Debate: Does God Exist? # 4

CARM

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:00

The atheist worldview simply cannot, it cannot account for rationality, period. Yet it uses rationality.

00:07

In order to do so, it has to borrow from the capital of the Christian worldview. But that's a whole other discussion.

00:14

Now, I notice that what Mr. Kagan did is called in debates a red herring, offering information that is not germane to the topic at hand.

00:24

If I'm discussing, and I'm the one who's making my case, and I discuss the issue of logic, then the issue of logic and logical absolutes needs to be addressed.

00:32

Not whether or not Jesus rose from the dead or not. And as he said, extraordinary evidence claims to require extraordinary evidence.

00:39

Well, we could debate that at another time when that's the debate topic. But it isn't.

00:46

He talked about freedom from religious bloodshed. Atheistic -based communism in Russia killed at least 20 million people in the 1900s.

00:55

And the constitution of the Russian government was atheistic. We can get into that.

01:01

But that's not the debate either. It's a red herring. Now, he said

01:06

I didn't define logic. Yes, I did. I said logic is a process of proper thinking based upon principles that govern the validity of arguments.

01:20

I then defined or gave an example of three laws of logic. The law of identity, something is what it is and not what it is not.

01:27

The law of non -contradiction, something cannot be both true and false at the same time, in the same sense, in the same way.

01:34

And the law of excluded middle, a statement's either true or false. I'm pregnant. Not true.

01:39

Not kind of true, not kind of false. It's excluded. It's in the middle. That's how logic is.

01:46

A lot of people don't know this, and I know a lot of you don't know that, because I don't believe, this is my opinion. I'm going to probably offend some of you.

01:51

I don't think they teach you how to think very well here in school. Now, if you want to argue with me about that, bring a logical argument after the class.

02:01

All right. We'll talk about it, okay? I'm not trying to be offensive. It's just my opinion.

02:08

All right? Now, so I have done the three things he said I haven't done.

02:14

And he mentioned something about giving encoded messages to retarded people. Why not put this on the moon or the

02:20

TV? Well, that might be germane to the issue of proving God exists. But then

02:25

I would ask the question, why would God be required to do it your way? Does God have to answer to you,

02:31

I want a gigantic symbol on the moon. Now, Frank in the room said,

02:38

I'm sorry. I need to have the evidence my way, or I will refuse to believe the facts.

02:45

What's the logical requirement in Frank's situation? Someone got into the room.

02:50

How do you know? Because the information is there in prime number stacks of coins. I'm sorry,

02:56

I refuse to believe it. Why? I don't have fingerprints. I didn't see a sign on the moon. I didn't see a TV coming out and doing everything that I wanted to do.

03:03

It's got to be my way or it's no way. What kind of logic is that? It isn't.

03:14

Now, to say that these are encoded messages to retarded people is a condescending remark.

03:21

Saying that Paul the Apostle was retarded. John the Apostle, retarded people.

03:30

Basically an ad hominem attack, a logical fallacy. Now, you mentioned a flood.

03:37

Okay, what's a flood got to do with this? You want to talk about the liberty of the Bible? We could. We could talk about genetics and stuff like that and interbreeding couples and how long it would take to have different races, what we call races and things like that.

03:50

We could do that. You talk about God's kid getting killed, buried and raised, three days, three nights, all you need to do is believe and that'd be safe forever?

03:57

No, it's not. Trust me, I know this stuff. I've been teaching this stuff and debating for 28 years.

04:04

My wife says, you got it bad. It's not simply that you've got to believe in the resurrection of Christ because even the enemy of the gospel himself believes that God exists,

04:13

James 2 .19. Believing that something exists doesn't mean you're putting your trust and your faith in it.

04:19

The devil believes as well. So what? That's not what's saved, it's trust in the resurrection of Christ who has performed what's called the propitiatory sacrifice of the efficacious.

04:30

In other words, he died in our place so we don't have to go to hell because we couldn't please an infinitely righteous God. Because there is a

04:35

God. He's a transcendent God who's the author of logic, who has authored what it is that we use in order to think, in order to be rational.

04:46

And without his existence, he's a necessary being, without his existence, we can have no way of rationally discussing anything.

04:54

Because without him, you have nothing except the chemistry in the brain or except the idea that logic, as he has said, is an invention of man.

05:03

We are the ones who developed it like he did mathematics. But that cannot work and I already addressed that in my argument, opening statement.

05:09

The reason is because my mind is different than Mr. Kagan's and Edwin's and yours and we will disagree on things.

05:15

Logic cannot be the product of human minds because human minds are different. And because they're different, they cannot be resolved.

05:22

They cannot be the thing that authored logic because logic transcends our minds. If you think it's true and it isn't, who cares what you think?

05:30

Truth does not depend upon your preferences. Man, when I woke up in the hospital after a really bad accident in 1976,

05:37

I mean, tubes everywhere, the doctors sewed my eye back together. You don't want to dive over a cliff in your 1967 totally cool

05:44

SS Camaro. You don't want to do that. Come up close and see my teeth, my scars. The truth intruded on me.

05:53

I didn't care for it at all. But truth doesn't care about what you want. Truth is independent of your feelings.

06:02

Truth is what it is. How are you going to apply truth to your life? And on what basis do you justify even being rational?

06:09

If you're an atheist, on what basis? Because it's out of chemistry, the human mind? That logic depends on what you think, right?

06:15

That nothing is really obligatorily right or wrong. It's only a result of chemical reactions. Where did it come from?

06:24

That's the issue of the argument. The Christian world, you can't account for it. And how does it do so? We're thinking the thoughts of God after him.

06:30

The transcendent being who is not restricted to our space and our time but is beyond it.

06:36

And we are thinking his thoughts after him in that way. He's the one who has authored the principles and the laws of logic.

06:43

Now you've got a better explanation, you give it to me. I'm dead serious. You've got a better one, give it to me because I want to hear it.

06:50

I'm not afraid of facts. I'm not afraid of truth. And I hope that you're not either.

06:56

Don't be like Frank. And refuse to believe the evidence.

07:02

The evidence that doesn't fit in your pocket doesn't mean that it's not there. How does an atheist account for the existence of logic and logical absence?

07:12

That's the question. From the Christian worldview, we can answer it. Our Christian worldview comports with reality.

07:20

The atheistic one does not because he's not able to give an account for the existence of logic.

07:25

Instead, must offer us irrelevant information, not germane on the topic at hand. No offensive.

07:32

With. Thank you. Oh, thank you. No, I'm not the least bit offended.

07:38

You have the right to be an error. And that's fine. By goodness, there's only two possibilities, right?

07:46

On any given prospect. Let's say that someone reports to you that they saw a little bitty

07:54

UFO flying around in this lecture hall on April 17th. Has to be true or not, right?

08:00

One or the other. What was it? Is it a little UFO flying around or could it have been something else?

08:05

I don't know. Did anybody see anything? You don't know for sure what you've seen, okay?

08:12

The possibilities may be data you don't know. You don't have all the facts.

08:18

And to assume that you do is hubris of the worst possible variety.

08:24

Now, I certainly do agree. And by the way, I did define for Matt where logic came from.

08:30

I'll tell you again. And make a note of this, Matt. People made it up. That's where it came from.

08:37

There are no inherent laws of logic. They were made up by people.

08:45

The centipede was happy quite until a toad and fun said, pray which leg comes after which.

08:53

This threw her into such a pit she lay distracted in a ditch considering how to run.

09:00

Now, you know, if these rules that Matt has attempted to impose upon humankind work for his religion and the proof of his

09:09

God, it should work for everybody else's God. How come everybody who uses these rules that he has promulgated for you does not come to precisely the same conclusion?

09:24

Why does one church say there ain't no hell and another church say the hell there ain't?

09:31

Why does the religion of Islam say that you go to hell if you believe that God had a child that rose from the dead?

09:40

And Christianity says you go to hell if you don't believe that. And, Matt, I must tell you that your theology is defective if you think you need something more than a belief in the story that the son of the

09:56

God rose from the dead. Are you familiar with John 3 .16 that you see in all the banners in all the football games?

10:01

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.

10:11

That's the story. That's the Christian message. You believe that, you go to heaven. You don't believe that, you're toast, you're cosmic flotsam, and you are doomed.

10:21

So how can you be happy? We invent our own happiness.

10:26

I have seen people spend their entire lives in sad, morose, religious contemplation.

10:34

I had a couple of maiden aunts who died, never left their house, spent the whole time there reading their

10:41

Bibles, studying for their finals, I suppose. And, you know, what happens after you die?

10:48

You're gone. But listen carefully.

10:53

Don't live for life after death. Live for life before death.