so what it will do is generally marshal scientific evidence for the fact that the universe began to exist this is common in the literature so you'll see issues relating to the big bang theory and how that argues for the beginning of the universe or issues like expanding universe and how that points at the beginning universe or second law of thermodynamics and how that points to a beginning universe all to fit into this original argument you'll also hear arguments along the line that somehow God is the cause of the design of the argument the key term here is Diseases design and again not unlike the first one you'll often hear scientific evidence given for this so you'll see things dealing with design extrinsic to the whole to the universe that is having to do with the universe as a whole so you'll hear things like the fine-tuning for life and the initial conditions of the Big Bang or how or how life came about in terms of the history of life on Earth how did it originate you also have intrinsic concepts of design dealing with things like design as information where the DNA molecule is ism information and so if you have information you have an intelligent cause and therefore it must be God our design is irreducible complexity minimal thresholds that have to be an entire given in biological history or knowledge of reality so if we were just random the products of random mutation the argument goes then somehow we wouldn't be able to know whether our senses give us accurate knowledge so these are all kind of design asked kinds of arguments now it seems to me that there are both strengths and weaknesses and these are just a few strengths and weaknesses that occur to me I'm sure you could probably think of many more strengths and weaknesses if you reflect upon it first of all just as some strength of these contemporary arguments before I give you my argument first of all they appeal to the common sense notion that something can only begin to exist by being caused to exist so you know as we'd say in mrs. see where I grew up 99 times out of 10 if somebody thinks something came into existence they're going to say it had some kind of cause so it's kind of a common-sense notion they argue miss also appeal to the common sense notion that anything that exhibits sufficient evidence of design is likely caused by and intelligence and so the intelligence is supposed to be God another strength is that these arguments often appeal to the data from contemporary science with all the social clout etc that science has so science resonates with people a lot more readily if you have something that sounds scientific then typically people at least in Western civilization they're going to a situ to the point and they last the arguments generally avoid trafficking and the technicalities of academic philosophy so that's really where the rub is going to come because people don't have the patience if it's if it's not your area then the technicalities in any discipline are likely to just bore if it's not your particular area philosophy just like any but I also think there are weaknesses and I don't want to overstate this what I mean by weaknesses is just how hard it is in some instances to marshal these arguments especially in a rigorous debate format like we're doing tonight for example these arguments it seems to me do not in and of themselves demonstrate that the cause of the universe still exists today it seems minimally the only show at most I should say the sorry let me back up minimally they show that there was a cause designer when the universe began or when the thing was designed but whether God still exists could only be argued by shoring up the argument with supplementary arguments and I'm not suggesting one couldn't do that I'm just saying okay but now you've just added to the mix as far as the arguments you're having to marshal and also the arguments it seems to me they do not demonstrate that the cause of the universe that is God that is in my estimation and this will become a little bit more clear when I give my argument that it doesn't show that the this cause has the attributes historically assigned to God that is classical Christian theism whatever that ends up looking like there's also my weaknesses in trying to give such arguments because certain ass of the science are disputed so you know and I've done these debates before in fact Dan and I've debated before and I've given some of these arguments and I might marshal some scientific expert and then he might be able to come back with his own scientific expertise or maybe he'll quote another scientific expert we might volley back and forth a couple of times and then we just go home and that and this I can't really referee the debate beyond that but even more to the point these arguments to me they get invariably get technical and so they're beyond the knowledge of the non scientists like me so I can't again referee that so if I brought a scientific argument and Dan came with another scientific argument I just go well you know let's flip a coin to see which scientific argument you want now one of my favorite philosophers of the twentieth century I think one of the most brilliant philosophers that lived in the entire 20th century was a man named Joseph Owens and he gives me license to give these arguments that I just got through saying I'm not going to give but also to encourage me to go on to give the argument that I'm going to give and he says this other arguments may vividly suggest the existence of God press at home eloquently to human consideration and for most people provide much greater spiritual and religious aid than difficult metaphysical demonstrations but on the philosophical level these arguments are open to rebuttal and refutation for they are not philosophically cogent now I'm not suggesting that the argument I'm going to give tonight is not open to rebuttal presumably that's what dan is prepared to do but I am suggesting that at least if we are dealing with it on the plane at which it ought to be dealt with which is a philosophical issue I feel a little bit more comfortable doing that then I would be on most of the scientific things so to that end let me give you a philosophical argument for the existence of God this argument actually comes from Thomas Aquinas there and it's actually not an argument that is commonly touted even by people who want to give an argument from Thomas Aquinas because what is interesting about this argument is that the argument demonstrates not that there is a cause of the universe's beginning to exist but that there is a cause of the universes current so it's the difference between beginning or coming into existence and then existing right at this instant at every moment of its existing now Dan says in his book godless he says the old cosmological argument claimed that since everything has a cause there must be a first cause an unmoved first mover today no theistic philosophers defend that primitive line because if anything needs a cause so does God I'm curious about what old cosmological argument he has in mind because at least in my experience with a master's degree from a State University and philosophy and a PhD and from a State University of philosophy I've never heard anyone in the history of philosophy of religion ever give an argument that says that everything that begins to exist must have a cause that's never been an argument I'm not saying there can't be some eighth grader that put that up on his blog last night on the Internet I'm just saying if you look at the rank-and-file philosophical philosophers of religion then none of them have ever made this argument so it's in fact a straw man what does this argument do that I want to make it employs to of Aquinas is philosophical I'm sorry not to three of acquaintance's philosophical doctrines his understanding of essence his understanding of existence said the latin word is si and i say that just in case i out of habit say the SI not because I'm fluent in Latin it's just that I'm used to using that word in this context and then the connection between the two how essence and existence are distinguished from one another let me define the terms for you essence is what something is it's what it is existence is that it is so consider yourself as a human being as a human being your essence is is as a human is distinct from your existence as a being your essence is what makes you human your existence is what makes you a being your essence is what you are your existence is that you are now the essence existence distinction basically says this that in sensible objects that is objects you can you can detect with your senses see hear taste touch or smell there is a real distinct between that objects essence and its existence that essence in existence are distinct and sensible objects is evident from the fact that one can understand what something is without knowing whether it is and you can even know whether something is and not know exactly what it is so the fact that your intellect can make that distinction I think points to some kind of real distinction now I just quickly want to tell you why this matters in terms of cash value you remember in the Nuremberg trial the Nazi defendants couldn't be tried on the basis of the laws of the justices who were presiding over the Soviet Union France UK in the United States because they weren't citizens of those nations but neither could the Nazi defenders be tried on the basis of German law because nothing they did in the final solution to the Jewish Question was against German law Hitler made sure he retool the laws in the Constitution so that it nothing was illegal so how did they try the Nazi defendants they tried him on the basis and they used a phrase that we still use today and to my knowledge this is the first time that phrase was employed they were tried on the basis of of committing crimes against humanity now ask yourself well what is the humanity what is a humanity is it male or female is it black or white is a younger olds it's sicker healthy is it rich or poor what is a humanity I would submit to you a humanity either is real in some sense the term real or it's not real in some sense the term real if it's not real in any sense of the term real then how in the world can you commit a crime against it if it's not real how could you commit a crime against something that isn't real if it is real then I will submit without much argument tonight that your understanding of what is the nature of a humanity that your understanding of it will either track some form of the philosophy of Plato or some form of the philosophy of Aristotle and I think those have been The Fountainhead of Western thought for the past 24 or so hundred years so what is my argument here whatever is true of you is true of you either because of your essence or not for example by the way that looks familiar I'm modeled for that hey that's a god that debate right but he had clothes on that night the reason you have rationality is because you're a human it's part of your essence as a human to have rationality you have rationality by virtue of being human or rationality is caused by your essence these are four ways of saying the same fact the fact that you have Riz ability which Aristotle thought was unique to human beings but maybe dolphins serve as a counter example to that there that's the ability to laugh so the reason you have R is ability is because you're a human as part of your essence is a human to have R is ability you have R is ability by virtue of being human visibility's caused by your essence now is the reason you're at this debate tonight because you're human is it part of your essence and if you want to even think of essence in some sense as a definition though it's more than just that is it part of your essence as a human to be here tonight are you at this debate by virtue of being human is being at this debate caused by your essence and I would submit to you the answer is obviously not otherwise you wouldn't been human before you got here you won't be human after you left and no one that's not any anyone that's not here tonight right now is not a human being it's not part of what it is in the essence of humanity to be at this debate but then why are you able to be at this debate even though it's not part of your essence to be at this event well you're at this debate because you caused yourself to be at this debate so you could think of any number of things that are true about you that you can cause yourself why I have a white shirt on actually that was my wife that caused me to have the white shirt on but but you know what or you may have something that's caused in you that that somebody gave you like the guy said when that little kid asked the guy well where did you get that black guy somebody give it to you said no son I didn't nobody gave that to me I had to fight for that black guy you know so somebody had to give it to me so think about then as we pressed this question instead of your rationality or Riz ability or being at this debate consider the fact that you're existing right now is the reason you exist because you're human is it part of your essence as a human to exist do you exist by virtue of being human is your existence caused by your essence I think the answer clearly is no but just as clearly you could not be the cause of your existing otherwise you'd have to be existing before your existing which is incoherent but if you're not the cause of your own existing then that must be caused by something else something else must be causing you to exist but what about that thing's existence what caused it to exist either it exists by virtue of its essence or it's caused to exist by something else now let me just put a little quick pause right there and say a few words about existence so that I can unpack a little bit more of the import of what we've even discovered so far before I finish the argument suppose you saw a giant glass ball and you might ask seeing the ball well how did that ball come to be so I took this ball when my wife and I were in Venice Italy and if somebody said well you know it's made over in Murano and they shipped it over here and it's to celebrate the opening of this new vaporetto stop bla bla and you'd be happy with that you're satisfied with the explanation but in distinction from the glass ball suppose you were hearing music you would not ask how did the music come to be right rather you would ask what is causing the music to be and this is just an analogy because unlike the glass ball you realize music only is music as it is being caused to be music at every instant that is music as soon as the cause of the music stops causing the music the music is just gone so that idea is in an analogous kind of way is how Aquinas would understand existence existence is an act is something that essences do it is an act it is actual izing the reality of the essence so the argument tries to show that anything that exists that does not exist by virtue of its essence must be continually caused to exist by something whose essence is existence itself it just is existence now why is this the case why is it that it has to because either but by virtue of its own essence or not because if that they was not existing by virtue of its essence it would need to be continually caused to exist by something else and the question that usually comes up in this context is well can this go to infinity you just had this sort of infinity of causes and I want to just show you why it can't be an infinity of causes but let me just say at the front end lest some two minutes two minutes yes Lord oh sorry let me show you why let me say at this point so you won't be confused that I am NOT making our acquaintances not making a Kalam cosmological argument he's not talking about the impossibility of infinite regress it's the difference between a per se infinite and a per accident it's infinite let me just show you the differences if I can get them in in a minute and a half you've got this man who sires a son who sires a son who sires a son what is interesting about this causal relationship is that this chain in acquaintances estimation could be infinite because there's nothing about any one of those calls a relationship that depends at the moment of the prior relationship as Aquinas would say it is accidental to this particular man as generator to be generated by another man for he generates as a man and not as the son of another man now that's not clear to you watch how it contrasts because contrast father son grandson you know down contrast that with a hand pushing a stick pushing a rock not only is it the case that the hand is pushing the stick and the stick is pushing the rock but the hand is also causing the stick to be a pusher of the rock do you see the difference the father doesn't cause the son to be a father of his son so that causal relationship might be Anthony as far as the coins return but the father but the hand pushing the stick pushing the rock it's not just pushing the stick but it's causing the stick to be a pusher of the rock and I think the illustration that this best fits for me as far as just trying to imagine it graphically is a set of interlocking gears it's not like falling dominoes where one Falls and then the and then the rest going to do their thing no matter what happens to that Domino if you imagine all these gears turning then they're all turning simultaneously well there has to be some gear whose very essence is turning because if you just have time if you had an infinite number just complete your thought thank you if you even if you had an infinite number of years they couldn't be turning on their own without some gear that it's very essence is to turn so by analogy there can't be anything existing without there being something that existing whose very essence is existence itself thank you so it looks to me like you went like 22 minutes 23 by my clock yeah he he had a lot of intro stuff so if you want to do some intro stuff Dan go ahead and you just tell me when you're ready to start with the material you know I used to be a preacher I could go forever it's been a long time since I've stood in a pulpit and I have to say that standing here right now is bringing back some of those old feelings I just have to say I had this almost uncontrollable urge to take up a collection somebody stopped me from there so I really been looking forward to this and I think it's very generous very gracious of you at a conference like this to invite an infidel an atheist a heathen to come in a pagan whatever you want to call me I take it as a compliment to come and address an apologetics conference during my rebuttal I will respond to Richards comments today is Friday the 13th I know none of you are superstitious but I got to tell you something that you're not gonna believe well maybe I shouldn't tell this crowd what they believe or not you believe what you want but when I was leading my hotel room today I saw a black cat in the hallway of the hotel and the cat came up to me and said Allah s el único Theo's bear that arrow what you don't believe that do any of you believe that there's always one hand in every crowd right there what is this a roomful of skeptics I told you a story I gave you a personal testimony that a cat came up and spoke to me I understand why you're skeptical because cats don't talk we all know that I hope you all got the skeptics discount for coming to this conference because we're all skeptics I think the difference between you and me is that I'm skeptical about one more thing than you're skeptical about when I read in Genesis that a snake spoke human language I'm skeptical just like you because snakes don't talk I used to believe that a snake spoke human language and so did a donkey and a seven-headed beast in the book of Revelation who blasphemes I preached the gospel for 19 years and I loved it before I eventually throughout all the bathwater and I discovered there's no baby there I finally realized the truth about humanity whether you want to call it existence or essence the truth about who we are as human beings we are biological organisms in a natural environment and that's all we are and that's wonderful that's more than enough it's amazing but you believers here tonight you think we are more than that you think there's something that transcends like a soul or a spirit that goes above and beyond nature you're imagining a supernatural realm beyond what we all just commonly naturally experience you can believe that it's just a free country you're welcome to believe that but belief is not knowledge if it were we wouldn't need the word belief if the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith you're admitting that that assertion cannot be accepted on its own merits you need to boost it with something so for tonight's debate the leaf is really irrelevant and I think maybe even Richard would agree well he wants we want to know we don't want to just believe since you are claiming there's something above and beyond then you have the burden of proof I don't have anything to prove I'm not making an additional claim you're the one making the additional claim I'm not automatically rejecting your claim if there is a God who speaks that would be amazing that would be an incredible fact of reality it would change everything it would change medicine it would change science it would change public policy it would change everything if that God really did exist we a theist sar open to anything that can be described and observed but so far I am skeptical skepticism is not arrogance skepticism is not sticking your head in the sand skepticism is a simple matter of carefulness if God really exists why are we having a debate about it doesn't this debate actually undercut the reality of God why are we talking about proofs and arguments why are all these books about six arguments for God's existence why doesn't this God who exists make himself known to me why doesn't he do that that's the question that Korah asked of Moses and that's the question that Martin Luther asked of the Pope why do we need intermediaries why do I need you to tell me about it doesn't apologetics actually show that God is too weak to speak for himself oh the Bible the Bible is God speaking for himself the Bible is something it's ink on paper it's humans speaking whoever put that ink on the paper was a human being I know you have a theology that there was a inspiration behind it but look at it from a sceptical point of view this is an ink on paper this is stories they might be interesting stories they might be good stories they might be bad story but it's not evidence it's not good evidence for a god we atheists if we don't claim to know everything I'm certainly not the smartest guy in the world that's okay because atheism is not making any claims atheism simply means without theism it doesn't mean anti D ism you can be an atheist and want to believe in God you can be an atheist you know who loves Jesus you can be an atheist if you don't have a belief in a god that's all it means atheism is not a positive proposition it's not a science it's not an epistemology atheism is not a philosophy or even a moral system although most atheists do know how to be moral sometimes more moral than believers atheism is certainly not a religion a theism has no Creed no Dogma no clergy no infallible authorities no holy books no rituals no missionaries atheism has no Commandments atheism is simply the absence of theism the absence of a belief in God and an absence is not a thing if the religions of the world were a list of TV channels that you could browse through atheism would not be on that list atheism is the off button none of the above atheists experience the natural world directly not through some screen of faith there's an old joke that if atheism is a religion then baldness is a hair color or as there you go you're the high priest of baldness I'm trying to catch up to you there Richard but um during our last debate I think we both had a lot more energy baldness is a hair color or as Bill Maher might say it celibacy is if atheism is a religion then celibacy is a sex position it is your job as Christian apologists not only to prove the supernatural but also to demonstrate the reliability and the moral worth of the book on which your whole system of faith is based a book with talking animals a disembodied hand floating in the air writing on the wall Styx turning into snakes a magic wand Wizards sorcerers and demons the Nile River turning to blood the Sun standing still and moving backwards a seven-headed beast who speaks blasphemy tens of millions of animal species floating in one large box and you wonder why I am skeptical you ought to be skeptical about these stories too you're skeptical when they occur in other religions we'll get back to the Bible but first let me briefly summarize the reasons for atheism and maybe we can go into greater depth later if Richard wants to dig deeper as I said atheism is the absence of belief I'm an atheist because of a number of absences or lacks first there's the lack of a coherent definition of God the Bible says God is a spirit but what is a spirit nobody has ever defined what a spirit is in positive terms no one's ever done that it's only defined by what it's not a material essence or intangible soul many definitions of God contain mutually exclusive characteristics such as omniscience and omnipotence or omnipotent and omni-benevolent it's like arguing for the existence of a married bachelor not only can it not exist it doesn't exist it's illogical for some of these characteristics of God to actually exist in one person a being who knows free will cannot exist any being who knows the future cannot have free will that I say that wrong let me say that again a being who knows the future cannot have free will it's an impossibility it's a logical impossibility if you can't define this God that you are arguing for then how can it exist there's also a lack of good evidence for a God if there were good evidence by now somebody should have won the Nobel Prize for pointing that out some hitherto unknown force in the cosmos where where is it where's the evidence where's the actual proof beyond your faith there's also a lack of good argument and Richard pretty eloquently touched on that tonight actually there have been many attempts to reason for God's existence using words alone the teleological cosmological ontological moral arguments and so on Bertrand Russell said most of those arguments simply boil down to bad grammar most of them beg the question when the ancients heard the thunder and they saw the lightning the only way they could explain it was by invoking Thor or Zeus but now we know something about electricity and the weather we don't need those gods to fill those gaps in our knowledge when those gaps closed those gods of the gap died they're still gaps in our knowledge and that's what drives science to try to answer those questions but to just throw up your hands and say Thor did it or God did it well that's just laziness another reason I'm an atheist is because of the lack of agreement among believers about the nature and the moral principles of God Paul wrote in first Corinthians let there be no divisions among you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same spirit he also said God is not the author of confusion but can you think of a single book this caused more confusion than the Bible all these sects and denominations and fights and differences of theology and opinion and you believers should get your own act together before you start talking to us non-believers we are hearing thousands of conflicting claims from you theists name any moral issue of the day the society is struggling with you name it what whatever it is birth control or the war or doctor assisted suicide name these issues and you will find good bible-believing Church going Christians on both sides of those issues the Bible obviously gives very little unambiguous and guidance on moral issues and there's the lack of the effectiveness of prayer the Bible talks about prayer many many many times the Bible says whatever you shall ask in my name believing you shall receive over and over again if you have the faith of the grain and mustard the Bible repeatedly says that your prayers will be answered but if you take all the prayers that have ever been prayed they add up to no more than a random chance on the National Day of Prayer this year our president prayed to ask for God's protection that was on May the fourth on the same day the Florida Governor prayed for blessings in our state and nation and Texas Governor Abbott prayed for America's protection from danger recognizing the power of prayer a few weeks later those powerful prayers were answered with death and devastation from hurricanes Harvey and Irma nothing fails like prayer the Freedom From Religion Foundation charitable arm non-belief relief has sent more than a hundred thousand dollars to Texas Florida and Puerto Rico to help with disaster recovery we agree with Robert Ingersoll that the hands that help are better far than lips that pray but most important there's no need for a god hundreds of millions of good people lead loving joyful moral charitable meaningful productive and hopeful lives without superstition and faith in addition to all those absences we think his so-called holy books like the Bible are unreliable and immoral I think people should read the Bible many people say that reading the Bible was the main reason they became atheists in the first place a a Milnes said the Old Testament is responsible for more atheism than any book ever written Isaac Asimov agreed properly read the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived most Christians don't read it they read a few verses but they don't actually know what it says the Bible says God is good but if you take off the glasses of faith and just read it you will see that is not true this book is depraved if you claim to be a good person this book should embarrass you and it should disgust you it's obvious that the alpha-male God in this book reflects the fears the ignorance the territorialism and the arrogance of the patriarchal Israelites who wanted to preserve their property including their slaves and their wives that God they invented is an abusive husband he controls his wife the Israelites with threats and violence Richard Dawkins said in The God Delusion the God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction jealous and proud of it a petty unjust unforgiving control-freak a vindictive bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser a misogynistic homophobic racist infanticidal genocidal Phyllis idle pestilential megalomaniacal sadomasochistic capriciously malevolent bully I'm going to set that to music one of these days it's going to be a great song and Richard is right Richard asked me to write a book and documenting each of those nasty adjectives it's called God the most unpleasant character in all fiction goes into great detail and broad context of more than 1,500 passages describing the biblical God by his own words and actions I came up with eight more actually God is also a pyro maniacal angry merciless curse hurling aboard a Seidel vac societal cannibalistic slave monger we only have time for a few tiny examples out of the fifteen hundred God's an ethnic cleanser you shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land for I have given you the land to possess that's ethnic cleansing utterly destroy all that they have do not spare them kill both man and woman child and infant God is genocidal you must not let anything that breathes remain alive you shall annihilate them so they utterly destroyed the men the women the little ones of every city and left none to remain there dozens more genocide passages in the Bible God is unjust I the Lord your God am a jealous God punishing children for the iniquity of parents visiting the iniquity of the father's upon the children and upon the children's children that is unjust God is misogynistic now here look at Jeremiah 13 when the Israelites asked why are the Babylonians invading and killing and raping their women here's what God said it is for the greatness of your iniquity that your skirts are lifted up and you are violated raped is the word there because you have forgotten me and trusted in lies I myself will lift up your skirts over your face God by his own words is taking credit for rape even if that's just metaphorical it's a horrible thing to say a sexist thing to say in Isaiah we read that the Lord will afflict with scabs the heads of the daughters of Zion and the Lord will lay bare their secret parts that Hebrew word Poth their secret parts I don't have to tell you what secret parts that word is talking about this is sexual harassment in order to humiliate this is the Bible what do you think about a sexist man whether it's a common jerk or a political leader who boasts about groping when Oh God is homophobic you shall not lie with a male as with a woman it is an abomination they shall be put to death their blood is upon them that should settle it right there if the Bible says homosexuality is wrong then the Bible is wrong not homosexuality the men who wrote those primitive bloodthirsty words were bigoted and cruel and intolerant two minutes and God is indeed bloodthirsty the Bible is splattered with hundreds of bloody pages the Lord has a sword it is sated with blood the blood spattered my garment sustained my clothing God is racist the Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on earth to be his people don't intermarry with those other people in the book of numbers God told the Israelites not to mix with the Midianites because they worship another god but one man decided to live his own life and chose a Midianite woman anyway when Phinehas son of Aaron the priest saw it he got up and left the congregation took a spear in his hand went after the Israelite man in the tent and pierced the two of them the Israelite and the woman through the belly a mixed-race couple was slaughtered by a righteous priest today that terrorism would be a hate crime of the highest order but what did God do about it the Lord spoke to Moses saying phinehas has turned back my wrath I hereby grant him my covenant of peace it shall be for him and his descendants after him a covenant of Perpetual priesthood because he was zealous for his God God rewarded the terrorist goddess capriciously malevolent here's the most damning verse in the entire Bible job 2 3 the Lord said to Satan have you considered my servant job you incited me against him to destroy him for no reason he tortured and killed children for no reason in a court of law this confession would garner a conviction for first-degree and mayhem God's not pro-life because she's rebelled against her God their little one shall be dashed in pieces and their pregnant women ripped open may the Lord caused you to become a curse when he makes your womb miss Kari is the New Testament Lord nice within the old Lord in some ways but Jesus said I am the father are one the father's and me the New Testament is a huge missed opportunity Jesus should have said I apologize for my father he was a sexist bully instead he said whoever has seen me his high father completely complete your thought so you can find all those verses at unpleasant God f fr F dot org and I have one final sentence we've seen enough to know how does all this relate to our debate tonight let me just ask this one simple question and then we're done what is more likely that this book is the product of an immaterial supernatural creator that we don't know or that this book is the product of fearful patriarchal priests and prophets we do know that human beings make up stories we do not know that those stories are actually true we do not know that there is a God thank you [Applause] dr. Richard Howell ladies and gentlemen will come up with a ten minute rebuttal to Dan's statement and again questions are on the activity stream of the app if you want to ask questions we'll get to questions after a couple more rounds of back-and-forth dr. hao hang on let me let me do my timer Frank if I may so I can this is a ten two minutes two meters about right now just fall out Dan mentioned the fact that we've debated before back in 1997 in the University of Florida apparently neither of us did a very good job because he's still an atheist and I'm still happiest so but I'm kidding because if you don't know much about debates these things are designed for the audience not for each other so Dan's not expecting me to become an atheist I'm not expecting him to become a theist but we are trying to expect or we are expecting to persuade some of you who maybe have a major mind up the idea of miracles when he tells his starts out with the story about the cat there's one thing that's distinctive about SES is apologetic method is that we're adamant about the fact that miracles are not an argument for God's existence now some Christians may try to Marshall that and I don't deny that some people may have come to believe God because they think they've experienced a miracle or read one in the Bible but I'm saying in terms of the rationality the argument something by definition couldn't be a miracle unless there already is a God because the definition of a miracle is that it's an act of God so if God doesn't exist no event is a miracle no matter how outrageous it is talking snakes are talking black cats or whatever so that doesn't have anything to do with how I would argue tonight he may and I want to just go through those just some quick bullet lists and make quick comments here as my time allows he talks about the fact that all we are just biological things I would like to know how he knows this how does he know what it is that we are what is his argument for the fact that there isn't a such thing as an select which is itself not material and buy not material I don't necessarily mean that it's a separate kind of substance that is a material not a material thing it's just not material in some kind of fundamental sense of the word he brings up the specter of faith and reason and and in Dan's defense and other atheists that I read defend each of course at the seminary and contemporary atheism in their defense I think a lot of the things that they're responding to is just bad pop apologetics so I would probably agree with a lot of their criticisms for example when sam harris criticizes what faith is or even in some instances what Dan may criticize what faith is I would agree with their criticisms because I think that's not what faith is and I don't think a Christian should should do that you can go to my website I'll tell you later how to get there and and get a sort of a summation of what is faith in the classical tradition it boils down to this believing is believing something by reason or holding something on the basis of reason is on the basis of demonstration if you see a demonstration for something you hold it to be true you're holding it by reason faith in the classical tradition from agustin forward and I would argue this is biblical is believing something on the basis of authority so I believe that Fatima's Last Theorem was proven to be true by Andrew Wiles of Princeton University it's a mathematical proof I can understand but I'm not foolish in believing Andrew Wiles because reason tells me he's a reliable authority yet I am taking it on faith when he tells me that it's true because I can't see the demonstration by itself that's what we're trying to say about faith we just think God is a divine authority now whether does the divine authority presupposes a question of whether God exists so it has to go back to that question which is why we're debating that tonight he brought up the definition of God not being good I would like I would be interested to know and I know to some extent because I've read is his his book what he thinks good is what I think bogs down this debate even among Christians is the failure to distinguish which I'm not going to do because I don't have time between good morale good morale good as a subset of good I would submit to you without argument because I'm just responding to his his assertion that you cannot give and a coherent and cogent accounting of what it means to be good at all without committing yourself to metaphysical truths the proper arrangement of which is the cosmological argument for God's existence so if a person is going to say well I don't believe God exists you're gonna have to deny one of these metaphysical elements of the argument for God's existence but as soon as you deny one or more of those metaphysical elements you've evacuated the concept of good of any kind of meaning and subsequently the concept of moral good enough that means anything to you you need to therapy basically if that means all of what I just said you need to get rush out and get some help no you just want to do some research in the natural law tradition as its of the the sees of it laid by Aristotle but it brings to its exemplification most primarily in the thinking of Aquinas and in contemporary writers like Jay Buddha chef ski for example let me just see which one's I want to hear so he brings up the specter of God of the gaps even if I gave the arguments that I said I wasn't going to give the reason why it's not a God of the gaps fallacy is where in those arguments you're not positing God to explain something that you think you can't otherwise explain you're positing God rightly or wrongly as an explanation of what you think is the actual evidence so it'd be like a fire marshal who gets on the side of a burned house and he finds an accelerant soaked rag partially burned in some you know matches a book of match but partially burned at this origin of the fire and he realizes that the homeowner just took out a suspicious fire insurance just before the fire well then he comes to the conclusion that the fire was caused by an arson well it wouldn't make any Cisco well that's just the arson of the gapps fallacy because you haven't been able to no it's not that I can't explain the fire so I throw out the concept of arson to make an explanation is that the evidence actually points to an arson because there's some kind of thing so even in the arguments I didn't give it's not that we're Just In God is some kind of explanatory hypotheses but we can't you know otherwise that count for is that the arguments are trying to say no this is actually the what the evidence actually points to but even even still the argument I gave I wasn't arguing that for God is some kind of explanation of a fact or some kind of explanatory hypothesis or some kind of inference to the best explanation I'm trying to argue now admittedly I didn't have a chance to defend and massage and unpack all these categories but if we could do that I think what I'm arguing is that the conclusion that there's a being who exists whose essence is existence itself what the coyness would call if some sa subsistence substantial existence itself that that conclusion follows necessarily from the argument not that God is just some kind of explanation that I throw up he brings up the specter of things like prayer and how many prayers we got all the prayers together this is interesting and I don't know what the research says about prayers and these kind of I don't know barn has ever done anything in counted noses but that's absolutely irrelevant to the question of whether God exists why because first of all something wouldn't be a prayer unless there is a God because prayer is this petition addressed to God second once a person grants that there's a god who's substantial existence itself and shows how all these superlative attributes of God that classical theism has follow and cascades seamlessly from that first conclusion once you get that in place then you have some kind of template within which you can begin to interpret well why was it when this guy asks for X he didn't get X but when this guy asked for X he did get X so it isn't just a matter of well this guy's prayer was unanswered this guy's prayer was answered you might go no both prayers were answered I'm saying you might do this it's just that God said no to this guy and God said yes to this guy well why did God do that all of those kind of questions can only be nested in the prior conclusion that there is this God in the first place that has the superlative attributes so it's mixing categories to start importing those things from later on in the discussion and back up and say somehow this is a counter example to the existence of God because it's not he talked about the do say - yeah okay so I'm gonna do you see how I sculpt back there he brought up the idea that how much there was a dramatic clause by the way how much confusion the Bible causes because of you know the cacophony of conversations among Christians over the years and all these different denominations whatever look accusing the Bible of confusion by giving an example of how Christians sometimes behave is like can is like accusing John F Kennedy or Martin Luther King jr. for causing violence because they were assassinated no no they were the occasion upon which an evil person might have assassinated them but they're not the cause of the assassination fine the Bible maybe the occasion where people with unscrupulous motives or people just innocently not understanding hermeneutics or the original language might come out with all kinds of wacky belief that's fine that's what the Bible's fall anymore than John F Kennedy getting assassinated was john f kennedy's fault it was the fault of somebody else so those kind of things I think they preach well no pun intended but they don't really have anything to do substantively in my estimation with the question whether God exists okay so that's what we're trying to debate tonight he talks about the fact that there are no good evidences one of the things I discovered when I was reading in Dan's book and I just want to read you this quick list because he's writing a book called godless and it's autobiographical and I encourage you to get his book and read it's very well written in this very poignant in places but if you're gonna talk about whether God exists I think it is a dereliction of research when your book doesn't even as far as I could see certainly not in the index but I didn't see anywhere else in the book no mention of Plato no mention of Aristotle no mention of Latinas no mention of pseudo Dee Richard's time no mission of can a minute finish complete your thought go ahead no mention of Avicenna no mention of Maimonides Thomas Aquinas John Donne ski Descartes or gottfried leibniz no mention of the chief architects of the classical view of the nature of God in some former fact are not even brought up so I would submit to him of course there's no evidence because you haven't looked at the arguments yet thank you [Applause] alright ladies and gentlemen keep in mind dan is going to respond to Richards opening statement which occurred Thursday come on up sir I think you just ended by saying of course I won't see evidence because I haven't listed all these arguments you can't come you can't say an argument is evidence argument is not evidence you can maybe argue from evidence but argument is not evidence I think the basic mistake Richard is making tonight and it crosses over a lot of different things that he has said and it is and I think it's it's a natural thing that happens to a lot of us it happens you know when you're not thinking strictly enough it's the mistake of reification you take a word like existence and just because there's a word doesn't mean the word has a thing that goes with it I think Richard even said that existence is not a thing existence it's not something you can go to the store and buy I'm going to buy some existence it's not a thing at all it's a concept existence is just a concept in a mind and somehow to separate existence from essence even an essence exists but when we say exists we're not talking about some transcendent thing when you reify something you make this category era where you say well then there must be something above and beyond this word that I'm using he does the same thing with the word intelligence he does the same thing with there were these things down here with the word humanity like he was he actually seemed confused that the word humanity would mean something it's a collective term there are words that we use to refer to a group that doesn't actually exist as a thing humanity is not a thing you can't you know you can point to any one of the members of that group but then to take that group and put a label on it and then pretend like that group is also a thing is creative reification it's a category mistake so I could say for example because I'm a jazz pianist and composer music theory transcends music composition and when I use that word transcend does that mean there's actually some realm out there where music theory transcends and some real world or am I just talking about concepts so do you logically concepts do transcend other concepts I could ask why is it that if every member of an orchestra is in harmony with each other does that mean all orchestras are in harmony with each other too you see the mistake by taking a collective word that refers to a group and then trying to apply some characteristic or finding from within the group to the collection of groups that's a mistake that's a category mistake and he does it with rationality - rationality is not a thing rationality is a is a concept that describes a part of a part of the functioning brain and this is a tool of how the brain functions intelligence is the same thing there's no such thing as intelligence it's a word it's a label that we use to describe the functioning of this biological organism that we have so his his argument is very much like I debated I've debated eight Muslim scholars over the years some in London and some in Michigan and one in Queens New York and Raja Bali was one of the Muslim Apollo Muslim scholars that I debated and he pretty much used the same argument that Richard is using it's a form of the ontological argument about existence and being as if as if our very existence requires a something being outside of it to justify his existence but then look at how you smuggle your conclusion this is called begging the question look how Richard smuggled his conclusion into his premise by saying that everything that exists must have had some cause of some sort and by the way he admits it might not currently existing cause but he doesn't suggest that it might also not be an intelligent cause as well you can have causes that are not intelligent what causes crystals to grow did some being come in there I put every little molecule in place and stack them up on her or can we explain it with natural causes not necessarily an a an intelligent cause so I think I think he's a little bit of obfuscation here and some a little bit of you know he's the philosophy professor and I think he should know a philosophy 101 that there's different ways of talking about words at different levels just because there's a concept doesn't mean there's a thing and just because just because you can say that existence needs to have a context he smuggles his conclusion into his premise by saying well then there is something somewhere in the cosmos it actually doesn't have to follow that rule there is something that doesn't have to follow the rule that essence needs to have existence and that thing is God well that just totally undercuts the argument itself either the argument applies universally across the entire reality or it doesn't if it doesn't you've taken your conclusion that there is this God and put it into your premise and that's called begging the question that's circular reasoning that's a polite way of saying it's illogical so what is good that's a good question and we haven't talked about morality that much we non-believers secular humanists atheists agnostics we know how to be good we know what good is we didn't need some Commandments from God coming down from a mountain to tell us guess what there's something wrong with killing really as if we were so stupid to figure it we couldn't figure that out ourselves as human beings we are naturally we are naturally good animals we basically have instincts too altruism and empathy and we're not perfect we make mistakes and there are some sick people in the bell curve you might call them Psychopaths or you know criminals in that but basically it doesn't have to be that complicated very simple morality and good are simply the minimization of harm the word we're talking about here when we talk about good we're talking about harm we want to avoid harm we don't like to be burned we don't like to be cold we don't want to be starved we don't like predation we don't like disease we don't like war we don't like whatever it is to be good this is natural you all know this no one has to be told this to be good is to act with the intention of minimizing harm and whatever harm is its natural harm is the guiding principle here that sounds a little bit like utilitarianism but it isn't it's more of a negative utilitarianism I suppose and I think we all agree you don't have to be told this every little kid knows that we know about fairness we know about altruism and love and caring especially when we're close relatives so good is not cosmic good is not some top-down thing good is a basic bottom-up biological organism thing as we get through life we naturally recoil from harm when you stick your hand in the fire do you deliberate and go oh my goodness those cells are being damaged right now I wonder what I should do I guess rationally I should withdraw my yes that's what I'm going to do is that what you do you just naturally know we know that harm is the principle of good and moral good because whatever harms me can harm you as well and that golden rule goes way back before Jesus way back before hell L in the first century BC way back even before Confucius 500 years before that good is simply acting with the intention of minimizing harm so intelligence essence existence all those things are not things those are concepts and I guess I would go with you Richard if that's how you're gonna argue then your conclusion itself is also a concept it's not an actually existing thing it's just a concept that's in your mind that you're trying to reason up to so I we're gonna have projects amination in a moment thank you all right ladies gentlemen now is the cross-examination period and dr. howl first of all gentlemen you both need your mics there dr. Howell will begin asking mr. Barker's have questions for seven minutes and dr. Hal since it's your time if Dan is going too long you could feel free to stop them that's your time so if you just want to keep asking questions or you want to let them go on it's totally up to you so remind me how many minutes you have seven minutes from whenever you want to start okay start at all actually I do have the same amount of hair I had when we debated this just in my shower drain so you said I tell me if you agree with this statement that I thought you said tonight that there wasn't a definition of God there wasn't a good definition of God coherent is the coherent definition on page 219 of your book godless you say quote God has never been defined presumably you mean coherently defined or whatever is that sound fair coherently okay if that's the case and you define atheism is the lack of belief in God then how can you know what it is that you lack a belief in if the thing you lack a belief in has never been clearly defined hold your applause hold your applause Richard needs to time do you believe in slap doodle walkers yes you do no I'm just kidding I just I just want to see what you say if I say till nothing everybody what do you think I am a pagan I'm not asking you it's slap doodle walkers actually exist I'm not asking that I just want to know if you believe do you have a belief in slap a little walk I don't know whether I do or not because I don't know what it means do you have a belief I don't know me I might support for example if somebody said that's actually the Zulu word for moon then I go yeah I guess I do and I'm asking you do you wait a minute I'm supposed to be asking you the questions how you're here on so I want to know so I don't get muddled because I like the conversation but I just want to make sure we don't get away from the original question you say it's never been defined clearly coherently yet you say you lack a belief in it but what if it turns out the thing that it ends up being clearly defined in in fact you do have a belief in it then you wouldn't be an atheist anymore I presume right that's true okay so how can you know right now then why do you keep saying that you'd like that belief that's what I'm not clear because if you're asking me to say yes or no that I have a belief in something I need to know what that is and the a no no no you changed the question I didn't ask you if you knew that you had a belief in it I said that you knew you lacked a belief in it but if you don't know what the it is how do you know you lack a belief in it if you don't know what it is that's what I'm an how can you how can you affirm a belief in something that you don't know you can't you don't have a lack of changing it to affirming a belief to lacking a belief I'm asking you how do you know you lack a belief in it if you don't know what it even is well how can you have a belief I'm not asking you how do you have a belief and how can you not lack a belief in something is not defined that's what I'm asking you I think you might be confusing I think you might be confusing a lack of belief with a denial I'm not denying I'm lacking a belief I'm not saying that doesn't exist I'm just saying here's a list of my beliefs that is not on my list whatever it is but you might not lack good to believe depending on whether or not it well I'm not going to affirm a belief and tell us defined right but I mean it might not be true that all the time you were saying you lack the belief you actually didn't lack a belief it's just that because you didn't know what it was you just thought you like to believe but you really well that's your job explain what that it okay oh that's that's fun I just want to make sure I was clear on that I'm just curious and this is a way of trying to get at the metaphysics by the way well let me take these one in time uu how would you respond to my accusation where when you said these things like they're just concepts they're not things okay it's pretty much that as you were described how would you define how would you respond to my claim that that's a false dilemma because you're you're either assuming a plate inist or an optimist view of those things that I listed like in intellect and humanity so why couldn't why wouldn't you be why couldn't Aristotle's middle ground between Plato and akhom serve to give a coherent notion of these things that you say are not things they're merely concepts well I suppose you could say anything you want but intelligence is can you point to intelligence can you buy it at the store okay no but maybe I'm not clear when you say can you point to intelligence can you buy the store that's assuming a plate inist type of answer to what these things are and you say no they're not those things because obviously I can't go by an intelligence I would agree with you but that's because I'm not a plate inist but it doesn't follow or what would you say from my accusation it doesn't follow from that that they're just merely concepts because all you've done is just say since Plato is wrong which I agree with you he is in this regard it doesn't follow that ahkam is right why wouldn't Aristotle's view of that serve you well I think we can define something like intelligence as a description of a function so if you want to say function exists like a computer functions you can say yeah that function is existing but the function itself is not anything it's a word in our brain so if you want to agree that there are somehow is somehow a metaphysical existence to a concept in a mind well that's a difficulty different debate because it's all I only happening in our mind when you turn off the computer that whatever intelligence goes it's not there all the computers there but the functioning of it is a word that we describe for intelligence or or whatever whatever Group word or label we want to put on things that actually don't exist as physical entities exact you can find some other way that they exist and you have to make a case for that yeah well that's what I was I would submit to you that if if if you haven't already done so I would let me say it more positively I would very much be interested in how you would rebut Aristotle's view about what these things are because your rebuttal to me was predicated on a false assumption that there's the either the choice that is Plato's understanding or Occam's understanding and I think that's the problem I think it's the problem I've seen in a lot of atheist I don't mean this against you personally just in terms of the literature is they seem to have an abject ignorance of this classical moderate realism from the Aristotelian tradition so every time the arguments get but leveled it well obviously Plato's wrong here so it has to be aa command I go we'll wait a minute what about Aristotle and Aquinas they had a totally different model that gives a coherent understanding of things like humanity without it being silly like what you can go to store and buy a humanity so I just curious as to why wouldn't that be a plausible response perhaps well ok but then we're still dealing in the realm of concepts no no you're saying yeah if we deal with Aristotle we're still it still boils down to Ockham I'm asking no I'm not saying is what I'm saying we're dealing with concepts nowhere on CEPS are useful things in our brain well I'm suggesting to you we're not dealing merely if you think something like humanity is a what a half physical truth you can go to you know is some kind of a weird in between fuzzy no it's just that you need to read Aristotle to get the idea I mean I can't I can't summarize it right now but I'm just suggesting there's this rich robust tradition maybe it's wrong too I'm just saying there's this incredibly thick robust tradition 2,300 years old that many atheists seem to have no concept of and I'm curious why that's the case well I would wonder how many of this audience initially came to their faith in God as a result of contemplating Aristotle's metaphysics I don't think that's really relevant to anything about whether this being you think God is a real thing not just a concept you think he's an actually existing thing yes so I don't know if the aerosol is even relevant to that is yes he's absolutely relevant to the alright cigar we're turning the tables now now Dan you've got seven minutes asking Richard questions and just like he stopped you you can stop him any time you want to keep it moving go ahead sir so the Bible says God is a spirit yes what is a spirit I think spirit in that context what Jesus means is God is substantial existence itself what I think in that context what Jesus means by saying God is spirit is that God is substantial existence itself substantial existence then does he occupy space does he have weight does he have light refraction does he does he move around as a physical existing thing knows that which is well then what is the spirit spirit I think is substantial existence itself so what is it what is it for something to exist is it I would try to press someone to go do you think that a thing that is existing that there's something about that thing that's different from something that's not existing and what is that difference it's not the essence because there's lots of essences that don't exist like Sherlock Holmes has a human essence we can we can argue you know you say things all that we know law everything we won't know about Sherlock Holmes because he's a human being but he doesn't have the existence he's not a real thing he's just a conceptual being and well I think he just made my point for me so it was a first that what did I do well then God's existence is not a real thing either it's a fictional character no I'm saying he's substantial existence is that's the definition of the word spirit substantial yes I think so the word substance means physical material the word substance is a yes it does yes it does the word substance means physical material you can't have a know what you're talking conception all I can suggest to you is just read some air oh stop well why don't you eat it he said well I would love to in fact I just what you take you up on that I will explain it because I start a class Monday I would love for you to take I think the seminary lets you take it for free it's a it's called classical philosophy where I carry the students from the ancient Greeks up to just after the middle agent to explain these things you may decide okay well it really does help your case that's fine but I submit to you you don't know about this tradition I don't mean this disrespectfully that it really is a philosophical tradition that's never come on your radar screen that's why it sounds like to you there is no good evidence because you've never heard Aristotle Aristotelian to a mystic answer that's I've read enough about it in philosophy books without him I'm not as smart as you obviously well I don't know I'm not as well educated to do but I've read enough about Aristotle to know its just concepts basically but the Bible says God is a spirit in other words God is made up of spirit spirit is something that is not God because demons can be spirits angels can be spirits right other things can be so what is the demons have substantial existence I mean you know what I'm saying what actually is it there's a difference between something having existence and something being existence itself that's what my argument was trying to assert at least that there's a difference between a things essence it's what 'no sand its existence it's being it's actively there's a distinction there my argument was it couldn't be the case that our let me say from the other direction if there's anything that exists whose essence is not existence itself it could only exist because there is a current it wasn't true that I did not occur until I click these uh popular arguments don't can't account for a current cause my argument was there has to be at every moment that we're existing and a being that is existence itself that is causing us to have existence that's what the art so there's a difference between the sublime sorry um I know you didn't have enough time to talk about my Bible criticisms but I just want to ask about a simple question is genocide good it depends on what you mean by good so I don't want to sign you know a contract without knowing that the terms of the contract so we may not have a say understand you find good as the attention to avoid harm yeah I would I wouldn't say that's what good is I really well what is good then if it's not that well I'll be happy to try to answer that causing harm I think genocide is good well you can give me a multiple choice and if you get to the one I have I'll be glad to that's it notice he's not denying that genocide is good he's got nothing no not yet look at how theologians and apologists yeah defend this monster in the Bible and you're 99 why don't you say genocide is bad genocide is evil why can't you say that well I thought it was clear why couldn't said that I can say that if we can agree on what those words mean I just all I was trying to do Dan was I don't know what you understand good to be it may be my fault I don't understand enough but what you mean by good so I don't want to taste the risk of going oh no I don't think it's good and then you can turn around and leverage that against me so let me answer your other question that you've already asked that I you give me a chance to answer well then what is good I would argue that what it means for a thing to be good is that it exemplifies all the perfections that it ought to have by virtue of being the kind of thing that it is so for example a good knife has a sharp blade that's why it wouldn't make any sense go well you wouldn't well who are you to say you wouldn't say this who are you to say that and I thought of how a sharp blade that's just what it is to be a knife we talk about good knives good pizzas good cars and good people so a good person is a human being who exemplifies all the perfections of what it is to be human that's what a good human is now moral good is something other than it's a subset of that but I think that's what good mean so it in in many instances these kind of atrocities that you that you list you from the Bible and otherwise are atrocities they're not goods for that thing absolutely not you you find a lion tears off of guy's arm that's not good for so when the Israelites invaded a Canaanite town and took a sword and they cut off the heads of two-year-olds and they ripped open pregnant women and they destroyed and burned and killed everybody that could be good no it's not a good at all at least for not for the Canaanites it was what God did it God but it was not a good for them so god is not good no that doesn't follow plus what I what I suspect is you're conflating good and moral good so it doesn't follow that if God causes something to happen to someone that's not a good for that person at least not in the short term then it doesn't follow from that that the act that God did was itself not moral good or whatever that's that may be true but that requires a further argument eleum precisely because this distinction gets muddled really yeah because but listen Dan I'm not saying anything here that hasn't been the most probably one of the most prevalent theories of good and morality in Western history can you see then why someone like me would find that kind of an argument utterly despicable now defending this being by saying that he can decide what is good or not no I can't what that baffles me is why you can well it just doesn't bother me killing babies ripping open pregnant women right that is bad that is certainly land because I commanded it in God but it doesn't follow that it's a moral bad without further argument because you're conflating good and for example if you have a knife that has a dull blade that's a bad knife but it's not a morally bad knife it's not immoral to have a black Badgley better a dull blade right just in principle I mean is Anila so there's a difference between good and bad and moral good and bad and because those distinctions aren't carefully teased out people just make these accusations and think these things follow when they just don't fall but I'm only talking about moral good here that's all I'm talking about no you're not all good you know you hear moral that's not what you asked me you asked me what I thought good was you didn't ask me what I thought is genocide a moral good it could be it could mean say that again me make sure I follow your question just make sure so no I don't want to make sure I want to make sure I don't say something I don't mean could genocide be a moral good all right what do you think a moral good is and I'll tell you whether I think it can be what you think it is or not a moral good is acting with the intention as much as possible to minimize real harm in the real that's all good is no it's not if that's what moral moral good is I say I'm just answering your question if that's not what it is then no it's not a moral good because that's just true by definition if a moral good is to minimize the these harm and then I get you give me an example of something that maximizes harm and then you ask me is that immoral good oh of course not if that's what moral good is and you give me a simple example of something that's not a moral good then no it's not a moral good the question is is that or is that not a moral good that's where the question and whether it is or isn't a moral good presuppose as a question of is it is it a good all I'm suggesting is these things are quite a bit not even quite a bit they're just a little bit more nuanced and complicated than many atheists that I've read want them to be and they just collapse everything into these convenient you know category I'm not suggesting you're doing this but they can they collapse these things into oversimplified categories and then they just demand an answer or we can't go national let's move on and all becomes all that tell that to the three-year-olds who's had to see that's that's a different question that that's a tactics this is a nationalist no it's not that's a pastoral question that's not a metaphysical question all right I don't know if it was morally good or not but we went over time there maybe you guys can hash it out now we're going to go to Q&A from the audience and we'll ask a question of each debater for about 20 minutes we'll go back and forth and if you could keep your answers to two minutes or less and if you if the other person would like to respond for one minute that's fine we'll start with a question for Dan Dan this question comes from an SES graduate John Ferrer question is why according to nature should we not harm each other we are perfectly able to harm each other we may like or dislike harm but since all those happen in nature why should we pick the harmless behaviors as quote good unquote instead of the harmful ones it seems nature has no moral fact making property property to identify one is and the other as evil yeah well that's wrong Nature does have the moral faculty and the fact that we evolved as moral animals we've all to social animals with instincts to compassion and empathy and altruism with instincts to avoid naturally recoiling from harm so it's amazing that somebody would even have to ask that question because harm by definition is not good we avoid it we try to get away from harm and if you have to ask well why couldn't harm be good well you're just redefining what good means so I know there's gray areas I mean we all agree that we it's really not a good thing to take a needle and poke it into a baby unless that baby needs a life-saving injection then we will cause some temporary harm for a greater good we will cause some harm you might have to have an amputation or you might have to do something you might have to go south a little while before you can go north again but if your intention is to end up with a world with less real harm in it that's what morality means morality is not obeying orders or following Commandments morality is trying it's the basic golden rule it's basically trying to enhance the well-being and the success of any sentient organism on this planet without causing unnecessary harm to that to that being dr. Howell responds well I don't know maybe I've said enough about the topic I just would suggest the audiences just if I'm going to share some resources a little bit later and perhaps Dan has some resources he suggests for fur for further reason but notice he uses the word intention I would I would love to hear what in the world is an intention is it just the concept and if it's a concept why is it related to what determines whether something is moral or not because in the literature by and large intentions are non material they're not things therein they're aspects of immaterial intellects so it's curious to me that and and I just think this is almost dispositional it's not intentional that that a lot of these atheists just traffic and all of these category that they have no access to because their view of the nature of reality either hasn't even commented on those things like I wouldn't even know Aristotle's view as opposed to Plato versus akhom or they just summarily ignore them in some other respect okay next question is for a doctor how if God is like the first gear in your anti Kalam argument does God not have to be actively turning and interacting with his creation and if he does how can he choose to not interact fully when it comes to stopping evil explain God's withholding of his omnipotence to stop evil if he has to constantly interact with his creation like that ever turning first gear yeah I think I mean I'm hoping I'm understanding the question I mean of course you realized the gear thing is just an analogous to physical picture of the of the the point I'm making metaphysically that things that are existing that are in the process of existing as an act right at this instant if that doesn't arise out of the fact that they are existence it must be because something is causing them to exist at every moment whoo-hooo which itself is existing by virtue of its very nature that but that's all that illustration of the gear was trying to prove now what one might want to go on to say regarding God interacting with his creation and these kind of things I think a lot of times the the the language is fraught with just the failure to appreciate the the role of analogical language when we're trying to talk about how God acts and things all we can do is extrapolate from what we experience in the physical world by doing philosophical reasoning to think what we are trying to say about what we think God is like so I don't think he he interacts only said this way I don't think God constantly causing the existence of the universe is a example of interaction in especially not in the sense in which the gear would interact quote-unquote with the other other gears now why that's the case take my classical philosophy course it starts Monday you're still not too late for anybody to sign up for you can audit the class if you don't want to take it for credit and we go and we spend 40 hours meticulously going through you might decide you don't like the category you don't agree with Aristotle and Aquinas fine but I think you owe it to yourself before you pull the trigger between either theism or atheism that you at least acquaint yourself with with one of the longest enduring philosophical traditions in Western civilization before you make your up your mind if I have to sit through 40 hours of your philosophy class before I know God exists then I don't think so there's other you know if God exists he will he will reveal himself to me I don't need you you're a very smart guy thank you I know you are you're very articulate but I don't need you to tell me something you're just one guy with an adjustment to teach it to you was all wasn't gonna I mean I'm just a teacher right Dan back to you for a question more and a lot of questions on morality here science can describe morality but it cannot prescribe morality so if we are just matter in motion why say that we should not harm humans if we have no value we do have value as human beings we have intrinsic value every organism has intrinsic value I have some little chipmunk friends in the backyard and I think each one of those has intrinsic value as chipmunks and they're becoming friends of mine actually but morality is not something you prescribe morality is conditional and value is conditional we evolved to need water right we need water and if I give you water because you're thirsty well that's a good Act what if we evolved to need arsenic well that's different depends on how we how we got to be the way we are so what I would say is that if you want to end up with a world that has less violence in it if you want to end up in a world that has more peace and more love and more safety then you will act in ways to minimize harm and that's what being moral is we don't have to cosmically there's no cosmic prescription that we have to love each other in fact there are some people who are sick there are some sociopaths I as in our population 4% by the way our social social Pathak who are ill whose minds aren't working they lack that empathy circuit but basically most of us fall somewhere in the middle and we understand what it means you don't have to take 40 hours of a class to understand what it means to love your kids and love your neighbors and it be a good decent human being that's a basic part of who we are and if you're one of those few people that does want to destroy if you're the psychopath that doesn't want to go and shoot down a country music concert then we have laws and we have measures of self-defense and protection to try to protect ourselves from people like that so that we can live in a safer world so remember my philosophy about morality is bottom-up it comes from our human physical nature with basic real harm in the real world it's not a top-down command kind of morality it's a practical morality how can we live in this world bumping into the all the harms that are there and get through it with the least amount of violence and harm that we can okay dr. Hal yeah you know I think there's some respects in which that some of the things that I read and contemporary atheists is not as far off from what classical natural law theory would have said in terms of the initial observation I agree with Dan that you don't have to have a Bible to tell you that it's wrong to kill another human being now maybe it may startle a lot of Christians here but I agree that that's true I think what is right or wrong is by and large something that is knowable by reason what what what we do from there though is try to begin to show but this is what has to be true about the nature of reality in order for that for what we already know that be the case namely that it's wrong to do X Y Z for it to be that way those things aren't God that we have that's not my argument well we have to have God in order to no I don't think that's true I think what we do have to commit ourselves to are certain metaphysical truths like natures like causality like essence and and that is what has made purchase of what it means for something to be good or evil for a human being freewill for example rationality and I think I can't do it here that if you take those metaphysical truths that that account for what our moral experience actually is those metaphysical truths when properly arranged prove that God exists it's the same metaphysical ingredients that comprise the classical argument for God's existence staying on the topic of good doctor how how does the existence of a being whose essence is existence implied that the being is good and should be trusted how do we know that this being isn't evil let me suggest a reading and then give you my short answer so if you're not satisfied with more short answers because you just need a little bit more background go to my website Richard G how calm go to the resources tab click on papers and scroll down to the paper by Jan arts entitled the convertibility of being and good in st. Thomas Aquinas because what what Aquinas will argue I agree with is that ultimately being existence and good are convertible terms they're the same thing being as being just is good and aartsen will show how that works out in terms of well there seems to be a lot of beings that aren't good and those kind of objections and stuff so given these and the other things that I won't take time to go into it follows necessarily that a be that a being who just is being itself is is infinite goodness it just that's just what goodness and being there just convertible they're called the transcendentalism in Aristotle now the details of all that obviously or I'm not can't do in two minutes so it's not fair to hey I'm with you how you know let's go but I would you know before you pull the trigger and go well it just sounds up sir Reid arts ins article and just see what you think about the argument I mean that seems like a fairly yes safe thing to ask people to do on the other hand Oh Dan how can humans rely on any concepts of good harm or morality when human beings are products of meaningless and undirected processes of evolution what reason do we have to believe that our reasoning faculties are reliable and objectively true if we're just the products of a random meaningless process so those are two questions and one in my book life and driven purpose and I think you'll get the title of that book where I answer Rick Warren's Purpose Driven Life I point out that just because there's no meaning of life there's no purpose of life that's actually a good thing that there's no purpose of life and no meaning of life in the cosmos the cosmos doesn't care about us someday we're all going to be extinct no one's going to remember us or this building or even this planet someday the fact that there is no meaning of life or purpose of life does not mean there's no meaning in life instead of top-down like Purpose Driven Life really meaning is bottom-up life and driven purpose and meaning and purpose come in our lives from solving problems when you have a problem in life that you're trying to solve that gives you meaning it could be avoiding harm or it could be creating beauty or it could be doing science or it could be whatever it is when you have a task and a problem you're solving you have bottom-up meaning in your life which is much more important and much more precious than any meaning of life so it doesn't come from the cosmos it comes from the fact that we are struggling surviving biological organisms that are trying to make a living and get by and reproduce with the least amount of harm and the most amount of success is possible and there is meet immense meaning in our life a reason is just a label for the functioning of one of the tools of the brain just a word that we made up reason there's not a thing in the cosmos it's just it's just a way our brain is working and it doesn't even have to it's not some transcendent logic of some B capital L thing out there it's a word that we have made up as human beings to describe the successful ways that our brains are actually functioning to compare alternatives and to look at concepts so you don't need some external transcendent explanation for reason and logic what you need is a bottom-up functioning explanation of how our brains are actually working doctor how well there's that false dilemma again so we don't need a transcendent explanation we need a bottom-up ago that's because you're either thinking that either is Plato or akhom that's the problem I'm curious as to how an atheist would even understand the word meaning what does that e what is meaning is that just a well what is meaning second I'm very it seems to me that he'd more or less just admitted that he didn't have reason if reason is just the function of the brain then what that's like saying well then you know freezing is this the function of water when it reaches a certain temperature or rolling is the function of it there's different functions so all of a sudden is the function of a brain why does that even why does it even why should that have anything to do with anything else that's real that'd be like saying if we just gave the word reason to what what happens when this pin rolls down the hill but instead of call it rolling we call it reason then somebody go well I don't think believing in God is reasonable well what does that even mean what do you mean that they're believing in they're just as God is rolling down the hill at this pin oh no what I mean is it's not reasonable in your brain but all you're saying there is it's just a function of these chemicals in your brain well what's the difference between that is just a physical function in this pin rolling there's no more meaningful cognitively to say that I have good reasons for being an atheist or lacking a belief in God then I have good pins rolling down the hill for being an atheist or lacking the belief of God because they're just different kinds of physical functions doctor how to follow up on the last question what attributes would the necessarily this ting essence you argued for have given your argument anything other than it exists and causes everything else to exist well the short answer to that is it it will have all of the superlative classical attributes that have been the dominant view of the nature of God throughout the history of the church now I'm not suggesting because that's been the dominant view that that's why they're true but there is a reason why theologians and philosophers have ascribed to God things like omnipotence omniscience omnipresence personal good there's a reason why all those things even if they're wrong in doing it the reasons have to do by and large with the metaphysics that lie behind it now I would just say if a person is gonna challenge those as being true or is even being coherent first of all it's just absurd to say on the face of it that an omniscient being can't be free or an omnipotent being can't be free and when I read Michael Martin in these academic atheists they have an abject ignorance about what omnipotence and omniscience even means in the classical tradition that's not even what those words mean they have as far as I can tell from what I what do you what I read they have no clue what were even saying when we say these things about God now maybe we're still wrong that's fun you can say that but not for the reasons you got it isn't because of these facile kinds of things well if you're omnipotent then you would be able to do the opposite of what you're doing or if you're omniscient you couldn't be free because you would know what you would do tomorrow and you wouldn't have the power to those things all of those things all arise out of this abject ignorance about the metaphysics of what we're saying about God that if there's a being whose essence is existence itself once we understand what existence is we find that that being must have all of these superlative attributes that's what that is and I can suggest some readings on that in fact I will during my closing I'll respond briefly what you're saying basically is by definition it's not by observation but my next book is coming out in February is it's about freewill and I talked about these concepts in order to have free will whether you think we have it or not that's a big debate in philosophy and even atheist disagree about that and even theologians do Martin Luther disagreed with what Calvin and I think I think Aquinas too but in any event whatever you think about free will it involves having options you have to be able to say oh I can choose this or that or more than one option and some philosophers call that you have latitude right if you only have one choice then what's the freewill right so you have to have options but that means that you can't know your future decision if you know your future decision you don't have any options because it's already determined in advance so if you know the future you can't have and you don't have free will because if your future decision is known in advance by your omniscient mind then between now and then you can't change that you don't have any latitude you don't have any ability to say oh I'm going to change my mind and if you do change your mind then you weren't omniscient in the first place so the having omniscience about your own future decisions and God I'm talking about not just humans if God knows his own future decisions then that puts limits on his power doesn't it right now today he can't change today what he knows he's going to do tomorrow so a being who knows the future does not and cannot logically have freewill I call that Fang the freewill argument for the non-existence of God last question for each of you first question for you Dan what would change your mind for you to believe in God what would you have to see what evidence would you have to see what would cause you to say there is a God yeah so atheism is exquisitely vulnerable to disproof we would we would we would immediately change our minds right as I said earlier I'm not fighting the concept if it's there I want to know it right it would be pretty amazing to know that there's this being up there and I would like to know that so we we don't we're not like saying no no I'm not gonna believe there are thousands of things that could change my mind or could at least increase the probability that such a being exists for example the Bible tells you believers whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer believing all things you shall receive it doesn't say maybe it says all things whatsoever ye shall ask you shall receive that's an absolute statement in the Bible so if Richard were to ask God to tell him something that's going to happen tomorrow for example if God told Richard that tomorrow at 12 13 and 17 seconds an asteroid from the south southeast at an angle of 87 degrees were to hit the earth with a velocity of so many miles per second and were to end up seven inches below my basement after going through a Navajo rug and that is composed of 92% iron and 1% iridium and so on and then it weighs this many ounces if God were to tell you that and he could write he knows everything and he tells you that he will answer everything you asked if you were to do that and if tomorrow at 12:17 that actually happened Wow I would say all right all right now there's there's something there right I mean if if your prayers were actually answered in a scientifically significant way I would have to say oops I might be wrong here but so far we don't see that Richard what would cause you to believe there is no God well with what change would you need to see I like these questions because in my experiences in debates and I haven't done as many debates as Dan has but this question comes up pretty often and so I thought about this and because I think it's a fair question to ask I think there is a meaningful sense in which certain kinds of theories our beliefs about reality can can be rendered meaningless if they're unfalsifiable if nothing could count as evidence against your belief then there at least in the in the scientific sense there's really no your belief doesn't pick out anything philosophical beliefs are a little bit trickier in terms of falsification because the principle of falsifiability is itself not falsifiable so right there we've got some kind of problem but nevertheless I've thought about this and I think that what would begin to mitigate my confidence that God existed at least let's say the God that I think exists the classical God of the God of classical theism is if somehow I began to believe that logic didn't really apply to reality that contradiction contradictions maybe could both be true in some forms of say mysticism I've read of people who have had certain types of mystical experiences or drug experiences and then they come out with this a less of ability to they actually has mitigated their belief in the rationality and the sort of normal sense of the term logic and reason that it actually applies this sort of victim Stein's view in in the early vacant Stein and the Tractatus he ends the tract I to have seven propositions in the truck taught us the last proposition is something to the effect that about which we cannot speak thereof we must remain silent and he thought that there was this sort of or at least some people with interpreting that there's sort of some kind of realm that's beyond our ability to think logically and reasonably and we really can't talk about it I think I know enough of it what give it because Vic and Stein was getting at to know well whatever he thought that realm was it or no resemblance whatsoever to what I believe is a classical theists so if I came persuaded that maybe Vic enstein was onto something as a lot of Buddhist philosophy has done then I think that would probably begin to erode my belief in classical theism if I could be disabused of my my belief that Laden that reality is logical all right it's time for closing statements and dr. Howe will go first with a five minute closing statement well let me conclude the or at least begin my conclusion this sounds like a contradiction thanking all of you for being here tonight so god bless all of you and if you're here and you're a skeptic and you want to continue the conversation we're at a Christian event so there are tons of people here that love to continue the conversation I want to thank Dan for his professionalism and his his passion about these kind of issues and I appreciate his carving out the time to come all the way down here to Charlotte and doing that so all of us do very much appreciate your your your demeanor in this regard and so so thank you for that and then of course all the people that put this on Adam on down Frank thanks for moderating and and so just appreciate it let me just let you know how you can get some some resources that I'm going to if you go to my website that was forthcoming tonight just to see that animation and you'll go to Richard G how calm and you'll see at the top a resources tab so you click on that tab and it'll take you to four choices what you're interested in is PDF decks and that will be basically a PDF of the slides that you saw and then some since we didn't have time to do them all so you can actually go and get all of these they're from the courses that I teach here you're especially interested in the debate with Dan Barker here tonight so I invite you to get that you can have any of the other PDF decks that you want although I want to warn you some of the PDF decks might not make sense as you look at it if you didn't hear the lecture that went along with it so it's tempted me to maybe stick a slide in there with a picture on it has nothing to do with anything just so somebody who come up to me go he's reading your argument for God's existence exactly what does that kumquat argument for God's existence you've got an error that sounds really interesting to me so let me suggest a few resources as we wind this up first of all there are a number of debates in print Terry Murphy had a debate with Anthony flew title does God exist a believer in an atheist debate so I like these kind of things in print kind of what we did tonight and stuff by the way you may find it interesting that Anthony flew went on to become a theist I don't know that he ever became a Christian so maybe Diaz might be a better term but he wrote a book called there is a God how the world's most notorious atheist changed his mind interestingly his book as his picture upside down as use as you see there so I think that's a good one another debate I would highly recommend is a debate between JP Moreland and Kai Neilson called does God exists I actually helped organize this bait as the debate as a little tiny graduate student at Ole Miss back in nineteen then some more sort of intermediate level books again dr. Moreland has one of the best single volume apologetics books from from the along the way present company excepted cuz Frank turrets book which I'll get to in a moment but I like JP Moreland scaling the secular City a like Edward phasers the last superstition refutation of the New Atheism it's a little heavy-handed but he explains why as he is so I don't want you to be put off you need to get stealing from God by dr. Frank Turek I'd also highly recommend Jim Wallace is God's crime scene they're all they're both dealing with specifically with this issue and then more advanced to study for these of you who want years two hundred proof probably the best book on this subject that I've read in my recent memory in years is Gavin kurz book Aquinas is way to God the the proof in the day into ed essentia that's the proof I gave to you tonight although the version I gave to you tonight was my own before I read his book so I don't want you to prejudge what he's going to argue it is if it is tremendous philosophically speaking a book that I've just started reading I think Edward phasors one of the most articulate living philosophical ASSA first today especially philosophers of religion in his book five proofs of the existence of God Aristotle Plotinus Agustin Aquinas and liveness a good book on the attributes of God is James Dolezal zall that is in God and then I mentioned joseph owens earlier his book st. thomas aquinas on the existence of god the collected papers of joseph owens I don't mean this against Dan personally I just mean this generically I defy any philosophical atheist to read Joseph Owens and still sustain their atheism philosophically because you read people like Owens and you will find out why it is absurd to think that free will is somehow preempted by omniscience they just don't understand what classical theism is even saying in the first place and I think that that's true and probably the most thorough in terms of some of this stuff is a Maurice Holloway an interesting about Maurice Holloway is he really was blurry in real life so this is actually a good picture of a really blurry no no that's not true that's a joke in his book an introduction to natural theology so if you want to talk afterwards I'll be hanging around thank you ladies and gentlemen Dan Barker [Applause] so this is an apologetics conference in first Peter three believers are told always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting or a reason for the hope that is in you yet do it with gentleness and reverence i think richard has been a very gentle person tonight so that's one good mark in your favor apologetics apologetics only works if I'm coming to you your need to evangelize does not translate into my need to listen to you first I have to respect you and how can I do that when your book the Bible is not reliable here's an example Psalm 14 says The Fool has said in his heart there is no God they are corrupt they have done abominable works there is none that doeth good they are filthy what a cruel slander that is atheists have indeed done good things we're not filthy and abominable this uncheered abou passage in the Bible is clearly incorrect and should be ripped out of any decent book it's an ad hominem that's just unfair and cruel if you talk to me like that I'm not gonna listen to you I've got other friends to talk with if you want to have a meaningful conversation with us atheists then talk to us like equals don't condescend don't call us fools don't assume that we atheists are living lives of despair you hear that from this pulpit a lot nihilism or hopelessness don't assume that we lack love enjoy in our lives that we are fearful of death just because we don't share your hope doesn't mean our lives lack immense value don't assume that we're angry or guilty or that we lack moral guidance in our lives don't assume that we don't know how to read the Bible Mark Twain said it ain't those parts of the Bible that I can't and that bother me it's the parts that I do understand who made you the authority on how to interpret the Bible if the Bible can only be understood after it's explained by scholars and experts then God is inept he failed to speak clearly and don't threaten us with he'll come on any system of thought that is based on violence that's what hell is it's a violent threat it's a morally bankrupt system it's the daddy who says you're a bad little boy you do what I say or I will punish you Christianity is toddler morality so what's the real problem here why do we disagree so radically Richard and I are both good people you want truth I want truth why is it because I'm blind or something is there something wrong with me well if I can be blind so can you I think this whole debate comes down to our view of human nature jesus said they who are healthy don't need the doctor only they who are sick so there you go you Christians view yourself as sick depraved sinners who need the doctor we a theist don't see ourselves that way we are healthy we don't need the salvation of the answer how much respect would you have for a doctor who runs around cutting people with a knife so that you can sell them a band-aid it's a phony solution to a phony problem you are the ones with a negative and pessimistic view of human nature my view is positive optimistic and hopeful I have confidence of the potential of reason and science and human kindness it's not perfect but it's better than fear and faith the Bible says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and knowledge fear is an emotion your worldview is emotional we non-believers on the other hand are unafraid to tell it like it is we think you should put away childish things and develop some adult bravery and tell your daddy that he screwed up in order to appease his jealous wrath he has to kill things is that good I think we're better than that we atheists have grown up we've moved out of the house of the abusive controlling father like the American patriots who fought a Revolutionary War kicking the King the Lord the master out of our lives we are proudly rebellious when the black cat was walking away from me this morning I said hey you're not really real are you you exist only in my mind he turned around and looked at me and then he disappeared when I said the same thing to God he also disappeared thank you

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Id: Rq6jIS6t08w

Length: 114min 47sec (6887 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 01 2019