Why, after ten years of talking with atheists, I'm still a Christian - Justin Brierley

Wow good morning everyone it's great to see you I should first of all say that I bring greetings from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth to her loyal subjects here in the USA I know we had a little falling-out a couple of hundred years ago but will we let bygones be bygones so it's really wonderful to be here as Michael mentioned my name is Justin and I run a faith debate show in the UK it's one of the UK's only Christian radio stations premier Christian radio and really it's a show all about helping Christians have better conversations with their skeptical friends neighbors and family now I don't know if you ever get a bit tongue-tied when it comes to having those kinds of conversations maybe you've got someone in your life who doesn't believe maybe it's quite anti God anti phase in some ways well in many ways that situation is true for Christians all over the place isn't it especially in the UK just recently we had a new survey come out in the UK it now looks like more people are claiming to be atheist or have no religion than there are who claim to have some kind of Christian faith and that's been the story for a long time in the UK and in many ways I think across the whole of the West there's been a kind of secularization gradually well I started my show really to have conversations with people who don't believe I was working at premier Christian radio in the UK and we were doing a great job of talking to Christians about Christian things resourcing the Christian community in the UK but I went to the manager of the station and I said I'd love to have one point in the week each week when I can host a conversation with someone who doesn't believe because actually when we're out there in our workplaces in our homes in our schools those are the people we're sitting next to and sharing life with and it would be great if we could model how to have good conversations with people who don't share our faith and that was where my unbelievable show came from it's unbelievable with a question mark I think we've got a picture of me in studio hosting a show each week I bring together people who have faith Christians and people who don't have faith they may be an atheist and agnostic or they might be someone of another faith a Muslim a Hindu a Jew and I have these conversations host them and we just have a fantastic time learning from each other engaging in mutual dialogue and over time that show has generated quite an audience not just in the UK on the radio station where we broadcast but also all over the world we started podcasting the show believe it or not there are now more listeners of my show here in America than there are in the UK so it's been a wonderful journey as we've seen more and more people engage in these conversations because very often I think Christians feel nervous when it comes to having conversations about their faith with people who don't believe and very often we just duck it we shy away if we're not sure what to say or what kind of answer to give but I think actually simply listening to people having conversations will help us to have better conversations and we need to relearn the art of having good conversations our culture is so polarized these days isn't it when it comes to politics or culture or religion we kind of we've lost the art of actually getting on agreeing disagreeably I mean I don't know if anyone here is on any Facebook groups or social media where those kinds of conversations happen but it gets pretty nasty pretty quickly I think you'd agree well what we've aimed to do on this show is to help to show what a good conversation might look like over the years we've also added in terms of other ways that we bring the show to people we've really done a lot of video in the last year and a half or so there's a picture on screen of a recent dialogue that I hosted between the person on the left of the shots is Hugh Ross he's an astrophysicist he's part of an organization called reasons to believe and they're actually based in your own backyard here in a Covina area and he's a wonderful Christian who explains why there's so much evidence for God from science and he he in that particular program was engaging with well-known atheist in the UK a professor of chemistry at Oxford University called Peter Atkins and they had a really interesting engagement together and as well as doing the show via the podcast the radio on the video as well we're also branching out into conferences as well we just had just a week ago in the UK our annual London conference where we invite Christian thinkers from all over the world to come and spend a day helping Christians to think through their faith and helping them to answer some of the big questions that their friends and neighbors might pose to them and guess what we're coming to the USA again in October here in California yeah it's gonna be amazing up on the screens you can see some of the details there it's going to be the 11th and 12th of October at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa if you want to come along we'd love to see you there the Friday evening is actually going to be a live edition of my show we're going to be having a Christian join me on the stage he's a guy called Professor John Lennox he's a wonderful Christian thinker from the UK he's an Oxford professor of mathematics and the philosophy of science and he's going to be engaging with a local celebrity really a guy called Dave Rubin who runs the Rubin report and it broadcasts all over the place it's got a huge following online and Dave Rubin is a secular Jew and they're going to be discussing God faith and atheism so come out on the Friday the 11th of October to see that fantastic live show and then stay on for Saturday the 12th we're going to be having a conference where we'll have some wonderful speakers from both the UK and USA helping us as Christians to put our faith together and how to have those confident conversations so it's been an exciting journey on the show it's been an amazing opportunity and a wonderful privilege to be able to host these conversations not just because of the people I get to sit down with but also because increasingly as we've put the show out on podcast I've suddenly found all kinds of atheists and agnostics and non-believers also tuning into the show people who say to me you would never catch be listening to Christian radio but your show is the exception and I think it's because we've provided this neutral ground this place where we can have these conversations where people feel like their ideas and their thinking are being taken seriously and if there's one verse that really embodies the ethos of the show it would be this one first Peter 3:15 it says there always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have but do this with gentleness and respect and that's what we're doing we're trying to give people reasons for the hope that we have we're saying you to be a Christian doesn't mean that you check your brain at the door when you come to church no being a Christian means that you put your mind to good use we're encouraged to worship the God love the Lord our God with all our heart strength soul and our mind we're not supposed to separate the two and so that's what it's all about on the show having that mutual dialog where we we understand that we're not going to agree and there's going to be tough questions and we're not claiming we have all the answers but we are saying we think there's something about this Christian story that is extraordinary that is compelling and we want to let you know why we're Christians so that's what I've been aiming to do over the last 12 or 13 years and the show has really grown up in the shadow of a particularly aggressive kind of atheism that took root about 10 or 12 years ago sometimes it's called the New Atheism don't know if anyone's heard of that term the New Atheism but really this the figurehead at the front of that is a guy called Richard Dawkins he's a biology professor in Oxford and he wrote a book about 10 years ago called The God Delusion and it was basically a book that said religion it's all just fairytales you know anyone who believes in God is basically just delusional and so that's been the sort of narrative that we've seen in our culture in the West many people buying into this view that God is just for people who've left their brain at the door and so what we've been aiming to do on the show is to a different story a different kind of narrative that actually you can be a Christian who uses your brain who loves science who loves history who loves culture and you can believe that at the center of all of that is a person called Jesus Christ and so it's with Richard Dawkins in mind and the fact that he's if you like put the questions to us as Christians that we've had to then step up and say okay what are we gonna do about this how are we going to answer this what are we going to do for this next generation who are watching people like Richard Dawkins online where are the Christian thinkers who are going to step forward and give the account for God make a defense of the faith that's sometimes what do we think of when we talk about apologetics it's a strange kind of word because it sounds like you're apologizing for something but actually it comes from the Greek word apologia which is to make a defence of a viewpoint it's a legal term and very often what we're doing when we're speaking to skeptics is we're making a defense of our faith we're showing them why we believe what we believe and over the years it struck me that sometimes many Christians feel like all of the onus is on them that they have to bear the burden of all the proof and all the evidence you know the atheist may be over here saying well look I don't believe in God so could you show me some evidence please and maybe the Christian is here stretching their head and thinking well gee that's that's gonna be tough but actually I don't think it's like that I think actually everyone has a point of view everyone has what you might call a worldview now for the Christian over here it's gonna be that they believe there's a God who created the universe who created them a God who loves us and gives us purpose a God who even came in person to be with us in Jesus Christ to die for us and rose again to give us new life that's the Christian story in a nutshell and that's the way they see the world that's their worldview but the Atheist the person who doesn't believe in God they've also got a worldview okay and it's a worldview that they need to defend and justify as well because many of the atheists I meet hold to something that sometimes called naturally or materialism and it's the view that there is no God and all that exists is energy and matter and the laws of nature that's all there is ultimately and anything else that we think about or see in life well it's really just an illusion there is no purpose to life the universe didn't come from anywhere and it's not really going anywhere all those things that we like to invest our lives in Beauty truth love their alternate lira do scible two atoms in motion now that's an interesting worldview but you need to defend it if that's the way you think reality is then I'm going to ask you a few hard questions about that so you see it's not that the Christian has to do all the defending and all the proving things it's that we've both got a worldview the atheist over here there's they've got one way of seeing the world and the Christian has another way of seeing the world and the question is which one is true and which one fits the evidence that we actually see and in my experience I found that the Christian worldview wins out every time I think it's the most compelling story we have for what we see around us and what I want to do this morning is just to explain a few reasons a few ways that you might begin a conversation with someone who's completely skeptical about faith someone who just says look you've had a great experience you've had some kind of spiritual feeling when you go to church whatever I've never experienced that so can you show me something that I can I can look at and that's where we can say actually there is something you can look at here's a few reasons why I think Christianity is the best explanation of the way we see the world we're going to start that with a point that says God makes sense of human existence being human is pretty amazing isn't it I mean when you look ourselves it we are extraordinary and if you look into the data and the medical stuff and the science it's just extraordinary how complicated and extraordinary our bodies are the way that we function and one of the privileges I've had of hosting my show is having all kinds of people from both sides of the argument talk about the science behind biology behind physics behind the universe one of the most extraordinary things I learned is the way the universe is set up in the most extraordinary way to produce you and me you see a lot of atheists out there say well science just proves atheism that's the usual mantra science is disproving God and proving atheism but I think actually the trajectory has been in the opposite direction and this isn't a story that's often being told but I want to show you a little video I've tried to condense a big idea into a short video it's something called the fine-tuning of the universe for life so I'm gonna let the video do the talking for a couple of minutes some people say that human existence is a result of a roll of the cosmic dice like the gambler who stakes his life savings on the next throw we just got lucky in the lottery of life some people say there's no purpose in the universe no grand plan no god behind it all our numbers just came up and here we are but I don't believe and nor should you if I roll this dice the chances of getting a 6 is 1 in 6 that's not too bad but what are the chances of me rolling 6 twice in a row well the odds get longer it's 1 in 6 times by 1 in 6 that's 1 in 36 so I'd have to be pretty lucky to get 2 sixes in a row now every time I add the chances of rolling another six in a row the odds go up exponentially and it gets even more unlikely now what if I rolled this dice 70 times and every single time I got a 6 okay that's pretty unlikely but it's possible right well in fact the chances of rolling a 6 70 times in a row are around one in 10 to the 55 that's a 1 with 55 zeros after him now just to put that in perspective how long would I have to stand here rolling this dice allowing about five seconds per roll before hitting that lucky streak and rolling 76 in a row well I had a mathematician friend work it out for me on average you would have to continually roll this dice for 100 trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion years before your numbers come up that's a long time what if you applied that thinking to us what are the odds of us being here now the odds of rolling 76 in a row 1 in 10 to the 55 as it happens those are the same odds of something called the expansion rate of the universe being just right for the existence of us here today from the moment of the Big Bang when our universe began to rapidly expand the rate of that expansion was exquisitely finely balanced any faster and the universe would have expanded too rapidly to allow the formation of chemicals atoms stars and galaxies any slower and the universe would have collapsed back in on itself but as it happens the universe expanded at just the right rate to allow for life to develop in the future for us to be here it hit 70 rolls of the number six in a row first time and the expansion rate of the universe is just one among 30 or so other incredibly sensitively finely tuned constants and fundamental forces in the universe that must be just the way they are for the universe to be able to produce us so let's imagine if I went ahead and roll this dice 70 times and what do you know every time it came up 6 no waiting for trillions upon trillions of years first time beginner's luck hardly you would assume that I must have rigged it maybe the dice are loaded maybe there are sixes on every side it can't be chance now let me ask you why would we assume that this universe with us in it which is actually way more improbable than my 70 rolls is just a result of chance the fact that we're here shows that someone's loaded the dice in fact maybe there's no dice at all what if the evidence points to this life-permitting universe actually being the product of an intelligent mind which intended for us to be here now you could come up with some speculative other theory maybe there's an infinite number of universes giving you an infinite number of chances to roll the dice maybe but we don't have any scientific evidence for it so if you're hanging your hat on that possibility then you're every bit as much committed to a faith position as the person who says God was behind in believing in God isn't a delusion it's a perfectly reasonable conclusion when we look at the fingerprints on our universe and if it's true that we aren't just the fluke results of a cosmic roll of the dice and that we're actually here because a grand designer intended us from the very beginning well that's worth staking something on [Music] I I that videos become quite popular it's had over one and a half million views on YouTube and one person got in touch with me they'd been someone who'd been struggling with their faith that this video seemed to put a few things together for them and they actually sent me a picture of their wrists and they'd had a dice tattooed on their wrists to remind them that they're not here by chance it was it was amazing there's been extraordinary action and for a lot of people this is the way in science isn't something that disproves God it's something that actually is a way into seeing how crazily special we are in this universe and it's not just this I mean I could go on about the the way that biologically we have this extraordinary DNA within us that seems to speak of some kind of a creative force behind it I could talk about the the Big Bang the fact that somehow time-space energy and matter all appeared suddenly 14 billion years ago I mean who set that off there are all these ways in which I think what we know about science isn't pointing away from God it's pointing towards God so I think when it comes to making sense of human existence God is the best explanation and I don't think atheism has a great explanation for this because if we just here by chance well we already saw the odds are stacked massively against that that doesn't make sense as an explanation of why we're here so I think God is the best explanation of human existence but now I want to go to my second piece of evidence for you I think God makes sense of human value and for this one we're going to go from looking outside of ourselves at the universe to looking inside of ourselves and I want to begin this by telling you a story in 1973 a wealthy businessman James Jerry Miller was walking along the streets of Bogota in Colombia when he saw a young girl climbing through a manhole down into the sewers below well jane was intrigued he went home he put on a wetsuit and he followed that young girl into the sewers and teases amazement he discovered about 90 children living in these filthy rat-infested sewers under the streets of Bogota the reason they were there was that on the streets above off-duty police men were killing these children they were shooting them and one officer said this he said killing these kids is like killing lice we call them the disposables now since then Jame has gone on to rescue hundreds of these Street kids and he's put them in a loving Christian home he's used his money to give them an education and a life there and I'm sure like me you find that story both incredibly disturbing and inspiring disturbing that people could treat kids like that inspiring because of what Shane did we react with horror of the idea that people could be treated as disposables but then I think we have to ask ourselves the question why why do we believe that human life should be valued why did Shane do the right thing now the fact is on atheism I've struggled to find an answer to this question of why we value human life this way because if all that's going on in reality is matter in motion and a random force of evolution producing all the different life we have on earth then we're just one more randomly produced piece of life on earth that there's nothing particularly special about us why should we intrinsically think that we're more valuable than the louse if one culture develops a disregard for life for human life then that's just the way that culture is developed there's nothing you can do about it it's just the way the world is there's nothing intrinsically special about us for any particular reason on an atheistic view of life but we don't feel that way do we that doesn't feel right in our bones we feel no that's that's not the right story I had a really interesting conversation with the person I mentioned earlier Richard Dawkins he was having a debate at Oxford University with John Lennox who will be joining me at unbelievable live in LA and they had a fascinating conversation the Christian and the atheist debating God's science and faith and at the after-show party I managed to get hold of my very first interview with Richard Dawkins probably the most famous atheist on the planet and I managed to get my 10 minutes with him and we had a conversation about human value and I want to just read you exactly how part of our conversation went I said to him but if we'd evolved into a society where rape was considered fine would that mean that rape is fine and he said I don't want to answer that question it's enough for me to say that we live in a society where it's not considered fine we live in a society where selfishness failure to pay your debts failure to reciprocate favors is regarded askance that's a value judgment but I'm glad that I live in such a society and I responded but when you make a value judgment don't you yourself immediately step outside of this evolutionary process and say that the reason this is good is that it's good and and you don't really have any way to stand on that statement and he replied well my value judgment itself could come from my evolutionary past and I said well well therefore it's just as random in a sense as any product of evolution and he said you could say that but in any case nothing about it makes it more probable that there's there's anything supernatural and I finish by saying ok but ultimately your belief that rape is wrong is as arbitrary as the fact we've developed FiveFingers rather than 6 and he said you could say that yes and you could say that and actually I think if you're a thoroughgoing atheist you should say that but why do we feel that so wrong why do we know that that there's a reason we shouldn't treat people that way why do we feel somehow in our bones recoil at the idea that a moral belief that rape is wrong is that just the happenstance of the hand that evolution happens to have dealt with tell us no we know that it's not the story we know there's something about being human that means that you have to treat someone a certain way don't we what explains that feeling what explains that idea that we have this inherent dignity and value where does that come from again Christianity has already answer you have inherent dignity and value because you are made in the image of God that gives you inestimable value in fact God values you so much he came in person to die for you I mean you cannot get a statement of greater value of what a human life is worth than that so it doesn't matter if you're a billionaire living in a penthouse or you're a street kid in the streets of Bogota you have value and nothing else can change that that's the Christian story that's why I believe we have this sense that we have human value it's because we're made in the image of God and I don't believe that atheists have an adequate answer for that it's very hard to justify if you're an atheist why we believe in this idea of human dignity and human value God makes sense of human value third piece of evidence that I'm gonna bring this morning I believe that God makes sense of human purpose I want to introduce you to a lady called Jennifer full wheeler she grew up in a loving family but one in which religion was painted as clearly false Jennifer says that she never remembers a time in her life growing up when she believed in God she was raised on a diet of science reason and evidence-based thinking her bedtime reading was Carl Sagan's book cosmos believe it or not and from a young age she said she just assumed that the world ran according to a well-established set of natural laws atoms electrons no need for God to explain anything in life and she remained a happy atheist into the early years of her marriage however shortly after the birth of her first child Jennifer had a very big dramatic shift in her thinking she describes it this way in her own words she says I looked down and thought what is this baby and I thought well from a purely atheist materialist perspective he's a randomly evolved collection of chemical reactions and I realized well if that's true then all the love that I feel for him is nothing more than chemical reactions in my brain and I looked down at him and I thought that's not true that's not the truth and that moment was a turning point for Jennifer and it led her on a journey that ultimately ended in Jesus Christ and I think what Jennifer realized at that moment is that atheism tells a very different story about purpose and meaning to the one that Christianity tells again Richard Dawkins so I've referenced a few times this morning has sit summarized it very neatly he wrote this the universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is at bottom no design no purpose no evil no good nothing but blind pitiless indifference and he's absolutely right if there's no God that is the universe we should expect to see you know if there's no God if atheism is true then all of our human endeavors all of our self made human purposes they're one they going to be gone and forgotten in a in a trillion or so years when all that's left is you know a vast cosmic expanse of nothing because that's the story actually if the universe just Peters out that's what will happen to everything there's no purpose there's no meaning but I see a very different universe to Richard Dawkins I don't know about you but when I look around I don't just see physical processes and natural laws I see love I see truth I see beauty I see hope I see good and I see evil I see universities teeming with purpose and meaning and I don't think atheism can account for that you see we all experience this deep down longing for something more don't we sometimes called the argument from transcendence there's a great quote by CS Lewis who's one of my favorite Christian thinkers and he says this a baby feels hunger well there is such a thing as food a duckling wants to swim well there is such a thing as water people feel sexual desire well there is such a thing as sex if I find him myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world could that desire that spans all times places and cultures that desire for something more for meaning for purpose could it be that it has a real object which satisfies it I love the fact that when we sang that song a hundred billion times it talked about the glory of the universe and this God who created a hundred billion stars and galaxies and they're all singing his praise and we're just joining in the praise of the whole universe that's a story that's worth living for that's a story I want to be part of that's a story with purpose and meaning and hope in it and the reason it is is because at the center of it there's a person called Jesus Christ you see one thing we know about the human condition is there are two things we can't live without love and hope if you starve someone of love if you take away hope that person doesn't have a reason to live anymore and when Jesus Christ came he gave us those with both hands outstretched because on the cross he showed the most supreme sacrificial act of love we could ever hope to witness and when he rose again from death he gave us the most significant sense of hope we could possibly hope for hope for another world hope not just that the grave is the end but that there's a real meaning to our life that whether you were born on the streets of Bogota or whether you're living in the penthouse your life means something there is purpose that sense inside you that there's something about you that matters it's been there's a great big YES on that in Jesus's resurrection you see I meet many atheists and I love them when I have atheists on my show I get on so well with them they're good people the average atheist is not some kind of hard-bitten angry you know anti God person actually they're people kind of like you and me and when I criticize the Atheist worldview I'm not dismissing they're on this search for truth and I wouldn't want you to go away from here thinking that we should somehow you know just get into an argument with an atheist and show them that they're wrong they're on a journey for truth as well we're all on that journey but do have some significant differences in how we view our story you see I find it very hard to believe that the rational and ordered universe we live in came from nowhere and it's heading nowhere I find it impossible to conceive that are intrinsic beliefs about human value and dignity are in the end just an illusion and I can't convince myself that this search for purpose and meaning that we witness in all times and places is ultimately in vain to me it makes far more sense to read God's fingerprints and purposes both out there in the universe we find ourselves in and within here in our deepest longings and purposes that's why I'm a Christian at the 10 10 year mark of doing my show having listened to all of these arguments and objections to faith from atheists I did a special show where I said ask me anything to the audience and the most common question that came in from both Christians and non-christians listening was this they said Justin how come after hearing all those objections to faith how come you're still a Christian and to answer that question I actually wrote a book it's called unbelievable why after 10 years of talking with atheists I'm still a Christian and I present some of these ideas and show that actually when it comes to deciding between atheism Christianity I think we've got an amazing story an amazing way of looking at the world it's something we can be thankful for that faith is not something that's simply blind where you're delusional if you believe in God know it's based on evidence it's based on the way we see the universe out there and the way we experience life in here and I hope that when you go and have that conversation the one that you're probably dreading with that friend or neighbor or family member who doesn't believe that you'll go out with a little bit more confidence to start a conversation and to listen and to respond and to say well here's something that might help you see things a different way it's been so good sharing the morning with you thank you very much and God bless you all thank you [Music] I just love to to pray for you guys so and I don't know I know that very often in a place like this and perhaps watching not everyone comes here with the same beliefs not everyone is at the same place in the journey and then maybe there's people here who who haven't made up their mind about God so I'm just gonna pray that whoever you are and wherever you are on that journey you would know that God is here and God hasn't left us without evidence of his his existence but he's actually come in person to reveal himself to us for more conversations between Christians and skeptics subscribe to the unbelievable podcast and for more updates and bonus content sign up to the unbelievable newsletter you

Channel: undefined

Views: 87,895

Rating: 4.7391005 out of 5

Keywords: unbelievable, justin brierley, premier christian radio, christianity, atheism, philosophy, faith, theology, apologetics, God, Jesus

Id: kQyikukTLm8

Length: 35min 10sec (2110 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 22 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/cerestrya]

So, we believe that rape is wrong because it is counter to social health, but he thinks it is ok because the bible says it is? Not gonna watch the video, (don't wanna give him views), but wanting rape to be acceptable is a bad reason to be christian. Not that there is a good reason, lol.

[u/ParsInterarticularis]

What the fuck is even the title?

[u/Stevegracy]

So the church is pro-rape? Old news...

[u/michaelrch]

Discussed and rebutted by PineCreek here

https://youtu.be/3pDIguVca24

[u/kickstand]

It's arbitrary if you think valuing human dignity and well-being is "arbitrary."

But if you ask most people, they would in fact value these things. So I'd say it's not so arbitrary.

[u/JetPac89]

Fallacy fest.

[u/Fatal_Potatoes]

sure, let’s overpopulate the earth and all die because that’s what god wants us to do!